The Scientific Method - Radio 4 - In Our Time - Melvyn Bragg
Chris Street, 27/01/2012
Source: HASSERS - Humanist Atheist Scientific Secularist Ethical Rationalist Sceptics
Chris Street, 27/01/2012
Source: HASSERS - Humanist Atheist Scientific Secularist Ethical Rationalist Sceptics
Adam Lee, 27/01/2012
Source: Daylight Atheism
Unknown author, 27/01/2012
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| An artist's impression of Alain de Botton's "Temple to Perspective |
Source: New Humanist Blog
Unknown author, 26/01/2012
Source: BHA news
Unknown author, 26/01/2012
Source: BHA news
Unknown author, 26/01/2012
Source: BHA news
humsar, 26/01/2012
Sometimes it can be hard finding the right card to show your feelings. HumanistLife in the lead up to Valentine’s Day thought it might be the right time to point you towards a old blog-post on Ironic San with some suggestions for scientist valentine’s cards featuring Darwin, Sagan, Newton, Curie, and Einstein.

Source: HumanistLife
Matt, 26/01/2012
The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) is calling for the Indonesian government to guarantee the freedom and safety of Alexander Aan, an Indonesian arrested for blasphemy. IHEU -- the global union of more than 100 Humanist and atheist groups from 40 countries including Indonesia -- has also raised Aan’s case with the United Nations. Aan was arrested for blasphemy last week in Dharmasraya, in the province of West Sumatra.
Unknown author, 26/01/2012
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"The Olympic Games is supposed to unite people of all creeds and cultures through sport. Introducing something as blatantly sectarian as this would completely go against the spirit of the games and be a kind of triumphalist statement about Christianity. It is a very bad idea and must be kicked into touch immediately."So what do you think? Could London do without a Saviour lording it over its population, or is it time our decadent capital city acquired some new religious iconography and climbed on board with JC? Answers in the comments.
Source: New Humanist Blog
Sabio Lantz, 26/01/2012
Well, that is one version of Christianity. See my listing the other Atonement theories.
But I don’t understand something about this version of Christianity: If it was all about this sacrifice, why are Jesus’ teachings so important? Why not just have the bad guys snatch up the baby Jesus and dash him against some rocks and Splat! the work is done.
I will guess at the possible answer:
Look, God works in different ways at different times — we can call these “dispensations”. When God, using his own mysterious clock, finally decided humans needed a perfect sacrifice, he also decided we needed better teachings than the ones he supplied in the Old Testament – the old dispensation. And he figured that three years were all that his son would need to give the teachings.
So, any Christian scholars want to help me on this one? Was Jesus put here on Earth to serve as a sacrifice or teach or both? And what teachings were so important to put off dashing baby Jesus against a rock? To me, it seems obvious that there are a few different Jesus’ in the gospels — here I illustrate a teaching Jesus and a salvation Jesus. The problems seem obvious, but nothing some good theological twists should not be able to remedy.
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Notes: This post was inspired by combined effect of two posts — both by nonbelievers, both criticizing Republicans:
Also, you may enjoy this short post: Gospel debates: Where atheists miss the boat
Source: Triangulations
Adam Lee, 25/01/2012
Source: Daylight Atheism
the chaplain, 25/01/2012
Vanity Fair/60 Minutes recently conducted a poll that yielded some interesting results:
If some religious believers think the world would be better off with no religion, shouldn’t they just quit and do their bit to make the world a better place?
– the chaplain
Source: An Apostate's Chapel
humsar, 25/01/2012
Providence Journal reports that Jessica Ahlquist, the 16-year-old student who fought to remove a prayer banner at Cranston High School West, will get a dozen roses Thursday, but they won’t come from a Cranston florist. Three refused to deliver the flowers, said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a group based in Madison, Wis.
Apparently, abortion is a bigger problem than joblessness, says Catholic Church, and a Bishop has warned of UNESCO’s plan to “make half the world population homosexual”
A Wisconsin man arrested for allegedly punching his wife — who claims a ghost is responsible for the domestic abuse – will have a hard time scaring up paranormal researchers to back his claim.
bOINGbOING.net has posted about the Christian Nightmares video performance, which features a song with the uplifting lyrics about being left behind after the Rapture. I learned it is a popular song called “I Wish We’d All Been Ready,” and it has been covered by a bunch of bands.
Source: HumanistLife
humsar, 25/01/2012
Last week a talk organised by the Queen Mary Atheism, Secularism and Humanism Society on ‘Sharia Law and Human Rights’ had to be cancelled after threats of violence.
A report from the Independent states:
Students attending a debate about sharia law were told they would be “hunted down and killed” by a man who burst into their lecture theatre and filmed them on his phone.
The BHA reports that police were contacted about the incident and the Society is waiting to hear how their investigation will proceed.
Source: HumanistLife
Adam Lee, 24/01/2012
Source: Daylight Atheism
Spanish Inquisitor, 24/01/2012
Sometimes I just don’t feel like writing, especially when I see that someone else has done a much better job at it, in a more succinct way, with fun graphics and sound.
Source: SPANISH INQUISITOR
Matt, 24/01/2012
Yet another Humanist student group in London is being threatened with censorship for talking about Islam. The London School of Economics (LSE) Student Union has instructed the LSE Student Union Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society (LSESU ASH) to remove cartoons featuring Jesus and Mohammed from their Facebook page. It is the third instance this month of free speech being threatened at a London college.
Unknown author, 24/01/2012
We're very pleased to announce that the New Humanist app for iPhone and iPad is now available for download from the iTunes store.Source: New Humanist Blog
the chaplain, 24/01/2012
Check out the headline of an item I read on Sparkpeople this morning:
The article goes on to state:
Since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, opponents have questioned the safety of medical procedures used to terminate pregnancy. Now, a new study contends that having a legal abortion is safer than carrying a baby to term.
The risk of death associated with a full-term pregnancy and delivery is 8.8 deaths per 100,000, while the risk of death linked to legal abortion is 0.6 deaths per 100,000 women, according to the study. That means a woman carrying a baby to term is 14 times more likely to die than a woman who chooses to have a legal abortion, the study finds.
- snip -
Grimes and his colleagues had several reasons for undertaking the study, published in the February issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology. One is that medical abortion, in which a woman can take a pill early in pregnancy, instead of surgical abortion, “has changed the landscape of abortion, and the mortality information needed to be updated.”
Another reason is that in many states, women are given information before getting an abortion. “There’s been a proliferation of these women’s-right-to-know pamphlets, and some of them are misleading, if not downright incorrect or patently wrong,” Grimes said.
- snip -
Dr. Donna Harrison, director of research and public policy at the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, disagreed with the authors’ conclusions.
- snip -
Dr. Mitchell Creinin, professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, Davis, said that pregnant women considering their options “are often scared by the rhetoric.”
“If a state is going to feel a responsibility to be involved in this private matter, we need to ensure that the material is factual,” said Creinin, who wrote an accompanying editorial in the same issue of the journal. “If it comes from the state or the government, people assume it’s true,” he added.
It’s no secret that I support women’s rights to choose what’s best for themselves reproductively, socially and economically. Neither you, nor I, nor any government officials or agencies have any business regulating and interfering in the intimate details of people’s lives. The decision to have – or not have – an abortion is one of the most serious decisions a woman may ever make. And I honestly don’t know if I could have made that choice myself. Fortunately for me, I never had to find out. But, many women are not as fortunate as I. They must make this decision and they need accurate information to do so. They also need emotional and practical support before, during and after the decision – either to abort or carry to term – has been made and carried through. What they don’t need is self-righteous busybodies calling them criminals or sinners or sluts or any other foul names. What they don’t need is people telling them they can’t decide for themselves because busybodies with their own agendas (religious or otherwise) have already made the decision for them. The age of paternalism passed a long time ago in most developed countries. It’s time for the USA to catch up with its peers and start showing equal respect for all of its citizens too.
– the chaplain
Source: An Apostate's Chapel
Sabio Lantz, 24/01/2012
In American politics, there are people who call themselves “Constitutionalists” and I am not one of them. I am glad this country has a constitution and rule of law, but I think the constitution has a major flaw.
The constitution was a compromise between various conflicting political philosophies — and with a little study, those conflicts are apparent. And it is for that reason, that it does not take much effort to get the document to say what you want it to say. Thus we have fluxing “interpretations” and amending over the last two centuries. The constitution’s flaw is that it is does not have one voice. But this is only a flaw when you assume it does have one voice.
But enough politics — I try to avoid politics on this blog, but instead, I am using the example of the US Constitution to point at a similar principle in the Bible. The Bible is not homogenous. Even narrowing down to the Gospels, it is obvious that there are many different Jesuses in the gospels. And history shows that people pick out their favorite Jesus to champion their favorite causes.
The New Testament Jesus is hugely mythologized. I won’t go so far as to say that there was no real person called Jesus upon which some of these various puppet Jesuses are based, but I really don’t think we can figure that out. But often Christians and Atheists alike think they can tell us who the real Jesus was, what he taught and what he was trying to accomplish.
I think it is important to not buy into the myth that the New Testament (or the Constitution) has one voice. The different voices are most instructive and far from trivial.
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Notes:
(1) This post was inspired by two posts:
(2) See my post: The Homogenized Bible
Source: Triangulations