atheist news feeds

Atheist billboard ads rejected in Vancouver - CBC.ca

"Atheist" in google news - December 7, 2013 - 4:15pm

Straight.com (blog)

Atheist billboard ads rejected in Vancouver
CBC.ca
An atheist group is considering a human rights complaint after it says a billboard company refused to run its advertisements in Vancouver. The Centre for Inquiry Canada created a billboard design depicting a smiling woman alongside a few phrases ...
Atheist Ads Banned In VancouverHuffington Post Canada
The atheist ads Pattison Outdoor doesn't want you to see?Straight.com (blog)
Atheist group's ads rejected by billboard companyCTV News
Vancouver Sun -Gawker
all 13 news articles »
Categories: Atheist News

I'm an Atheist, Therefore I'm a Transhumanist - Huffington Post

"Atheist" in google news - December 7, 2013 - 3:49pm

I'm an Atheist, Therefore I'm a Transhumanist
Huffington Post
Sometime in the next decade, the number of worldwide godless people -- atheists, agnostics, and those unaffiliated with religion -- is likely to break through the billion-person mark. Many in this massive group already champion reason, defend science, ...

and more »
Categories: Atheist News

Trademark infringement!

Pharyngula - December 7, 2013 - 2:02pm

The National Reconnaisance Office has launched a new spy satellite with a logo that is rightfully mine. Or at least, I ought to steal it. I’d really expect our security agencies to exhibit a little more subtlety than your stock comic-book supervillain.

Categories: Our friends

Another attempt to rationalize religion by equating it with philosophy

Pharyngula - December 7, 2013 - 1:29pm

Salon has published another of those articles — you know, the ones where some clueless ignoramus presents his biased interpretation of what atheism means and then proceeds to flog the New Atheists for their imagined sins. This time, it’s Sean McElwee bashing away at What Hitchens got wrong: Abolishing religion won’t fix anything. And here’s his premise:

The fundamental error in the “New Atheist” dogma is one of logic. The basic premise is something like this:

1. The cause of all human suffering is irrationality

2. Religion is irrational

3. Religion is the cause of all human suffering

The “New Atheist” argument gives religion far, far too much credit for its ability to mold institutions and shape politics, committing the classic logical error of post hoc ergo propter hoc  — mistaking a cause for its effect.

Tellingly, he can’t quote any prominent New Atheist say any such thing — or for that matter, any atheist at all — but he does quote a reporter from the Independent, Bernard Lewis, and Terry Eagleton on the wickedness of Hitchens, and of course Hitchens himself was rather bellicose and I concede that he might have promoted some hyperbole…but I don’t know of any specific quotes, and certainly no one I know follows that illogical chain of reasoning above.

I’d also agree that abolishing religion (wait, does any reasonable atheist propose abolishing religion?) would not fix everything, but educating people away from irrationality would certainly fix some things. We have a more moderate vision of the affliction that is religion than McElwee credits us with, but at least we can still recognize some legitimate distinctions, unlike him.

The impulse to destroy religion will ultimately fail. Religion is little different from Continental philosophy or literature (which may explain the hatred of Lacan and Derrida among Analytic philosophers). It is an attempt to explain the deprivations of being human and what it means to live a good life. Banish Christ and Muhammad and you may end up with religions surrounding the works of Zizek and Sloterdijk (there is already a Journal of Zizek Studies, maybe soon a seminary?). Humans will always try to find meaning and purpose in their lives, and science will never be able to tell them what it is. This, ultimately is the meaning of religion, and “secular religions” like philosophy and literature are little different in this sense than theology. Certainly German philosophy was distorted by madmen just as Christianity has been in the past, but atheists fool themselves if they try to differentiate the two.

So religion is just like philosophy and literature, and philosophy and literature are just instances of this peculiarly vague monstrous amalgam McElwee wants to call “religion”? Do science, philosophy, and literature have at their heart an unevidenced concept that defies everything we know of reality, an elaborate and ultimately nonsensical premise around which theologians build intricate fantasies that contradict one another and all human experience?

The man libels philosophy and literature, and puffs up myths and lies with a credibility they do not deserve. For shame.

Categories: Our friends

An atheist photographer focuses on faith - CNN (blog)

"Atheist" in google news - December 7, 2013 - 12:57pm

An atheist photographer focuses on faith
CNN (blog)
But I do know this: Even an ardent atheist can look at a house of worship and see the signs of an invisible human longing that is common to us all, believer and unbeliever alike. Mark Schacter is a photographer based in Ottawa, Canada. Mark's newest ...

Categories: Atheist News

The Origin of Life

Talk Origins - December 7, 2013 - 12:11pm
Added October 31, 2006:A discussion of the main models on the spontaneous origin of life that aims to show how cellular complexity could have gradually emerged from simple systems - in contrast to the sudden appearance of complexity that creationists claim to have been necessary at the beginning of life. Central issues like the composition of the early atmosphere of the Earth and the origin of the homochirality of amino acids and sugars are reviewed as well.

September 2006 Feedback

Talk Origins - December 7, 2013 - 12:11pm
Added October 22, 2006:

The Discovery Institute Quote Mines Stephen Jay Gould

Talk Origins - December 7, 2013 - 12:11pm
Added October 9, 2006: The newest addition to the Quote Mine Project shows how Casey Luskin of Discovery Institute misrepresents what Gould and others wrote in a brief for Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals.

Awards, Honors, and Favorable Notices for The Talk.Origins Archive

Talk Origins - December 7, 2013 - 12:11pm
Updated October 9, 2006: Honors won by the TalkOrigins Archive.

The Discovery Institute Quote Mines Judge Jones

Talk Origins - December 7, 2013 - 12:11pm
Added September 28, 2006: The Discovery Institute selectively quotes Judge Jones' decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District in aid of its "bait and switch" claim of scientific evidence in support of intelligent design.

August 2006 Post of the Month: The Constancy of Constants, Part 2

Talk Origins - December 7, 2013 - 12:11pm
Added September 18, 2006:

August 2006 Co-Post of the Month: An Atheist's Defense of Religion

Talk Origins - December 7, 2013 - 12:11pm
Added September 18, 2006:

Macroevolution

Talk Origins - December 7, 2013 - 12:11pm
Updated September 16, 2006: In evolutionary biology today macroevolution is used to refer to any evolutionary change at or above the level of species. It means the splitting of a species into two or the change of a species over time into another. This FAQ has been expanded, updated, illustrated, and rewritten.

Hendren v. Campbell: Decision Against a Creationist Textbook

Talk Origins - December 7, 2013 - 12:11pm
Added August 20, 2006: A 1977 decision of an Indiana superior court ruling against a textbook produced by the Creation Research Society. In some respects this case resembles a young-earth creationist version of the 2005 Kitzmiller case. Introductory material, links, as well as the full text of the judge's memorandum opinion are provided.

Young-Earth Creationist Helium Diffusion "Dates": Fallacies Based on Bad Assumptions and Questionable Data

Talk Origins - December 7, 2013 - 12:11pm
Updated July 25, 2006: Young-Earth creationists consider the helium diffusion studies of D. Russell Humphreys and others to be one of their greatest achievements in arguing for a 6,000 year old Earth. A geologist shows that these studies are extensively flawed and include: serious miscalculations in their data, sampling the wrong rock type, failing to eliminate possible contamination, using equations that are based on invalid assumptions and relying on questionable data. Appendices C and D have been added in response to Dr. Humphreys' most recent statements in his January 2006 "Trueorigins" essay.

June 2006 Post of the Month: How Species Originate

Talk Origins - December 7, 2013 - 12:11pm
Added July 25, 2006:

May 2006 Post of the Month: The Evolution of Organs

Talk Origins - December 7, 2013 - 12:11pm
Added July 3, 2006:

April 2006 Post of the Month: The Precambrian Song!

Talk Origins - December 7, 2013 - 12:11pm
Added May 11, 2006:
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