How people view atheists
There’s a meme going around with people putting together pictures of how people of different groups. I’ve seen a few for atheists, but I think this one that I came across on Facebook really captures it:
What does a Christian nation look like?
The United State’s Founding Fathers lived in a world where the horrors of religiously founded states were in quite recent memory. They had local examples like the Puritan history in Massachusetts with the burning of witches and exile of heretics like Roger Williams who went on to found Rhode Island to provide a land with freedom to dissent. They had the English Revolution with Oliver Cromwell ending the alternating slaughter of Catholics by Protestants and Protestants by Catholics by making the heads of both roll. They also were able to see the power of the king as the head of the Church of England be able to influence church politics and Catholic nations having the pope and arch bishops dictating state affairs.
Their’s was a world where there were Protestant states, Catholic states, Orthodox states, and Muslim states. I know their were also states of other religions, but those weren’t the ones they were worried about. They saw the mess it brings about, but they wanted no part of it. The United States was “not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion“.
It’s annoying when people in the US, especially political figures, ask whether or not we’re a Christian nation. Then there’s countries like Britain. Sociologically they are less of a Christian nation than the US. Legally, however, they are a Christian nation, unlike the US. The Richard Dawkins Foundation recently sponsored a survey of “Census Christians”, those who tick the “Christian” box on their census forms, to see how Christian they really are and the results were not surprising with most of that group not fitting any religious definition of what a Christian is. If you have the time, this debate is quite interesting:
(Video via Atheist Media Blog)
Science News – Ice Age plant today, singe atom transistors, autism, and more!
After a 5 week hiatus, this week we are getting back to the news. Another change is that it’s now just “Science News” instead of “Tuesday Science News”. When I started covering science topics on Tuesdays I was just beginning to flesh out the publishing schedule to include various features on certain days of the weeks, but it doesn’t make since to do so unless I start prefacing my rants on Fridays and satire/comedy on Saturdays as “Friday Rant” and “Saturday Satire”. I could do that, but I’d rather not. Now, to the science news!
(Institute of Cell Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences/via AP/via Washington Post)
Plant origins
Plants came about 1.6 billion years ago when one single celled organism stopped eating cyanobacteria and absorbed it. It’s now thought that the process also required a Chlamydia-like parasite that provided the genes needed for food transport between the chloroplast and the rest of the host cell. (Scientific American)
Regenerated Ice Age plant
Russian scientists found a squirrel cache from the Ice Age and were able to grow a fully viable Sylene stenophylia plant from a tissue found in a fruit (pictured). The burrow was dated to about 30,000 years ago and this would represent the oldest plant ever regenerated. As far as the viability goes, those are fertile seed bearing flowers in the picture! (Washington Post)
Climate change’s impact on the fidelity of birds
The increased climate unpredictability caused by climate change is making birds more promiscuous. This is an important adaptive trait that increases the genetic diversity and thus improves the odds of at least one of any given bird’s offspring reproducing. Just don’t tell Conservatives since this would just make them hate climate change even more, or would they be OK with it since it’s procreative, or would Newt just use it as an excuse… 
(Scientific American)
A single atom transistor
Researches at the University of New South Whales have now made the world’s first ever single-atom transistor using a repeatable method! (CNET News)
Autism signs at 6 months
A new study has found signs of autism in the brains of infants as young as 6 months of age who later developed autism. What they found was “that tracts of white matter that connect different regions of the brain didn’t form as quickly in children who later developed autism, compared with kids who didn’t develop the disorder.” This also suggests that it may be possible to prevent or at least minimize the effects on neural development if detected early enough. Sadly, this study probably won’t calm any fears of the anti-vaxers. (Scientific American)
Afghans protest Koran burning
Afghans around Bagram air base are going nuts right now after a number of copies of the Koran were mistakenly sent to the incinerator. Once several locals who were working with the International Security Force (ISF) troops taking care of the incineration realized what was going in there, they alerted the troops and they were removed. According to the Washington Post article several copies were singed, but none were destroyed. The Afghans present then took the charred copies and told other locals.
My understanding is that US forces incinerate lots of stuff, including unclaimed copies of the Bible that Americans love to send over. So I’m sure the soldiers loading the incinerator weren’t paying that close of attention to what was going inside. It’s also quite easy for an administrative error to result in something like this, it’s as simple as a clerk applying the wrong label, selecting the wrong option on a form, or even just not paying attention.
Even if a thousand copies had been destroyed, rioting and intimidation would not have been a rational or symmetrical response. However, considering the fact that as soon as the error had been discovered every step possible was taken to correct it would make rioting completely unjustified.
These people are nuts. I can’t wait until we get our troops out of that backwards land.
50 years since John Glen’s first oribt
Fifty years ago today was the date John Glen’s became the first American to orbit the Earth.
Courtesy of Wikimedia
Is any one having issues with the RSS Feed?
Feedburner is reporting 20% as many subscribers for yesterday as it did for the week before the switch to the new server. In the same time span the reported reach has been equal or increasing. Google Reader is reporting the same number of subscribers as it has for the last month so I have my doubts about the accuracy of these figures. Is anyone running into issues with the RSS feed?
If you are, you might want to try updating your feed subscription to http://feeds.feedburner.com/Dwnomad
Lighthouses > Churches – Videos, Bills, and Boards
If I Did Not Show This Essay, I Would be Remiss
In this video essay, Bill Moyers addresses the question of how to honor religious liberty without it becoming the liberty to impose on others moral beliefs they don’t share. The recent debate over contraception coverage in Catholic hospitals and other faith-based institutions brought this question to the forefront, but then something surprising happened – a reasonable, practical, and equitable solution from President Obama that took the political steam out of what some saw as a holy war.
That’s all that needs to be said. We need a thousand million more like him speaking out on this subject. Silence equals consent in this case. Please don’t allow a few men dictate what is right for our nation. And, if by some miracle you are not about to commit ritual suicide from all the coverage that this has generated recently then here is even more. In an article that is good for a chuckle, some GOP’ers, like Huckabee, were supporting contraception at the state level for everyone except churches in the past – just like Obama.
Congratulations New Hampshire
A step in the right direction for the NH House Education Committee! They dismissed two bills that were intended to force a faux-science curriculum on teachers. Many people and groups spoke against the bills, but from what I’ve found, only the Discovery Institute spoke on behalf of either of the bills. And, in the “Coolest Kid of the Year” category comes ten year old Jackson Hinkle from Nashua, NH. As part of his speech to the committee, he said,
It would be a blow to our educational system, which is already in a bad state. “If evolution was not presented in the scientific sense, but rather the colloquial, people would be denied modern scientific information, which would be disastrous for society. “I fear that students not educated in scientific methodology would end up with less skilled jobs which would potentially cause them to overuse credit cards and go into debt and in a worst case scenario, live a life of poverty.
This kid has a great head on his shoulders. Hey, Jackson, keep your chin up, little dude.
A Salute to the AAH
Instead of writing about the idiotic commentary I’ve found in articles, I am going to ignore them. I’d rather concentrate on the message they contain. The transit system signs and billboards that the African American Humanist groups are unveiling around some cities are a great way to spread the word and build community. To everyone in the AAH, great signs!
I hope to see each and every one of you at the Northwest Free-thought Convention close to Seattle, Washington in a little over a month!
~Wesley
Feel free to email me or add me on Google+
Awesome quote
Here’s an awesome little quote from Caprica, Season 1, Episode 5:
Dr. Amanda Graystone: “What do you think you’re going to find here?”
Agent: “I really don’t know. Maybe who she met with, who brainwashed her into believing in an immoral dictator called god.”
You can almost always count on Sci Fi to get some good jabs in at religion.
Determinism and mockery
You may be wondering about the context for last Saturday’s one liner, well, it was from an email exchange with a friend from college about determinism, belief, and ethics. After we established that from our own experiences as well as the experiences of countless others we are unable to choose beliefs and agreed on naturalistic determinism, we discussed whether or not it is ethical to mock or ridicule people for beliefs they hold, yet have no power to choose.
As you take in the evidence and weigh it in light of your world view and epistemological values; beliefs, values, and opinions can change. A large enough body of evidence and a sufficient amount of time spent considering it can also result in a change of world view and/or epistemological values. However, you cannot choose to believe or disbelieve something because the alternative view(s) will often seem absurd.
Both of us enjoy mocking creationists, but is that ethical? A person no more chooses to be a creationist than people choose to be blind, but it would quite obviously be morally reprehensible to mock a person for being blind. Should creationists be treated any differently? It’s worth noting that we were not talking about mocking creationism, because ideas are always fair game.
I see different factors that can come into play here. First is whether or not the person is intentionally or unintentionally ignorant of the scientific facts. An 80 year old living in a small town, who has gone to the same church since childhood, and who doesn’t know the evidence for evolution would be perfectly justified in being a creationist and I don’t think it would be fair to mock this person for that very unintentional ignorance. Those who have had a full and fair exposure to the evidence and rejected it for epistemological or existential reasons would be someone who is far more intentionally ignorant. This is still someone who did not choose the belief, but it is someone who should know better. Ignorance of the evidence should be treated far more diplomatically than a rejection of the evidence.
The second factor that comes into play would be whether or not this person’s views are public or private. A person who privately holds their beliefs and keep them more or less to himself or herself (including private conversations and Facebook) is someone we should leave alone. But the moment those views are presented in a public forum (traditional media, websites, Twitter, blogs, etc) then they are fair game. Reasoning with the person would be ideal, but those who can look at the evidence and reject it outright are not people who can be reasoned with. Since they are actively spreading falsehoods, then they need to be opposed and reasoning won’t work, ridicule is about the only option left.
Now, religious conservatives could say the exact same thing about atheists and gays. In the same way as I think it would be wrong to ridicule someone who is just trying to live a normal life while being a creationist, it would be wrong to ridicule an atheist who keeps his or her views to himself or herself or a LGBT person just trying to live a normal life. Please note that living a normal life includes being able to have relationships, talk about that relationship with friends, family, and coworkers, and display the same level of affection in public that any straight couple is permitted.
When it comes to public figures, it’s different. In the eyes of religious conservatives people like Dan Savage are pushing a dangerous agenda and refuse to listen to reason, but since he is in the public light then he’s just as much fair game for the ridicule.
For the record, because I have this blog, I’m fair game too.
Faith healing parents in Oregon dealt with properly
As you may recall, last year Oregon eliminated it’s faith healing exemption in it’s child welfare laws. Under the new law Russel and Brandi Bellow have been charged with second degree manslaughter in the death of Brandi Bellow’s 16 year old son Austin. The boy died after being ill for a week and his parents didn’t take him to a doctor because of their religious beliefs. After they were indicted and and charged, their family posted bail, but now their 6 living children are in state custody and the parents are not allowed to have contact with them.
I am very glad this is happening, not that children are dying of easily treatable illnesses, but that parents are being held accountable for not providing adequate and necessary care for their children. It’s also nice to see that they have lost custody of their children since they have demonstrated they cannot be trusted. Now if only we could get Idaho’s exemption removed too.
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