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PZ Myers recent did a post on his own mortality…talk about incredible. He is the man. I am very glad he didn’t die because I’ve been able to enjoy his word on Pharyngula for a while now, was able to be at his amazing presentation on science, atheism, education, and reason at the Northwest Freethought Convention, and had the privilage to meet him and have a few drinks with him at the bar.

The Sunday morning keynote address was presented by Joshua Fost, PhD. He talked about the myth of the soul and the implications that living without a soul has on life and death. One of the many very good points that he made was that those who claim that we have an immaterial soul are the ones who have the burden of proof. After all, the evidence all points to humans being nothing more than very complex bioloigcal machines. So for someone to make the claim that we have an immaterial soul and/or free will, they had better bring some evidence.

A lot of people, expecially if they hold the majority view, place the burden of proof on whoever disagrees with them. On the small scale this is justified, but in the big picture it is horribly wrong. Most people require no evidence to support what they already believe and often overwhelming evidence is insufficent to change their minds. Those of us who are former believers understand how gradual it can be to go from creating an impossible standard of evidence for the other view while requiring none for your own, to eventually weighing each position on the strength of its evidence. When someone is completely close minded, there is no burden of proof either way, but once they begin to become a little more open minded, you will have to present evidence for your view, even if their possition would technically have the burden of proof, that is, if you want to change their minds. If you don’t want to accept the burden of proof then you can always just walk away.

To be continued…

The 2011 Northwest Freethought Conference was awesome! The workshops were quite informative, the speakers were incredible, the beer cold, and company was great. There is nothing like a room full of 200 people who are all atheists or close allies (American’s United, Secular Jews, etc).

Heck, I even got to go to the bar with PZ Myers, Hemant Mehta, and a bunch of other cool people. If you don’t believe me, I have twitter proof:

I also got to meet a few readers and people who have listened to some of my podcast appearances. It’s always nice to be able to put some faces and names to the void of lurkers.

At the Bar. PZ and Hemant were at the other end of the table and it was a loud bar, so for the most part I talked with those at the end I was at. I had a few cards I had made for the blog, and I whipped some out as we talked, Wesley looked at the URL and said, “You’re that DW!” Then he pulled out his camera and got his picture taken with me…my first ever fan picture! Very exciting!

If you’re an atheist and you haven’t ever gone to a conference, I highly recommend it. This was my first one, and I loved it. For those of you who are ex-Adventists, think of it as being like camp meeting, only better.

The Nature of Existence – Original Trailer from Roger Nygard on Vimeo.

In his 2010 documentary, The Nature of Existence, director and producer Roger Nygard goes around the world asking religious leaders, gurus, scientists, actors, authors, and even his 12 year old neighbor life’s most difficult questions. The views of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Jains, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Druids, tribal religions, spiritualists, and even atheists are represented.

Nygard does a very good job of weaving the interviews and questions in with his trek across the world. The film is only an hour and a half long (although there is a 14 hour companion DVD set available) and it is very easy and enjoyable to watch. Due to Nygard’s open and non-judgemental style, the people interviewed are able to share their thoughts and beliefs, regardless of how ridiculous they may be, and you could easily watch this with a very religious friend.

Everybody should watch this movie, if for no other reason in that it will help you better understand the diversity of views around the world. I love this movie and you will too, check it out.

I know this is a few weeks old, I should have posted it when I first saw it…but Freethought Radio aired it and provided a nice reminder.

Just to make you all jellous, while you’re watching this I’m in Portland for the Northwest Freethought Converence, with the likes of PZ Myers, Hemant Mehta, and maybe Jen McCreight.

Last week H. Con. Res 13 passed the House Judiciary Committee. For those who haven’t been following along, this is the bill that reaffirms the national motto, “In God We Trust,” and encourages its disply in all public buildings, including schools.

If a Christian or Muslim were to say, “I trust in God.” That would very clearly be seen as a statement of faith. How is “In God we trust” any different?

Our motto is nothing short of a statement of faith made by the US GOVERNMENT. This is a clear violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the US Constition.

Atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, non-belivers, and all other varieties of the “nones”, we make up 15% of the US population. If each and everyone of us were speak up and voice our opionions to our representatives in Washington we would be noticed!

Christians, reflect on the Golden Rule for a moment. Think about how your atheists neighbors are made to feel when we see that motto every time we pull a dollar bill out of our walets. Think about how we would be made to feel if that was posted in every post office, court house, DMV, and in our children’s schools. I am asking you to stand up for us. Try to enourage you representatives to show us some compassion, unless of course that is only reserved for other Christians.

If you haven’t written your congressman yet, please do so now.

Here’s a recent story on the SDA church from USA Today:

Newly released data show Seventh-day Adventism growing by 2.5% in North America, a rapid clip for this part of the world, where Southern Baptists and mainline denominations, as well as other church groups are declining. Adventists are even growing 75% faster than Mormons (1.4 percent), who prioritize numeric growth.

For observers outside the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the growth rate in North America is perplexing.

“You’ve got a denomination that is basically going back to basics … saying, ‘What did God mean by all these rules and regulations and how can we fit in to be what God wants us to be?’,” said Daniel Shaw, an expert on Christian missionary outreach at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif. “That’s just totally contrary to anything that’s happening in American culture. So I’m saying, ‘Whoa! That’s very interesting.’ And I can’t answer it.”

You could read the rest, but I’m sure you got the gist of it.

You may find this surprising, but that doesn’t trouble me at all. For starters, this isn’t news to me. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that I took a Church Growth class at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary. Considering how much better my life has been since leaving the church, you would think I wouldn’t like it that they are growing, but nobody makes atheists quite like the Seventh-day Adventists do…

The Old Testament only makes three mentions of Satan, in 1 Chronicles, Job, and one of the minor prophets (sorry, but I don’t have time to find the exact references). These are all from some of the latest books of the OT. When you look at some of the earlier passages, the ones where you would expect to find Satan, it’s God who does the temping. That’s right, God would temp you to sin and then punish you for it. Talk about an asshole move.

As ancient Judaism moved to monotheism, they began defining the attributes of God. By the Christian era this included such attributes as being morally perfect, all-loving, all powerful, and all knowing. Unfortunately those attributes don’t fit with a world where murderous dictators can slaughter millions, where you have earthquakes so strong that they shift the axis of the earth, and tsunamis that can kill tens and even hundreds of thousands of people.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?” – Epicurus (c. 341 – c. 270 BC)

Obviously this problem wasn’t unknown to the Mediterranean world. The way they resolved the contradiction was by the character of Satan. A malevolent powerful being.

As time went on they were able to find more uses for this character. He’s the great deceiver, the one who first rebelled against God by thinking for himself and ruined the whole universe in the process, the great tempter, the great accuser, and the one who stokes the fires of hell. Satan became the embodiment of all that is evil and vile.

In modern times, he’s still quite useful. My own departure from faith was was slowed down by Satan. I had a lot of doubt, but I figured that Satan must be trying to deceive me in hopes that he could derail me from the path that God had for me. That’s right, even when I wasn’t sure if there was a god, I was sure that if there was, then there was also a Satan. In my mind there would have been nothing worse than being tricked by the Devil. I doubted my doubt and had faith in faith, when I should have had faith in my doubt and doubted my faith.

Since then I’ve had people tell me that I’m just being deceived by Satan and even that I worship Satan. Christians took it far enough that they created a dichotomy of everything and everyone either glorifying God or glorifying Satan. With that kind of a mindset, the person calling me a devil is on the side of righteousness, and I’m a minion of the galactic super-villain.

Come on. This is just absolutely ridiculous! A cosmic super-villain?