Burnee links for Sunday

New Humanist (Rationalist Association) - L Ron Hubbard slammed in verse - by his own great-grandson
http://youtu.be/0QsCrFANMzc

A powerful, disturbing monologue.

CFI Condemns Use of Religious Materials for Instruction in Nuclear War Ethics | Center for Inquiry
I'd say the use of religious doctrine is inappropriate, period. Of course this wouldn't happen in jolly old Blighty, would it? Would it?

Edzard Ernst: The professor at war with the prince | Life and style | The Guardian
Professor Ernst may have taken "early retirement", but it's good to know he's still engaged with the issues in which he has specialized. We'll still be hearing from him, I think.

Church criticised over adverts for ‘Doctor Who’ event - Wales News - News - WalesOnline
If this church feels the need to disguise its identity when promoting this event, it should ask itself why.

The Importance of Unbelief | Stephen Fry | Big Think
Some brief but worthwhile snippets from Stephen Fry in 2009
http://bcove.me/xpw22zhg

Three men complete their mile-by-mile mission

The boys are back. Their triumphant formation ride into Guildhall Square, Portsmouth on Friday signalled the culmination of two weeks' intense cycling up hill and down dale, all in a good cause, and amply documented on the way via the blog and Twitter. Photographs of the final event are also available, as is the final blogpost:

The last day of our event. Of course we had technically finished our challenge, Friday was kind of supplementary. We assembled as planned at Andy's house and we were joined by Rob who we invited to ride down with us. We left at around 10:30 for a leisurely saunter, as we thought for once we could arrive at our destination without being red faced and sweaty. We were well ahead of schedule and so we decided to go down to Spice Island and recreate a picture from our first training run all the way back in March. Rob duly obliged with  the camera.

(Click here to read more.)

Well done guys!

Launching tomorrow — FreethoughtBlogs.com

This looks like an interesting development. P. Z. Myers has been dropping various hints and/or threats recently about leaving Science Blogs, and this appears to be where he's going. From the FreethoughtBlogs Facebook event page:

A new blog network is hitting the web on August 1. Led by two of the most prominent and widely read secular-minded blogs in the country – PZ Myers’ Pharyngula and Ed Brayton’s Dispatches from the Culture Wars – Freethoughtblogs.com will be THE central gathering place for atheists, humanists, skeptics and freethinkers in the blogosphere.
Freethoughtblogs will be more than just a place for people to read the opinions of their favorite bloggers. It will be a community of like-minded people exchanging ideas and joining forces to advocate for a more secular and rational world.

The network will launch Aug. 1 with a handful of blogs with many more to be added after the first three months of operation. Here are the five blogs that will lead the way:

Pharyngula. PZ Myers has built one of the most popular atheist blogs in the world. Never one to shy away from controversy, Myers has built an astonishing following over the last few years and has traveled around the world speaking to skeptical audiences. As a PhD biologist he is the scourge of creationists everywhere but he takes on a wide range of subjects in his blogging, including religious criticism, women’s rights and progressive politics.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars. Ed Brayton was raised by a Pentecostal and an atheist, sealing his fate forever as someone who is endlessly fascinated by how religion intersects with other subject, particularly science, law, history and politics. He is a popular speaker for secular organizations around the country, has appeared on the Rachel Maddow show and is pretty certain he’s the only person who has ever made fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

The Digital Cuttlefish. Cuttlefish are shy and elusive creatures; when necessary, they hide in their own ink. This particular cuttlefish has chosen as its habitat the comment threads of science, religion, and news sites, where it feeds on the opinions of those who are emboldened by the cloak of internet anonymity. Cuttlefish is an atheist, a skeptic, and is madly, passionately in love with science. The Digital Cuttlefish has, since October of 2007, been a repository of commentary and satire, usually (but not exclusively) in verse and now moves to Freethoughtblogs.

This Week in Christian Nationalism. Chris Rodda is the author of "Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History." Since the release of her book in 2006, Chris has been blogging at Talk2Action.org and Huffington Post about the use of historical revisionism in everything from education to legislation. Chris is now launching her own blog on Freethoughtblogs.com that will accompany her weekly podcast, This Week in Christian Nationalism.

Zingularity. Steven "DarkSyde" Andrew is a 40 something former stock and bond trader and one time moderate conservative. He grew up in the Southwest and has long been fascinated by science, particularly evolutionary biology, physics, and astronomy. He is a frequest contributor to the popular progressive website Daily Kos and now blogs at Zingularity, where legit science disappears forever down an event horizon of petty snark and cynicism.

If you would be so kind as to help us have a successful launch, please post the above information, or at least a link to the new network, on your Facebook pages, on your own blogs and in forums in which you participate that might be interested in it.

We want this to quickly become the most important gathering place for the skeptical community in the blogosphere.

The first three months' "settling in" period should give a good idea of how it will work, so watch this — that — space...

Moral authority

More first class analysis of the source of morality from QualiaSoup. I don't know how many of these there will be in total, but judging by the first two it seems likely that the complete set would be an excellent resource for schools (and politicians, for that matter).

http://youtu.be/hSS-88ShJfo


The dissection of "the Bible as moral authority" is probably the best I've come across — comprehensive, clear and succinct. (It should be required viewing for anyone holding to biblical inerrancy, but given that mindset it's unfortunately unlikely to make much impression there.)

Corrupting the minds of children has got to stop

Schoolboy made to write 'Sorry' on piece of paper - then eat it - Parentdish

A mum has pulled her seven-year-old son out of school after he was made to write out an apology to 'repent his sins' on a piece of paper – then eat it.

Horrified Celia Mullen, 46, claims her son Luis and other children were encouraged to take part in the bizarre ritual by members of an evangelical church during a visit to his class.

She says the incident has left her son so disturbed that he now refuses to sleep on his own and scrawls pictures of the Devil.

Don't tell me Christianity in Britain is all harmless dogoodery when this kind of stuff goes on. This isn't just indoctrination (as if that wasn't bad enough), it's opportunistic exploitation of vulnerable innocents. The culprits have placed an "apology" on their website (also as a downloadable PDF):

Tuesday 26th July, 2011

Statement Re: News Story

Big Prayer Experience/Inflatable Church
Ainderby Steeple C of E Primary School
Week Commencing 13th June 2011
During this session, as part of an explanation of what Christians understand by confession and forgiveness, pupils were given the option of writing the word 'sorry' with icing on a piece of rice paper, which could then be eaten. This was intended as an illustration of the way in which God takes our sins away completely when we confess them. This exercise was one of a range of several different activities in which the children were invited to participate. We are very sorry for any upset caused, as we have no intention of upsetting anyone: we do not intimidate or force anyone to do anything.

Sorry, not good enough. What we want is an undertaking that they've stopped doing it.

(Via Atheism UK.)

Burnee links for Thursday

The Rants of Cherry Black » Blog Archive » Oslo
Some people just have to be in the centre of things. Not content with an amazing month in Nepal, Trish now insists on reporting first-hand from the Oslo bomb site. Some people are never satisfied.

You are entering a Shariah controlled zone… | HumanistLife
Yikes, this is disturbing. What's the status of randomly posted notices? Is it an Advertising Standards Authority matter? Maybe some well-placed stickers "NO LEGAL JURISDICTION" wouldn't go amiss.

The Rants of Cherry Black » Blog Archive » Oslo: Part 2
More eye-witness reporting from Trish.

Thomas Monopoly (@thomasmonopoly) — "Dear Google"
A salutary warning to those who put all their eggs in one basket.

A short rant on "explanatory power"

This was sparked off by this week's Atheist Experience TV show, in which Matt Dillahunty encapsulated in very few words why I find intelligent design wholly unsatisfactory:

"...we tend to explain things in terms of things that we understand."

This is science, this is maths, this is software development, this is education in general. This is how we find out how things work and why.

What Matt is describing in that almost throwaway line is the progressive method of explanation. When faced with something complex, which as a whole we might not understand, we tend to break it down into its component parts and seek to understand them. If these components parts are also complex, we will further break them down until we get to a level we do understand. This is a lot like maths. Higher mathematics can be complicated, but it's built up from lesser principles, all of which can be ultimately reduced to something basic and comprehensible.

Likewise engineering, technology, and indeed all of education can be seen as a series of hierarchical steps based on something lower down the tree of complexity. We explain things in terms of other things for which we already have explanations.

Intelligent design proponents don't use this method, so their claim of "explanatory power" is bogus. Trying to explain something in terms of something else that we don't understand is clearly a non-starter. It's not helpful, and it's not explanatory.

http://blip.tv/the-atheist-experience-tv-show/atheist-experience-719-greg-paul-and-the-problem-of-evil-5408591