The Irrational Atheist by Vox Day



Awhile back (a long while), someone named Chris commented on my Reading List page (which I have to update) that I should read The Irrational Atheist by Vox Day. Since it’s free to download I agreed, but so far I haven’t gotten past the first chapter. I thought I would write about the first section of the first chapter, and then maybe you can tell me if it’s even worth my time to keep reading.

 

The first chapter is called A Pride of Atheists (barf). Below is the text of the book in black, and my comments in red.

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I don’t care if you go to Hell. Shit! Well that’s one way to kick off your book.

 

God does, assuming He exists and assuming you know the mind of God, or He okay this is only the second “He” in this chapter and I’m already annoyed at the capitalizing of the word “he”…God cares about me but he’ll hold it against me if I don’t capitalize a pronoun? wouldn’t have bothered sending His Son to save you from it. Jesus Christ does, too, assuming he existed, if you’ll accept for the sake of argument that he went to all the trouble of incarnating as a man, dying on the cross, and being resurrected from the dead in order to hand you a Get Out of Hell Free card. Is God not omnipotent? He really had to go to all that trouble to give me a Get Out of Hell Free card? And if he went to all that trouble why is my ticket out of hell so conditional? Free my ass!

 

 

Me, not so much. I don’t know you. I don’t owe you anything. I don’t know you either, Vox Day, but if I thought you were going to hell I would care. I’d be absolutely outraged. Nobody deserves eternal torment. While as a Christian I am called to share the Good News with you, I can’t force you to accept it. Horse, water, drink, and all that. Barf.

 

So, it’s all on you. Your soul is not my responsibility.

 

I am a Christian. I’m also a libertarian. I believe in free will and in allowing you to exercise it. I believe that our free will is a gift from our Creator and that He expects us to use it. I believe in living and letting live. If you’ll leave me alone, I’ll be delighted to do you the courtesy of leaving you alone in return. I have no inherent problem with atheists or agnostics, I have no problem with Muslims or Jews or Hindus or Pastafarians, and I have no problem with the crazies who believe that humanity is the result of ancient alien breeding experiments. To be honest, I rather like the crazies—their theories are usually the most entertaining of the lot. I believe what I believe, you believe what you believe, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t both be perfectly cool with that. Sure, fine, I can go along with that.

 

Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens are not so much cool with that. Wha?? Wrong, they’re fine with letting people believe what they want too. Just because they choose to talk about atheism and criticize religion doesn’t mean that they want to force their views onto other people. Richard Dawkins was even part of an ad campaign that encouraged letting children choose for themselves what they believe, rather than labelling them from birth as Christians or Muslims or atheists, etc.

 

I’m not asking you to respect my beliefs. Good, I don’t. So far I don’t particularly respect you either. I mean, you just basically told me that you’ll be fine with it if I go to Hell. Why should you? Maybe you think I’m insane because I believe that Jesus is coming back one of these days, but does my insanity actually affect you in any material way? Not insane, but perhaps misguided. But it’s your prerogative if you think zombie Jesus is coming back. Is my religious madness really all that much more out there than my faith that the Minnesota Vikings will win the Super Bowl someday? Umm yeah the idea that some guy that’s the son of God but is also God who died 2000 years ago is going to come back to life and bring everyone up to heaven with him is kinda way more out there than the possibility that the Vikings will win the Super Bowl. Go Vikings! Talk about the substance of things hoped for . . . Vegas will give you better odds on J.C. this year. Who’s in the house? J.C.! As for your beliefs, I really don’t care if you want to question God’s existence or criticize the Pope or deny the Holocaust or declare that Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet. Every member of humanity is at least a little bit crazy in his own special way, some just happen to make it a little more obvious than others. True dat, yo.

 

Vox’s First Law: Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity. I guess that’s supposed to be funny or cute or something, but it just doesn’t really work.

 

All I ask, all the vast majority of the billions of people of faith on the planet ask, is to be left alone to believe what we choose to believe and live how we decide to live. That’s fine by me, if only people were content just believing what they choose to believe. Unfortunately many believers want their faith to dictate what gets taught in the science classroom, or they want to decide who can legally marry or whether a woman can choose whether or not to stay pregnant. In some places peoples’ beliefs lead to terrorism and extreme violence against women. People can believe what they want to believe, but once those beliefs start affecting other peoples’ rights, we have to speak out against it. But the Unholy Trinity have no intention of leaving me alone. Richard Dawkins accuses me of child abuse because I teach my children that God loves them even more than I do. I’m not really sure if I agree with Dawkins that labelling your kid as a Christian (or whatever religion) from birth is tantamount to child abuse, but if what you want is for people to believe what they choose to believe, shouldn’t you avoid teaching your kids that there’s a god and let them discover that for themselves? Shouldn’t you let them be exposed to many different religions and to the idea that there may be no god and let them make their own informed decision without your prodding? Sam Harris declares that I should not be tolerated and suggests that it might be ethical to kill me in preemptive self-defense. Um, what? Sam Harris said that Christians should be killed? I seriously doubt that…anyone know what he’s talking about here? Christopher Hitchens asserts that I am a form of human Drāno, poisoning everything I encounter. He said religion poisons everything, not you. And I would sooner compare you to the clog in the drain, because you’re trying to stop the discourse and have everyone shut up about their beliefs, wheras Hitchens, Harris and Dawkins want to get the debate flowing. A fourth New Atheist, the philosopher Daniel Dennett, is less judgmental, but even he, bless his heart, wants to save me from myself. At least he cares enough to want to save you, you don’t even care if he goes to hell!

 

And now we have a problem.

 

That’s why I’m writing this book. I’m not trying to convince you that God exists. Why not? If you convince atheists that God exists then they won’t be out there doing all those horrible things like talking about skepticism of religion and criticizing the Bible. I’m not trying to convince you to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. I’m not even trying to convince you that religious people aren’t lunatics with low IQs who should be regarded with pity and contempt. But I am confident that I will convince you that this trio of New Atheists, this Unholy Trinity, are a collection of faux-intellectual frauds utilizing pseudo-scientific sleight of hand in order to falsely claim that religious faith is inherently dangerous and has no place in the modern world. You won’t succeed if the rest of the book is as full of crap as this first little bit has been.

 

I am saying that they are wrong, they are reliably, verifiably, and factually incorrect. Richard Dawkins is wrong. Daniel C. Dennett is wrong. Christopher Hitchens is drunk he reminds me of Julian from the Trailer Park Boys, always a drink in hand, and he’s wrong. Michel Onfray is French, and he’s wrong OMG, wrong and French?. Sam Harris is so superlatively wrong that it will require the development of esoteric mathematics operating simultaneously in multiple dimensions to fully comprehend the orders of magnitude of his wrongness. All I can do is roll my eyes here.

 

You make the call. Here’s what I think so far: the rest of this book will be a waste of my time.

 

 

***

 

Okay I’m back to black text now…so what do you think? Should I keep reading?

Response to a Christian Comment

While I was away on my trip, a Christian named Josh posted a comment on my About page, and since it contained a mish-mash of things I commonly hear from Christians I thought I would make a post out of responding to it.

Hey,
Just thought I’d share something. I am a christian and have recently been watching some clips of “Jesus Camp” “Religulous” and some of Dawkins videos (thats how I stumbled onto your site lol). I try to understand the Atheist point of view but can’t quite get my head around it.

I’m not a fan of your decision to capitalize the word “atheist”, because atheism isn’t the name of a belief system or religion. Atheists are without theism, that is without a belief in any god or gods. That’s the point of view that all atheists have in common, and what they believe apart from that has nothing to do with atheism.

A lot of it is just totally bashing Christianity or any other organized religion, but mainly Christianity.

What you may see as bashing, to an atheist may just look like fair criticism. Many atheists, such as myself, feel that religion shouldn’t be immune to criticism, skepticism and doubt, and choose to openly criticize it. You may feel that Christianity gets the worst of it, and that’s probably because you’re a Christian so you notice more, or because you live in an area where Christianity is common, so it’s naturally what people who criticize religion will talk about. Personally when I talk about religion on my blog it’s generally going to be Christianity because I was a Christian for most of my life, so that’s where my experience with religion lies.

I also watched a clip of Ben Steins video “Expelled” in which he interviews Dawkins and he comes up with a very complicated example of how live could have started. He believes that it is very much possible that a being of higher intelligence could have created life on earth.

Watch that clip again. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Expelled, but if I remember correctly Stein was leading Dawkins into that answer by asking if it’s possible for an intelligent life form to have created life on earth. Dawkins is not closed-minded to the idea that life was placed on Earth by an intelligence, so he entertained the idea be answering that maybe we were placed here by an intelligence, without departing from the reality that there is no scientific evidence of any supernatural being. Ben Stein knew what he would get when he asked that question, and he knew that he could make Dawkins look crazy by telling people that he believes we were placed here by aliens. I believe it should be clear to anyone who sees that clip that Dawkins was being misrepresented.

I wouldn’t take Expelled as an authority on anything. The filmmakers were completely dishonest during the making of Expelled. They lied to the atheists and scientists they interviewed about the topic of the film, the name of it, and they even went as far as making up a production company and website to trick people into getting on board. Stein’s interview style was also designed to try to bring out the worst in the scientists being interviewed. If you’re interested, this website talks about the making of Expelled and it responds to the dishonesty and lies that run rampant in the so-called documentary.

So essentially he is willing to believe in a higher intelligence, but it CANNOT be God.

Saying Dawkins CANNOT believe in God is dishonest. He always makes it clear that he doesn’t completely discount the possibility of a God. Like me, he doesn’t say with absolute certainty that there is no God. I believe that it’s more likely that we were seeded on Earth by aliens than popped into existence by a god. The reason for this is that we have no scientific evidence of anything supernatural or god-like, but we do have evidence of intelligent beings evolving from simple life (ourselves), and scientists are getting close to creating life from scratch in the lab, and we’ve done some modest space travel. Maybe we’re only a couple hundred years off of seeding life on other planets ourselves, why couldn’t that be how we got here? Of course I don’t believe that we were put here by aliens for the same reason I don’t believe we were put here a god – there’s no evidence for either. Right now I’m satisfied with saying “who knows how we got here, I hope science can eventually give us the answer.” I’m sure that’s what Dawkins would say as well, although I’m sure he would put it more eloquently.

This is looking at a Scientific and logical perspective:

The atheist generally claims that belief in a God without proof is essentially silliness. Additionally, an atheist generally accepts modern science and attempts to use it as means to prove or disprove the existence of God.

I would rephrase this to say: “atheists generally claim that belief in a god without evidence is intellectually lazy. Additionally, an atheist generally accepts modern science and uses it as a tool for examining claims and evidence made for the existence of a god.”

But the problem comes in here for me: Science can only “prove” something if it is able to be tested. The possibility that God exists cannot be tested (because it is a spiritual existence not necessarily a physical one) and therefore cannot be proven to be non-existent. So if science cannot prove or disprove God (however, it can and does give evidence for both sides of the argument) then there is some “belief” involved in the unbelieving atheist. You see, the common atheist says God doesn’t exist because it can’t be proven, but therein lies the problem in their position: God cannot be disproven either. Therefore there is some type of belief/faith involved in being an atheist. They don’t have absolute proof they just think they do.

Let me rephrase this too, and hopefully you can see why I think that what you just said is absurd:

But the problem comes in here for me: Science can only “prove” something if it is able to be tested. The possibility that Leprechauns exists cannot be tested (because it is a magical existence not always a physical one) and therefore cannot be proven to be non-existent. So if science cannot prove or disprove Leprechauns (however, it can and does give evidence for both sides of the argument) then there is some “belief” involved in the unbelieving aleprechaunist. You see, the common aleprechaunist says Leprechuans don’t exist because they can’t be proven, but therein lies the problem in their position: Leprechauns cannot be disproven either. Therefore there is some type of belief/faith involved in being an aleprechaunist. They don’t have absolute proof they just think they do.

Your phrasing here indicates a few things:

1) You believe that not being able to prove that something doesn’t exist is a good argument for its existence. Hint: it’s not.

2) You believe that atheists claim to have proof that there is no god. Not true. Like most atheists I talk to, I know that it’s impossible to disprove something, so my non-belief comes from the fact that I’ve never seen any evidence for the existence of any god. I’ll keep on not believing until I see evidence, and there’s no faith needed there.

3) You said that science gives evidence for both sides of the argument, so this indicates that you have scientific evidence for the existence of a god (even though you said God can’t be tested). How does this make sense? And what scientific evidence do you have?

Now I can tell you that God can be proven as real. If you have never experienced God, then you would never know how real He is. Atheists would logically explain that it is impossible to experience God because He isn’t real. How can you prove that? The truth of the matter is, you can’t if you don’t have a relationship with Him to really know Him. He isn’t like a boss that stays up in heaven and doesn’t like coming out of His office. He loves to be in fellowship with His children. Those who think of Him as that kind of God (the kind that just sits in heaven not showing Himself) will never be able to find out of God is real, its simply not possible.

I am being very honest right now in saying that I know that I know that I know God is real, because of the relationship that I’v developed with Him. And people have no clue the power of prayer. Not prayer for selfish reasons or to fulfill our own goals, but the kind that believes in God’s power and is obedient, humble, and patient for God’s perfect timing.
(Jeremiah 29:11-14)

So you’re saying that the only way to believe in God is if you have a personal relationship with God, but how can I get this personal relationship with God until he shows himself to me? Why can you have a relationship with God but I can’t? If God has proven himself to you then he should prove himself to everybody. Why can you have a personal relationship with him but I’m supposed to just believe you that God’s real? Shouldn’t God know that I require scientific evidence to believe in him? So why doesn’t he provide some? Does God have such petty disregard for souls that aren’t satisfied with taking things on faith?

And what of the people who say they have a personal relationship with a different god or with a ghost or an alien? Why should I believe your personal experience over theirs? Should I believe everyone who tells me with sincerity that they have a personal relationship with their god? How many gods are there??

Do you see why this personal relationship thing is unconvincing? Not to mention I was a devout Christian for most of my life, and I never once heard God speaking to me or felt a presence. How do you define a personal relationship?

I mean I have seen God do amazing things in my life and in the people around me. I have seen 8 people healed of cancer in the same year, without Chemotherapy (mind you there is no cure for cancer). All these people believed in the power of God, and they waited patiently and humbly and were healed.

That’s fantastic that they were healed of their cancer but there are other ways besides Chemotherapy that doctors use to fight cancer. You haven’t given me any specifics about these 8 people but I sure hope their health is being monitored by doctors. I believe that the most sinister result of belief in prayer is that some people rely on it in favour of medical treatment. There are stories in the news all the time about people dying of easily treatable diseases because they (or their parents) believed that prayer would save them. If you care for these 8 people you’ll advise them to visit the doctor for regular checkups. Even if you believe that God is healing these people, at least be open to the possibility that God heals through doctors and medical treatments.

I could share many more miracles (lost things coming back, running on an empty gas tank for 20 miles, many many more).

Finding something you lost is a miracle? Running on an empty gas tank? I’ve done that – you know the needle says empty well before the tank is actually empty right? Your standards for miracles are really low.

It’s amazing how those who don’t have a relationship with God never experience such things.

I don’t have a relationship with God and guess what? I find things I’ve lost all the time! I have a story that when I was a Christian I considered a miracle: When I was in university once I went to campus for a final exam for one of my classes 8 hours early so that I would have time to study. I wanted to make sure I had the location right for my exam, so I checked the schedule only to find out that my exam would be starting in 15 minutes! I thought God made me check the schedule so that I wouldn’t miss my exam. Now I realize that it was pure dumb luck. You know what would have been a miracle? If God had stopped time so that I’d have an extra 8 hours to study…maybe that way I wouldn’t have gotten a C on that exam…

Many would argue why God would do that, but its not God at all. It was sin that destroyed man’s relationship with God. (Genesis 3:23-24)

It wasn’t my sin, it was Eve’s. Your petty God is holding a grudge against everyone alive today for something someone did thousands of years ago, and you worship this guy?

And when I say sin it sounds sooo cliche, but God created us in His image (Genesis 1:27) so that we could be in constant fellowship with Him. But if our spirit is not righteous and holy like He is, then we simply cannot fellowship with Him. Its like the polar sides of a magnet, they simply cannot attract its impossible.

I see nothing righteous about the God depicted in the Bible.

When it all comes to an end, every person on earth must die. We are NEVER guaranteed tomorrow. And when each person dies, at that moment, they will know the truth of this issue of if God is real or not. The scary part is if someone is unprepared when they finally face the truth. Because at that moment you cannot go back and try to relive your life correctly.

I’m not worried.

Many say why live a Christian life because its so hard. Not really, not when you realize how much God loved us to sacrifice Himself to restore us to the place that he created us.

I lived the Christian life and it wasn’t hard. Now I try my best to live the skeptical life and that’s hard, but, I feel, way more fulfilling. Trying to hold your beliefs up to high standards of evidence and critical thinking is a challenge, but it is rewarding and I learn and grow more every day. As a Christian I felt that I had the answer to life and the afterlife, and I could look to the Bible for easy answers to everything. The faith I had suppressed my curiosity and it didn’t allow me to freely learn and explore ideas like I do now.

I really don’t know why, but I felt like sharing this with you.

Thank you for sharing. I know some of what I said may have felt harsh and like I was bashing Christianity, but I hope you are able to read my thoughts without taking them personally, and I hope you’re able to consider some of the questions and criticisms I’ve put forward. I think it’s fantastic that you’re looking into atheism and thinking about questions of evidence and faith. I think it’s important to examine your tightly held beliefs, to make sure that you’ve got good reason for holding them. When I started looking honestly at what I believed and why I found that I no longer believed. For some people this type of inquiry may lead to strengthened faith. Either way, I applaud anyone’s willingness to test their faith.

Enlightning Bolts – January 17, 2010

Church sign logic fail.

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NASA solves the mystery of the giant ribbon at the edge of the solar system: “We believe the ribbon is a reflection,” says Jacob Heerikhuisen, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. “It is where solar wind particles heading out into interstellar space are reflected back into the solar system by a galactic magnetic field.” Wicked!

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College Humour is brilliant: The Tetris God (YouTube).

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Meryl Dorey, Australian anti-vaxxer, doesn’t want any part of her donation going to immunizing Haitians, in spite of this:

Diarrhoeal diseases would flourish as survivors struggled to find clean water and safe food, Dr Kirsch said. Measles outbreaks, which sometimes follow natural disasters, may spread in neighbourhoods of tightly packed courtyards where thousands of homeless residents are gathering.

…

Half of the children in Haiti are unvaccinated and just 40 per cent of the population had access to basic health care before the crisis, according to the WHO.

They need vaccines.

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I gave a list of options for your Haiti donation the other day, now here’s one more (set up by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science): Non-believers Giving Aid is an attempt to quell the myth that atheists aren’t charitable as believers, but it also makes sure that 100% of your donation is given to the secular charities they are supporting (Int’l Red Cross & Doctors Without Borders). Richard Dawkins will personally cover any fees associated with making a donation, so you know that your full contribution will go straight to the people who need it.

The Anxieties that Came with my Atheism

One thing that I’ve noticed since I realized that there’s probably no life after death is that I place a much higher value on my current life. This is probably all I get, so I want to stick around for as long as possible.

I find that whenever I get into a car now I go on high alert. I’m such a backseat driver, my heart starts pounding whenever I go through an intersection (I’ve been hit twice already be red light runners), and when I’m driving I don’t take any risks, not even speeding slightly. I suppose this is a good thing, you can’t be too careful, but I’m always exhausted after a drive because my heart’s been pounding and my life has been flashing before my eyes.

I also get a lot more emotional about other peoples’ deaths. I have a hard time watching the news or any kind of special about 9/11 or earthquakes or warfare, because I’m always holding back the tears. Life is such a precious thing, and I wish more people understood that this is all we get. I think life would be apreciated more.

If you’re an atheist reading this, how do you cope with the stresses of trying to hang on to and make the best of the one life that you’re given?

I don’t do so well with coping, but I recently came across something that Richard Dawkins wrote that makes me feel lucky to have been alive at all:

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

…

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked — as I am surprisingly often — why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn’t it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?

I encourage you to read the whole thing, here, it really is beautiful.

Debate: Atheism is the New Fundamentalism

I just finished watching this debate live online, and it was a lot of fun!

I had a bit of a hard time following the actual debate because I was also reading the #iq2atheism Twitter feed at the same time, but I’m going to post my brief take on the debate now, and when the recording of the debate is posted I’ll try to go into more detail. (follow me on Twitter @EnlightningLinZ)

The motion was “Atheism is the New Fundamentalism”.

Arguing for the motion: Richard Harries (former bishop of Oxford), and Charles Moore (former editor of the Daily Telegraph)

Arguing against: Professors Richard Dawkins and A C Grayling

The arguments for the motion were pathetic. They didn’t even argue for the motion. They didn’t define fundamentalism, nor did they provide examples to show why they think atheists are fundamentalists. Instead, it was just a run of ad hom attacks against Dawkins and atheists in general, as well as several uses of Godwin’s Law.

Grayling was a teddy bear, whose main point was that he was also a-pixie and a-father Christmas, but only needs to speak on his a-theism because of the influence of religion in the world. How is that fundamentalist?

Dawkins was, unless I missed it, the only one to actually define “fundamentalism”, and with his definition alone destroyed the motion. I can’t remember exactly what the definition he used was at this point (should have taken notes!), but I’ll be sure to talk about that in my follow-up post on the debate.

Dawkins made his case very effectively, but there were a couple of moments that stood out in the twitter feed.

One was his quoting of Vic Stenger: “Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.”

The second was his response to the question “Are you saying that there may be a God?”…

Dawkins: “There may be a leprechaun.” Which prompted me to do this…

It’s Been a Year Since I Lost My Religion

A year ago today my life began to change in a big way. On October 3, 2008 Bill Maher’s movie about religion, Religulous, was released in Canada. At the time I was a Christian, but I decided to see the movie because I was intrigued by the previews. I had never been exposed to such outright criticism of religion.

I didn’t know who Bill Maher was (honestly…people find this hard to believe), so I didn’t know what to expect. What I saw was a crass, in-your-face dump on faith. But rather than feeling offended I felt inspired by the closing scene of the movie. Maher said:

Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking…keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and distruction.

…

The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt.

I started to allow myself to doubt my beliefs, and to consider that the Bible was probably just a fairy tale.

A short time after I had seen the movie I was in a book store and noticed Christopher Hitchens’s book God is not Great, and decided to pick it up. By the time I finished reading the book I was an atheist, and wondering how I ever believed in a god in the first place!

I was now very fascinated with the topic of religion, and picked up Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Dawkins introduced me to the world of skepticism of all sorts of beliefs. I discovered that there was a whole online community of skeptics.

I filled up my iPod with podcasts that allow me to learn while I’m working:

The Atheist Experience
The Conspiracy Skeptic
Hunting Humbug 101
Point of Inquiry
The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe
The Skeptic Zone
Skeptoid

I also got into reading blogs that kept me up to date on the big stories in the atheist and skeptical communities:

Bad Astronomy
Friendly Atheist
NeurologicaBlog
Pharyngula
Skepchick

And I’ve been doing my best to get a fairly well-rounded understanding of science. Some of my favourite books:

The Elegant Universe – Brian Greene
Death From the Skies! – Phil Plait
Quirkology – Richard Wiseman
Trick or Treatment – Simon Singh
The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins

I’m being opened up to a whole new, fascinating, mind-boggling, incredible, inconceivable, evidence-based, beautiful and awe-inspiring universe.

It has been quite a year! I’ve been taking in so much information that I needed to start this blog in order to articulate some of my thoughts, and to try to take part in what others in the skeptical community are doing. I’m learning and growing every day, and I can’t wait to see where I’m at in a year’s time.

If any of the people involved in the podcasts, blogs and books I mentioned above happen to stumble upon this blog entry, I just want to say thanks!

I think that the best thing that I’ve learned in the last year is the importance of science. Science is the most useful tool that we have, and I’m excited every time I see someone promoting it to the wider public. It seems to be on the increase and that’s so encouraging.

I’ve rambled on long enough, but I just felt the need to reflect on the past year. Thanks for reading!

Richard Dawkins on the Colbert Report

If you’re in Canada, You can watch here, in the US PZ Myers links to it here.

I love it because Colbert captures the creationist mindset perfectly throughout the interview, but especially with his intro statement:

My guest tonight has written a new book supporting evolution. I’ll prove it’s a farce by having the same opinion at the beginning of this interview as I do at the end.

Beautiful!

The interview itself was alright, I get annoyed at Colbert’s style because he doesn’t let the guest speak, but that’s a part his character on the show, so I guess I can’t complain.

Dawkins was on to promote his new book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. It should be good, I love his writing style, but unfortunately I won’t be able to read it for awhile…I’m currently in the middle of three books and have a long list of to-reads before this one.