A lot of critics of the more vocal "New Atheists" try to in cheap debating points by poisoning the well with the label "atheist fundamentalists". The strategy here isn't too sophisticated: imply that these atheists are just as closed-minded as their opponents. The problem is the two aren't remotely similar. Oh sure, there are stupid atheists, ignorant atheists, loud atheists, arrogant strident atheists and even atheists that are wrong about the big questions. But none of this supplies coherence to the term "fundamentalist atheists". It's an oxymoron. We aren't much fond of authoritarianism, tradition, dogma, or of course faith. That's a big part of what makes us atheists in the first place. We don't herd well. We don't pledge our devotion to any particular beliefs, or hold much of anything in stone. Ask three atheists for their opinions on gods and religion and you'll get four opinions. Ask them again in six months and you'll four slightly different opinions from what you got before. There's no fundamentalism in there.
So you critics of the New Atheists, dispense with the intellectual dishonesty and these erroneous terms like "fundamentalist atheist". It only reveals your gross ignorance of how atheists think, or your dishonesty in dealing with it.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
Teabaggers and Czars
Here's Ted Nugent tossing an impressively stupid word salad of Teabagger talking points:
"This president's overtly destructive, clear-and-present-danger agenda is surpassed in transparency only by his ultra-leftist public voting record and overall lifetime conduct of consorting with the enemy as a child and student of Marxism, socialist and racist community organizer, congregant of the blatant America-hating black-theology- and social-justice-spewing Rev. Jeremiah Wright and close personal friend of convicted communist terrorists like Bill Ayers, and by his unflinching appointment of an array of communist czars, including Van Jones, Cass Sunstein, Anita Dunne, et al."
OK, first of all Ted, and any Teabaggers that might be reading, the moment you say "Bill Ayers", "Saul Alinsky", or "ACORN", thinking people stop listening. It was irrelevant bullshit in 2008, and it's still irrelevant bullshit now. Secondly, all you igtards yammering about communist czars, please go take a history lesson. The Czars were absolute rulers, the Caesers of Russia. The notion of multiple Czars being appointed is, well, like having multiple all powerful gods being chosen by mere mortals. "Czar" in the US is a hokey term for certain appointed positions, has been going on since Reagan and his idiot Drug Czar William Bennett, and is another phantom issue like the three A's above. Furthermore, the communists were the friggin people that overthrew the damned line of Czars, murdered the last one and his children in cold blood. So talking about communist Czars is like talking about Nazi Jews.
And you wonder why the stereotype of the Teabaggers is an ignorant blowhard...
"This president's overtly destructive, clear-and-present-danger agenda is surpassed in transparency only by his ultra-leftist public voting record and overall lifetime conduct of consorting with the enemy as a child and student of Marxism, socialist and racist community organizer, congregant of the blatant America-hating black-theology- and social-justice-spewing Rev. Jeremiah Wright and close personal friend of convicted communist terrorists like Bill Ayers, and by his unflinching appointment of an array of communist czars, including Van Jones, Cass Sunstein, Anita Dunne, et al."
OK, first of all Ted, and any Teabaggers that might be reading, the moment you say "Bill Ayers", "Saul Alinsky", or "ACORN", thinking people stop listening. It was irrelevant bullshit in 2008, and it's still irrelevant bullshit now. Secondly, all you igtards yammering about communist czars, please go take a history lesson. The Czars were absolute rulers, the Caesers of Russia. The notion of multiple Czars being appointed is, well, like having multiple all powerful gods being chosen by mere mortals. "Czar" in the US is a hokey term for certain appointed positions, has been going on since Reagan and his idiot Drug Czar William Bennett, and is another phantom issue like the three A's above. Furthermore, the communists were the friggin people that overthrew the damned line of Czars, murdered the last one and his children in cold blood. So talking about communist Czars is like talking about Nazi Jews.
And you wonder why the stereotype of the Teabaggers is an ignorant blowhard...
Friday, July 16, 2010
Women Clergy as bad as Child Rape Sez Vatican
Yep, that's right, allowing a woman to be a priest is as bad as raping children, or so says the Catholic church. I guess that means if they catch any ordainers, they'll just move them around instead of punishing them or bothering the proper authorities about it.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Fast Food Anecdote
Inspired from this discussion
It seems clear to me that fast food is hopelessly unhealthy and expensive compared to almost anything home cooked. I don't buy the "I don't have time" argument either, unless one is on the road between destinations. Nonetheless...
...while in college in 1984, drained of funds and willing to do nearly anything ethical to get by, I took full advantage of the McDonald's Olympic game. This is the one where you get free food if the Americans medal in the event printed on your free game card you get when you go in. I would wander by between classes and scoop up game cards left by those not as desperate as I. When the month to turn them in came, I did so. All of them. Every day. 3-4 times: a Big Mac, fries, and a coke, for a month. I didn't gain a pound, nor notice any ill health effects.
Then again, my main mode of transportation was my bicycle, and to say my metabolism was high would be a major understatement. The lesson I take from that is not that fast food isn't unhealthy, or can't be cheap for that matter. It's that one shouldn't do medical research with a sample space of one. Oh, and never eat 3-4 Big Macs a day for a month. It's likely to cause you to never eat one again.
It seems clear to me that fast food is hopelessly unhealthy and expensive compared to almost anything home cooked. I don't buy the "I don't have time" argument either, unless one is on the road between destinations. Nonetheless...
...while in college in 1984, drained of funds and willing to do nearly anything ethical to get by, I took full advantage of the McDonald's Olympic game. This is the one where you get free food if the Americans medal in the event printed on your free game card you get when you go in. I would wander by between classes and scoop up game cards left by those not as desperate as I. When the month to turn them in came, I did so. All of them. Every day. 3-4 times: a Big Mac, fries, and a coke, for a month. I didn't gain a pound, nor notice any ill health effects.
Then again, my main mode of transportation was my bicycle, and to say my metabolism was high would be a major understatement. The lesson I take from that is not that fast food isn't unhealthy, or can't be cheap for that matter. It's that one shouldn't do medical research with a sample space of one. Oh, and never eat 3-4 Big Macs a day for a month. It's likely to cause you to never eat one again.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Dealing with Traveling Evangelists: Preach The Boot
Here's a great story about two effective ways to deal with traveling evangelicals. You can impale them on their own spear:
Or you can satirize them:
In this second scenario, a student set up next to the evangelist and preached the word of the boot, and it's protection from the evil wetness. Shamed, the evangelist had little to say except "You're all going to Hell!". Like their cousins the Teabaggers, they have little defense from satire, because most people can't tell the difference at a glance. For the greatest example of this, read Mark Twain's The War Prayer.
The victims in the pictures are Brother Jed and Sister Cindy, who, those of you who've gone to college in the last 50 years know, travel around the country delivering their folksy fire-and-brimstone Christianity. I remember spending part of my afternoons mocking Cindy mercilessly. The big burr up her ass then was rock-n-roll, and it was going to send us to the LAKE...OF...FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!!! We'd bring a jam box and sing along to Stairway to Heaven while she ranted. I also recall one year a huge transvestite dressed for Halloween showed up and confronted Cindy, who literally curled up into a ball until the, um, guy(?) left.
Jed wasn't much fun then, looks like nothing changed. They must have found a fountain of youth somewhere, they don't look to have aged a day in 20+ years. But then, they came pre-aged.
Or you can satirize them:
In this second scenario, a student set up next to the evangelist and preached the word of the boot, and it's protection from the evil wetness. Shamed, the evangelist had little to say except "You're all going to Hell!". Like their cousins the Teabaggers, they have little defense from satire, because most people can't tell the difference at a glance. For the greatest example of this, read Mark Twain's The War Prayer.
The victims in the pictures are Brother Jed and Sister Cindy, who, those of you who've gone to college in the last 50 years know, travel around the country delivering their folksy fire-and-brimstone Christianity. I remember spending part of my afternoons mocking Cindy mercilessly. The big burr up her ass then was rock-n-roll, and it was going to send us to the LAKE...OF...FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!!! We'd bring a jam box and sing along to Stairway to Heaven while she ranted. I also recall one year a huge transvestite dressed for Halloween showed up and confronted Cindy, who literally curled up into a ball until the, um, guy(?) left.
Jed wasn't much fun then, looks like nothing changed. They must have found a fountain of youth somewhere, they don't look to have aged a day in 20+ years. But then, they came pre-aged.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
Stupid Things Democrats Say: Here's Your Chance Democrat Haters
For all of you splitting at the sides at my policy of not allowing tit-for-tat partisan political comments, this post is for you. Here's your chance to make good your boasts that the Democrats are just as stupid as the Republicans. Think my posts are biased against the GOP because its stupidity gets highlighted more than that from the Democrats? Now's put-up-or-shut-up time. To maintain focus and avoid the tactics of obfuscation (which is one of the main bases for my policy), here are the ground rules:
1) Give an exact quote by a Democrat with either a primary source, or a respected non-Rupert-Murdock-owned secondary source. No paraphrasing, no "watch this link", no "Ann Coulter said so", no "Some people say".
2) Describe what changes would need to be made to the statement to make it correct, and if it is a scientific subject, source your answer to some widely respected authority on the matter (ie a scientific organization or representative of its view). We can't measure how wide of the mark an idiotic statement is if we don't know what a true statement would be, and differing with GOP orthodoxy does not idiocy make.
3) Tell me what statement by a GOPer is comparable. Be sure to keep in mind #2, as well as how respected the speaker is on his side of the aisle, and how large an audience he has. It's hardly reasonable to compare something said by a Gaia tree-hugger whose group meets in a phone booth with something Sarah Palin said.
Failing to conform to this criteria will result in noninclusion. This is not an opportunity to toss as much shit against the wall as you can in an effort to see what sticks.
My contention, as made evident by my many blog postings on this subject, is that the "breathtaking inanity" (Bush-appointed Judge Jones' description of the Intelligent Design crowd) expressed by GOP politicians and supporters dwarfs that of Democrats by orders of magnitude, both in wideness of the reality mark, and the audience and respect such views get. It's never been my contention that there are NO stupid crazy democrats. But democrats who say things every bit as crazy as what creationists say are mostly laughed at by other Democrats, or hidden in the attic. They don't nominate them for Vice President. They don't make their views part of the party platform. The GOP does.
On every issue where there is a clear scientific consensus, and the two parties differ, it is the GOP on the ignorant side of the aisle. Whether it is evolution, global warming, stem cell research, abstinence-only birth control, and a host of other issues, it's the democrats that side closest to the best science we have. The Republicans pay lip service to science, and try desperately to give the impression that their ideology is supported by it, but in the end when science clashes with their ideology, ideology wins. That goes for overtly religious subjects like evolution, to more secular religious views like supply-side economics and pure capitalism. The Laffer curve is every bit as religious, and evidence-free, as a 6,000 year-old-earth is, as is the notion that government ruins everything. Ever hear of WWII, the moon landing, or the interstate highway system? Government programs all.
Again, that's not to say the Democrats are above criticism. On too many subjects, they deviate from clear science and mathematics (the drug war, gun control, social security, etc.) It's just small potatoes compared to what Republicans do, and is usually a lesser level of error. I'd compare the Republicans and Democrats to two doctors presented with our sick society. The Democrats want to bleed it with leeches. The Republicans want to pray for its recovery. While both solutions are clearly flawed, the Democrats are epistemologically eons ahead. At least their proposal understands that there are physical forces at work here, that they are part of the body politic, and curing what ails it means changing that physicality somehow. The Republican method doesn't even seem comfortable with objective reality, and is essentially relying on magic. The Democrats flaws can be changed with data. The GOP is stuck where it is forever, because to them, what seems true in their gut, or their mind, makes scientific evidence-gathering irrelevant. Republicans are, in every way that matters, still living in the 18th century. They never went through the scientific renaissance. They are still Aristotelian.
Think I'm wrong? Here's your chance to prove it.
1) Give an exact quote by a Democrat with either a primary source, or a respected non-Rupert-Murdock-owned secondary source. No paraphrasing, no "watch this link", no "Ann Coulter said so", no "Some people say".
2) Describe what changes would need to be made to the statement to make it correct, and if it is a scientific subject, source your answer to some widely respected authority on the matter (ie a scientific organization or representative of its view). We can't measure how wide of the mark an idiotic statement is if we don't know what a true statement would be, and differing with GOP orthodoxy does not idiocy make.
3) Tell me what statement by a GOPer is comparable. Be sure to keep in mind #2, as well as how respected the speaker is on his side of the aisle, and how large an audience he has. It's hardly reasonable to compare something said by a Gaia tree-hugger whose group meets in a phone booth with something Sarah Palin said.
Failing to conform to this criteria will result in noninclusion. This is not an opportunity to toss as much shit against the wall as you can in an effort to see what sticks.
My contention, as made evident by my many blog postings on this subject, is that the "breathtaking inanity" (Bush-appointed Judge Jones' description of the Intelligent Design crowd) expressed by GOP politicians and supporters dwarfs that of Democrats by orders of magnitude, both in wideness of the reality mark, and the audience and respect such views get. It's never been my contention that there are NO stupid crazy democrats. But democrats who say things every bit as crazy as what creationists say are mostly laughed at by other Democrats, or hidden in the attic. They don't nominate them for Vice President. They don't make their views part of the party platform. The GOP does.
On every issue where there is a clear scientific consensus, and the two parties differ, it is the GOP on the ignorant side of the aisle. Whether it is evolution, global warming, stem cell research, abstinence-only birth control, and a host of other issues, it's the democrats that side closest to the best science we have. The Republicans pay lip service to science, and try desperately to give the impression that their ideology is supported by it, but in the end when science clashes with their ideology, ideology wins. That goes for overtly religious subjects like evolution, to more secular religious views like supply-side economics and pure capitalism. The Laffer curve is every bit as religious, and evidence-free, as a 6,000 year-old-earth is, as is the notion that government ruins everything. Ever hear of WWII, the moon landing, or the interstate highway system? Government programs all.
Again, that's not to say the Democrats are above criticism. On too many subjects, they deviate from clear science and mathematics (the drug war, gun control, social security, etc.) It's just small potatoes compared to what Republicans do, and is usually a lesser level of error. I'd compare the Republicans and Democrats to two doctors presented with our sick society. The Democrats want to bleed it with leeches. The Republicans want to pray for its recovery. While both solutions are clearly flawed, the Democrats are epistemologically eons ahead. At least their proposal understands that there are physical forces at work here, that they are part of the body politic, and curing what ails it means changing that physicality somehow. The Republican method doesn't even seem comfortable with objective reality, and is essentially relying on magic. The Democrats flaws can be changed with data. The GOP is stuck where it is forever, because to them, what seems true in their gut, or their mind, makes scientific evidence-gathering irrelevant. Republicans are, in every way that matters, still living in the 18th century. They never went through the scientific renaissance. They are still Aristotelian.
Think I'm wrong? Here's your chance to prove it.
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