Most people accept, at least tacitly, the majority of scientific claims: general relativity, quantum mechanics, pharmaceuticals; people accept that these work more or less the way the scientists say they do. Indeed, in almost all aspects of our lives people accept that a reasoned, evidential basis for knowledge is paramount.
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Dead Wild Roses: The Living Dinosaur – Part 1 Holy Hallucinations
Scientific truths in the Koran? TLD explores the issue. Filed under: Religion, Science Tagged: Holy Hallucinations, Religion and Science, The Living Dinosaur
Continue readingFive of Five: Dan Savage and the Economist
A few days ago the Economist magazine ran a short opinion piece on the Dan Savage “bible bullshit” speech and the predictable reaction that followed from the religious right. A good number of atheist and humanist bloggers that I read were not entirely happy with the Economist’s comments. I think
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Theramin Trees – Death
What happens when we realize that religion is just a cultural vehicle to salve our irrational fear of death? Theramin Trees produces another outstanding video that engages the intellect with explanations of why we act the way we do when faced with the facts of our mortality. Seventeen minutes long,
Continue readingNorthern Insight: How bigotry survives
For more than 25 years, the Catholic Church has been entangled in sexual abuse scandals, costing billions in settlements, debasing the church and wrecking the faith of many devout members. The BBC published a lengthy list: Catholic Church sex abuse scandals around the world and a common thread is maintenance
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: To what possible end with …
… the “human life” thing? Yes, I’m pro-life. Yes, I have argued here in the past there is a need to open up a debate — not necessarily on banning the abortion procedure but how far along a pregnancy is before restrictions ought to begin, as well as to have
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Analytical Thinking Curbs Religious Conviction
Duh, really? We now have a scientific study, courtesy of UBC, that shows analytical thinking can be really bad for clinging to religious faith. The psychology report, published today in the prestigious journal Science, reveals that religious belief drops after subjects perform analytical tasks or are exposed to Rodin’s sculpture,
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Yes Your Religion Sounds This Stupid – AronRa at the Global Atheist Convention
Videos like these get my heart beating faster. The sheer amount of ignorance displayed by the faithfully deluded is recorded for the world to watch and collectively groan as they*facepalm* to shield themselves from the pants-on-fire grade of stupid emanating from the mouths of creationists. We have rationalists now (thank
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Sunday Disservice – A Sermon On Prayer
*In the style of the most stereotypical evangelical sermon voice you can imagine **congregation responses in red Brothers and Sisters! As I was perusing the web the other day, I heard a disturbing sound! *Amen I SAID As I was perusing the web the other day, I HEARD a DISTURBING
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Alberta Provincial Election – The Wildrose Faileth, so Say Mr.Lake of Fire and Mr.White Powah!
Only in Alberta does the the electorate consider ending the 40 year term of the staunchly right wing Progressive Conservatives with a party that is, you guessed it gentle reader, further to the right. The false populist veneer of the Alberta Wild Rose Party makes it appear palatable to the
Continue readingThe Sixth Estate: Yet Another Reason to Read Sun Media: Crackpot “Science”
As I trawled through the nation’s op-ed pages for my ongoing Media Bias project, I came across a true gem that’s making the rounds of its smaller community papers, a column so inane that apparently the big boys at the Toronto Sun wouldn’t touch it: Science has Death Knell for
Continue readingVatican’s virgin bishops tell women what to do, call nuns in U.S. radical feminists
First of all, if you’re a 40+ year old virgin and you believe in God, well then you need to shut the fuck up. Your opinions don’t matter when it comes to what women can and cannot do. I don’t care what your cowardly God says, but you stay away from meddling
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Quote of the Week – Jarod from Practical Doubt on Christianity.
This is the conclusion to a great article found on Practical Doubt. “Hidden beneath the inclusive guise of Christianity exists the absurd notion that people are capable of understanding the depth of humanity through the eyes of faith. They engage this masturbatory exercise without the slightest comprehension of words
Continue readingbastard.logic: They’re (Still) Just Not That Into You
Sorry, Evangelicals: Only one in five Jewish Americans holds favorable views of those aligned with the Christian right, a category that includes most of Israel’s evangelical supporters. […] The survey, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and published April 3, asked Jewish respondents to rate the favorability of several religious
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: AronRa – Reason Rally – The Foolishness of Faith
This video, like the Thunderf00t reason rally video, is about taking the superstition and religious non-sense head on. There is no moderator, no stage just the free exchange of ideas and arguments in a public forum. AronRa does a marvellous job of handling all the ‘gotcha’ questions the deluded
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The DWR Sunday Disservice – Easter Sunday – god still not good.
Debating the religious on a one to one basis is almost always an exercise in frustration. The religious indoctrination often runs both wide and deep making finding a reasonable starting point extremely difficult. What is beneficial is to listen to both side advance their arguments and then deconstruct them
Continue readingMontreal Simon: My Easter Message and the Real Christians
Well I must admit I can’t think of a better Easter message, than this one outside a church in Oregon. Tom Tate, the pastor of Rose City Park United Methodist Church in northeast Portland, told The Blaze that the sign shows his 385-member church’s “radical hospitality” towards people who feel
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: On unnecessarily codifying specific freedoms such as the freedom of religion
Should there be explicit protection for the freedom of religion in the founding documents of society? This question may at first seem to be an obvious ‘yes’ since almost everyone – including most atheists such as myself – consider it to be abundantly clear that people should have the freedom
Continue readingWoody-Worthless!
Boys ‘n’ girls, it seems that that abortion debate is going to be reopened, whether we want it to or not. Yikes! Even certain “progressive” bloggers seem to be taking a shine to it. This one seems to not like it when a reporter is doing his/her job when questioning
Continue readingRed Tory v.3.0.3: “This Will Always Be So” (Or Not)
Some readers may recall a post from a little while back featuring Richard Dawkins appearing on MSNBC’s weekend “Up” program where he floated the provocative idea of taking politicians to task for some of their kooky religious beliefs… Well, guess what? It seems that someone did precisely that the other
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