- Photo Sunday: Icy Complexity
The Foyer • February 28, 2010
For this week's Photo Sunday, a seasonally appropriate picture. There's complexity in the world all around us, and the patterns of cracks and pits on the frozen surface of this lake, almost like the surface of an alien planet, caught my eye as a beautiful example:
Frozen lake surface, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, January 2010. [...]
- What Is Freethought?
The Garden • February 26, 2010
I've often used the terms "freethought" and "freethinker" on this blog, but I've never explicitly defined them. In this post, continuing my efforts at defining words that are important to the atheist movement, I want to speak briefly about how I use these terms and what I understand them to mean.
As the Freedom from Religion [...]
- An Atheist at Liberty University, Part III
The Loft • February 24, 2010
When the church service let out, my friends and I toured several other buildings on campus. We stopped by the dorms, which are strictly gender-segregated:
I wonder what mindset lies behind this. Is it because the trustees of Liberty believe it's indecent for men and women to mingle in public? Then why aren't the classes and [...]
- Jehovah Died on the Challenger
The Loft • February 23, 2010
By Sarah Braasch
In Loving Memory of My Baby Brother, Jacob Michael Braasch (01/28/86 – 02/02/10)
I was working on this piece when I received news that my beloved youngest brother, Jacob, had taken his own life by hanging himself in my parents' basement.
I was ten, almost eleven when my mother told me and my brother [...]
- A Profile in Nonbelief: Roger Ebert
The Garden • February 22, 2010
Most Americans have heard of the movie critic and writer Roger Ebert. But what most people probably didn't know - what I didn't know - is that he hasn't been able to eat, drink or speak since 2006. That was the year when most of his jaw had to be surgically removed, the result of [...]
- Photo Sunday: Lows Lake Sunset
The Foyer • February 21, 2010
This week's guest contributor says:
"Day three of a canoe exploration of Lows Lake and the Bog River Flow, Adirondacks. This dreamlike scene marked the end of an idyllic day of slow paddling and fishing for dinner. The world takes a breath and pauses...."
Sunset, Lows Lake, Adirondack State Park. Photo credit: Jim Sabiston, Essential Light Photography. [...]
- An Atheist at Liberty University, Part II
The Loft • February 20, 2010
(See Part I here.)
When the band finished their set, they departed and the pastor took the stage. He was relatively young, probably not much older than most members of the audience, and dressed in a plain shirt and jeans. His name, displayed on the giant screens overhead, was Johnnie Moore - a self-conscious use of [...]
- An Atheist at Liberty University
The Loft • February 18, 2010
If you noticed that Daylight Atheism was quieter than usual this past weekend, you were right - I was out of town and had limited internet access. But there was a good reason for my absence: I was on a secret mission to penetrate into the very heart of the Bible Belt. Namely, I was [...]
- Catholic Sex Abuse in Germany
The Rotunda • February 16, 2010
It happened in America. It happened in Ireland. Now, it seems that another major Catholic sex abuse scandal is about to break open - this time in Germany (HT: Butterflies and Wheels).
As the German newspaper Der Spiegel reports, the pattern we're now seeing from abuse victims who've come forward is very much the same as [...]
- The Case for a Creator: ID on Trial
The Observatory • February 15, 2010
The Case for a Creator, Chapter 8
The best place to settle a scientific debate is in the peer-reviewed journals and the larger research community - a strategy which, as we've noted, the creationists have steered well clear of. This means, when they inevitably attempt to push their beliefs into public schools anyway, that we have [...]
- The Dimension of Divinity
The Library • February 12, 2010
I just finished reading The Happiness Hypothesis, a book by Jonathan Haidt, who's a professor in the new science of "positive psychology" at the University of Virginia. Most of the book is a straightforward distillation of scientific research on what truly brings happiness and contentment in life, illustrated with quotes and references to famous philosophers [...]
- Cathedrals
The Observatory • February 10, 2010
You may have heard that, after an exasperating series of setbacks and delays, the massive particle accelerator called the Large Hadron Collider is finally up and running. Even in preliminary tests, it's set records for the most powerful particle collisions ever recorded in a lab - and when it's reactivated later this year, it's expected [...]
- The Futility of Appeasement
The Rotunda • February 9, 2010
Quick! Somebody call the accommodationists!
Several men who went to a suburban mosque to perform morning prayers Wednesday were shocked to discover two bloodied wild boar heads wrapped in plastic bags in the mosque compound, said Zulkifli Mohamad, the top official at the Sri Sentosa Mosque on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's largest city.
This unpleasant [...]
- What Is Secularism?
The Garden • February 8, 2010
This month, I want to write about some words important to the atheist movement that are frequently misused and abused by religious apologists. The first of these words is secularism.
In the rhetoric of spokespeople for the religious right, secularism is often assumed to be the desire to ban all forms of religious expression from public [...]
- Photo Sunday: Pharaoh Lake Sunrise
The Foyer • February 7, 2010
This week's guest contributor says:
"This is why it pays to rise with the sun. Very few people are blessed with the experience of a wilderness sunrise such as this gem. After a morning like this, the world cannot help but seem a miraculous place."
Sunrise, Pharaoh Lake, Adirondack State Park. Photo credit: Jim Sabiston, Essential Light [...]
- Movie Review: Creation
The Loft • February 6, 2010
Last night I had a chance to see Creation, the independent film by British director Jon Amiel that presents an account of the life of Charles Darwin and his struggle to write his great work, On the Origin of Species, while mourning the death of his beloved daughter Annie. The movie is based on Annie's [...]
- The Case for a Creator: The Poker Player's Fallacy
The Observatory • February 5, 2010
The Case for a Creator, Chapter 8
In my review of Darwin's Black Box, I listed three ways that an irreducibly complex system can evolve:
The first can be summed up as scaffolding: extra parts which support a partially functional system until it is completely assembled, at which point the extra parts become unnecessary and are pruned [...]
- Book Review: The Quantum Mechanic
The Library • February 3, 2010
Summary: A compelling atheist thought experiment, wrapped inside a cleverly plotted and fast-paced tale of transhumanist fiction.
This isn't the first time I've reviewed a book written by a fellow blogger, but it's always a pleasure for me to do, and this one was particularly pleasurable to read. The Quantum Mechanic is a novel written by [...]
- In Which I Am Not Filled With Optimism
The Foyer • February 2, 2010
Via Ophelia Benson, this unwelcome news: the Center for Inquiry's podcast Point of Inquiry, which I listened to regularly until now, is seeing a change in hosts. D.J. Grothe, who formerly conducted the interviews, is leaving to serve as the president of the James Randi Educational Foundation. He'll be replaced by a rotating series of [...]
- Strange and Curious Sects: Chabad Messianism
The Library • February 1, 2010
You get all kinds of weird and amusing religious literature on the New York subways, and here's the latest proof:
Click to enlarge. Also see interior and back cover.
If you've attended a college with a significant Jewish population, you're probably familiar with Chabad House, an organization that runs community centers and programs for observant Jews. What [...]
