Daylight Atheism » The Observatory

Why the Anti-Science Creationist Movement Is So Dangerous

Ebonmuse — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 10:49:11 +0000

This essay was originally published on AlterNet.

A few weeks ago, Jon Huntsman torpedoed his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination by making the following announcement:

To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call ... [visit site to read more]

Near-Death Experiences Without Being Near Death

Ebonmuse — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:45:10 +0000

I've written before about near-death experiences and what they can prove about the existence of the soul. Now another study has come to my attention, one that has an even more potent conclusion. (HT: Boing Boing)

It's long been known that the ... [visit site to read more]

New on AlterNet: Why Creationism Is Dangerous

Ebonmuse — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:52:27 +0000

My latest article has been posted on AlterNet, Why the Anti-Science Creationist Movement Is So Dangerous. In it, I survey the history of the modern creationist movement, point out how it's completely captured one of America's two major political parties, and illuminate the larger ideological goals that lie behind the assault on evolution. Read the excerpt below, then click through and ... [visit site to read more]

Tax Breaks for Ignorance

Ebonmuse — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:49:42 +0000

As you doubtless already know, America is suffering through an unprecedented economic disaster. With millions of people jobless and millions of homeowners underwater, the economy is stagnant and its prospects are dim. Which is why, in these hard times, nothing is more important than shoveling more taxpayer dollars into the gaping maw of the fundamentalist carnival sideshow:

A group ... [visit site to read more]

Creationist Target Practice

Ebonmuse — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 19:50:56 +0000

Yesterday, someone calling himself Rev. Skeens posted the following comment. I rejected it since it had no perceptible connection to the post it was submitted under, but then I had second thoughts. Granted that this is beginner-level stuff and hardly challenging, but it's been a while since we honed our debating skills on an actual creationist around here, so I thought it might be entertaining to throw it out there and use it for target practice. ... [visit site to read more]

200,000 Earths

Ebonmuse — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:58:04 +0000

[Think we're all ready to talk about something else for a while? —Ebonmuse]

In May 1987, astronomers witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime event: a supernova, the explosive death of a supergiant star, in the Large Magellanic Cloud approximately 170,000 light-years from Earth. SN 1987A, as it was named, was the first supernova to be studied using the instruments of modern astronomy (although not the first supernova witnessed by ... [visit site to read more]

News Flash: Psychics Still Useless

Ebonmuse — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 17:22:01 +0000

You may have heard about this bizarre story out of Texas this week, where a self-proclaimed psychic called police with a tip that a certain home was the site of a mass grave containing dozens of dismembered bodies, including the bodies of children. A swarm of reporters, FBI agents and Texas Rangers promptly converged on the address, bringing cameras, news helicopters and cadaver-sniffing dogs.

At first they found spots of ... [visit site to read more]

Darwin's Long Regret

Ebonmuse — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 10:59:44 +0000

Since we've been reading a lot lately about scientists pandering to religion, it's worth remembering that there's nothing new under the sun. As long as there's been science, there have been believers who fought fiercely to prevent their god of choice from being dislodged from a gap, and there have been scientists who felt obliged to placate them. Even some of humanity's greatest scientists felt this pressure, and bowed to ... [visit site to read more]

A Confluence of Holidays

Ebonmuse — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 11:50:50 +0000

This year, there's an interesting calendrical coincidence: Today is both Earth Day and Good Friday. That being so, I thought it would prove enlightening to compare these two holidays and the messages they respectively send to their practitioners.

One of the holidays on this date is to commemorate the gory death of a Jewish mystic some two thousand years ago, a dimly remembered event in an obscure corner of a long-vanished empire - an event which, we're told, takes precedence over everything ... [visit site to read more]

The Language of God: Biologos: Epic Fail

Ebonmuse — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:52:19 +0000

The Language of God, Chapter 10

By B.J. Marshall

In this chapter, Collins tackles the claim that BioLogos damages both science and religion. Collins disagrees in a way that fails so epically that it almost makes the previous sections of this book seem prescient.

For the atheist scientist, BioLogos seems to be another "God of the gaps" theory imposing the presence of the divine where none is needed or desired. This argument is not apt. BioLogos doesn't try to ... [visit site to read more]

The Language of God: Bridging the Gap Between Science and Faith

Ebonmuse — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 22:39:36 +0000

The Language of God, Chapter 10

By B.J. Marshall

Chapter 10 introduces Collins' concept of BioLogos, but first he gives an overview of Theistic Evolution (TE) and why it works to bridge science and faith. Although we've talked about TE previously, this chapter shows Collins laying out six premisses that support TE. He then has a short discourse explaining the conclusions he thinks follow from these premisses.

Premiss 1: "The universe came into being out of nothingness, ... [visit site to read more]

Treating Demon Possession with Antipsychotics

Ebonmuse — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 10:56:25 +0000

As I've written in the past, modern Christianity has never outgrown the demoniac fixation of its founders, who believed that evil spirits were constantly on the prowl and assaulting them. People like Gary Collins - an evangelical, a clinical psychologist, and the head of a 15,000-member association of Christian counselors - still believes, based not on evidence but on his "theological beliefs", that demons exist ... [visit site to read more]