Daylight Atheism » Environmentalism

Book Review: God, No!

Ebonmuse — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:42:24 +0000

(Author's Note: The following review was solicited and is written in accordance with this site's policy for such reviews.)

Summary: Just what you'd expect from its author: outspoken, boisterous, crude, frequently vulgar, often hilarious. Unapologetically atheist, but more about Penn Jillette the person than about atheism per se.

God, No! is written by Penn Jillette, the louder half of Penn & Teller who's well-known for ... [visit site to read more]

Rick Perry's Prayer Follies

Ebonmuse — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:25:32 +0000

Whether you're an atheist or not, you should be alarmed by the sight of elected officials making a big public show of praying during a crisis. It's not that prayer itself does anything one way or the other - it's that their beseeching the gods for help is a good hint, not just that they have no ideas, but that they've given up even trying and are staking their hopes on a miracle. Which is why this story, ... [visit site to read more]

Weekly Link Roundup

Ebonmuse — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 16:28:07 +0000

Some scattered thoughts to contemplate on a Saturday morning:

• Earlier this year, my post on urban agriculture drew some spirited disagreement. Now there's a study from Ohio State University which concludes that Cleveland could supply all its own produce, poultry and honey if the many vacant lots in the shrinking, ... [visit site to read more]

A Humanist Easter Homily

Ebonmuse — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 14:35:23 +0000

Today is Easter Sunday, the day when Christians celebrate Jesus' supposed resurrection from the tomb. But though they believe this holiday commemorates a unique and singular event, their timing is suspicious. As you may have noticed, Easter is very close (making some allowances for calendrical drift) to the vernal equinox, the first day of spring.

This strongly suggests that the story of Jesus' death and resurrection is another offshoot of the ancient harvest myth: the story of resurrection ... [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]

Movie Review: Into Eternity

Ebonmuse — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 19:28:30 +0000

This weekend, my wife and I saw Into Eternity, a gripping documentary by the Danish filmmaker Michael Madsen. It's well worth a wider audience, so here's a review of it that I hope will provoke some interest.

Every nuclear power plant in the world produces several tons of high-level ... [visit site to read more]

Using Purchasing Power for Good

Ebonmuse — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 17:06:30 +0000

Since 'tis the season for commercialism, shopping sprees and big-ticket purchases, I thought I'd write a post that I've had in mind for a long time. It's less about atheism per se, more about rationalism and being aware of the ways our choices shape the world around us.

We may scoff, and rightfully so, when the Supreme Court uses free speech as an excuse to lift campaign-finance restrictions on huge multinational corporations. But it's true, nevertheless: Money is a form of speech - and not ... [visit site to read more]

Under Green Leaves

Ebonmuse — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 10:52:56 +0000

In an old essay on Ebon Musings, "Finding Beauty in the Mundane", I wrote in a contemplative mood:

Have you ever considered the trees? Though their kind of life is far grander, slower and more patient than ours, they are each individuals, as different as human beings are. They add beauty to the world, give peace in their dappled shade, freshen the air and enrich the earth, and turn even the most hard-edged ... [visit site to read more]

How to Eradicate Militant Islam

Ebonmuse — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 10:54:21 +0000

It's said that nothing is harder to kill than an idea. Trying to stamp out a deeply felt belief by force, especially a religious belief, not only makes its followers cling to it more tenaciously, it gives them an aura of martyrdom that makes the belief look even more attractive to outsiders. And when the belief in question is a religious belief whose scriptures claim that persecution of the faithful is a sign of their righteousness, these tendencies become all the stronger.

This is more than ... [visit site to read more]

The Contributions of Freethinkers: Richard Leakey

Ebonmuse — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 01:06:45 +0000

Atheists have a great number of famous names to our credit. We can justly claim renowned composers, scientists, musicians, civil rights leaders - and conservationists, as we'll see in today's post on the contributions of freethinkers.

Richard Leakey was born in Nairobi in 1944, son of the famous archaeologist Louis Leakey. The elder Leakey was a strong supporter of racial equality, and Richard's upbringing reflected that belief. He started school soon after the Mau Mau rebellion had been ... [visit site to read more]

Fossilized Opinions

Ebonmuse — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:18:24 +0000

Sam Harris is famous for the argument that religion, even moderate religion, does harm by teaching that faith is a virtue that should not be questioned, which encourages militant and violent strains of fundamentalism. Today, I want to talk about another way, subtle but unmistakable, that religion causes harm to human beings.

Because of its tendency to treat all the statements of its founders and sacred texts as holy truth, religion has the effect of "freezing" the prejudices in vogue at the ... [visit site to read more]

Apotheosis

Ebonmuse — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:46:26 +0000

Last month, in "Dreams of a Better World", I considered some of the immediate problems humanity could solve if we had the collective will to do so. I want to continue that theme in this post, but from a longer perspective.

Historically, humanity's knowledge has exceeded its wisdom. As soon as we invent a new technology, we begin adopting it on a wide scale, without asking whether we should or what the ... [visit site to read more]