Neil deGrasse Tyson on why Intelligent Design is stupid

The Universe is so hostile to life it makes me laugh that religionists are convinced it was created with us in mind. We’re like a tiny bit of bacteria living on a rock that’s about to be engulfed by a river of lava. Mother Nature is a cruel bitch just itching to take us out, and will succeed eventually!

Hitchens vs Berlinski

In case you don’t know who the hell David Berlinski is (and trust me, you aren’t missing much), he’s a mathematician and a critic of evolution. He likes to use transparently obvious slight-of-hand math to try to disprove one of the most solid theories in all of science. He describes himself as a “maverick intellectual” (what the fuck does that mean?), which gives you an idea of his qualifications. If you’re a fellow of the Discovery Institute, you’ve got zero respectability in my book. The rest of the video after the jump.

Joe Dixon’s Atheist Bible Study

Fan of the show, Joe Dixon, does a little video series called “Atheist Bible Study” and asked me to post this. His bow tie was so charming I forgave the fact the video is 15 minutes long. Well, my last podcast was over an hour and a half, so who am I to judge? You’ve got to love his enthusiasm.

Hitch’s little brother is religious

This may surprise you, but it turns out Christopher Hitchens’ little brother is religious. So religious in fact he wrote a book called The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith. It’s basically a repudiation (heh) of his big bro’s book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and it argues religion keeps shaky civilizations from collapsing (maybe on Opposite Day) and prevents the horrors of utopianism as seen through communist regimes such as Russia and China.

The first half of the video is spent showing his accomplishment dick is just as big as his brother Christopher’s, and then around the 4 minute mark he starts talking about his conversion (“I realized one day I might be judged”), his relationship with his brother (not good, considering their father’s deathbed attempt to reconcile them), and his thoughts on atheism’s shortcomings.

It’s an interesting glance into the Hitchens family and the cool things they have all accomplished. You can read a pretty thorough breakdown of his book and the claims he makes on its wiki page. It’s a pretty good way to dust up on the newest style of attacks from religious people, aka the myth that ‘Atheism would do it worse.’

I admire this woman

It takes guts to stand up to Muslims and tell them their faith is hopelessly antiquated, backward, barbaric, and a threat to our modern values. It takes even more guts to do so when you’re an Arab. That’s why I’m in total admiration of this woman. How brave is she? How many of you would be willing to say what she said, in light of the danger it presents? That’s courage, folks!

Why do good things happen to bad people?

Alright, the video is a little long, but it’s still entertaining, and he’s right in saying the answers to this fundamentally important question are all completely inadequate. I think theists should just admit if there is a God, he/she/it is certainly not “All Loving”. A simple look at Hell would quickly demonstrate that fact. No matter how cruel the real world is (with people and animals suffering untold pain), at least eventually it’s over. But in the supposed “supernatural” realm, pain supposedly continues for eternity. This is not the action of an all loving God, but rather those of a revenge-hungry maniac. Good thing it’s all bullshit, right?

This song blows

So diversity is bad? Were they also trying to say everyone needs a gun too? I’m confused…

Getting Harassed: Christian-style

The difference between a bully and a Christian in some of these small towns is they feel vindicated for what they do when they “pray” for the souls of us poor heathens. Listen to the guy at the end: yeah, it must totally be our “militant atheism” that makes people hate us. I mean before Richard Dawkins and Hitchens wrote their respective books, the world was a better place for atheists, and we were treated like gold!

Vintage Carl Sagan

Back when Venus was still such a mystery. Looks like Sagan’s guess was a pretty good one, huh?

Intelligence Squared Debate: Is Islam a religion of peace?

Here is Ayaan Hirsi Ali debating whether or not Islam is a religion of peace. I spend an inordinate amount of time debating this with people, but unlike Ayaan, I haven’t had first hand experience in the violence and misogyny of Islam.
I’m sick of the argument politics is responsible for the violence of this religion. Why is everyone ignoring the elephant in the room? The actions of the religious may be political, but Islam is not a religion that makes a strong distinction between religion and government.

It doesn’t get sweeter than this

Man, credit to QualiaSoup for really dishing out the pain. I can’t imagine a more brutal and decisive strike against creationism and their junk science. Good way to wake up, am I right?

Gay Marriage will destroy America

Gay marriage will ruin families, don’t you know? By allowing the same rights to homosexuals as their straight counter-parts, it’ll create a slippery slope where mothers and fathers will abandon their families and follow some smelly hippy around who claims to be the son of man.

We Stand Defeated, People

So let’s surmise this man’s arguments.

  • I think God is a better explanation because I clearly don’t understand cosmic evolution.
  • The complexity of the environment is best understood by belief in an even more complex and mysterious strange force that exists outside of time and space
  • I see design everywhere, therefore a designer best explains what I see.
  • The alternative to my theory is the Universe popped out of a desert
  • Ethics and morality never existed before the Bronze Age
  • The mind can’t come from matter because that sounds less favorable to my opinion.

Irrefutable, really. I should just pack up my shit and start my new life in the service of an ever-loving man-god figure who’s sole interest in life is the absolute sheepish devotion of an ape that walks upright and takes itself way too seriously.