Atheists, Agnostics & Freethinkers

Hi, This is Francis, developer of the app. Thanks...

2009-11-08T08:30:25.740-08:00

Hi,

This is Francis, developer of the app. Thanks for the mention. Here's a promo code to download the app for FREE: P7WJAJK9LKYP

Cheers - Francis
http://itunes.com/apps/Biblethumper

It's pretty good.

2009-11-06T17:12:44.245-08:00

It's pretty good.

awesome, thanks! I was considering saying Bill Gat...

2009-11-05T07:49:11.451-08:00

awesome, thanks! I was considering saying Bill Gates because I knew he donated a lot, and I wish I remembered those details at that time. I'll also check out that blog you showed me.

I would have said Bill Gates. He's an atheist, and...

2009-11-04T15:22:29.775-08:00

I would have said Bill Gates. He's an atheist, and he's donated a lot to charity. Details from Wikipedia: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest transparently operated private foundation in the world, with the goals of enhancing healthcare and reducing extreme poverty globally, and expanding educational opportunities and access to information technology in America. As of 2007, Bill & Melinda were the second most generous philanthropists in the US.

You could check out the Celebrity Atheist List (http://www.celebatheists.com) and see if you recognize anyone. Also, one of my favorite bloggers has been doing a series of posts on the contributions of freethinkers (http://www.daylightatheism.org/series/the-contributions-of-freethinkers).

:)

2009-11-03T14:28:12.457-08:00

Fellow AAFers! Thank you so much for making this s...

2009-11-02T12:52:43.159-08:00

Fellow AAFers! Thank you so much for making this such a great event, it really was a good time. Not only did we go on a tractor ride, we WON IT FOR FREE. Yes, that's right, by finding all the ridiculously posted highlighters around the corn maze. By the way, did that remind anyone else of a horror movie? After cautiously biting into some fallen apples (deeeelish), we walked our Radio Flyers over to the pumpkin patch (only about three miles out) to pick some fresh pumpkins. Hopefully all of those that took yours home carved little upside down crosses into them, or maybe a little spaghetti monster. The petting zoo was probably my favorite part. Especially when Bob pretended to eat the kitty food (nobody noticed this?). Also, thanks to all those that came with rides (we actually had more than we needed!). Let's try to make this an annual event, and follow it up with some pumpkin carving and alcoholic cider drinking. WHOSE IN?!

whey does he get offended if anyone just talks abo...

2009-10-31T10:33:56.387-07:00

whey does he get offended if anyone just talks about his beliefs .. shouldn't he be believing his beliefs !!

A creation myth fit to publish in a pulp SF magazi...

2009-10-27T01:32:06.136-07:00

A creation myth fit to publish in a pulp SF magazine... heck, I'd call it an improvement.

BAAFfles. C'man.

2009-10-20T23:56:02.669-07:00

BAAFfles. C'man.

Al Franken is the best senator.

2009-10-18T12:25:45.448-07:00

Al Franken is the best senator.

I certainly agree that science shouldn't get any m...

2009-10-18T09:34:30.863-07:00

I certainly agree that science shouldn't get any more credit than as a tool. However, that argument is tangential to what we were talking about (abusability of religion vs. science), as well as something I disagree with, depending on how you mean it. If by good you mean "let's add up all the good works religion has done" then yes, the good works that religion has done are certainly greater than zero, which is the good works done by science (and all other tools). But if you mean "let's add up all the good and ill done by religion and see how it balances out", then in my opinion religion has done (and still is doing) much more harm than good. In any event, I think it's a nonsensical argument, like saying that Henry Kissinger is responsible for more good than knives are.

If science cannot be blamed for the way it is used...

2009-10-17T16:47:04.243-07:00

If science cannot be blamed for the way it is used, then it doesn't seem as if it should get credit either. Ergo, by your logic, religion produces more good than science, since science cannot produce good but can only be an instrument to the production of good.

I would go back to the idea of proscriptive vs. de...

2009-10-16T13:13:44.776-07:00

I would go back to the idea of proscriptive vs. descriptive. Science made the atom bomb, but science didn't tell humanity to nuke Japan. That's something that people decided to do based on their values. Science made the polio vaccine, but science didn't tell humanity to eradicate that disease, we had to decide whether or not to do that on our own. In other words, I don't blame science for the tools it gives us, I blame people for how they use those tools.

When I think of abuse of science, I think of people allowing their biases to influence the interpretation of the data (if not outright fabricating data to match their desired conclusion). The quintessential example of this would be Tobacco Institue researchers. They falsely "proved" that tobacco wasn't harmful in exchange for money. However, other scientists can look at their data, and perform experiments of their own to verify or falisify that hypothesis, limiting (but not completely eliminating) such abuses.

When I think of abuse of religion, I think of religious leaders who don't really believe what they claim, but they're out there preaching because it gets them money, sex, and power. There isn't a mechanism of independant verification of their claims, so people can claim god says whatever they want and are limited only by what they can get people to believe.

Maybe we're talking about different kinds of abuse...

2009-10-16T11:27:25.250-07:00

Maybe we're talking about different kinds of abuse...

When I say abuse I'm talking about harm inflicted on humans, and I dare say that, since science has allowed us to create deadly weapons and perhaps even destroy our planet without meaning to via global warming, science may very well be many times more harmful than religion.

Holy crap Lois

2009-10-16T09:22:41.780-07:00

Holy crap Lois

Oh snippity snap, Mr. Rayman.

2009-10-14T16:54:31.976-07:00

Oh snippity snap, Mr. Rayman.

Lol.

2009-10-13T18:21:48.736-07:00

Lol.

'Atheist' Richard Dawkins

2009-10-10T07:34:33.883-07:00

'Atheist' Richard Dawkins

Um, excuse me Franklin, man was made in God's imag...

2009-10-07T22:07:10.177-07:00

Um, excuse me Franklin, man was made in God's image, so why wouldn't God have tear ducts? What do you think rain is?

I think that #1 is no more applicable to non-theis...

2009-10-05T11:58:10.347-07:00

I think that #1 is no more applicable to non-theists than theists (actually I think it's less applicable, but I'm aware that I might be biased). It might belong on a list of things that would make people seem nicer, but not one about atheists in particular.

#2 represents a complete misunderstanding of what's going on.

Christian: (Evangelizes to some "undecideds").
Atheist (to undecideds and Christian): That's not true, for reasons X, Y, and Z.
Christian: Quiet! I wasn't talking to you.

Providing a alternate explanation doesn't necessarily assume that the original assertion is directed at you. If it would make me seem nicer to not compete with Christians in the marketplace of ideas, I have no interest in seeming nice.

As to #4: Disagreed. Good science begins with a hy...

2009-10-05T08:50:07.191-07:00

As to #4:
Disagreed.
Good science begins with a hypothesis and the (mutually exclusive) inverse of the hypothesis.
Example Hypothesis: Jason is taller than Bob.
Example inverse hypothesis: Jason is not taller than Bob.
Then evidence is collected to determine which hypothesis is more likely, or hopefully to rule out one in order to prove the other. So, the results are NOT biased to the hypothesis, they ARE objective.

Second, while science is clearly subject to abuse, it is not AS subject to abuse as religion, because there is a good system for disproving the abuser.

Finally, I agree that science is fallible. That is precisely what makes it more trustworthy than a static system that claims perfection.

I think points #1 and #2 are good.

I was excited for the interview but then watched i...

2009-10-03T15:16:27.000-07:00

I was excited for the interview but then watched it and was disappointed. I felt like it was exactly the same as when he went on the Colbert Report in 2006.

That was made in reference to #4 from the original...

2009-10-01T13:30:38.676-07:00

That was made in reference to #4 from the original list. From my reading of the third paragraph of your first comment, I thought that you believed that science was able to be abused (which we agree on), and from the second paragraph of that same comment that it is not on the same level as religion (which we also agree on). Did I misunderstand what you were trying to say?

"so any attempt to make an equivalence between the...

2009-10-01T12:58:42.943-07:00

"so any attempt to make an equivalence between the abusability of religion and science is completely batshit insane"

I suppose there's no need for me to respond then.

Jason, you're making a severe logical error. I sai...

2009-10-01T08:21:33.116-07:00

Jason, you're making a severe logical error. I said that religion contains value judgements and science doesn't. That does not mean that every belief system that makes value judgements is therefore a religion. The definition of "religion" is kind of fuzzy, but I think that the vast majority of belief systems commonly considered as religious have a (descriptive) belief in metaphysical things, typically one or more gods and/or a soul that survives bodily death, as well as (proscriptive) beliefs about what we should do based on the desires of god(s) and/or the nature of the soul. Humanism, communism, capitalism, and chocolate-is-awesomeism all contain value judgements without appeal to anything metaphysical.

As for how I talked about science, I didn't talk about it being practiced in a void, I didn't say it wasn't open to abuse, and the proscriptive/descriptive thing has nothing to do with that point. All I said that it's not perfectly objective, but it's more objective than any other human endeavor. Science is designed to screen out personal bias and to be as objective as possible. People aren't perfect, so they don't do it perfectly, but I still believe that it's more objective than any other human endeavor. And I also think that the least objective belief systems tend to be religious (though certainly not all of them), so any attempt to make an equivalence between the abusability of religion and science is completely batshit insane.