The Rational Sabbath, Vol II

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it rational. Six days shalt thou suffer inanity, and do all thy hair-pulling: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the atheists.

Welcome to the second weekly Rational Sabbath! Again, sorry again for the Sunday Sabbath.

How It Works

Why take the Sabbath day off to rest unproductively when I could use that time to do something useful and make a post comprising of about 5-10 of my favorite blog posts or news releases of the week? They are not necessarily about Ray Comfort; however, if I do find a post about Ray Comfort, I will include it here (unless I mention it in some other entry). I will also try making a weekly recommendation of each of the following which I think you would find useful, interesting, and/or entertaining:

* A Blog
* A Video (or series)
* An Audio File (or series/podcast)
* A Website
* A Book

Like last time, let me know your comments or thought on this Rational Sabbath. The response in comments and emails last week were quite favorable, even though this blog had just started.

Here is the second Rational Sabbath:

First, a listing of my top ten articles of the week, counting down to my favorite.

Over the past week, I have read about 550 blog posts (Google Reader is a marvelous device) from about 100 blogs and below are my top ten choices of the week. I marked about 25 articles as candidates before trimming down to 10. If you read something you think more worthy than these entries, please comment with a link or email me. I am interested in both theist and atheist blogs.

10. Fundie homophobes provide your daily dose of comedy by Martin from The Atheist Experience
You've got to love the inanity of anti-human rights, anti-civil rights groups and their websites. You've got to roll around laughing, then, when their foolishness makes front page news. OneNewsNow.com had their filters exposed as replacing gay with homosexual, because the latter is harsher sounding. That's definitely a news source you can trust.

Also covered by The Friendly Atheist.

9. Why I rejected Christianity: Sexuality by Adrian Hayter from The Atheist Blogger
I'm always a sucker for entries about why people believe (or don't believe) what they do (or don't). Adrian Hayter covers both gender and homosexuality and how they are treated by the Church and how he viewed them while religious. It's a nice, personal blog post.

8. Mischaracterizing Atheists by Hermant Mehta from The Friendly Atheist
This was a funny week for Chuck Colson, aka Ray's Soul Twin. He makes the exact same claim that "atheists don't exist." You may remember some of Colson's other greatest hits, such as that gay marriage is just a ruse to destroy Christianity. In this one, though, he pulls out his and Ray's favorite "atheists don't exist" shtick in a very funny way, but then continues it even further into an "agnostics don't exist" shtick.

Also covered by Heathenz.

7. A Picture of Child Abuse by James White from Pros Apologian
This is a Christian Apologetics blog I subscribe to. They usually stick just to theological questions. One day, this pops up in my feed from them and my jaw dropped. James introduces the post by saying he did not even read the article about gay marriages in California and just scrolled down and say a picture of two lesbians, married, with their child. Without knowing anything about the family, he declares it child abuse, and the parents child abusers. He makes the claim in this article that gay parents wanting to adopt (or bear) children are selfish and self-centered. What, then, does that make heterosexual parents? Or single parents? A picture of child abuse should, I don't know, show a picture of child abuse; not a picture of two people looking very much in love holding their child between them. My blood continues to boil...

6. A fundamentalist Christian answers The Atheist Thirteen by Adrian Hayter from The Atheist Blogger
Adrian makes two positions this week. You should remember him from my article covering Ray's "light is invisible" post. In this humorous article, he plays the role of a hypothetical Christian answering The Atheist Thirteen. My favorite part of this is the one-word description of ID: "truth." I find many of the answers spot on.

5. Anonymous wanted a body count total, so he will get one by GoodNewsAtheism from The Teapot Atheist
This has been widely circulating, so I wanted to contribute to it as well. I haven't had time to check the data, but it is an interesting read and list nonetheless. Be sure to read the comments. Christians still don't get it. We don't claim atheism makes you moral; however, Christians claim the religion/belief in God makes you moral, or something along those lines. If that were the case, we shouldn't see such high figures.

Also covered by The Atheist Blogger and Debunking Christianity.

4. Egnor vs PZ Myers by Steven Novella from NeuroLogica
Dr. Novella weighs in on Egnor's latest reply to PZ's latest reply. Egnor has been going back and forth with PZ and Steve for a while now (Steve on the issue of dualism). In this post, though, he analyzes the logic of Egnor's latest reply to PZ. It is an excellent article on the logical nuances and how Egnor was able to slightly shift the claim so as to respond to an entirely different issue altogether. If you liked how he picked it apart in this post, also look at his article Deconstructing the Cranks as it is excellent and goes into further analysis (I chose Egnor over this one as it had more to do with religion).

Also covered by Skeptico.

3. Counfounding stereotypes by Eshu from Bridging Schisms
Eshu has a pleasant post on her recent trip to a church and her encounter with some church regulars. Eshu covers dispelling the "misanthropic god-haters" atheist stereotype by simply interacting with the non-Ray Comfort brand of theists. I highly recommend this one.

2. Does God Exist? Does God Matter? by Austin Cline from About.com's Agnosticism / Atheism
I have been planning an article entitled "Theist in Practice; Deist in Defense." It would cover how theists often simply take the position of defending or even challenging us on the existence of some god instead of addressing their theistic views. This article does the job nicely, and also covers the aspect of "does god matter"? It is very much my view that no, it doesn't.

1. On the Morality of: Forgiveness by Ebonmuse from Daylight Atheism
Moving up from second last week is Ebonmuse with yet another enjoyable, interesting article. This entry explores the morality of the religious idea of being forgiven your "crimes" (not necessarily legal) against one person by another person, a non-action, or a deity. It also covers the idea central to Christianity: punishing one person for the crimes of another.

"At the heart of Christianity lies the same ancient superstition: that one person's guilt can be transferred to another and then absolved by punishing that other."


BLOG RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

Daylight Atheism -- Main Contributor: Ebonmuse

This blog has had three spots in the two Rational Sabbaths we have had and rightly so. I find all of the articles not only very interesting, but very pleasant to read as they are very well written. The subjects written on are vast and there are several series.

The site is split up into several categories:

• The Foyer
• The Observatory
• The Library
• The Loft
• The Rotunda
• The Garden

The categories span several subjects, such as science, essays, law, and atheism. Be sure to check out their must-read posts:

• Welcome to Daylight Atheism
• An Atheist's Creed
• Calling the Earth to Witness
• Emptying the Haunted Air
• Inexplicable Justice
• How Did the Apostles Die?
• The Default
• Know-Nothings
• Atheism is a Civil Rights Issue
• The Golden Mean
• Fragile Trappings
• On Atheist Janitors

Though, be warned: all of the entries are very good and you could easily spend your entire evening in there reading. My favorite posts can usually be found in The Library.


VIDEO RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

Thunderf00t's Youtube Channel

If you have not watched the videos of this channel yet, you have really missed out. My first experience with his channel was with his most popular series Why do people laugh at creationists? In this 24-video-series, he takes a look at creationists and creationist arguments, and then systematically dismantle them and the utter idiocy in which they are rooted. He covers popular video creationist Kent Hovind to popular Youtube creationist VenomFangX (who has stated that the Grand Canyon was formed in 5 minutes) .

Thunderf00t's videos are all very well produced, complete with images and graphs, and a very humorous voice over. He covers such gems as the Ice Shield and those who attempt to disprove evolution, the big bang, and "millions of years," often attempted by fraudsters and scientific illiterates.


WEBSITE RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

Fundies Say the Darndest Things

I decided to lighten the more serious tone with a recommendation of an irreverent site. It is an amusing collection of things theists and fundamentalists ("fundies") say and post on the Internet. It comes from all sources, including Youtube, forum posts, blogs, random websites, etc.

I recommend beginning with the Top 100 page. I enjoyed all on that page, but one of my favorites from the Top 100 was:

One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it. [emphasis added]

BOOK RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology by Thomas Paine

I decided I didn't want to do such books which are obvious recommendations, but for this week I had to go against that and recommend Age of Reason. This is an essential for any atheist or Christian. This comes up now because I decided to read it again this week and it's just as good as ever.

In it, Paine argues against the validity of the Bible using reason and also the Bible itself. He makes interesting arguments. In the first part of the book (there are two parts), he begins with a rejection of the Bible based on the idea that no supreme being would ever communicate to humans using a book. Why? Not only because it is vulnerable to tampering, but also because it inevitably must be translated. Not only that, languages naturally change over time and with that, the meaning changes over time as well.

The second part of the books opens with a rejection of the Bible based on not having any credibility due to anonymous authors. He does this using only the Bible itself. Using textual criticism, he shows that Moses wasn't the author of the books attributed to him, Joshua was the author of the books attributed to him, and so on.

Not only is the content of it fantastic, but it comes from the great writer Thomas Paine. Paine is one of my personal heroes and I absolutely love everything he wrote. Adams once said that if it weren't for the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.

One of the several quotes hanging on the walls of my office comes from the Age of Reason:

It is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

This book is a necessity.


CONCLUSION

This concludes the second weekly Rational Sabbath. Please let me know your thoughts and comments. The blog has launched recently, so I don't expect much response yet. The next post, the focus will return to Ray Comfort and DisComforting Ignorance (and Ray's ridiculous blog post about worshiping evolution).

I hope you have enjoyed your day of rest from Ray Comfort's inanity on this day, the Rational Sabbath.

The Rational Sabbath, Vol. I

I have decided to start a weekly post called The Rational Sabbath. Instead of taking the Sabbath to rest, I will do something useful and make a post comprising of about 5-10 of my favorite blog posts or news releases of the week. They are not necessarily about Ray Comfort; however, if I do find any post about Ray Comfort, I will include it here. I will also make no more than one recommendation of each which I find to be exceptional or interesting which you should visit/subscribe to:

* A Blog
* A Video (or series)
* An Audio File (or series/podcast)
* A Website
* A Book

So, let's kick this off! If you like this segment, please comment and let me know, and I will be sure to continue it.

First, a listing of a top ten articles, countdown to my favorite.

10. Mourning Glory by Christopher Hitchens from Slate.com's Fighting Words

This week we have lost Tim Russert. He was a straight-shooting, first-rate journalist. Following his death, the media was filled with flowery tributes, descriptions of miracles surrounding his death, and venerating idolatry. Hitchens attacks the superstition of the myth-making media and the cult of celebrity: "I think this media mythmaking, however tongue-in-cheek some of it may be, helps our understanding of why people are theists."


9. Guess Who’s Picketing George Carlin’s Funeral? by Hemant Mehta from The Friendly Atheist

This week we of course lost the great George Carlin. He brought a great deal of rationality to this world through comedy, and inspiring other great atheist comedians such as Bill Maher.

This blog post is appropriately terse, as it is announcing that the homophobic Christian organization Westboro Baptist Church will be picketing his funeral. They have a one-page news release titled "God Killed Potty-Mouth Comedian George Carlin, and Cast Him Forthwith Into Hell." Mehta accurately notes that "Carlin would have loved it."


8. Dinesh D'Souza On Genesis Chapter One by John W. Loftus from Debunking Christianity

Yet another top spot for this excellent blog. In this short article, he discusses how miserably Dinesh D'Souza has failed at reconciling the Creation myth with the scientific theory of evolution and the big bang model in his latest book What's So Great About Dinesh D'Souza. If you like the premise of this article, I would also recommend buying the most recent issue of Skeptic Magazine as it has an article review of his book entitled What's So Great About Dinesh D'Souza.


7. What's Wrong with Pledging Allegiance, Under God? by Austin Cline from About.com's Agnosticism/Atheism

The Pledge of Allegiance is before the courts again and in question is the phrase "Under God." Austin addresses the question: What's wrong with having "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? In this post he actually makes some interesting arguments against it I have never thought about, specifically that "patriotism must be linked to particular religious or theistic beliefs." His main points:

* Pledge of Allegiance is Intended as a Religious Statement
* "Under God" Promotes Belief in a Particular God, Not Theism Generally
* Pledge of Allegiance Teaches that Atheists Cannot be Patriotic
* Pledge of Allegiance Teaches that Atheists are not Trustworthy
* Pledge of Allegiance Attacks Veterans who were Atheists
* Pledge of Allegiance Teaches Children that Atheists are Inferior
* Under God vs. Under No God


6. Ray Comfort Answers a Question by PZ Myers from Pharyngula

I, of course, cannot pass up a mention of Ray Comfort by PZ Myers! PZ comments on the "answer" Ray gave a questioner regarding the weather in California. The question was basically wondering why there's flooding in the non-gay-marrying Midwest whereas there's no rain in California, which is no gay-marrying. Ray's response? There are fires ripping through gay-marrying California which were started by lightning -- and then he notes that God is in charge of lightning and the lack of rain. PZ appropriately ridicules Ray Comfort on this notion of God smiting the Californians through meteorological processes.

Ray has obivously read it, as he attempts to poke fun at people like me who have been criticizing him lately for his quote mining by posting "mined quotes" from the comments to that blog post.


5. A Brief Essay on the God of the Gaps Fallacy by Robert_B from Debunking Christianity

Robert_B gives a concise, but thorough, analysis of the god-of-the-gaps argument. He explains why this is a fallacy and how it fails on both premises and the non sequitir conclusion.


4. Do You Really Believe That: Abrogation by Ebonmuse from Daylight Atheism

Ebonmuse earns a second spot on my top list this week. This short article introduces the concept of Abrogation of Islam and how ridiculous it is. In the Do You Really Believe That series, he addresses such topics that lead a rational person to inevitably ask: do you really believe that? Abrogation is a somewhat controversial topic in Islam that God dictated a set of practices and rules to Muhammad only to issue new practices and rules later which cancel it out. It relates it to the idea Muslims hold that the Qur'an abrogates the Bible because it was corrupted. But, if God didn't protect the Bible from corruption, why do they believe he has protect the Qur'an from corruption?


3. Giles Frasier on Morality and Non-Belief by Alonzo Fyfe from Atheist Ethicist

Fyfe does an interesting job on the question of morals, desires, the Bible, and decision-making. I think this is a must-read for both theists and atheists. He takes a route of explaining why the "morals" in the Old Testament are so bizarre from a utilitarian stance. He also points out the hypocrisy of moral requirements and prohibitions. He concludes the post by addressing the fact that atheism does not provide any morals or moral checks (as it is inherently amoral, since it is simply a position on a single question).


2. A Cold and Sterile Heaven by Ebonmuse from Daylight Atheism

I really enjoyed this article. It is a perspective I have never considered: what company would you be keeping in Heaven if these Christians like Ray Comfort, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell are correct?

"This cold and sterile heaven doesn't seem like any kind of paradise I'd want to live in. Why would I want to share eternity with these boring, repetitive, dogmatic preachers, those whose greatest achievement in life was the unvarying repetition of words written by others? It's as if people were selected specifically for their lack of independent thought or creativity. What a tiresome, monotonous place that heaven would be!"

After discussing the company kept in Heaven, he then addresses in the second half: Just think of who'd be missing from the rapture-fanatics' heaven. Imagine people who disbelieved in their version of God and had no allegiance to dogma. You would not be able to share paradise with Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Thomas Paine and discuss politics with them. You would not be able to share paradise with Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking and discuss science with them. (You would, however, be able to discuss science with Isaac Newton, but by all accounts he was a very unpleasant man.)


1. Synchronicity by tracieh from The Atheist Experience

In this lengthy article, Tracieh discusses Morton’s Demon -- a thought experiment regarding confirmation bias. This article is not (explicitly) about religion. In this she addresses a friend's argument about drilling in Alaska. She does not discuss the pros and cons about it and in fact states that she is agnostic about it. Instead, she simply picks apart her friend's "logic" and the effects of confirmation bias. This article may be long, but it is a fun, easy, light read.

She concludes with a discussion of compartmentalization and the hanging questions:

"Can I hold to an unreasonable belief that informs all of my most basic human values and interpretations, and not also require protection from information in nearly every other area of my life? Is that realistic? Is it even possible?"

BLOG RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

About.com Agnosticism / Atheism -- Main Contributor: Austin Cline

I had many ones to pick from for this one and it was hard to choose one for this inaugural post in the series. It was difficult to choose one as I subscribe to many good ones.

This one has top-notch articles. Austin Cline discusses issues related to logic/debate, religion, agnosticism, and atheism. He has an excellent post rate of at least once a day. His posts cover a range of issues, from general questions, to response to comments, to book reviews, to current events. He also keeps resources up-to-date for atheists, such as sites, books, blogs, etc. This week he has posted on the following subjects:

* Pedantry in discussions/debates and its flaws.
* A current event of a doctor berating lesbian patients.
* The "Under God" phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance.
* Existentialism and its role in psychology.
* Why theists dismiss skeptics' and atheists' demands for evidence.
* The fate of Christianity in the United States.
* Universal salvation & Christianity (and also salvation through alternate routes).
* Christian claims that atheism is the worst sin possible.
* Rearing a child as an atheist.
* Civility versus decency, and the role it plays in religious discussions.
* Atheists should seek greater understanding and knowledge, and perhaps organize and take on mentors.
* Nihilism and its relation to atheism.
* The arrogance of atheism?
* Book review: regarding the American Eugenics Movement.
* Humanist metaphysics.
* The illusion and inane fetish of virginity in Islam.
* Atheists are fools?

My personal favorite from that list is a toss-up between the Pledge of Allegiance one and the one concerning atheism and a greater pursuit of knowledge. The latter article emphasizes that as atheists and in line with our advocacy of rationality and education, we should seek to always better educate ourself in science, literature, and philosophy. He discusses the obstacle of atheism being inherently disorganized and scattered. To better educate ourselves, he proposes we seek to organize educational groups with fellow atheists and perhaps take on mentors.


VIDEO RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

I had a tough decision here as well. I have gone with The Atheist Experience. It is the weekly television show of the Atheist Community of Austin. It has been on the air for over ten years. The shows is aimed at non-atheists and addresses prepared topics each week, interspersing it with live calls from the viewers. I think it's a must-view for all atheists and theists. I would recommend to first watch any episode that has both Matt Dillahunty and Russell Glasser, as they are my favorite personalities. Matt was a former fundamentalist evangelical Christian (like Ray!) and was aspiring to become a preacher. After some thirty years of this, when he was studying arguments for and against God so as to be able to address them when witnessing, he realized the flaws of his religious convictions and adopted a rational view of the world.

AUDIO RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

Hands-down, there was no tough decision here. It goes to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. This is an unbelievable podcast. It focuses on skepticism, science, and logic. It's main aim is not against religion, as that is treated like any other irrational claim, such as chemtrails, alien abducations, and Bigfoot. They approach every topic with a skeptical mind and discuss it. They discuss currents events in science. They have a regular segment called Name That Logical Fallacy where they pick apart an argument (regarding anything). It concludes with a challenge to the panelists of three articles of recent discoveries, two of which are true and one of which is fictitious. The goal is to identify the ficitious one with reasoning and skepticism. It earns my highest recommendation.

WEBSITE RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

I had many choices here. I had to decide between a humorous type site or a serious site. I decided on the latter for the inaugural edition. Iron Chariots gets my highest recommendation. It's still a pretty young site, but still good (and nice to contribute to). It is a counter-apologetics wiki run by The Atheist Experience TV show recommended above. It responds to Christian apologetics as well as arguments for God. They devote a few pages to Ray Comfort and The Way of the Master. They have pages on his banana argument, a dissection of their episode on atheism, and his usual questioning of whether you are a good person. It covers common logical fallacies, such as Ray's favorites: appeal to authority, argument from personal incredulity, begging the question, false dichotomy, and straw man. They even debunk the 50 reasons to believe in God which has been circulating around the Internet recently.

BOOK RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK

Of course, I have many many many here. I decided to recommend Stephen Hawking's bestselling (over 10 million) A Brief History of Time. It was written in 1988. He revised this with A Briefer History of Time in 2005 which aims to clarify some things, make it more accessible to a wider audience, update the graphics, and introduce some of the latest developments of the past two decades since the first book. I am only halfway through the 2005 edition, so I am giving the recommendation of the 1988 version. I can tell you, though, that both of them are fantastic and I highly recommend reading both of them.

This recommendation stems from the recent attack Ray Comfort has made by mining a quote from this book. He mines a quote from it to make it seem Hawking believes in God when, in fact, he has a tendency in the book to show that there's really no need for a Creator. It's not an atheist book, though, it's a popular science book. He brilliantly explains such things as the uncertainty principles, black holes, the big bang theory (the model and evidence for it), history of physics/astronomy, the theory of relativity, the origin and fate of the universe, and much more. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read and I learned much from it. Hawking has a delightful sense of humor throughout the book and writes it in a very accessible manner with much lay language. At the end of the book he devotes some biographical pages to Einstein, Newton and Galilei. The chapters from the 1988 version are:

1. Our Picture of the Universe
2. Space and Time
3. The Expanding Universe
4. The Uncertainty Principle
5. Elementary Particles and the Forces of Nature
6. Black Holes
7. Black Holes Ain't So Black
8. The Origin and Fate of the Universe (where Ray quote mines from)
9. The Arrow of Time
10. The Unification of Physics
11. Conclusion

The chapters from the 2005 version are:

1. Thinking About the Universe
2. Our Evolving Picture of the Universe
3. The Nature of a Scientific Theory
4. Newton's Universe
5. Relativity
6. Curved Space
7. The Expanding Universe
8. The Big Bang, Black Holes, and the Evolution of the Universe
9. Quantum Gravity
10. Wormholes and Time Travel
11. The Forces of Nature and the Unification of Physics
12. Conclusion

I guarantee you will find a love for science and physics after reading this book. I also recommend this for Ray Comfort, so that he will quit denigrating Hawking and also learn a little science while he's at it. You learn things about the nature of the universe which are must-knows, such as the nature of time and space.


CONCLUSION

This concludes the first weekly Rational Sabbath. Please let me know your thoughts. I know there won't be many for this first one, as the blog just launched this week. The next post, the focus will return to Ray Comfort and DisComforting Ignorance.

I hope you have enjoyed your day of rest from Ray Comfort's inanity on this day, the Rational Sabbath.