The Purple Koolaid Playtime Show!

Faith and Reason

In the two-part series The Root of all Evil?, science luminary Richard Dawkins -- author of "The Selfish Gene", "The Blind Watchmaker" and other books -- takes religion to task as a backwards, irrational belief system. The full-length version can be found on Google Video:

Part 1
Part 2

Comment: While Dawkins is a brilliant man, and may be absolutely correct about his conclusions, this video demonstrates all too well why religion has always remained more popular than intellectual, secular humanism, and why academic intellectualism has always been a harder sell.

Dawkins' narration comes off as supercilious; even abrasive at times, and could potentially offend some viewers who feel their beliefs are being insulted.

I would also suggest that all rationalists take a course in emotional intelligence and public speaking before attempting to debate any politician, preacher, lawyer, or anyone other experienced public speaker.

Religion provides a source of emotional comfort people are often looking for, and it is no surprise that people often turn to religion in times of hardship. Preachers and politicians have learned to hone their charisma to create a perception of leadership and guidance that their followers are seeking out. Dawkins observes that large numbers of followers help to validate an otherwise irrational belief system, but perhaps that's a major part of the appeal: humans are a tribal species, and the instinctual need to congregate and indulge some sort of emotional bonding ritual is what helped maintain the "strength in numbers" that became a driving force in human evolution. He would do well to read more Joseph Campbell.

Two videos about the Middle East conflict:

Relentless: The Struggle For Peace In the Middle East

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land

A Christian film about "End Times" prophecies:

Israel, Islam, and Armaggedon

A Brief History of Disbelief: Jonathan Miller's BBC documentary on atheism:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Bill Moyers On Faith and Reason: thought-provoking interviews with various authors and intellectuals.

More videos will be added in these sections as I come across them.

New Documentary, "Suicide Killers", To Be Released

Freud Would Have A Field Day With The Muslims, Too...

"Pierre Rehov's feature examines the phenomenon of suicide bombers through interviews with their family members, along with prisoners whose bombing attempts have been thwarted. The film's revelations about the bombers' true motivations are both surprising and shocking....

Rehov was interviewed by the Counterterrorism Blog on the making of the film.

[excerpt]:

What insights did you gain from making this film? What do you know that other experts do not know?
I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behavior. In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute. So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of pure anxiety, in which normal behavior is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil. Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution.

God Told Dubya To Go To War

"God" redux: Pat Robertson's pal George W. Bush claims that "God" told him to go to war

I think we can pretty much figure out which "God" -- er -- "Intelligent Designer" might be the culprit, here...

Al-Qaeda and "Repent America" Agree on This...

Hurricane Katrina: Allah's Divine Punishment For A Sinful City

Al-Qaeda Internet News broadcast, "The Voice of the Caliphate" celebrates U.S. hurricanes and Gaza evacuation as well as Al-Zarqawi's campaign in Iraq, in a gloriously cheeseball production.
(4 min 50 sec)

Here's an idea: instead of a draft, why not let's just export all the radical American fundies to do battle with the radical Islamic fundies over the issue of what the "Intelligent Designer's" name ought to be...

They Never Heard of the Central Park Penguins?

Politicizing Penguins

"At a conference for young conservatives, the editor of National Review urged participants to see the movie ['March of the Penguins'] because it promoted monogamy. A widely circulated Christian magazine said it made "a strong case for intelligent design," according to a New York Times article.

Actually, there is a simple evolutionary reason for why penguins and other cold-climate birds tend towards monogamy: for a penguin chick to be produced, the incubating egg must be kept warm at all times. This means that someone has to be sitting on the nest constantly -- which would prove problematic if only a single parent were there to do it. After all, the parent must eat (usually fish in the case of cold-climate seabirds, which means extended time away from the nest). The way around this problem is to have the parents either take turns sitting on the nest, or one bird helping to feed their partner. As seen with the mourning doves depicted earlier, there are usually some very practical, survival-of-the-species reasons for monogamous partnerships in birds.

And it isn't necessarily lifetime monogamy, either. The emperor penguins depicted in the movie are actually "serial monogamists" -- that is, they tend to change partners after raising the season's brood. Again, this is adaptive to those particular species' lifestyles.

Mewonders what their take would be on a documentary about the garish and polygamous tropical birds of paradise, in which the females raise the young along. Presumably, the climate allows for single-parent nesting.

More excerpts:

Richard A. Blake, co-director of the film studies program at Boston College and the author of "The Lutheran Milieu of the Films of Ingmar Bergman" said that like many films, "March of the Penguins" was open to a religious interpretation.

"You get a sense of these animals - following their natural instincts - are really exercising virtue that for humans would be quite admirable," he said. "I could see it as a statement on monogamy or condemnation of gay marriage or whatever the current agenda is."

Apparently, Mr. Blake never heard of the Central Park Penguins, but I digress. The reason for "following their instincts", of course, is due to the natural stabilizing factors inherent in any wild-living species: successful reproductive strategies survive. Individuals with strong parental instincts raise offspring to maturity. Unsuccessful ones don't. ...They die, or don't reproduce themselves. Hence you get a more uniformly-behaved wild animal population.

Eventually I'll get around to discussing the irony of how religious-based social mandates are actually detrimental to the population in this regard, so... stay tuned!

...So Why Do Tornadoes Happen In The Bible Belt?

Putting The "Mental" In "Fundamentalists" Dept::

Maybe it's time to demand that schools teach a required course in formal logic.

I hadn't really intended to continue addressing the topic of religious wingnuttery, at least not for the time being. I really have other topics I want to discuss. ...Really, I do. ...But sheesh. These people must consult the list of logical fallacies as a basis for nearly all of their argumentation. (Note I'm being a bit understated here). Here's a classic example of a Post Hoc fallacy (Not that this was any big surprise if you remembered a similar reaction from Jerry Falwell shortly after the 9/11 disaster).

Excerpt:

"Southern Decadence" was set for New Orleans soon. It was to be a yearly hoopla celebrating practicing homosexuality as a legitimate, giddy lifestyle.

Thousands upon thousands were going to crawl all over New Orleans "to celebrate their sexuality," according to Methodist lay preacher Gary Hopkins of Ekklesia.co.uk (gary.hopk...@ekklesia.co.uk).

In other words, Sodom and Gomorrah were to be reenacted in broad daylight — and into the night haunts as well. It would be one high ol’ time of it in the southern scape.

[...]

Then came along Katrina.

If such a causality shall be drawn then perhaps the National Weather Service ought to be sending weather advisories to Massachusetts and Las Vegas...

Captain Obvious says: Port cities are older and tend to be more densely populated. Certain port cities became havens for immigrants, thus increasing diversity. The bigger and more diverse the population, the greater the likelihood there will be for a gay community. Being on water, port cities are also more likely to be viewed as a recreational spots. ...and hurricanes form in oceans. ...Duh.

Of course, "Repent America" totally overlooks the fact that the people who are suffering most are the poor, mostly heterosexual folks who didn't have the means to escape. Also the fact that New Orleans wasn't the only town to suffer devastation from Hurricane Katrina. ...And how do they account for all those deadly killer tornadoes that seem to occur so frequently in the Bible Belt?

This Might Explain A Few Things

It's been a very busy week for me, but I managed to bang this one out. ;-). It's another speculation on "Intelligent Design" and was based on a newsgroup posting I wrote back in the year 2000. I wonder if they'll put it in the school science textbooks?

No Surprises Here

Bush Backs Rove, Palmeiro, Intelligent Design

Read more commentary here: Pharyngula

So in other words, Bush is backing creationism, being taught as part of the public school science curriculum?. ...Oh, wait, that's "Intelligent Design". ...No mention of a Judeo-Christian God, nope.

Personally, I have no problem with teaching the idea of "Intelligent Design", but IMO this belongs under the heading of philosophy, not science, since its rationale centers entirely on speculation and how one defines "intelligent." ...Then there is the tricky part about trying *not* to go a step further and speculate about the nature of the "designer" itself, and how not to wind up sounding as if there is sanctioning any particular religion (if we're talking about public schools). The teachers would have to consider *all* "creation" stories if that's the case, or even invent some new ones. Will they be considering these possible "designer" theories as part of the classroom discussion? ...Let's not forget about this one, either. :-P I bet I can invent some, too. Stay tuned...