the Unbelievers

Richard Dawkins has been branded a sexist in recent months by prominent bloggers I hold in high regard. A new film titled "The Unbelievers" is not helping his image much. In it, Woody Allen is cast as an advocate of the scientific world-view. How is this advancing a scientific perspective? How is putting a near-pedophile out there as a front-man for science helping? Come on.

 Despite all this I can not deny the impact Dawkins has had on my world-view through his writings. If nothing more than convincing me to read the Origin of Species cover-to-cover my intellectual interactions with him have been worth it. This coupled to my positive encounter with Lawrence Krauss this past summer at Chautauqua Institution leads me to share this preview with you all. As an unbeliever myself I predict this film will be a gateway to many stimulating discussions and stimulating discussions are what I live for.

Colbert on "Pulpit-Freedom Sunday"

Stephen Colbert takes his satire to a whole new level here. He can hardly keep his contempt for Jim Garlow and his anti-church-and-state-separation mentality.

Gay Marriage: Dan Savage debates Brian Brown

Participate in Government!

Please join me in signing this petition to the White House urging congress to remove tax-exempt status from politically engaged churches. If churches want a say in government they'd better pay into it like the rest of us! I think we should go further and request that all churches relinquish their tax exempt status but this would be a big step anyway.  

Center for Inquiry - VIDEO

The use of video in the free-thought community is growing rapidly and I love it. Seeing video of bloggers I regularly read makes them more real. In the following video Chris Mooney hosts the Center for Inquiry's radio show Point of Inquiry. The video was recorded in Amherst, New York and focuses on maintaining a separation of church and state.

Spirit and Sam Harris

Sam Harris has suggested the secular humanist movement reclaim the word "spirit." Though you may think otherwise, this word can have a secular definition. A definition unencumbered by the assumption of an afterlife or any notion of the supernatural at all. Harris would like to untangle the word spirit from "its association with medieval superstition."

I comprehend this word in a literal sense. This is known as the Epicurean definition. Spirit translates from the Latin for breathe. This conceptual syntax can be seen in words like "inspire" "aspire" and "perspire." Indeed, an alternate definition of "inspiration" is to "breath in." 

With this in mind I see the spirit not as metaphorical but as real. 

All people "breathe" their spirit into the world by their interactions with people around them. Someone can breathe their spirit into the world by writing a thousand page tome on moral philosophy, or simply smiling at a child. 

In any case these spiritual expressions I see as the path to immortality (not by living in some imaginary afterlife) but by actually influencing the world of the living after we have died. Living on through the "extra soma"  though this phrase has more to do with living on through writing more so than actions.

Many different forces have formed my own view of the word "spirit" most notably my own Swedish grandmother. We called her "Zsage" though her name was Doris. She still has a daily influence on my life. Not that I speak with her on some astral plain but I'm reminded of her wisdom, in the garden, the kitchen, and  in the studio by all kinds of memory ques. 

I hope this explains what I think "spirit" means. I have written these thoughts before in different ways. Read additional thoughts here.   

Also, the following videos have influenced my view on this topic. The fist is a segment from an interview with the writer Margaret Atwood, and second a speech by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Goodwin's speech is particularly poignant in explaining Abraham Lincoln's Epicurean perspective on the afterlife. Famed professor of animal sciences Temple Grandin speaks of the "extra soma" in the last chapter of her famous "thinking in pictures" book as well.

Read Sam Harris' essay "in defense of 'spiritual'" here.

Rebecca Watson on Homeopathy and the FDA

Rebecca Watson has been at the center of a lot of heated debates lately over at Pharyngula as well as the recent subject of a famous you-tuber named Thunderf00t. This dust-up stems from her suggestion that something ought be done about sexual harassment at various free-thinking conferences like The Amazing Meeting (TAM) and so on.  All this controversy coupled to me finally listening to the skeptics guide to the universe podcast on a regular basis, brought me to Rebecca Watson's Blog - Skepchick. On the sidebar I found this wonderful video (above). Though it is old by web standards (posted 8 months ago) I want to share it today to give anyone with even a passive interest in the whole current controversy a view of Rebecca Watson unfettered by the kerfuffle. I stand in solidarity with her as I think she is a force to be reckoned with in the world skeptical thinkers. I have dealt with a constant barrage of alternative medicine hocus pocus thrown at me my entire life. Read about my experience with this here. From my perspective I appreciate her concise description of of the shortcomings of homeopathy and also the suggestions of how to participate in raising awareness about this perennial scam.

What is the World Science Festival?

MISSION OF THE WORLD SCIENCE FESTIVAL 

To cultivate and sustain a general public informed by the content of science, inspired by its wonder, convinced of its value, and prepared to engage with its implications for the future. The World Science Festival takes science out of the laboratory and into the streets, theaters, museums, and public halls of New York City, making the esoteric understandable and the familiar fascinating. 

So said my volunteer handbook last year anyway. I am excited to be going back this week for a third consecutive year of blogging the World Science Festival. Please have a look at the event list and help me decide where to focus my attention while on Manhattan. My love affair with this smörgåsbord of science continues to mature. From my first year of volunteering where I darted back and forth over the island, via bus, subway, or taxi carrying VIP packages to festival speakers, to last year's adventure blogging about the nature of uncertainty, the Moth Story-telling series at the Player's Club, and the troubled history of portrait two chemists. The ubiquity of the maestro overseeing it all - Brian Greene - like a symphony conductor with an entire city as his stage, has been a perpetual pleasure to observe. I have no doubt that this year will be filled with as many new connections, dialogues, and overall syntheses as year's past.

Bonus! This year I will be there for the famed Manhattanhenge! Score :)

Daniel Ellsberg on Wikileaks

"The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals"

Montana Woman Destroys Controversial Art. 

[Loveland, Colorado] The woman has been identified as 56-year-old Kathleen Folden - a truck driver from Kalispell, Montana.   One of the frantic museum curators told me she smuggled a crowbar into the museum wrapped in her sweater.  The panel on the lower right of the series pictured below was the piece that moved her to vandalism. Entitled - "The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals" the piece was composed by Enrique Chagoya while master print maker Bud Shark produced this iteration. Though the damaged art was removed by police there are many other pieces still on display at the Gallery Museum on the North West Corner of Lincoln and 5th Street in Loveland.  Many prints are arranged in three dimensions and are extremely engaging.  My favorite is a piece entitled "Frontier Justice."

Exhibit A:  The display after Kathleen Folden made her "modification."

When asked by Fox News about  the vandalism of his art Enrique Chagoya responded eloquently.

"Should we as artists, or any free-thinking people, have to be subjected to fear of violent attacks for expressing our sincere concerns? I made a collage with a comic book and an illustration of a religious icon to express the corruption of something precious and spiritual.

There is no nudity, or genitals, or explicit sexual contact shown in the image. There is a dressed woman, a religious icon's head, a man showing his tongue, and a skull of a Pope in the upper right corner of the controversial page. I did not make a picture of Christ. I used symbols as one would use words in a sentence to critique corruption of the sacred by religious institutions."

 

Loveland Mayor Cecil Gutierrez stands with a local police officer in the lobby of the Museum Gallery. He had a nervous look on his face as he texted frantically.  For me it was a happy introduction to this place there is an amazing sculpture mimicking Picasso's tormented "Guernica"  made from old car hoods in the lobby as well. I would not have been aware of the deep significance of Guernica were it not my philosophical experience discussing this piece while blogging about the World Science Festival in New York City this past June.

I purchased a free-expression souvenir!

The Four Horseman

OK, which one of these guys came up with that name? Next they'll be "the four horsemen - men in tights"

Anyway, I couldn't help posting this mainly because of two new YouTube features - one - the colored border and - two - the HD button - you can watch it in high definition! Vimeo is cool but I knew YouTube wouldn't be that far behind.

Within the first two minutes of this video I was reminded that the UN is considering a resolution banning blasphemy. Talk about the religious folks playing the "hurt feelings card." Now it will be illegal in the eyes of the UN to question any religion's authority anywhere in the world.

Bozeman Explosion

Bozeman, Montana is one of those places I visited through the pages of a book before being there physically. I walked through the campus of Montana State University in my mind's eye while reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which would become the first book along my travels down the rabbit hole of heady material. For those who have read it Robert Pirsig's descriptions of this collegiate mountain town give the place an electric but dissonant feel. It was here the author began his personal demolition into a being of more than one simultaneous opinion.

Today there was an explosion in the real Bozeman. It is not clear at this point what the cause of this conflagration was but the video seen below scares me. This was recorded only a few blocks away from the incident only a few months ago. I am not claiming these are the culprits but merely suggesting that the alibis of this group be collected and assessed. Displayed here is exactly the type of deleterious reprogramming the human brain can undergo; fervent righteousness - the enemy of reason - certainty.

PZ Myers on his blog Pharyngula describes this phenomenon in more detail while discussing points made by Richard Dawkins at a recent lecture.

"He talked quite a bit about the flexibility of the human brain, a property that was the product of selection, yet that same flexibility means it can be reprogrammed into deleterious byways, such as religion or fanaticism or unthinking patriotism."

I truly believe the most effective way to battle fanatically driven domestic terrorism (Waco, Oklahoma city, 9/11 etc. etc.) is not by building bigger prisons but by building larger libraries, and larger universities.




Regardless if this incident was accidental or intentional may the families affected by the explosion find solace in knowing that people all around the world are thinking about them and wishing that they do not suffer.

...I heard about this story on Twitter and though some may call this new form of media silly I think it the ultimate bypass of the corporate gatekeepers.