Clipmarks | JohnWaterman's 'god' clips

Opening Minds

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:44:31 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: "Those who teach our children science have a duty to reveal the workings of nature – even if it means challenging their faith"

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Should science teachers in Britain challenge their students' religious beliefs? Is it their right? Is it even their duty?

I say yes. This is (amongst much else) what education is for; to teach children how to think for themselves. And thinking for yourself is challenging, especially if your previous beliefs were based on dogma and ancient books.

In his recent TV series, The Genius of Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins visited a London secondary school, took a mixed bunch of kids out fossil hunting on the beach, and then came back to the school to talk to them and their teachers.

Some of what he discovered in his travels was truly shocking

science teacher who honestly believes that the world was created by God a few thousand years ago

Once you get it that's that! How can you go on believing that God created humans in his own image when you can see, because you really understand the principle, that nature's cruel and wasteful selective process can create all that design without him?

Banking with Jesus is a bad idea

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:40:22 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Integrity Bank in Georgia decided to build their business model on Christian principles.

Integrity's employees regularly prayed before meetings or in branch lobbies with customers, while the bank gave 10 percent of its net income to charities.
"We felt if we prayed and obeyed God's word and did what He asked, that He would help us be successful," the bank's founder, Steve Skow, told the Journal-Constitution in 2005.

Chalk this one up to another example of how religion fails and we really ought to base our decisions on reality: the bank failed. You really can't rely on that God fella, you know.

Perhaps one contributing factor was their obedience to that other Christian principle, greed.

CEO Steve Skow earned $1.8 million that year, while senior lender and executive vice president Doug Ballard earned $847,222. A typical community bank CEO, banking consultants said, earn roughly $300,000 per year.

And say…isn't there something in the Bible that prohibits lending at interest, too?

Dawkins and the 'fart of god'

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:20:45 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

A rare glimpse into Richard Dawkins' inbox. His detractors really are a charming bunch

Richard Dawkins has made a few enemies in his time suggesting that cherished notions of a creator god or gods are so much brain-washing and delusion. His reward is the most amusing inbox in the world. Here he is reading us some of it during his recent series The Genius of Charles Darwin.

[Video]

A question science can't answer?

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:49:55 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

"Can anybody think of a question science can't answer?"

"Is there a God?" shot back a boy near the window.

"Good," said Mr. Campbell, an Anglican who attends church most Sundays. "Can't test it. Can't prove it, can't disprove it. It's not a question for science."

I despise that chicken-hearted answer. There are two reasonable ways to address that. One is to accept the usual open-ended, undefined vagueness of the god entity and point out that the reason it can't be answered is that it is a bad question — it's not even wrong. Science doesn't answer it, but then no discipline can, because it's a garbage question like "what color are invisible elephants?" If that's what window-boy intends with his petty little gotcha, he deserves to have the inanity of his idea disparaged.

The other approach

pin the question down. What god? What actions has it taken in the natural world? How does it influence us specifically? Then you can tackle that god with science by testing the purported effects it has

Tags: religion, science, atheism, god

Atheist desecrates the Eucharist and the Qur'an

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:04:09 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Oh yes, and The God Delusion

Clip Source: friendlyatheist.com

PZ Myers has desecrated his cracker.

And pages from the Qur’an.

And pages from The God Delusion.

(It’s all just paper regardless of what it says, he says, and he’s right.)

The cracker is the object with a nail through it.

Somehow, I think Catholicism will survive… though I’m sure the hate mail he has coming his way will say otherwise.

On a serious note, PZ makes this very important point:

Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanities’ knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality. You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance, but you can find truth by looking at your world with fresh eyes and a questioning mind.

Bertrand Russell quotes

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:13:42 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: # This idea of weapons of mass extermination is utterly horrible and is something which no one with one spark of humanity can tolerate. I will not pretend to obey a government which is organising a mass massacre of mankind.

# “Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence.” (Russell’s reply when asked what he would say if he died and found himself confronted by God, demanding to know why Russell had not believed in him)

# Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of skeptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the p

Clip Source: talkingincircles.net

Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.

To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true.

Most people would die sooner than think — in fact they do so.

The hopes which inspire communism are, in the main, as admirable as those instilled by the Sermon on the Mount, but they are held as fanatically and are as likely to do as much harm.

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power.

It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.

No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.

Children's questions about God

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:39:53 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: new.iheyo.org

ten questions (with sub-questions) that bright kindergartners have asked, thought about asking, or should have thought about

1. Who created God?

This is the first question my Rabbi refused to answer, and now I understand why

2. What was God doing before He created humans?

3. Since we are created in God’s image, does He look or act like us?

4. Why did God stop talking to humans (me)?

If people today claim that they have regular conversations with God, we think they are crazy. Were those so-called ancient prophets also crazy?

5. Why do bad things happen to good people?

6. Does God ever change His mind when we pray?

7. Why is belief so important to God when He judges us?

8. How much better is the worst person in heaven than the best person in hell?

9. Will I be the same person in heaven that I am on earth?

If I can sin on earth, but not in heaven, then I will be a different person

10. Why are there other religions?

After all these millennia, can’t a benevolent God help us get it right?

Tags: religion, atheism, children, god

On the nature of the universe -Discussion between Carl Sagan, A. Clarke and S.Hawking- 10 videos !!

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:32:27 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: Discussion between Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Hawking on the
nature of the universe
1/10- 10/10 - videos

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

God, The Universe & Everything else 1/10

Discussion between Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Hawking on the
nature of the universe

[Video]

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

God, The Universe & Everything e...

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

God, The Universe & Everything e...

All things Cern from The Guardian

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:08:15 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: Lots of great articles on the LHC from UK's best newspaper

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

The Big Bang Machine

Cosmic building blocks

The particle menagerie

Most recent

Science Weekly podcast: Creating the second big bang with the LHC at Cern

Cern podcast: Chris Morris visits the Large Hadron Collider

LHC: Cern in numbers

Massive bosons blew my unit

Jun 30 2008:

When Chris Morris visited the LHC, he found a machine to create God for two billionths of a second and a man who wants to smash your face with protons

Falling off the edge of the world

Jun 30 2008:

Exploring the unknown may be dangerous but the risks are always worthwhile, says AC Grayling

The end of the world as we know it?

Worth every penny

The brains behind the operation

Beyond the Standard Model

Tags: physics, cern, lhc, particle, boson, science

God’s Final Message?

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:54:48 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: asymptotia.com

“According to So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish, God’s Final Message To His Creation is written in fire in letters thirty feet high on the far side of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the planet of Preliumtarn, which orbits the star Zarss, which is located in the Grey Binding Fiefdoms of Saxaquine. The long path to the message is lined with souvenir stands at spaced-out intervals.
When Marvin reads the message, it says, “We apologise for the inconvenience.” However, Fenchurch’s reaction suggests that the message she saw was the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything (and that presumably, therefore, the Message is personalized to each viewer).”

–Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Or perhaps this* is God’s Final Message:

(Part of the Carina Nebula (not far from the Keyhole Nebula detail). Image from the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. See GRIN for some more information.)

Weezer's awesome internet mashup video

Fri, 23 May 2008 18:16:45 GMT

clipped by: ericskiff
clipper's remarks: My god, it's all here. This may indeed be the best music video ever.

(Credit to Alex Hillman for pointing me to this!

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: weezer, video, awesome, funny, amazing, mashup

God Hates China

Sun, 18 May 2008 06:11:23 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: It's getting hard to tell the difference between parody and hate-filled bigotry these days.

Clip Source: stuffgodhates.wordpress.com

#21 Asia

Prepare thyself, he who reads this, to tremble and quake before the Incredible Word of God, as written by THE LORD HIMSELF!

Today I would like to talk about something that truly disgusts Me – the continent of Asia

Asia is a huge waste of space and I despise every last country, animal* and heathen-commie-bastard living there. However, I don’t hate the topography. Unlike Africa - which I am deeply, deeply ashamed of – I’m actually kind of satisfied with the land I made in Asia (with the exception of the Russian, Mongol and Kazakhstani areas)

No, it’s strictly the people and the governments of Asia I loathe. Why you ask? Because they don’t Worship Me! I mean, for fucks-sake! I’m only the Flawless Creator of the Entire Universe, but do they care? No! They totally ignore Me.

Clip Source: friendlyatheist.com

Letters to God

Tue, 06 May 2008 20:33:22 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.sharenator.com

Where is God?

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:25:52 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

Religious sectarianism alive and kicking in Scottish football

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:52:25 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: blog.newhumanist.org.uk

Given that Celtic vs Rangers is a football derby with a long history of sectarian rivalry, you'd think the players might see it as wise to rise above it all and stay out of matters relating to the respective merits of Protestantism and Catholicism.

But if you're Celtic's Polish goalkeeper Artur Boruc, it seems the appropriate way to celebrate keeping the championship race alive with a 3-2 victory over Rangers is to remove your jersey to reveal a t-shirt bearing a photo of the late Pope John Paul II alongside the slogan "God Bless the Pope".

Boruc's a pious chap - nicknamed "Holy Goalie" by Celtic fans

In 2006 he received a police caution for breach of the peace for allegedly making "obscene gestures and blessings" to the Rangers fans

It doesn't seem Boruc's latest antics have landed him in too much trouble with manager Gordon Strachan

"He's not a bad lad, to be fair (the Pope). If it was 'God bless Myra Hindley', I might have a problem."

Clipmarks | JohnWaterman's 'god' clips

Opening Minds

Banking with Jesus is a bad idea

Dawkins and the 'fart of god'

A rare glimpse into Richard Dawkins' inbox. His detractors really are a charming bunch

A question science can't answer?

Atheist desecrates the Eucharist and the Qur'an

Bertrand Russell quotes

Children's questions about God

On the nature of the universe -Discussion between Carl Sagan, A. Clarke and S.Hawking- 10 videos !!

All things Cern from The Guardian

The Big Bang Machine

Cosmic building blocks

The particle menagerie

Editor's picks

In pictures

Mystery and imagination

The edge of understanding

Father of the
'God particle'

Most recent

Science Weekly podcast: Creating the second big bang with the LHC at Cern

Cern podcast: Chris Morris visits the Large Hadron Collider

LHC: Cern in numbers

Massive bosons blew my unit

Falling off the edge of the world

The end of the world as we know it?

Worth every penny

The brains behind the operation

Beyond the Standard Model

God’s Final Message?

Weezer's awesome internet mashup video

God Hates China

#21 Asia

Letters to God

Where is God?

Religious sectarianism alive and kicking in Scottish football