1. Trailer for Religulous

Comment #191207 by bad_andy on June 10, 2008 at 11:37 am

Saerain, you've put it exactly right. Very well said.

2. Trailer for Religulous

Comment #190762 by bad_andy on June 9, 2008 at 2:12 pm

Bill Maher gets a lot of things right. He took a very public stance against the 9/11 conspiracy advocates, for example. I love what he has to say about religion. I think having another movie in circulation that takes an unflattering look at what people actually believe will be a good thing.

What he gets wrong seems more like a misinterpretation of some facts rather than a diminished capacity for reason. It sounds to me like he's conflated too many of the real business issues with the American food industry, health insurance industry and pharmaceutical industry with whether or not medical science as a whole is reliable.

I've heard him talk skeptically about vaccination. The fact is that a batch of vaccines can get contaminated. People do have unexpected reactions to vaccines as well. But those are the rare exceptions to the rule that prove that as a whole vaccination is a very valuable medical breakthrough. Maher just needs to understand that better.

The great thing about rationality is that you can always replace bad ideas with good ones and bad information with good information. He can always realize that he's wrong and I don't have to agree with him about medicine to look forward to this movie.

3. The Great Evangelical Decline

Comment #189545 by bad_andy on June 6, 2008 at 12:55 pm

I had an interesting exchange with a family member who is still active in the church I was raise in. He told me that as an atheist I'd never be truly happy since I would lack the relationship with God that most people need to feel healthy and whole.

So I did some digging and started finding numbers that suggested that while Xians are a large group of people, they aren't a majority on the planet. Of the Xians, 2/3rds still identified as Catholic, not Protestant or Evangelical. Further, the particular fundamentalist faith to which he still belonged, according to one of it's own publications, wasn't even keeping pace with population growth in the U.S. and had been on a very steady decline since the Regan era.

This was encouraging. I think that this goes hand in hand with the "sudden" resurgence of open discussion of non-religious points of view in the mainstream media. People are tired of being told who and what to do by a loud handful of fundamentalists. They have been for years and now they are walking away in noticeable numbers. Hardly sounds basic to happiness to me.

4. The Atheist Apocalypse

Comment #146761 by bad_andy on March 19, 2008 at 11:21 am

I think it's great. Takes the fear, uncertainty and doubt our detractors try to smear the Four Horsemen with and reflects the positive future they want instead. More please.

5. MySpace: No place for Atheists?

Comment #118287 by bad_andy on January 30, 2008 at 3:00 pm

Urge to delete MySpace account rising... rising... According to Wired we're not the only ones:

Fed Up With MySpace? Join the Club and Delete Your Account
http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/01/fed-up-with-mys.html

Apparently Jan 30th is now international Delete Your MySpace Account Day.

6. MySpace: No place for Atheists?

Comment #118182 by bad_andy on January 30, 2008 at 12:57 pm

I'm honestly considering dumping my MySpace account over this. My personal dilemma is that as a musician it's an easy way to promote myself or post new songs. But after a stunt like this I'm not sure how comfortable I am sending even my tiny bit of traffic to their ad servers. This is just pathetic.

7. A Letter From Hell

Comment #116042 by bad_andy on January 25, 2008 at 11:33 am

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you my childhood. This clip is an excellent example of why I'm not allowing my kids (when I have some) to get these ideas into their heads in the first place. Deprogramming this stuff is one of the first major challenges any post-Christian has to deal with.

Interestingly enough, Hell is actually one of the most powerful reasons that many people lose their faith. It's hard to swallow that "God is love" if this is the inverse to the "good news" that Jesus "died to save me from my sins".

I still love asking people if they've heard the good news that no one is going to Hell.

8. Two Ex-Jehovah Witnesses to Tell Why They Became Atheists

Comment #109935 by bad_andy on January 10, 2008 at 4:54 am

Amen, Brother Ben and Sister Ann!

Wait... Damn it. Sorry. Force of habit.

In all seriousness, I'm glad to hear they've not just left but are speaking out. This is why apostacy is vital to Atheism and the advancement of reason.

9. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #99646 by bad_andy on December 17, 2007 at 8:44 am

Another apostate over here. I'm downloading this now and look forward to hearing this conversation. I will admit that I didn't thinks something like this would happen given Harris' and Hitchens' reluctance to be considered "New Atheists". (In fact in his speech at AAI '07, didn't Harris lament having the honor of being assailed along with Dan, Richard and Christopher as though they were a single person with four heads?) Since the proceeds are going to Hirsi Ali's defense fund, I'm delighted to see this round table none the less.

10. 2007 Audiobook Download of the Year: The God Delusion

Comment #99400 by bad_andy on December 16, 2007 at 2:53 pm

The audiobook version of The God Delusion was my introduction to Dawkins' work and went a long way towards my interest in his other work and the work of the other "New Atheists". If you haven't had a chance to hear RD and his wife perform this material, you really owe it to yourself to check this out. Congrats and thanks for this book!

11. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #82662 by bad_andy on October 27, 2007 at 6:47 am

I do currently self-identify as an Atheist, but that is because I do welcome some of the inevitable conversations that follow such an admission. I love talking to people about this. I also refer to myself as an Apostate, because it is a catagory rather than a coherent group and it is more specific about what kind of a nonbeliever I am.

Having said all of that, I think Sam is right on the mark about much of what he says here. While I'm not sure about his solution ("flying under the radar") it is hard to argue that the problems he identifies are not real. Atheism has many possible implications about a given person, but it doesn't tell you much at all about him besides the fact that he doesn't have faith in a personal god. Yet it is being painted into a dismissive stereotype by our religious adversaries who are using our current attention in the media as a rallying point to spread their message.

http://doesgodexist.org/JulAug07/AtheistsDeclareWaronFaith.html

In this example, we do hear the same tired arguments over and over. The appalling writer in the above article not only reiterates the Atheist Dictator argument one more time, he tries to use the "Protestant Atheist or Catholic Atheist" anecdote to claim that Northern Ireland is merely in the grips of a secular political struggle. This writing is phenomenally bad, yet one of my friends sent this to me since the writer called himself a "former Atheist". That little qualification was enough for him to excuse writing devoid of content from critical examination.

I do understand why people call themselves brights and humanists in an attempt to codify an actual philosophy in positive things for which they can stand. But these labels can become as loaded or subject to political squabbling as the term Atheist. Ultimately we do need labels, because we need to identify ourselves, somehow. I don't know if Atheist is the line to draw or not. I do agree with Sam that on specific issues, we may be depriving ourselves of potential alliances with the merely irrational against the violently and dangerously irrational.

12. The New Atheists on Organized Freethought

Comment #82405 by bad_andy on October 26, 2007 at 8:31 am

Kelly and Sapient,

You both made excellent points in the interview I heard in that podcast. I thought the points about how the group of potential nonbelievers is much larger when taken as the sum of all the self identified brights, rationalists, etc was interesting. I thought the point about how any label can be demonized by the opposition was a great counterpoint to Sam's concerns about the baggage associated with the label "Atheist". I'm not offended by what else you said or how you said it. I'm disappointed that you don't seem to realize how ineffective it was.

The tone of many of your statements in the interview was combative towards those who disagree with you. This makes it easy for a potential new audience member to be put off instead of intrigued. The Chicken-Shit Atheist website idea just seemed like you were bating people. This doesn't work as self-effacing humor, because it's being directed at people who you feel don't have your courage of conviction. Speaking as someone who regularly uses the word Atheist to talk about myself, I'm not personally offended but I'm not laughing with you either.

I've heard a great deal of humor used effectively when discussing Atheism and religious ideas. Penn Jillette's "This I believe" piece, George Carlin's "Religion" from his "You Are All Diseased" album, Julia Sweeney's one woman show and Patton Oswalt's last two albums are all great examples of this. None of them pull punches, but all offer more than simple mockery.

I'm trying to stick to this particular interview, because you're falling into a trap that is unnecessary. You mock people and characterize this as thought provoking when it's the opposite. Responding to critics of this tactic by calling them 'haters' is simply missing the point. When you just turn people off, they don't think very hard about what you're saying. They just think about how they dislike it. I'm sure RD had some great things to say about dealing with libel or fanatical hate mail, but I doubt that it was, "Ignore honest feedback".

I think you had some very intelligent points during the interview but how many of the HNN podcast subscribers will want to hear more after you called them "humanists" in that tone of voice? Shock-jock tactics get attention, but does anyone take what shock jocks say seriously? I think you are both talented and intelligent. You could be saying a lot more that we should take seriously and with genuine humor. As a fellow Atheist, I wish you all the best.