I’m still around, so have no worries!

For now, enjoy this quick image manipulation I created recently. You can even see up my nose! :P

Obama is not a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away free healthcare… You’re thinking of Jesus.

Harris sits down with Pinker for a discussion about the history of violence.

Sam Harris asks, “Need I remind you that the ‘atheist regimes’ of the 20th century killed tens of millions of people?”

Steven Pinker has a great response.

This is a popular argument among theoconservatives and critics of the new atheism, but for many reasons it is historically inaccurate.
First, the premise that Nazism and Communism were “atheist” ideologies makes sense only within a religiocentric worldview that divides political systems into those that are based on Judaeo-Christian ideology and those that are not. In fact, 20th-century totalitarian movements were no more defined by a rejection of Judaeo-Christianity than they were defined by a rejection of astrology, alchemy, Confucianism, Scientology, or any of hundreds of other belief systems. They were based on the ideas of Hitler and Marx, not David Hume and Bertrand Russell, and the horrors they inflicted are no more a vindication of Judeao-Christianity than they are of astrology or alchemy or Scientology.

Second, Nazism and Fascism were not atheistic in the first place. Hitler thought he was carrying out a divine plan. Nazism received extensive support from many German churches, and no opposition from the Vatican. Fascism happily coexisted with Catholicism in Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Croatia.

Third, according to the most recent compendium of history’s worst atrocities, Matthew White’s Great Big Book of Horrible Things (Norton, 2011), religions have been responsible for 13 of the 100 worst mass killings in history, resulting in 47 million deaths. Communism has been responsible for 6 mass killings and 67 million deaths. If defenders of religion want to crow, “We were only responsible for 47 million murders—Communism was worse!”, they are welcome to do so, but it is not an impressive argument.

Fourth, many religious massacres took place in centuries in which the world’s population was far smaller. Crusaders, for example, killed 1 million people in world of 400 million, for a genocide rate that exceeds that of the Nazi Holocaust. The death toll from the Thirty Years War was proportionally double that of World War I and in the range of World War II in Europe.

When it comes to the history of violence, the significant distinction is not one between theistic and atheistic regimes. It’s the one between regimes that were based on demonizing, utopian ideologies (including Marxism, Nazism, and militant religions) and secular liberal democracies that are based on the ideal of human rights. I present data from the political scientist Rudolph Rummel showing that democracies are vastly less murderous than alternatives forms of government. [Read More.]

While us atheists realize that Hitler’s world philosophy was shaped from Christianity and the bible, some people still like to say he was an atheist. He considered Jews to be atheists because they did not accept Jesus as the messiah. He hated Jews. He hated atheists. He hated a lot of people. As an atheist Jew, I take much offense to allegations that Hitler was an atheist. As far as the others go, I don’t have nearly as much personal angst. In any case, it wasn’t so-called atheist philosophies that shaped their policies.

The book: The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

From gnostic to agnostic,  theist to atheist; there are many positions having to do with belief or possible knowledge of a belief. Gnostic and agnostic have to do with knowledge, while theist and atheist have to do with belief. Agnostic is not a mid point between atheism and theism.

Need a new messiah? Why not Zoidberg?

Via

I know what it is!

It’s the “A”, a prominent symbol for atheism. I put it next to a white one to compare to the images from the ad.

It looks like it was just slapped on, especially in the third one. Was this just an accident? Is he being trolled by his graphics department? Or is he trying to say something to the libertarian atheists who are listening to him? Hmm.

This study does not assert that a majority of atheists are high function autistic, rather that high functioning autistic people are more likely to be atheist. It’s also important to note that this is a correlation which, as we all know, does not imply causation.

People with ‘mild’ forms of autism are more likely to be atheists, according to a controversial new study – and more likely to shun organised religion in general.

The study, which looked at posts on autism forums, focused on people with high-functioning autism such as Asperger’s.

The study, from University of Boston, speculates that common autistic spectrum behaviours such as ‘a preference for logical beliefs’ and a distrust of metaphor and figures of speech, could be responsible.

The study authors, Catherine Caldwell-Harris and Patrick MacNamara studied discussions by 192 different posters on an autism website. They also looked at a survey of 61 people with high-functioning autism, and graphed against results from the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) test.

The results appeared to show that those with high AQ scores were ‘more likely’ to be atheists.

In the group of high-functionining autistic individuals, 26 per cent were atheists, compared to 16 per cent of ‘neurotypical’ individuals.

Read more.

I’ve been busy lately but plan to continue blogging again. In my spare time, I’ve been looking into avenues of licensing artwork. You can see some of my work at my portfolio site. Though I recently redid that site, so not everything is up yet.

You may also check out a slideshow I put together with some of my older pieces.

I just felt like mentioning this in case anyone has any ideas. I don’t really expect much from this post but it can’t hurt to put it out there. ;)