The Jewmanist

After my recent post on a global warming debate, I decided to do some research on the environment. Also, I’ve been wanting to make an infographic for a while now.

The text reads:

Global Warming is real. And I should care because…

• Average temperatures have climbed 1.4° F since 1880.The 20th century’s last two decades were the hottest in 400 years.
• Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing. Polar bears and indigenous cultures are already suffering from the sea-ice loss.
• The extreme weather events such as wildfires, heat waves, and strong tropical storms are in part to blame.

So, the weather changes. This is big news?

• Humans are pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than plants and oceans can absorb it.
• Industrialization, deforestation, and pollution have greatly increased atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Though the magnitude of these changes are currently uncertain, we should be concerned with our effects on the environment if not for us then for future generations.

While the project is still a young noob, Atheist Resources is an excellent resource site started by db0 of A Division by Zer0 with Larro of Ungodly Cynic.

As far as contributing, anyone can create a wiki entry, so if you have resources you’d like to share feel free to do so. As I said though, this project is in it’s infancy and I’m not entirely sure we are going to stick to the wiki format/platform. I’ve recently checked out Drupal (per db0’s inference) and I am digging that quite well. BitWeaver has quite a bit of functionality as well.

All-in-all I am excited about this project and in spreading the “word”, so-to-speak.

I received an email with the following:

From the Church of Scientology and it’s front group the CCHR (Citizens Commission on Human Rights) here is a series of videos that attempt to destroy the good work done by mental health professionals.

Scientology has been changing their focus though their numerous front groups such as the CCHR. They are setting up a massive campaign against psychiatrists and drug companies.

It’s high time that psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors and scientists involved in the betterment of mental health get involved in opposing Scientology. The group Anonymous and many long term critics has been hard at work fighting the abuses of Scientology and it’s front groups, but we have yet to see any people involved in mental health join our ranks. (maybe there were I didn’t see any)

This video series is horrible, but the general public may believe it. It’s total manipulation with many short out of context quotes.

I was reading an interesting article at Black Sun Journal, which inspired me to ask “what is science, again?” In this article, BlackSun has a rare comment debate with a creationist and a homeschooler (with a biology degree) who teaches only creationism. So, what is science anyway? According to Science Made Simple:

The word science comes from the Latin “scientia,” meaning knowledge.

How do we define science? According to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, the definition of science is “knowledge attained through study or practice,” or “knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world.”

What does that really mean? Science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge. This system uses observation and experimentation to describe and explain natural phenomena. The term science also refers to the organized body of knowledge people have gained using that system. Less formally, the word science often describes any systematic field of study or the knowledge gained from it.