My First Sunstone!

Remember that Sunstone Symposium I went to last month? (If you don't remember, go here, here, here, and here for a refresher.)

Anyway, I've written a new post about my first Sunstone over on the Sunstone blog!

Also, there have been some cool carnivals lately: The chaplain recently hosted the 126th Carnival of the Godless, and my post on Why I love 'Here Comes Science' was included in the 43rd Humanist Symposium! :D

Skeptical Parent Crossing #6!

I've just posted the 6th edition of Skeptical Parent Crossing over at Rational Moms!!! We've got some really fun stuff for you this time such as an eight-year-old "psychic", a skeptical analysis of the various potty-training advice you'll hear, and a parent who questions the wisdom of the piglet Olivia! Check out the whole thing! :D

Oh, and that's not all! This weekend is a real harmonic convergence of secular carnivals!!! The Carnival of the Godless is up at Daylight Atheism, and the Humanist Symposium is up at Atheist Revolution!!!

Carnival Bonanza!!!

It's a great day for carnivals -- come check out some of the best work by other bloggers in your area of interest!

First off, for skeptical parents, there's the new installment of the once-a-month Skeptical Parent Crossing!!! I'll be hosting next month's installment of that carnival at Rational Moms, so I hope you'll contribute your best posts on the topic! Submit them here

Then there's a brand-new Humanist Symposium including an interesting piece on creativity and whether it comes from the brain (or from somewhere else, woooo...), among other thought-provoking articles. And don't miss the latest Carnival of the Liberals and Carnival of the Godless!!!

For the exmo community, you may have noticed that on Main Street Plaza I've been posting a weekly reading list of interesting posts called Sunday in Outer Blogness. This is one of the bonuses you get when you join Outer Blogness -- I subscribe to your blog, and when you post something interesting on the topic I've chosen for the week's episode, I link your post into our community discussion.

Now, if you're new here, and you're asking "Wait, how do I join Outer Blogness?" and/or "But... it seems like no new blogs have been added to Outer Blogness for, like, six months!" here's the deal: Blogrolling has (yet again) announced that they're almost done with their upgrade and that I really will be able to update Outer Blogness on "March 2", which -- translated out of Blogrolling-speak -- means "at some indefinite point in the future." But I shouldn't be too cynical! I think they probably really will have it back online sometime soon. (And, yes, I'll pay the fee to get the ad-free version.) When it happens, I'll do a major cleanup (check for dead links, add all the new folks, here and at MSP). If you're not on the list and you'd like to be, just leave a comment.

Carnivals!!!

Wow, it seems like I haven't written anything about atheism lately. Too busy drawing illustrations, thinking of ways to draw more illustrations, typesetting, and writing about politics and Mormonism. I guess my blog is currently going through the constellation of Mormonism and Exmormonism. Fortunately, others out there are still on the job -- we've got two carnival's worth of lovable god-free thought on The Carnival of the Godless (War on Valentine's Day edition) and The Humanist Symposium!!! Also, a funny bonus piece shooting fish in a barrel snarking some poor fool's search for the remains of Noah's Ark.

And Sedna little Sedna is the farthest planet from our Sun!

That's what the kids are singing at my house tonight. I guess they've been watching too much Schoolhouse Rock and Hubble Telescope Movies...

In unrelated news, the latest Carnival of the Godless is the "Holiday Feast Edition." Mmmm, it's beginning to look a lot like "War on Christmas" season again! (As you can see from the What Would Jesus Buy? post.)

And here's a fun local-interest item: A few years ago, I read a fascinating book about baboon behavior called In Quest of the Sacred Baboon, full of interesting analysis and discussion of baboon habits and family structure. Most of the book is about observing various species of baboons in the wild, but the initial studies took place at the zoo right here in Zürich! From the pictures, it looks like the studies (which took place fifty years ago) were actually in the same baboon enclosure where my familiy and I had viewed the local baboons ourselves -- right up until this past month when they built a new baboon habitat.

So I just wrote a new post for Rational Moms about all of the amazing science and conservation work done at the local zoo, not to mention how much fun it is!!!

Carnivals!!!

There's a great new batch of carnivals out there for your reading pleasure!!

My favorite new one is the 2nd Skeptical Parent Crossing!!! This one finally allowed me to live out my secret fantasy of being ruthlessly chewed-out by a super-manly drill sergeant... ;^)

Then there's 28th Humanist Symposium, where Jeffrey Stingerstein has matched up a bunch of great new humanist articles with corresponding clever atheist quips!!! The homosecular gaytheist brings us the 104th Carnival of the Godless, and get that one while it lasts since the organizers are talking about discontinuing it!! Paul's analysis of the god-shaped vacuum deservedly made it to both (I'll add that I don't have a "god-shaped vacuum" in me, either).

Then, I was thinking of doing this meme that King Aardvark tagged me for, mostly because I think now is a good time to link to his blog and recommend his fun and fascinating epic adventures at Alpha Course. But I started on the meme -- and got to the question "5 things on my to do list today" -- and realized that I'd already already wasted too much time on the Internet today just reading the blogs in those carnivals and in my daily reader. :D

New Carnivals!!!

this time I've gone nuts with the carnival circuit, participating in three carnivals I've never been in before!!!

For the first time, I've gotten a post into the highly selective last-one-before the election edition of the Carnival of the Liberals!!! Then, while I was at it, I decided to submit a post to the Carnival of the Elitist Bastards -- the classical poetry edition!!! Plus, one of my posts on Rational Moms has been included in the brand-spanking-new carnival Skeptical Parent Crossing!!!

Then, don't forget this is the week of The Humanist Symposium!!! I think it's also the week of the Carnival of the Godless, but unfortunately the "BlogCarnival" service is down, so I can't find it. I'll add the link as soon as I can...

All of these carnivals are chock-full of some of the best stuff in blogspace from the past fortnight or so, so if you're looking for some interesting new stuff to add to your usual blog reading fun, please go have a look!!! :D

Carnival Mania II!!!

Interestingly, my earlier installment of Carnival Mania has recently gotten a huge spike in search query hits. It's almost as though there's something else out there called "Carnival Mania" and Google is foolishly redirecting people to me! Oh, well. If you're looking for some sort of Carnival Mania other than my personal list of cool carnivals, then you've come to the wrong place...

First up The Humanist Symposium!!! This is a fun one, and I particularly liked John Remy's contribution A Personal History of Profanity. He talks about the typical Mormon belief that "A speaker who mouths profanity or vulgarity to punctuate or emphasize speech confesses inadequacy in his or her own language skills." I was taught that one, too, and refuted it way back here:

I live by all sorts of controversial theories of language. For one thing, I disagree with the theory that the use of profanity indicates that the speaker necessarily has a small vocabulary. The latent mathematician in me can't keep from pointing out that actively avoiding profanity technically makes your vocabulary smaller, not bigger. Sure it's easy to over-use naughty words, but if you know how to use them well, you can achieve certain effects that you can't create without them.

In other carnivals, there have bee two fab installments of the Carnival of the Godless since I last linked those guys here and here, and don't forget the not-at-all-concisely-named Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy #10!!!

Then there's a cool new carnival coming up for skeptical parents: Skeptical Parent Crossing!!! This one hasn't even had its first installment yet, but if you want to be in on it, submit your articles here.

Carnival Bonanza!!!

First of all, we have my two favorite carnivals: The Humanist Symposium #25 and The Carnival of the Godless #100.

Then a couple more that I'm adding to my reading list! The 8th Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy and Tangled Bank #114.

And -- as a special bonus -- Runtu has started re-posting the lost entries from his legendary blog: "Joseph's Left One"!!!

Carnivals?

I'm not sure what has become of the latest Humanist Symposium, scheduled for yesterday at Uncredible Hallq. Perhaps it will show up eventually... ;^)

However -- as a special surprise -- I had a post included in the 63rd Carnival of Feminists without even submitting it!!! Thanks Genevieve/redwall33!!!

This inspired me to go read and contemplate some of the other great posts in the carnival, and especially reminded me that I haven't contributed anything to The Hathor Legacy in a long time. This, in turn, reminded me that I've also neglected Main Street Plaza and The Visitors' Center, and, really, haven't written as many articles as I'd like for my own blog right here.

The explanation is that I've been reading a lot more physical books lately. I don't think blogging and reading real books conflict philosophically (far from it), but they conflict logistically: five hours spent relaxing with a good book = five hours less leisure time to devote to coming up with blog articles. And ultimately I'm replenishing my capital of ideas. Every book is full of new ideas to contemplate which lead to new posts. ;^)

I was feeling a little wrung-out on ideas to write about, and I don't want to be scraping the bottom of the barrel, talking about stuff my blog friends have thoroughly covered or any old random thing I can think of about my kids. I don't want people going "Oh god, not another story about Nico and Léo..." I want people to be begging for another story about Nico and Léo. ;^)

And I've got a few posts in the works about what it's like to be an expat coming back to the U.S. for a visit (with kids!) and I hope you guys will come by and have a read. :D

Carnival of the Godless #98

Welcome to the 98th bi-weekly Carnival of the Godless!!!

I've gathered up a fantastic assortment of god-free thought for you, so let's dig in!

Science

Michael Meadon points out that going out of your way to bring up atheism when teaching about evolution isn't just bad strategy, it's bad pedagogy. Evolution doesn't require "non-existence of God" as a hypothesis, so (hardcore atheist and Dawkins fan) Meadon disagrees with Dawkins' approach of taking the incompatibility of theism and science for granted when discussing evolution with students in a science class. Meanwhile some Christians make a counter-claim that evolution is, in fact, at odds with "naturalism." If that leaves you going "Wha...? What are you talking about?" (since naturalism can mean a lot of different things, including nudism), then check out Jared's hilarious response!

A whole lot of religious people seem to think that belief in God requires disproving evolution. The frustrating part is trying to debate people who don't have the faintest clue about how evolution works (or how science itself works, for that matter). Norman Doering asks where do you even begin with people who seriously think that evolution predicts the existence of a crocoduck? At the end of his article, though, he links to a great place to begin: Berkeley's Understanding Evolution website which provides resources for a fun and painless introduction to evolution, including a fascinating article about Tiktaalik explaining what evolution predicts about transitional forms like the fishy ancestors of land animals. Similarly, Maria Salva provides a clear and eloquent explanation of how "gaps" are really just opportunities to learn more.

Next we have the prizewinner for "most creative use of ignorance about science": theists who think Pangaea is described in the Bible. On Open Threat we find a patient explanation of why believing that Pangaea suddenly split into separate continents a few thousand years ago (during the "days of Peleg") is a good deal crazier than just rejecting the theory of plate tectonics entirely. In a similar vein, Bing explains Dinesh D'Souza's misconceptions about prehistoric humans, and Naon Tiotami tackles the "Answers in Genesis" claims that car evolution disproves evolution of living things.

Of course there are other approaches. Andrew Bernardin suggests a counter-claim that the "Theory of Intelligent Design" predicts the existence of flying fruit.

Miller explains why reductionism (everything can ultimately be explained by its constituent parts) doesn't imply that complex objects don't exist. So does Allah read thoughts from people's hearts, as it says in the Koran? Bobby is not convinced.

Kids

As the Chaplain explains, God is horribly incompetent as a babysitter. Similarly Archvillain is none too impressed with God's record on protecting kids.

In addition to the kids He allows to die, if you think that He installs a soul at the moment when the sperm fertilizes the egg, then He's also the ultimate abortionist, as discussed by Ari.

Ron Britton reports about a pastor who holds an annual week-long crusade that involves arrangements with the local public schools to let the kids out during the middle of the school day to attend his church. Oh, and gloats over the death of a lawyer who had been preventing this unconstitutional activity in one town. Could be worse for the kids, I guess – could be Jesus Camp (reviewed by Ron Gold).

Politics

The top news story is that the Democratic National Convention has decided to add an "interfaith" religious service for the first time ever. To show how inclusive they are, they've made it "interfaith" to include everybody! Well, everybody who counts, that is. In an egregious and obvious display of Machiavellian strategy, the Democratic Party has noted that those people who think GWB's grand public piety show was a part of problem in the last eight years – they're sure as hell not going to desert the Democrats now. So why not throw them to the wolves and take a page from Mitt Romney, pretending that America's political discourse is a "symphony of faith"? If you're displeased by the DNC's cynical political pandering to organized religion, Vjack has provided info on how to get your voice heard here. On the other hand, if you're confused about this issue, Diana Hsieh gives a concise explanation of what our secular constitution has to say about bringing religion into government.

It's not clear who the Democrats are hoping to impress, given that the people who favor religious discrimination are currently praying that Obama's speech will be rained out as discussed by Doctor Biobrain.

The Republicans have their religion problems too. Postman channels God to have a little chat with McCain about his treatment of veterans, and the Whited Sepulchre passes along a message from a Republican politician that Jews (like Lieberman) don't believe in Jesus!

And, in world politics, Jeffrey Stingerstein explains that a theocracy that practices execution by stoning can't be trusted with nuclear weapons.

Philosophy

Let's start with the distance between what's true and what you'd like to believe. Irradiatus talks about the difficulty of seeing all of humanity "no more than blips of energy in an inconsequential cosmic blink." Hank Fox takes it a step further by asking what to say to a dying grandmother about meaning and human existence.

Then, on the other side of the coin, PhillyChief describes inventing excuses to justify belief in God. (The Exterminator has compiled some funny ones as well.) If unanswered (and unanswerable) questions get in the way of believing what you want to believe, you can always just call the problem a "divine mystery" and put it on the shelf (to be ignored), as Greta Christina explains in The Problem of Unfishiness. Then Larryniven takes a more serious, philosophical approach to deciding which beliefs are justified.

And Confused Liberal discusses the implications of atheism with respect to moral relativism. On the other hand, Ian explains that God's universal morals may well be worse.

Community and Strategy

The Amiable Atheist talks about the value of keeping the discussion civil when representing atheism. For example, LEECR7 describes a strange (but ultimately civil) highway encounter provoked by the Darwin fish on her car.

A Division by Zer0 has done some real work to help out the online atheist community, first setting up a tool that will allow you read a few top posts from all over Mojoey's 700+ strong atheist blogroll. Apparently for each blog it helps you find that blog's most popular posts. I'll probably try to use this one since I'd like to spend some of my blog-reading time on the various atheist blogs outside the few hundred blogs I've subscribed to, but it's a daunting task to know where to start. DB0 has also compiled a convenient list of resources for atheist bloggers.

As a supplement, I'll mention one item that didn't get included on that list: Social Rank's Challenge Religion. This one has the drawback that it's not clear how to get listed or how to move up. They have an official policy that they won't tell you precisely how their algorithm works (if they have one), and I'll admit I've spent some time contemplating this mystery. Nonetheless, by checking out their top posts, I've found some interesting articles outside my regular reading list. And if you'd like to play the "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" game here, you may notice that the Nonbelieving Literati blogs make a decent showing on their list...

Which brings me to that literate atheist playgroup, the Nonbelieving Literati. If blogging is one of your hobbies, then I'd be willing to wager that you like reading, you like your reading choices to challenge (as well as entertain) you, and most of all, you like to add your own thoughts and ideas to the discussion. So why not take it up to the next level? Join us in the world of stories bound up and printed on good old-fashioned paper! Anyone can join, all you have to do is get a copy of the book we're reading (in this case The Flight of Peter Fromm by Martin Gardner), and post about it on your blog on or soon after the due date: September 15. I've already read this one, and I can tell you that it's a fascinating portrait of struggling in the mire of Christian theology and of how the religion of your childhood affects your outlook for your entire life. (To get an idea of how this book club goes, read the last batch of entries where we read Cosmicomics: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

And in other atheist lit news (what else? ;^) ), remember that the serial novella Temple Wedding begins September 9. This segment is the one about the adventures of young adult non-believers coming back home for a big religious wedding. If you've lived this sort of thing (or expect you will), why not see how your experiences compare to those of our cast of exmormons? ;^) As always, you can read this segment as a stand-alone story (without going back and reading the earlier segments Young Women's, Youth Conference, Saturday's Warrior, BYU, Gratuitious Love Scene, and Polygamist), but you might want to catch up on the old ones since this is the story that brings all the characters together for a great big family gathering!

Well, that's it for this fortnight!! Tune in at Oz Atheist's Weblog in two weeks for the 99th thrilling episode of the Carnival of the Godless!!!

(If you'd like to submit an article, do it here. Also, you can submit a post here for the Humanist Symposium which will appear next week at The Uncredible Hallq.)

Exmormon, the Musical!

This is a letter I received the other day from a reader, posted with permission:

Dear C.L. Hanson

I have spent all of my limited free time in the last week voraciously reading the online portions of your novel Exmormon (I was so disappointed when I discovered the last parts weren't available and I'd have to wait for lulu to ship it). I really have nothing of great insight to add, other than to say I really appreciated it. As an exmormon lesbian feminist expatriate I can scarcely describe how much I identified with it. The scenes from the Youth Conference dance brought back so many awkward and hilarious memories, even though I actually liked the dancing in a circle with the girls and platonic friends part, whether that was to do with how genuinely entertaining my avant garde church friends were (one of the boys even had a beard! imagine, and one of the girls had two sets of earrings and was therefore Satan's handmaiden) or how little I actually cared about the boys except as some abstract status symbol, I'll never know. I also don't think I've ever been more gratified in my decision not to go to BYU (not that I haven't been pretty glad of it for awhile now).

At lot of Mormon lit is either so positive and upbeat that it seems false, or at least the experience of someone far more popular and faithful than I, or so completely negative that it misses what it was really like growing up in the church. Your book really reminded me of my life, and I impatiently await the arrival of the rest of it.

Sincerely,
Sabayon

PS: I can't wait to explain to my brother that he can drink beer!
PPS: I don't really think you should make it into a musical.

****

On an unrelated note, today is carnival day!!! So be sure to have a look at the fabulous post roundups on the Carnival of the Godless #97 and the Humanist Symposium #23!

And I'll be hosting the next Carnival of the Godless, so I hope you'll all submit some great posts here!!!

Carnivals and more!!!

Is it as hot where you are as it is here in Switzerland right now? Well, sit back and enjoy a refreshing cocktail at Humanist Symposium #21 (Old enough to drink!) :D

And this week is that once-in-six-weeks celestial alignment when we also get a new Carnival of the Godless! The Carnival of the Godless is up to #94, and going strong -- full of godless goodies!!!

Remember, both these carnivals are looking for more hosts, so if you're interested, please email Brent Rasmussen (brent dot rasmussen at gmail dot com) for The Carnival of the Godless or Ebonmuse (ebonmusings at gmail dot com) for the Humanist Symposium. Submit your posts, here and here.

Ordinary Girl has rounded up the Nonbelieving Literati's Voltaire posts (among other fun stuff) in her weekly reader.

Paul has earned himself the coveted link from Pharyngula for compiling a summary of the John Freshwater affair.

Lastly, I saw something cool over at HH's place. Here's a grandpa who's giving a fantastic gift to his grandkids, and to yours:

Carnival of the Godless!!!

This week's god-free carnival is up: Carnival of the Godless #93!!!

Even though this is a very popular carnival (better known than the three newer carnivals I plugged last week), it's low on hosts. If you'd like to volunteer, email Brent Rasmussen (brent at brentrasmussen dot com) of unscrewing the inscrutible. Remember: hosting a carnival is a fun way to get connected with your blogging community!!!

I haven't hosted the Carnival of the Godless myself since '67, so I've signed up to host on the 17th of August, right after I get back from my long awaited trip to Minnesota!

Carnival roundup!!!

OK folks, time for this week's carnivals!!!

First there's The Humanist Symposium #20!!! This is a fun carnival, which you might want to bring home to your own blog one day! To volunteer to be a host (I hear there a fair number of open hosting slots), please email Ebonmuse: ebonmusings at gmail.com.

Then there's the exciting new Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy #4!!! Of course I submitted my most controversial recent post...

Who's an elitist??

It looks like some of my blog friends have decided to gather together and form a Carnival of Elitist Bastards: see here and here.

I completely agree with some of the basic goals of this carnival: Ignorance shouldn't be praised as a virtue. It is a virtue to say "I don't know, but I'm willing to listen and learn," but it isn't a virtue to say "I don't know and I don't care to waste my time learning things I don't already know."

On the other hand, I'm a little leery of accepting the media-and-politicians' newspeaky use of the word "elitism" (even in jest) to mean favoring knowledge-based opinions over ignorant opinions. I think that favoring rich over poor can reasonably be called "elitism" as I've discussed with respect to G. W. Bush in this post. But spreading knowledge and attacking ignorance should be viewed as populism, not elitism. Sure not every single person has access to the Internet or to a public library or has the time to go there. But living in the "Information Age" as we do, tons of information is freely accessible to a greater proportion of the population than ever. Education is the key to making democracy work, it's what helps the little guy to avoid getting stepped on and taken advantage of. It's the "black is white and war is peace" dictionary that allows powerful people to call educators "elitists."

For myself -- as you can see from my post Question Mah Authoritah! I have a strong sentiment of anti-pretentiousness, or at least anti-taking-yourself-too-seriously. This goes hand-in-hand with being willing to seek out informed opinions.

Some people are better than others at various intellectual pursuits or at solving various types of problems. Some people have vastly more knowledge than others on various subjects. Such skills and talents are to be celebrated, praised, and honored. Yet I strongly reject the idea that the pursuit of knowledge it an elitist pursuit. Being open to learning often requires humility.

As I discussed in think for yourself, the Internet helps ordinary people grow in critical thinking skills. I think the people who enjoy the two-way communication of the Internet are probably smarter than the average bear and should be proud of it, but that doesn't mean this is a competition and only the very cleverest commenters are welcome to join in the fun. No one is too dumb to benefit from being exposed to new ideas and new viewpoints. And no one is too smart to benefit from being encouraged to look at familiar questions from new angles, either. This is why I resist embracing elitism. I don't want to dismiss anyone's perspective as irrelevant; I don't want to write off and exclude people -- even those who seem ignorant and closed-minded have potential. And I don't want encourage the smartest people to limit themselves by thinking that they're already right about everything.

Of course maybe this is just some sort of super-elitism: I think I'm superior to ordinary elitists. Or maybe it's sour grapes about the various elite groups I've been excluded from. Or maybe I'm just contrary. Or all of the above. ;^)

Today's Links...

Eugene Woodbury has responded here to some of the points in my review of Path of Dreams. He was a very good sport about taking the teasing bits in the friendly manner they were intended. And apparently he's got a new novel coming out, which we'll probably be hearing about soon.

One point I found noteworthy (the reason I'm writing a new top-level post about this) is that he mentioned my Questioning Objectification post, calling it "about the most rational thing I've read on the subject ever". This is atypical since that whole "women need to be protected from sexuality" thing is the main point where religious people usually agree with secular feminist theory. But I suppose there are dissenters all over, and -- as I said in my review of his book -- his outlook on sexuality is quite positive. By crazy coincidence, the same post about objectification got another strong recommendation from Black Regalia here, calling it a "really brilliant argument" and thanking her roommate for giving her the link. Thanks!!! I'm always pleased to see more attention for this article since it's one of my main contributions to feminist theory. :D

And if you're done reading The Humanist Symposium, don't forget that this past weekend was the weekend where THS shares the spotlight with that other fun atheist carnival the Carnival of the Godless.

The Humanist Symposium #19

Some truly fantastic Humanist thought has gathered in my inbox over the past few weeks!!! These articles cover Humanist Philosophy and practice and everything in between! So let's get started.



Humanist Ethics

Where do human ethics come from? In Questions of Morality, Lori talks about how the fundamental moral precepts -- love and compassion, caring for the sick and weak, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, don't kill, lie or steal etc. -- are common to all humans, including those with no religion.

So let's talk about what ethics and practices we should adopt:

In Humanity's Responsibilities, Phil for Humanity talks about the importance of adopting a mature outlook, and taking responsibility for our planet rather than hoping for diety to take care of it. Christian discusses (in Is dignity a useful concept?) how rights are a more useful concept that dignity when deciding how to treat others. In A Question to the Carnivorous…, Jeffrey Stingerstein talks about the ethics of eating meat from a Humanist perspective. In Vengeful Paths to Truth, the Mystic Atheist discusses the tension between revenge and forgiveness. And Paul tackles the importance (and difficulties) of growing in wisdom in What Would You Tell Her?.



Parenting

I've received just one article on this subject, but it's a beauty. Lynet thanks her atheist mother for how she was raised. This post is a real inspiration for all of us who are currently in the parenting trenches!! (On a related note, this episode of The Humanist Symposium was illustrated by my 6-year-old son Nicolas.)



Religion

Now, let's look over the shoulder of the religious and talk about what we see. Greta Christina attended church, and even though it was lefty, groovy, gay-friendly church, she still found that the God-focus did the opposite of striking a chord. The Exterminator had a similar reaction to the effects of Jesus prattle on the tableau of a wedding on the shore. And in Life by Proxy we get a critique of helping people by praying for them.

So where does religion come from anyway?

According to VJack in The Nobility of Atheism, religion seems to be part of the human condition, even though it's not totally inevitable. Dale discusses whether religion is perhaps a spandrel in Spandrels and Gods. (This reminded me of an earlier series by Todd O., where he talks about this question here, here, and here.)

Religious people do us the opposite favor by trying to explain away atheism as "just another Fundamentalism." The idea that atheism is a real alternative to religion is far more threatening, so religious people feel compelled to call atheism a religion. The fact that this is meant to degrade and insult atheism says a whole lot about how trustworthy religious people really think religion is (compared to reason). So atheists have to talk about this charge that is constantly thrown at us, as Natasha does in I Don’t Believe in People Who Don’t Believe in Me.

Literature

And let's close with a few words from the arts. Paul explains the poem Throw Your Rockets Far (read the poem first before going straight to the spoiler ;^) ). And for those who aren't yet caught up on the latest segment of Exmormon, we have the tales of BYU (including the atheist love scene), with the next segment (Polygamist) beginning on June 3.



So that's it for this installment of The Humanist Symposium!!! Be sure to join us in three weeks at Jyunri Kankei, and submit your Humanist thoughts here!!!

Humanist Symposium Reminder

Okay ladies and germs, in less than one week -- on May 11 -- I'll be hosting The Humanist Symposium right here. And in order to make this next one the best Humanist Symposium, ever, I need you to post your pearls of wisdom and/or tales of the sunny side of a God-free lifestyle and then submit them here.

Don't make me come to your blog and find your best Humanist post. Because I will... >8^D

The Humanist Symposium!!!

The latest episode of The Humanist Symposium is up at Spanish Inquisitor including a hilarious astrology theme, lots of great humanist thought (yay Paul's solidarity with nontheists!!!), and my recent polygamy & primatology post. (I promise my next primatology post will be about some primates other than humans.)

In the meantime, remember that the next Humanist Symposium will be held right here at LFAB, so get those humanist juices flowing!!! You have three weeks... :D

(Dangit, now he's gotten me singing Hemant's name to the Mickey Mouse theme....)