Category Archives: Science
A Letter from God
The text reads:
Dear Evangelical Christians:
God here.
First, I do not exist. The concept of a 13,700,000,000 year old being, capable of creating the entire universe and its billions of galaxies, monitoring simultaneously the thoughts and actions of the 7 billion human beings on this planet is ludicrous. Grow a brain.
Second, if I did, I would have left you a book a little more consistent, timeless and independently verifiable than the collection of Iron Age Middle Eastern mythology you call the Bible. Hell, I bet you cannot tell me one thing about any of its authors, their credibility or their possible ulterior motives, yet you cite them for the most extraordinary of claims.
Thirdly, when I sent my “son” (whatever that means, given that I am god and do not mate) to Earth, he would have visited the Chinese, Japanese, Europeans, Russians, sub-Saharan Africans, Australian Aboriginals, Mongolians, Polynesians, Micronesians, Indonesians and native Americans, not just a few Jews. He would also have exhibited a knowledge of something outside of the Iron Age Middle East.
Fourthly, I would not spend my time hiding, refusing to give any tangible evidence of my existence, and then punish those who are smart enough to draw the natural conclusion that I do not exist by burning them forever. That would make no sense to me, given that I am the one who withheld evidence of my existence in the first place.
Fifth, I would not care who you do or how you “do it.” I really wouldn’t. This would be of no interest to me, given that I can create universes. Oh, the egos.
Sixth, I would have smited all evangelicals and fundamentalists long before this. You people drive me nuts. You are so small minded and yet you speak with such false authority. Many of you still believe in the talking snake nonsense from Genesis. I would kill all of you for that alone and burn you for an afternoon (burning forever is way too barbaric for me to even contemplate).
Seventh, the whole idea of members of one species on one planet surviving their own physical deaths to “be with me” is utter, mind-numbing nonsense. Grow up. You will die. Get over it. I did. Hell, at least you had a life. I never even existed in the first place.
Eighth, I do not read your minds, or “hear your prayers” as you euphemistically call it. There are 7 billion of you. Even if only 10% prayed once a day, that is 700,000,000 prayers. This works out at 8,000 prayers a second — every second of every day. Meanwhile I have to process the 100,000 of you who die every day between heaven and hell. Dwell on the sheer absurdity of that for a moment.
Finally, the only reason you even consider believing in me is because of where you were born. Had you been born in India, you would likely believe in the Hindu gods, if born in Tibet, you would be a Buddhist. Every culture that has ever existed has had its own god(s) and they always seem to favor that particular culture, its hopes, dreams and prejudices. What, do you think we all exist? If not, why only yours?
Look, let’s be honest with ourselves. There is no god. Believing in me was fine when you thought the World was young, flat and simple. Now we know how enormous, old and complex the Universe is.
Move on — get over me. I did.
God
Judgment Day: Intelligent Design On Trial (Creationism vs. Evolution) – Full NOVA Documentary
In this award-winning documentary, NOVA captures the turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pennsylvania in one of the latest battles over teaching evolution in public schools. Featuring trial reenactments based on court transcripts and interviews with key participants, including expert scientists and Dover parents, teachers, and town officials, “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” follows the celebrated federal case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District.
The Story of Broke (2011)
Christopher Hitchens Night: A Review
“I’m not as I was,” Christopher Hitchens poignantly remarked recently. Afflicted by oesophageal cancer and, now, pneumonia, Hitchens, who I interviewed for the New Statesman last year, was too ill to appear in conversation with Stephen Fry at the Royal Festival Hall in London last night. But rather than cancelling the event, the organisers assembled an extraordinary selection of Hitchens’s comrades and friends to pay tribute to the great essayist and polemicist.
Read more . . .
PZ Myers: This is why I hate college football programs
I know, students enjoy them, and a weekend of sports can be a fun event, and yes, they do have a strong effect on college enrollments (which always seemed bizarre to me—students actually select their academic institution based on the performance of the athletic team? But the correlations in the enrollment/season wins data all bear it out). But they also turn into hyper-inflated domains of privilege, where the coaches are paid more than faculty, students and alumni vividly demonstrate the etymological source of the term “fan”, and the athletes too often turn into swaggering assholes. Can we just have small athletic programs where it’s all for fun, and no one makes the games more important than the academics?
Read more . . .
Journey of Man: The Story of the Human Species
“Journey of Man” answers the question, “Where do we all come from?” Today, some six billion people are spread across the planet. Today, some six billion people are spread across the planet. But there was a time — not so long ago — when the human species numbered only a few thousand and the world was a single continent: Africa. Then something happened. A small group left their African homeland on a journey into an unknown, hostile world. Against impossible odds, these extraordinary explorers not only survived but went on to conquer the earth. Their story can finally be told through the science of genetics. Dr. Wells, a 33-year-old geneticist, is part of a team that has been re-writing history. He has been disentangling this epic story from evidence all people carry with them — in their DNA — inherited from those ancient travelers.
I recommend this documentary. One may choose to watch it in its thirteen parts available on YouTube, or check it out from your local library.
Atheists Do Not Need to Have All the Answers
. . . [H]ow ridiculous it is to assume that god must be the default answer for every unknown. I used to wonder why so many Christians seemed unable to understand this. I suspect now that these Christians did not want to think because doing so might jeopardize their faith.
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America’s Problem with Sex Education
[T]he Obama administration and Congress in 2010 eliminated two thirds of federal funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage education, and, in a historic shift, allocated close to $190m for comprehensive sex education. . . [The Republican presidential candidates] . . . are stalwart critics of science-based and medically accurate sex education, and frequently demonstrate that they never received it. . . The South, beacon of Christian virtue, has, according to the [Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States], the highest concentration of abstinence-only education and also the riskiest teen sexual behavior.
Read more . . .
Quote: Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan, Ph.D., (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996)
American Astronomer, Astrophysicist, Cosmologist, Author, Science
Popularizer, and Science Communicator in Space and Natural Sciences
You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep-seated need to believe.



