From the Mouths of Babes

It absolutely blows my mind how the people in the audience think this is something to applaud.

Historical Jesus

Here's an excellent ten part podcast series on the historical Jesus by Thomas Sheehan.  I've listened to it several times already and it's always enjoyable.

Tea Bagger Watch

Here is a great piece from the Associated Press on Sharron Angle's religiously informed political positions.

"What's happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment,...We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We're supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government," she said.

Sharron, you don't get to force your worthless commandments on me. We are a nation of secular laws, not faith based ones. It's beyond foolish to rely on an unseen magic man in the sky to provide our "daily bread". It's people that take care of people, not magic man taking care of people. I've done more for people myself than God ever has in the entire history of the universe.  His contributions amount to nothing.  Given the current economic malaise, I cannot believe you would suggest eliminating social programs to rely on God.

I tried to find the audio of the full interview but it seems it may have been taken down.  Here is an audio clip of the interview instead.

It's no wonder the Tea Baggers love this woman.  It's hard to tell the difference between her and Sarah Palin in the radio interview.

Big Bang Abandoned in New Model of the Universe

If this framework turns out to be an accurate description of our universe, all the theistic cosomological arguments will be even more worthless than they currently are. I doubt any theists will ever concede this though.

"As one of the few astrophysical events that most people are familiar with, the Big Bang has a special place in our culture. And while there is scientific consensus that it is the best explanation for the origin of the Universe, the debate is far from closed. However, it's hard to find alternative models of the Universe without a beginning that are genuinely compelling. 

 That could change now with the fascinating work of Wun-Yi Shu at the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. Shu has developed an innovative new description of the Universe in which the roles of time space and mass are related in new kind of relativity."

Doing More Than God Ever Did

40 U.S. billionaires have pledged to donate half their fortunes to charity.

Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet?

A while back I purchased Bart Ehrman's Jesus:  Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium.  Since my de-conversion I had been looking for a good book to begin better refuting theist arguments.   Most of the books I knew of at the time seemed a bit too simplistic:  Dawkin's God Delusion, Hitchen's God is Not Great, and so on.  I really wanted something meaty but also fell short of an academic work.  I had heard of Ehrman before so when I found this at the local used book store, I had to pick it up.

I started to read it but never really finished it.  I am going to start reading it again, but this time more attentively.  I will post my musings in later posts. As I remember it though, it was quite fascinating and some of the ideas in the book really make a lot of sense.  I can't wait to get back into it again.