Tag Archives: PZ Myers

Contemporary Iconoclasm: Jesus Statue Beheaded in Boston

Jesus beheaded! What would Freud say? Here’s the Boston Globe this morning: [P]olice are looking for the vandals who knocked the head off a statue of Jesus outside a Roman Catholic church named for Mother Teresa. The Rev. Jack Ahern of Blessed Mother Teresa … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Should You Believe That Alien Bacteria Have Been Discovered on Meteorites? And if You Do Believe It, How Strongly Should You Believe It?

Perhaps you noticed (as I did this afternoon) that DrudgeReport and Fox are pushing a “big” story that alien bacteria have been discovered on meteorites. Of course, nowhere else is there much buzz about this. So what gives? Biologist PZ Myers has … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Christian Martin Gaskell’s Shabby Treatment by Gnu Atheists

Martin Gaskell is a University of Texas astronomer who applied for a job at the University of Kentucky, but because of his open evangelical faith, he was denied it. The following is what the search committee chairman wrote in an email to the department chair: … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

Spineless Virginia Heffernan Attacks PZ Myers as Lacking Class for Sketching Mohammad

Virginia Heffernan of The New York Times wades into the gravity of the ScienceBlogs solar system (with PZ Myers as its sun) and finds herself distinctly unimpressed: Clearly I’ve been out of some loop for too long, but does everyone take for granted … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The Doubting Thomas Award: Who Would I Give a Prize for Being a Model Doubter?

In a world where God is not there (or, at the very least, is not talking plainly), the two things that redeem existence from being a very, very large mistake are just two things: morality aesthetics By morality I mean … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The resurrection of M. capricolum

Nobody really knows whether Jesus rose from the dead, but here’s a resurrection that you can know happened. PZ Myers explains what geneticist Craig Venter hath wrought: The experiment involved creating a strand of DNA as specified by a computer … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Nietzsche’s Revenge: PZ Myers v. Sam Harris on whether science can assist a person in deriving an “ought” from an “is”

PZ Myers, backing the physicist Sean Carroll in the argument, says no: Sam Harris recently and infamously proposed that, contra Hume, you can derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’, and that science can therefore provide reasonable guidance towards a moral … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Atheist Optimism vs. Atheist Pessimism: The Case of Thomas Hardy

Contemporary post-9/11 New Atheists are so, well, sunny, aren’t they? Perhaps it’s a product of our contemporary advertising culture, but it’s hard to distinguish this American atheist bus ad from a Mentos breath mint commercial: Minty and refreshing? As an … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

New Atheistland Watch: Bryan Appleyard Owns PZ Myers—Again!

I love Bryan Appleyard’s eloquent retorts to the blistering rhetoric coming out of New Atheistland. Here’s Appleyard today on PZ Myers’s scientism: [M]ention intelligent design and the likes of Myers will be hurling abuse. But I gather from reading John … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Creation vs. Evolution Watch: A Trojan Horse at UCLA?

This past week a group of Evangelicals came onto the UCLA campus in Westwood and gave away 2000 free copies of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). But, as usual, there is a catch to such things. The edition of … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

PZ Myers Finally Rises into Bryan Appleyard’s Radar

And Appleyard skewers him, returning rhetorical fire with rhetorical fire: I note also the appearance of this character P.Z.Myers. I’ve never read him before but I now discover he once did me over – ‘How stupid are the editors and … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Camille Paglia on Richard Dawkins

Today in Salon, Camille Paglia, an atheist who obviously hasn’t been paying much serious attention to the post 9/11 New Atheist movement, stumbled upon Richard Dawkins talking about religion on NPR, and having never heard his voice before, she thought he sounded a … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Michael Ruse, an Atheist, on Why He Hasn’t Signed Up with the New Atheists (or Confidence Atheists)

Daniel Dennett. PZ Myers. Richard Dawkins. Jerry Coyne. Philosopher Michael Ruse is an atheist too. But don’t sign him up with the above confidence atheists. Why? Here’s one reason that he gave in a recent essay in the UK’s Guardian: [H]ow … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

PZ Myers and Albert Camus: Two Very Different Kinds of Atheists Inhabiting Two Very Different Kinds of Atheism?

I think that atheism, especially at its most strident, is capable of choking its own life energies by nihilistically clearing the “ground of being” of any larger meaning, and then killing off the ontological mystery by not going to imaginative literature … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

The Hamlet Syndrome (“to go or not to go”): Should I Attend the International Atheist Conference This Weekend in Burbank, California?

Dang! Check out the speaker line-up for the International Atheist Conference being held in Burbank, California this weekend! It’s close to where I live. And it’s at the same Marriot Convention Center as the UFO conference that I went to just a … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

What Questions Would You Ask Richard Dawkins?

Most (though not all) of the questions I’ve heard asked by interviewers of Richard Dawkins seem to me tedious and uninspired. Generally, the same basic questions are asked about his atheism and about evolution, and he rehearses back the same … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments

Atheism, Philosophy, Near Death Experiences, and Causal Dependency

In terms of atheism and philosophy, a big issue that near death experiences (NDEs) drive us to confront is what we think about the causal dependency of the mind upon the brain. In British philosopher Keith Ward’s exceptional book, Why There … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Andrew Sullivan on Richard Dawkins

In case you missed it, Andrew Sullivan, at his blog yesterday, compared Richard Dawkins to the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary: It’s telling that both Mohler and Dawkins are both dedicated to the maintenance of a certain brand of … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What’s Atheism Good for? Ctd.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Atheist Groupies: What Do I Think of Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne Fandom?

I think it is an admirable human trait to love and admire someone who has done a lot of good in the world, and so I don’t begrudge the fanzine style atheist followers that sites like RichardDawkins.net and Jerry Coyne’s blog … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment