Positive Liberty

Welcome to all atheists, skeptics, agnostics, infidels, and doubters of various sorts. I am your host, Jason Kuznicki, and this is the Sixteenth Carnival of the Godless.

Welcome also to those who still believe in things without evidence. We have a chair for you right here–just don’t look at it before you sit down. I understand it’s more blessed that way.

And now, without further ado…

Let’s start with a moral panic, just to get everyone’s attention. John B at The Sharpener writes,

The UK government may soon face a terrible clash of Silly New Laws: not only has it vowed to protect witches from discrimination, it has also vowed to clamp down on witches. The Wiccans are apparently following in the footsteps of their historical predecessors in seeking to slaughter children, although gingerbread houses appear not to be involved this time round.

This clash should be fairly easy to resolve in reality: we’ll come to some kind of compromise. The government will issue empty statements and impose scary new laws as part of its War On Baby Eating, which will make a large proportion of the Wiccan community believe that we fear them and want to burn them at the stake. However, to make sure they don’t lose the Wiccan vote, the government will also issue empty statements that most witches are perfectly OK, and impose scary new laws that make it illegal for anyone to suggest that witches eat babies.

At some point, burning them at the stake may become the better option. Read the whole thing: “Witches, Witch Hunters, and the Blood Libel.”

And Now For a Conspiracy: It’s vast, it’s right-wing, and it’s closer than you imagine. Peter Fredson has the details.

Aliens Among Us: PZ Myers has a confession to make. He’s actually an alien who hails from “The Planet of the Hats.” You know, I didn’t think “PZ” was a human name either. Here’s what it’s like back on his home planet:

My people are obsessed with hats. Almost everyone wears them, and a lot of their identity is wrapped up in their particular style. Some people always wear cowboy hats, for instance, and others wear bowlers, and each think the other is exceedingly funny-looking, and would never consider switching. They have elaborate ceremonies for their children in which they confer the hats, and kids often go to special schools once a week where they learn about the history and significance of their hats. Everyone has the importance of hats drilled into them from birth to death.

Unconversion Narrative: It’s a fine old religious tradition for the born again believer to write down exactly what the moment of conversion was like. Of course, nothing prevents an atheist from doing the same–and here, Steve Pavlina does it to marvelous effect. Bonus: doing calculus in crayon.

Egoism, Anyone? Richard Chappell of Philosophy, Et Cetera argues that even if God created us for a purpose, that purpose need not be our own.

Science vs Religion, Part I: Bora Zivkovic gives a number of thoughts on history, science and faith in a wide-ranging essay titled “If Only People Read Their Bible the Way They Read Their Contracts.” It’s a grab-bag of many different ideas, but here was my favorite part:

Science is doing exactly what early smart theologians understood so well - slowly exterminating religion by exposing its factual errors and making it irrelevant.

So, did they get smart and adopt the theological/philosophical defense of religion? Oh, no. They are pretending that their religion is scientific. They adopted the terminology and the style of argument of science and they are selling their wares to the uneducated. The uneducated are incapable of discerning what is true what is not. But they are magnetically drawn to arguments that SEEM to be scientific.

Science vs Religion, Part II: Or, Creationists Do the Damnedest Things:

Larry Booher, the Roanoke, Virginia high school biology teacher who has been secretly teaching creationism to his students for 15 years using his own homemade 500-page textbook, thought it was okay to break the law because no one was complaining.

I’m amazed that he could even write 500 pages on creationism. It’s all of, what, three pages in Genesis? Even more shocking is how long he got away with it. Brent Rasmussen, founder of the Carnival, has the details.

Science vs Religion, Part III: Finally, there’s my contribution. I take Intelligent Design advocate William Dembski to task for misunderstanding what “skepticism” means. And, almost despite myself, I suggest why evolution isn’t such a threat to religion after all. The post is called “Taking Dembski’s Advice.”

Sequels: That’s it for this Carnival of the Godless. (If anything is missing, just let me know and I’ll make sure it’s added.) The next Carnival will be on July 10, 2005 at Tobias Bucknell Online.

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