I Ordered a Kindle

A few weeks ago I was contemplating buying a new book shelf, as my current one is jam packed. However after a conversation about Kindle's with someone at university I decided to get one of those instead. The initial price is more than a new bookshelf, but I think you can imagine why the Kindle is better. I don't want to sound like an advertisement for Amazon.com, so I'll just list the features that really convinced me to get one.

1. Free 3G for downloading books
2. Ease of use for buying new books (linked to Amazon account)
3. Thousands of free books availiable through kindle store
4. Long battery life (up to 2 months if wireless is turned off!)
5. Able to read in direct sunlight without any glare
6. Not backlit so no eye strain!

I have already been browsing through the free ebook selection, and there are some pretty cool books in there that I would eventually have bought a hard copy of if I hadn't invested in a Kindle. Some examples include: Marx's Communist Manifesto, Various works of Aristotle and Plato, Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' and 'Critique of Practical Reason' among many other notable works.

It should arrive on monday and I'm very much looking forward to reading some of these famous works.

It Seems Dennis Has Been Dealt With

If you've been paying attention to the blogosphere, you may have read that Dennis Markuze has allegedly been taken into custody. After 16 years of spamming message boards, blogs and more recently twitter, sending threats of decapitation, extermination and genocide against skeptics, atheists and scientists he has finally been arrested.

This may give me some motivation to post more regularly, as I have grown increasingly tired of the Dennis spam over the last 18 months. Thanks to a petition to convince Montreal Police to take action, and a victim of Dennis's threats who actually lives in Montreal coming forward, something has finally materialised.

I do not wish ill of Dennis, but only that he gets the help he needs, that man is seriously disturbed.

UPDATE:
For a complete explanation of how everything went down head over to Tim Farley's Blog, he even explains how Dennis got started on his psychotic rants.

Links:
Canadian News Article on the Arrest
Blag Hag
Pharyngula
Montreal Police's tweet about the arrest.

Might Makes Right?

I have seen a wide range of defences of theism over the last few years, ranging from the delusional to almost sane. By far my least favourite and the most detestable to me are ones that try and defend a theism that includes a hell from a moral angle. In particular, conservative theisms whose gods punish people for very human behaviour, like sex. When pressed as to why their god doesn’t want us to do certain things (like simply being gay), the theist will almost certainly resort to some form of argument from design. At this point I would like to bring up the fact that there is no distinguishable point of origin where our ancestors ceased being ‘mere animals’ and became human, that is the nature of evolution. So any argument that rests on so-called design utterly fails right here.

One aspect of this discussion that I find slightly more interesting than the sexual orientation and preferences of various deities is the justification for not harming one another. I assume that most people regardless of belief would hold some sort of moral system that frowns upon hurting other beings. The justification for this moral principle in my system is that I do not wished to be harmed, and will not harm others because a society that constantly harms each other is not one I would like to live in. This is not really an objective justification, but I find it to be sufficient in this case. What would a theist who believes in god-given objective morals have to say about this situation? I imagine it would be something along the lines of “It is wrong to harm one another because God says it is wrong.” Ignoring the looming Euthyphro Dilemma, I would like to examine the implications of this proposition in light of a belief in Hell.

Assuming a god commands that it is wrong to harm people, what possible justification could a theist give for their god supposedly sending people to hell? Harming them for eternity (or at least a very long period of time)? It seems to me like the only option for them is to adopt some form of ‘Might Makes Right’. Regardless of whether objective moral standards exist or not, what kind of society would we live in if we all lived by this principle? The regimes of Hitler and Stalin, the crusades, slavery, rape, and murder would all be legal and moral actions. If any theist really believes that their god has the right to punish people, simply because “it’s God!” then I am sorry, you are an immoral person.

An Album that Influenced My Deconversion

It seems a little strange to me phrasing it that way, but the reality of it is that I was influenced somewhat by an album by the Brazilian metal band Angra. The album is called 'Temple of Shadows', and is a concept album that tells a story (fictional) set in the time of the Crusades.

From the Wikipedia page about the album:

"The 13 tracks tell a story written by guitarist Rafael Bittencourt about the life of a crusader in the 11th century - known as The Shadow Hunter - questioning the ideals of the Catholic Church."

"Track 6- Temple of Hate: Jerusalem is stormed by an army of the Holy Roman Church, in correspondence with the real event occurring in July 1099, and overcome with their zeal for Christianity, annihilate every single inhabitant. The Shadow Hunter's wife and two children are killed in this attack. The Reign of Jerusalem was founded upon the fanatic, intolerant and ignorant ideals of The Temple of Hate, against the will of those who lived in the Holy Land before their invasion."

"The entire population of the Holy city was put to the sword, Jews as well as Muslims, 70,000 men, women and children perished in a holocaust which raged for three days. In places men waded in blood up to their ankles and horsemen were splashed by it as they rode through the streets. Weeping, these devout conquerors went barefoot to pray at the Holy Sepulcher before rushing eagerly back to the slaughter."
—Desmond Sweard, The Monks of War.

Obviously I was aware of the crusades before listening to the album, but it opened my eyes to the atrocities committed in the name of the god that I believed in. It forced me to think seriously about how a loving god could allow things like that to be carried out in his name. It didn't matter that I wasn't a Catholic either, there was virtually no other kind of Christianity for centuries. This was it, and it was responsible for abominable acts.

Satan

I find it quite interesting that Christianity (and consequently Islam) have very different ideas of who/what Satan is than their ancestor religion, Judaism. Traditionally, Satan was not an evil entity, or even an entity at all, but was rather the word used to describe the agent of God that tempted humanity. This is quite clear in the book of Job, where the satan (literally: 'the accuser', 'the adversary' or 'the opposer') is on friendly terms with God and is trying to tempt Job to abandon God.

Compare that with the imagery in Revelation, and modern Christian belief where the devil (or the beast) is the evil lord of the underworld who is at war with God. The two just don't add up.

Then there is the common misconception that the serpent in Genesis that tempts Eve is Satan. If that was the case it would be quite strange then for God to curse serpents to crawl on their bellies if it was actually the devil who did it. The word satan isn't even used in any of those passages, and to top it all off, the serpent didn't even come from Jewish mythology, but rather from the Epic of Gilgamesh!

It seems that despite what to me is overwhelming evidence even within Christian scriptures that Satan is a product of mythological evolution, many Christians still wish to believe that there is a malicious demoniac who is hellbent on ruining their lives. I cannot understand what the comfort in this belief could be. Perhaps it is just because they want to have someone to blame for all the things that go wrong in the world. Or perhaps it is just that they do not wish to let go of ideas that they grew up believing in, and do not like to admit they were wrong about something.

Sources:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=270&letter=S
http://judaism.about.com/od/judaismbasics/a/jewishbeliefsatan.htm
http://www.beingjewish.com/basics/satan.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/satan.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan

Paradigm Shift - Environmentalism

Over the course of the past 2+ years my views on a lot of things have changed substantially, perhaps no single view more than any other but reading Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan made me realise how much I've now become passionate about conservation (of our planet). I was sitting in the basement of the Business school at university waiting for my Reason and Science Society meeting reading Pale Blue Dot. Next thing I know a group of business faculty members sit down on the next couch over. I couldn't help but overhear what they were talking about, and it was distracting me and irritating me.

What annoyed me most was not that they were talking while people around me were studying and I was reading, it was that they were talking about profiteering. There I was reading about how humanity could all too easily wipe itself out if we don't take measures to protect our planet, while they were getting excited about how much money they could make. 3-4 years ago I wouldn't have been annoyed at what they were saying, in fact I would probably have been interested in doing the same thing. Now it almost disgusts me, and instead I get excited by things that can improve the quality of life for others, while not only doing no harm to our environment but helping to protect it. In the space of a few short years I've gone from a conservative, capitalist Christian, to a liberal, socialist, green atheist. Hows that for a paradigm shift?

NZ Skeptics 2011

Firstly I'd like to apologise profusely for my unexplained absence. I would like to blame it on external circumstances but that simply isn't the case. I haven't really had much to say, and grow increasingly frustrated with the seemingly impervious-to-criticism nature of the myriad of theistic positions. More on that in a later post though.

Onto the point of the post: The NZ Skeptics Conference is here for 2011, and I'll be attending, and any readers from New Zealand should attend too! It's in Christchurch this year and is set for Fri 26 August - Sun 28 August. As always, there is an interesting series of talks (each with their own Q&A period).

Session 1
Paranormal Belief in Queensland -- now the truth can be told!
Martin Bridgestock

Session 2
Standing strong on shaking ground: earth science in the aftermath of the Canterbury earthquakes
Mark Quigley

Session 3
Token Skepticism - Adventures in Skeptical Podcasting
Kylie Sturgess Session 3

Session 4
The Moral Landscape: Scientifically Determined Human Values
Mark Ottley

Session 5
Chemistry: An Antidote to Irrational Thinking?
Michael Edmonds

Session 6
Are we poisoning paradise with 1080?
Harry Broad

Session 7
Creationism/Evolution
Alison Campbell

Session 8
My Road to Skeptic Activism
H Stu Landsborough

Session 9
TBA

This list may be updated between now and the conference, and for more information on the programme head to the NZ Skeptics website.

Book Recommendation: The Christian Delusion

I just finished reading this book, and I strongly recommend anyone who is interested in seeing some well thought out criticisms of Christianity by a range of very qualified authors.

It contains chapters by Richard Carrier, Hector Avalos, Robert M. Price and John Loftus among others, and it is laid out in five clear sections.
Part 1: Why Faith Fails
Part 2: Why The Bible is Not God’s Word
Part 3: Why The Christian God is Not Perfectly Good
Part 4: Why Jesus is Not the Risen Son of God
Part 5: Why Society Does not Depend on Christian Faith