Non-Believers Giving Aid

The Richard Dawkins Foundation has set up a site for non-believers to donate money for Hatian relief. One hundred percent of the money donated will go to Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross.

According to a tweet by Michael Shermer, the site raised over $50,000 in less than 24 hours (of course, being a skeptic myself, I'd like to see where he got the information).  
Update: Over $124,000 in 24 hours. 
Update again: According to PZ Myers, over $150,000 in 24 hours. Currently at over $180,000.

I don't care where you donate, but please donate. The situation in Haiti is critical.

Update: Poodles reminds us not to forget about the non-human animals caught up in the devastation...

Atheist blog challenge meme

This meme originated with Nullifidian, but I saw it first on (((Billy))) The Atheist's site. It was originally called the Atheist Thirteen I think because it originated on Friday the 13th.

If you’d like to take part, copy these questions, and answer them in your own words on your own blog.

Q1. How would you define “atheism”?

The lack of a belief in gods. I would go further and state that I lack belief in the supernatural. The Brights call this having a naturalistic worldview. And then there's my strong dislike of pseudoscience.

Q2. Was your upbringing religious? If so, what tradition?

Nope. Not religious at all, thank god ;-)

Q3. How would you describe “Intelligent Design”, using only one word?

IDiotic

Q4. What scientific endeavour really excites you?

Biology (ichthyology, evolutionary biology, freshwater ecology, ecology, zoology, aquatic botany, herpetology, archeology), geology, paleontology, and astronomy, but not physics. Well, ok, maybe physics, since I'm done with school and don't have to take any more physics classes.

Q5. If you could change one thing about the “atheist community”, what would it be and why?

Fewer rude atheists, because that won't change the creationist's minds - just make them feel justified in thinking that they are right. I get frustrated with the ignorance of the general public in this country all the time, but I think Hemant Mehta has the right idea. You can catch more flies with honey...

Q6. If your child came up to you and said “I’m joining the clergy”, what would be your first response?

I guess sending you to Catholic school was a mistake after all (both of us would be joking, of course).

Q7. What’s your favourite theistic argument, and how do you usually refute it?

I don't have a favourite theistic argument. None of them make sense. Look at the evidence for a god people! There is none. Blindly believing something without evidence is just illogical.

Q8. What’s your most “controversial” (as far as general attitudes amongst other atheists goes) viewpoint?

I'm beginning to agree with Paul Geisert, co-founder of The Brights, that "atheist" is a bad word, but I think we're stuck with it.

Q9. Of the “Four Horsemen” (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris) who is your favourite, and why?

Richard Dawkins. I've had a case of hero worship ever since about 1986 when I first read The Selfish Gene. I've seen him in person twice, which is the same number of times I've seen my favourite musician, Billy Joel, in concert. I don't always agree with his methods, but I do agree that atheists need to speak out if only to stop the creationists from imposing their agenda onto the sciences. This fight has been going on for decades, and each new generation needs someone to step up. I saw a bumper sticker yesterday: Keep your Theology off my Biology. Someone is picking up the gauntlet.

Q10. If you could convince just one theistic person to abandon their beliefs, who would it be?

My stepdaughter. She wasn't raised in a religious household and I thought she was more sensible than that. I blame her mother (there I go being rude. Oh, well. I'm only human).

Now name three other atheist blogs that you’d like to see take up the Atheist Thirteen gauntlet:

Anyone that wants to.

Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Bill and I drove all the way to Stanford University yesterday to hear Richard Dawkins and physicist Lawrence Krauss give a talk entitled Against Ignorance: Science Education in the 21st Century. The picture looks fuzzy because I was too far away, but my glasses came apart just as I sat down, so this is how it looked to me, anyway. I squinted through one lens for most of the talk.

It is hard to explain how much of an impact Richard Dawkins' book, The Selfish Gene, had on me when I first read it back in about 1985. I wasn't raised in a particularly religious family. We never went to church. My father is an atheist, although I don't remember ever actually talking to him about it when I was younger. I have never really believed in a god. When I was a child, I think I sort of believed in god the same way I believed in Santa Claus. Santa Claus was probably much more real to me, and I don't really remember believing in him. I remember when I was about seven, our cat Tufty died. I said something to someone - I don't even remember who - about Tufty being up in heaven and playing with our two gerbils, Ghengis and Kublai, who had died (one or both possibly at the claws of Tufty). I was told that animals don't go to heaven, only humans do. I remember thinking, "Well that's just silly. Why should animals be any different?"

By the time we moved to south Texas when I was nine, I was definitely an atheist, although I may not even have known the word. We moved there as I started 4th grade. One of the other girls asked me what church we went to. I said that we didn't go to church. She looked astounded. She then asked me if I believed in God. I said no. She was completely incredulous. Word spread like wildfire. By that afternoon, I was being asked by what seemed to me to be every other kid that walked by if I believed in god. I finally just started saying, "I don't know."

I was just confused. Why was it such a big deal? I was also painfully shy, had just moved away from all the friends I had ever known, and didn't want the attention. After a day or so, but what seemed to me to be weeks, they got tired of asking. Luckily, I just wasn't that interesting.

But later on I remember being asked that if God didn't create everything, how do you explain life? I hadn't ever really thought about it. I answered, "Evolution." But even though I had an absolutely fantastic high school science teacher (in California, not Texas), I realized I still didn't really understand how it worked or how life might have begun.

At the University of California, Davis, I just got caught up in trying to keep up, so that question was actually WAY at the back of my mind when I took a course on evolutionary biology. One of the required texts was The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. I read it and was just blown away. He explained how life might possibly have started, but mainly how and why things evolved after life started. He linked together everything I had learned and was learning in bits and pieces and showed what a simple and elegant process evolution actually is.

Fairly soon after I took that class, Professor Dawkins came and gave a talk at UC Davis. For me, it was like seeing a rock star up close. I sat in the front row about ten feet away from him and was acutely embarrassed that the lecture hall was only about a third full. That didn't happen this time. It was standing room only in the Stanford Memorial Auditorium - tickets were sold out several weeks ago (I'm sure Professor Krauss had something to do with that, too).

The talk was very interesting, although they were "preaching to choir." The room was full of biologists and physicists. The main difference of opinion they had was in how to go about educating people. Professor Dawkins is far more antagonistic, while Professor Krauss advocates a less belligerent attitude when dealing with irrational or ignorant people. The general public (at least here in the U.S.) seems to be under the misapprehension that there is a major division among scientists about whether or not evolution actually happens. They don't understand that what scientists argue about is not whether it happens, but the details of how it happens. The moderator mentioned that The God Delusion has provoked over 20 rebuttal books.

I somehow managed to be first in line for the book signing afterward. He signed four of my books. Unfortunately, we didn't have any books by Lawrence Krauss - that's him sitting right next to Professor Dawkins.
In the last two weeks I've seen Billy Joel and Richard Dawkins. It's all downhill from here.