Salient: video

Showing posts with label video. Show all posts

Radio HAM

This has zip to do with atheism.

On the other hand, the creativity demonstrates that it was a walk in the park to invent gods.

IDiocy on Trial

By "IDiocy", I refer to "intelligent design" creationism.

Yes, after careful consideration of the evidence, I have already reached the conclusion that intelligent design creationism is religiously motivated, pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo.

November 13, on PBS's NOVA: Watch Online : Nova : Darwin's Predictions : Defining Science : In Defense ofEvolution : Fossil Evidence : WGBH's EvolutionWeb site : Teachers' Domain Resources : Board vs. Teachers : Senior ExecutiveProducer's Story : The Judge Speaks : Video & Audio Extras : In Defense ofIntelligent Design :

h/t Pharyngula: "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial".

On FORA.tv, a conversation with Kevin Padian, one of the witnesses for science at the Dover trial. Kevin Padian is a University of California Berkeley professor and curator of the Museum of Paleontology. This is not a particularly exciting conversation because both the interviewer and Padian have a very calm style, but it is an interesting conversation nontheless.

Atheism in Canada

These three videos summate to 20 minutes devoted to the topic of atheism in Canada. I particularly appreciated seeing a gathering of atheists from the Abrahamic religions, showing that commonalities can break down imposed barriers.

Dawkins: The Root of All Evil

Richard Dawkins' television series The Root of All Evil is available on Google videos:

Part 1:

Dawkins examines the history of Christian myths. He interviews hypocritical televangelist Ted Haggard. (I don't object to the fact that Haggard paid for services from a male prostitute, it is the fact that hypocrite Haggard preached against homosexuality. Haggard was forced to resign because of his activities, evoking some truly idiotic comments of support from religious conservatives, "Where did this strange idea that hypocrisy is not a moral virtue come from?" Note the 'not'!) Haggard turns offensive, accusing mild-mannered Dawkins and scientists of intellectual arrogance in lieu of Christian apologetics. Dawkins moves on to Israeli Zionism and Palestinian Muslims, including an utterly illogical and hate-filled New York Jew who converted to fundamentalist Islam after emigrating to Israel. It is types such as this fellow who demonstrate Dawkins' point while flattering themselves that they are arguing against it.

Part 2:

Richard Dawkins examines the divisive results of 'abusive' religious indoctrination of children. (I agree with Gray that the scaring of children by threats of hell are indeed egregious, yet they do not rank in severity with genuine childhood abuse–not Dawkins' example of a single incident of fondling, but severe and prolonged sexual, physical, and emotional abuse.) Dawkins moves on to the fact that religions do not provide good guides to morality.

"The God of the Old Testament has got to the be the most unpleasant character in all fiction."

Enemies of Reason

Richard Dawkins discusses how superstition can arise in pattern-seeking behaviors and through accidental reinforcement:

Dawkins interviews astrologer Neil Spencer

Should be Expelled

First, take some Gravol or Dramamine, then sit back and watch Pro-ID Ben Stein and yet another cognitive-conservative congratulate one another on shared ignorance and prejudices. Expelled, in case you have managed to avoid knowing of this celluloid travesty, concerns self-designated victims-of-evolutionist-meanies whining about those 'nasty' scientists who refuse to pay heed to creationist pseudoscience.

I have to assume that admittedly science-ignorant Ben Stein actually believes the roborot that he parrots. Stein appears to be reading his lies from cue cards (no, I didn't omit an 'n').

Ben studied economics and law, so perhaps he knows too little science even to invent these more-stupid-than-usual straw man misrepresentations of science. IDiots are typically not only ignorant of the facts of science, but are utterly unaware of what actually constitutes science. One could excuse Ben for not knowing the difference between science and IDiocy, but Judge John Jones is also a lawyer, and he recognized the difference.

Here's the trailer for the movie that could only appeal to the already deluded. "My duty to get the word out, before it's too late . . ."

Clearly a new category is needed to rate movies such as this: "IDiocy Warning: not recommended for audiences with an IQ above 70."

Hitchens McGrath Debate

Hitchens wins this debate handily: Poison or Cure? Religious Belief in the Modern World from the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Hitchens wrote the bestseller, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. McGrath claims to have been an atheist in his youth in Northern Ireland. McGrath admits that some forms of religion are pathological, then goes on to attribute the problems with religion to fringe elements.

McGrath presumes to know what God, a purely hypothetical supernatural entity, is like and what God actually wants us to do. McGrath's arguments, like all apologetic smoke and mirrors, rest upon insistence that there is a God and that Christianity as a religion is excused by this belief. McGrath goes so far as to accuse atheism of being 'wishful thinking' to excuse laissez faire immoral behavior. He fails in this argument because the evidence strongly suggests that atheists are just as moral, if not more moral, than theists, who often behave very badly indeed. In short, McGrath troops out all the tired old apologetic fallacies of logic and fallacious appeals to emotion. There is, as ever, something truly pathetic about any argument that we cannot find meaning without resorting to the verbiage spewing from mythologies.

Alister McGrath is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Evangelism and Apologetics at Wycliffe Hall, and Professor of Historical Theology at Oxford University. Evangelism and apologetics translates as concocting excuses for fundamentalist religious dogma. Wycliffe gained some recent notoriety following release of a damning report that recommends ending the admission of school-leavers to some of Oxford's colleges. The study, conducted by a university panel headed by Sir Colin Lucas, a former vice-chancellor, particularly noted that Wycliffe does not resemble “an Oxford experience in its essentials” and is not “a suitable educational environment for the full intellectual development of young undergraduates”.

The full video is posted at Google.

Commentary: Watch Alister McGrath Take a Very Long Time To Say Very Little . Chrisopher Hitchens versus Alistair McGrath . Onward, Atheist Soldiers . discussion (mostly derogatory of McGrath rather than edified) on RichardDawkins.net .

McGrath's critique of Dawkins' book The God Delusion in McGrath's article The Dawkins Delusion? and book Dawkins God : Genes Memes and the Meaning of Life : Deluded about Dawkins (Part I) & Part II .

On YouTube, the presentation is broken into byte size chunks: Christopher Hitchens Debates Alister McGrath 1 of 11 . 2 of 11 . 3 of 11 . 4 of 11 . 5 of 11 . 6 of 11 . 7 of 11 . 8 of 11 . 9 of 11 . 10 of 11 . 11 of 11 .

Of Blogrolls and Banners

It's great to see so much rational, atheistic thought in ever expanding Atheist blogrolls, and OUT blogrolls, and on YouTube:

By way of Pharyngula, Growing stronger all the time, by way of toomanytribbles of toomanytribbles. Also mentioned in The Reality-Based Community online.

Operation Spread Eagle

The Rational Response Squad is responding rationally to the Creation Science Evangelism ministry's moves to have a critical video removed from YouTube: