Beyone Belief: Enlightenment 2.0 (cont)

Beyone Belief: Enlightenment 2.0

Yay! The videos are posted!

http://thesciencenetwork.org/BeyondBelief2/

Humanist News Network: Interviews with the "New Atheists"

In this month's audio podcast we celebrate our program's two-year anniversary by interviewing Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens. HNN's Duncan Crary interviewed these best-selling authors, a.k.a. "The New Atheists", at the Atheist Alliance International annual conference in September. At the conference, Harris, author of "The End of Faith," told the crowd that they should not identify with the atheist label. Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens react. So does the Rational Response Squad and Pastor Deacon Fred of the Landover Baptist Church. Also, Sweet Reason gives advice on "coming out" as an atheist.

Tally: Week of Nov. 23 - 29, 2007

Letters Received: 575
Letters Published: 71

Most Popular Topic: Iraq War
Number of Letters: 60
Opposed: 56
Supported: 4

Second Most Popular Topic: The now-dead proposal to rename a Portland street after Cesar Chavez
Letters: 57

Good Sense Without God - Paul D'Holbach

50. If God be infinite, he has much less relation with man, than man with ants. Would the ants reason pertinently concerning the intentions, desires, and projects of the gardener? Could they justly imagine, that a park was planted for them alone, by an ostentatious monarch, and that the sole object of his goodness was to furnish them with a superb residence? But, according to theology, man is, with respect to God, far below what the vilest insect is to man. Thus, by theology itself, which is wholly devoted to the attributes and views of the Divinity, theology appears a complete folly.

( See link at top right. )

More on Terrorists

More eduction on who/what terrorists are.

Reinhard on Waterboarding & Response

David Reinhard offers yet another humanitarian column:

First, if all waterboarding is torture, why does the U.S. government waterboard its own folks in survival training programs?

. . .

Second, if it's torture, why didn't Congress say so when the issue came up in 2005.

. . .

Does it qualify as torture under some other U.S. law? As former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy points out in a crack National Review Online article, our criminal code defines torture as a government act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering," with "severe" meaning "prolonged mental harm." Waterboarding could qualify if done repeatedly. "But," he asks, "what about doing it once, twice, or some number of instances that were not prolonged or extensive?"

. . .

Yes, what about this limited use when the time bomb is ticking and thousands of American lives are at stake? If your answer is "Yes, whatever it takes," you're in line with the public. In a Pew Research Center poll, 12 percent said torture (not waterboarding, general torture) was sometimes justified to gain critical information; 31 percent said it was often justified.

1. Uh ... maybe they do it in a military program called "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape", to uh you know, learn how to evade, resist and escape? Stooopid.
2. Maybe because the Republicans were in the majority in Congress in 2005?
3. This is just dumb. If you are going to use waterboarding "once, twice, or some number" then it is just sadistic. Making such a policy simply means the 'bad guys' know all they have to do is hold out.
4. Reinhard's math skill are in line with the rest of his cognitive abilities. "In line with the public" means 12 + 31 = 43% of the public.
   

How about a video response from someone who ought to know?

Victor Stenger: Faith and Freethought Interview

Author of God: The Failed Hypothesis

Lectures on Terrorists

Here are three Youtube videos of a lecture on terrorists from AAI 2007. Educate yourself.

philosophy bites: Stewart Sutherland on Hume on Design

philosophy bites: Stewart Sutherland on Hume on Design