Ms. SuperScience at Beautiful Biology shares some great lines (including one of her own) from her Biology classroom during presentations the students gave on human anatomy.

A couple examples:

“When the kidney produces urine, the urine then exits the body through the uterus.”

and

“These are the Fallopian tubes in the picture – see? Here? These moose-looking things.”

I’m not going to have nearly this much fun in a math classroom next year… maybe I’ll have the students give presentations on Archimedes. The bathtub incident should be good for some amusement.


[tags]Ms. SuperScience, Beautiful Biology, human anatomy, kidney, urine, uterus, Fallopian tubes, math, Archimedes[/tags]

It was bound to happen eventually.

Someone is selling I Sold My Soul on eBay on eBay.

And with that, my life has come full circle. One full, wacky, twisted circle.

Though for $6 shipping, you’re much better off getting the book on Amazon…

Should I be offended that the book is being sold in “new mint unread condition”?

As it turns out, there are no reviews for the book on the site… so I submitted one myself:

This is the best book about an atheist going to church that I’ve ever read. Or written. I’m judging my worth as a human being based on how much this auction goes for.

– Hemant Mehta

(Thanks to Joe for the link!)


[tags]atheist, atheism, I Sold My Soul on eBay, Amazon, Hemant Mehta[/tags]

Jimmy Li in the Harvard Crimson newspaper has an article in today’s paper about coming out as atheists. He uses the “Pissed Catholic Mother” video as a starting point:

“Pissed Catholic Mother” is shocking and disturbing to say the least, and it’s probably safe to assume that most parents would not respond with such hurtful and abusive language if their child were to tell them he or she is an atheist. Perhaps what is more unsettling, however, is that the mother’s reaction reflects, albeit in a distorted and grossly amplified way, the sentiments of many Americans.

While Li goes on to talk about the stigma associated with atheism, he states the following:

Intolerance of atheists is so ingrained in our society that public figures can even openly attack atheists without injuring their reputation. During a campaign stop in Chicago in the summer of 1987, then Vice President George H. W. Bush was asked by a reporter for the American Atheist news journal if he “recognized the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists.” In response, Bush said, “No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.” Imagine if Bush had made the same comment about Catholics or Muslims.

That’s a dubious statement. While it may be true, the only person who heard it was the reporter in question, Rob Sherman. There’s no audio or video recording. And no other reporter at that press conference has vouched for it. We need to stop using that example…

Later in the article, Li writes about the only way we’ll shed the stigma, a message I strongly agree with:

t’s time for the atheist in America to come out of hiding. Atheists should be able to openly declare their beliefs without fear of alienation in the workplace, school, and home. The idea that belief in God is a prerequisite to morality must be dispelled so that atheists may receive the tolerance they deserve.

If the stigma of atheism is to disappear, however, atheists must have the courage to defend what they believe. And, as Richard Dawkins puts it, they must work to raise the public consciousness to the enormous prejudice that many atheists face everyday.

After praising Harvard’s New Humanism conference, Li concludes with this reiteration of his main point:

It is up to each individual to explain, and if need be, defend his or her own secular philosophy. Only when more atheists stand and speak up for their beliefs will people begin to shed their erroneous assumptions about atheism and decry bigotry against atheists. One can only hope that the “Pissed Catholic Mother” is of a dying breed.

Right on. We need to stop being scared. It’s not an easy road for many of us, but coming out to someone we trust (not the Catholic Mom) is a tremendous first step.


[tags]atheist, atheism, Jimmy Li, Harvard Crimson, Pissed Catholic Mother, George H. W. Bush, American Atheist, Catholics, Muslims, Rob Sherman, Richard Dawkins, New Humanism[/tags]

Remember the banana video that “proved” God’s existence? The two guys in the video were Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort.

After the Blasphemy Challenge people were on Nightline back in January, Comfort called up ABC and “offered to prove God’s existence, absolutely, scientifically, without mentioning the Bible or faith.”

According to the Living Waters (Comfort’s ministry) press release:

ABC loved the idea, and will host a debate in New York City on May 5, 2007. Moderated by Martin Bashir, the debate will be streamed LIVE on their website and will also be filmed for “Nightline.”

In other words, there will be a 90 minute live debate (streamed on ABC’s website) with the highlights to be shown on Nightline.

Who will Comfort and Cameron be debating?

Brian Sapient and Kelly M. of the Blasphemy Challenge. They’re the ones that appeared in the Nightline segment.

There will surely be a backlash from the atheist community for a couple major reasons.

• This debate (regardless of the results) will just be used by Comfort/Cameron to promote themselves, instead of a way to discuss arguments for/against God. It wouldn’t be the first time Comfort has done this. In the press release, Comfort says he has “been flown by American Atheists, Inc., to their 2001 annual convention to be a platform speaker.” That is true. He was a speaker that year as part of a debate on God’s existence. If you heard the debate audio, you also know he was crushed by his atheist opponent. But that’s not the point. Comfort just likes the line on his résumé. Even with solid arguments, atheists have very little to gain from participating in this debate.
• The only thing atheists might be able to gain from this is perhaps more exposure to a nationwide audience. That said, why isn’t someone like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, or even an unknown-but-well-spoken evolutionary biologist being called on to debate? Are the Blasphemy Challenge people really the best representatives we have?

I can’t really answer the first one. The debate looks like it’s going to happen regardless of what atheists think.

As for the second one, I asked Brian Sapient why he thought he and Kelly were picked for this debate. He had a fairly straightforward answer (through personal communication):

[In] the first year of the non-Koppel nightline they had [approximately] 1300 users register on their forums, in the… weeks following their segment on our blasphemy challenge they had [approximately] 13,000 people register.

Nightline likes the Blasphemy Challenge.

Brian Flemming, the co-creator of the Blasphemy Challenge and director of The God Who Wasn’t There, is not going to be a part of this debate.

This isn’t the optimal way to have a real debate, to be sure. But atheists don’t always get this type of coverage. We might as well make the most of it while people are listening.

Plus, it might be fun to see another peanut-butter-like argument that’ll get trashed by the mainstream media.

I hope Christians will be as concerned about this debate as atheists will be. They may have more to lose by having Comfort/Cameron speak as their “representatives.” That’s just embarrassing…

(via Fark)


[tags]atheist, atheism, God, banana, Kirk Cameron, Ray Comfort, Blasphemy Challenge, Nightline, ABC, Living Waters, Martin Bashir, Nightline, Brian Sapient, American Atheists, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Ted Koppel, Brian Flemming, The God Who Wasn’t There, Fark[/tags]

For one thing, Britain’s Channel 4 aired the Richard Dawkins documentary The Root of All Evil?, a film which would never see airtime in America.

Besides that, British blogger Nicole says this about a BBC show called Waterloo Road about a struggling school:

A recent storyline involved the school receiving funding from a local businessman, who proceeds to bring in an American fundamentalist. They try to force the school to teach creationism and hold daily prayer meetings.

The most recent episode just featured the (atheist) deputy head of the school explaining precisely what is wrong with creationism to a roomful of students, and the (also atheist) headteacher finally making sure that the school stays free of creationist lies.

Overall score: School 2, Creationist 0.

I know it seems inconsequential, but I’m just so happy that, finally, someone has started to show that fundamentalism is a threat here too, not just in America.

The episode just aired today, but hopefully, a more thorough summary will be up on this site or others like it.

Meanwhile, we Americans can watch similar fare. You know, like Medium.

We do have one series to look forward to, actually. Jonathan Miller’s Brief History of Disbelief, a three-part history of atheism which originally aired on the BBC in 2005, will be airing on public television stations across America beginning on Friday, May 4.

Funding for the program comes from the Center for Inquiry, the American Ethical Union, the American Humanist Association, the Institute for Humanist Studies, the HKH Foundation, and the Discovery Institute.

Kidding. Just keeping you alert with that last one.

If you don’t want to wait until May, a torrent of the entire series is available at Mininova.


[tags]atheist, atheism, Britain, Channel 4, Richard Dawkins, The Root of All Evil?, American, BBC, Waterloo Road, fundamentalist, Christian, creationism, Creationist, Medium, Jonathan Miller, Brief History of Disbelief, Mininova, Center for Inquiry, American Ethical Union, American Humanist Association, Institute for Humanist Studies, HKH Foundation, Discovery Institute[/tags]

TimeOut Chicago magazine has a review of the book in their upcoming issue! Or at least an article that functions as a review. You can read the article by clicking the thumbnail below or going to the TimeOut Chicago website.

By the way, perhaps you noticed that the article about my book is 3/4 of the page. Who takes up the other 1/4? Could that be Christopher Hitchens? Hell, yes! I’ve made it. His book, God is Not Great, gets 4/6 stars and 1/3 Hemantspace. (Let me bask in my pseudo-glory, just this once.) Not only that, Hitchens’ review begins:

His fatwah envy apparently unsatisfied by the response to his recent Vanity Fair essay explaining why women aren’t funny, erudite bovver boy Christopher Hitchens sets out to piss off the rest of the world with this contribution to the growing canon of neo-atheist tracts.

I love it. Bonus points for any reader who throws the phrase “fatwah envy” into random conversation.

Anyway, here’s the bad and good of the article.

The bad:

• I made the cardinal mistake of saying the word “like” during the phone interview. Not only did they quote me saying it, they used it as part of the pull-out quotation (in large font). My high school speech team coaches would be so disappointed…
• Here’s a part of the review:
  
  

  As an author, Mehta… inflicts I Sold My Soul on eBay with a sort of mathematical sheen, and his plain prose tends to make his procedural accounts of rote church services a slog to get through, too.

  A slog?! I think I should be upset about this… if only it wasn’t the coolest derogatory comment I’ve ever heard.

The good:

• The review got better:
  
  

  But where he really lights up is in his offbeat observations of absurd, head-scratching rituals like the “Christian mosh pit” at New Life Church in Colorado; the 24-hour prayer hotline that asks him to leave a message; or the Christian business directories that cause him to wonder, Do Christians think non-Christians are not good to do business with?

• [See comments about Chris Hitchens column space]

I wonder which definition of “slog” was being used…


[tags]atheist, atheism, TimeOut Chicago, Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great, fatwah envy, Vanity Fair, I Sold My Soul on eBay, New Life Church, Christian[/tags]

I’m on the verge of making a decision that could drastically change my life, at least for the next few months. These events happen to us every day, whether we notice them or not, but when we’re the ones making the choices, the results loom over us moreso than usual.

Because of the position I’m in, I’ve been thinking about the decisions I’ve made, and the good fortune that has come to me, in the past couple years (many of which revolve around the eBay auction). At the time, I didn’t always realize they would change my life as much as they did, but in hindsight, I have no idea where I’d be if things happened differently.

Here are some of the events that come to mind:

• I decided to wait for the bus one day instead of walking the short distance back to my apartment. I ended up talking to a girl also waiting for the bus. Not long after, we began what would end up being a two year relationship.
• I decided to leave medical school after a year to pursue a teaching career (and to spend more time working with atheist groups). Had I stayed, I’d currently be an M3, a year away from becoming a doctor. And I doubt I’d be doing any of the atheism work that I am doing. I don’t regret my decision at all.
• I decided to put the eBay auction up on a lark.
• Jim Henderson won the auction in the closing seconds. The partnership was more eventful and thought-provoking than anything I had anticipated. Had Jim not won, I probably would have gone to one church for an entire year and the writeups may have become dull rather quickly.
• A journalist from the Wall Street Journal chose to write an article on Jim and me, giving our story national exposure.
• I decided to say no to the first couple offers from companies looking to capitalize on the eBay auction. There were enticing offers that were hard to say no to, especially since there may not have been anything waiting in the wings.
• One book offer came that I was excited about, but I knew I needed someone to look after me. After contacting a *lot* of lawyers who work in the literary field, and realizing there was no way I could afford any of them, I nearly said no to the deal. As a last resort, I contacted an agent that had approached me earlier and asked him if he had any advice. He introduced me to a literary agent who ended up representing me wonderfully and led to I Sold My Soul on eBay.
• I started this blog last June. It’s been a thrill watching it grow. It has also given me a release to talk about atheism-related issues that would be difficult to discuss otherwise. In many ways, I feel like I’m more connected to other atheists through this site than through working with many of the national secular organizations

This is far from a complete list. But I’m certain that if any of those events had not happened, my life would be very different as a result. Obviously, there are dozens of minor things that happened to change the course of my recent history and I haven’t figured out their significance just yet. Still, the ones I mentioned stand out to me.

I know there are many religious people who would chalk up this series of events as part of God’s plan. I don’t buy that. My life would just be somewhere else right now without all those things happening. That could be good or bad. But this is the path I ended up taking. Hopefully, the decision I make in the next couple days will lead me in a good direction, too.

It would be interesting to hear what events have reshaped your life and turned it in a completely new direction. What were the big decisions you made? What events did you not think would be a big deal, but ended up changing everything?


[tags]atheist, atheism, medical school, M3, doctor, eBay, Jim Henderson, Wall Street Journal, I Sold My Soul on eBay, God[/tags]

Two events are coming up. If you live in the areas, please consider attending!

1) For those of you in New York City, here’s a talk worth checking out: Duncan Crary, communications director of the Institute for Humanist Studies, and Alison Bates, senior campus organizer for the Secular Student Alliance, will be speaking on “Getting Organized, Getting Out There, Getting Going.” The talk will focus on the new push to legitimize Atheism and Humanism as well as what is going on in the movement to change the world “to make it accept Atheists as part of the human family.”

The talk will take place this Thursday, April 26 at 6:30 pm (local time) at Bamiyan Restaurant, 358 Third Ave. at 26th St.

More information can be found here.

2) I’m not a huge fan of protests, but there will be one in front of Ken Ham’s Creation Museum in Boone County, Kentucky on May 28, the day the museum opens. The “Rally for Reason” will be gathering at 9:00 am (local time) outside the museum gates.

The organizers stress that they do not challenge the right of [Answers in Genesis] to present their worldview. “They can teach that things fall up if they wish,” said Edwin Kagin of Union, Kentucky. “We are simply trying to show that the nonsense they are vending is not accepted by those who do not share their fundamentalist religious views.”

More information on the rally can be found here.


[tags]atheist, atheism, New York City, Duncan Crary, Institute for Humanist Studies, Alison Bates, Secular Student Alliance, Humanism, Bamiyan Restaurant, Ken Ham, Creation Museum, Boone County, Kentucky, Rally for Reason, Answers in Genesis, Edwin Kagin[/tags]