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The Four Horsemen - Hour 1

The Four Horsemen - Hour 2

RichardDawkins.net, The Four Horsemen: on Christmas:

“All four authors have recently received a large amount of media attention for their writings against religion - some positive, and some negative. In this conversation the group trades stories of the public’s reaction to their recent books, their unexpected successes, criticisms and common misrepresentations. They discuss the tough questions about religion that face to world today, and propose new strategies for going forward.”

Timothy Garton Ash, What does a free society require of believers and non-believers alike?:

“We do, however, need to be clearer about the difference between secularism and atheism. Secularism, in my view, should be an argument about arrangements for a shared public and social life; atheism is an argument about scientific truth, individual liberation and the nature of the good life. Today’s debate around Islam is bedevilled by a confusion between the two. Atheists must be free to say to Muslims, Christians or Jews: “Your mind would be much more free if you gave up your ridiculous belief in God.” Believers must be free to argue back: “You would have a more profound sense of personal freedom if you did believe.” But neither is entitled to demand that of the other as a condition for participating as a citizen in a free society. The public policy argument about freedom for religion and the private conviction argument about freedom from or in religion should operate on different levels.”

Flying Spaghetti Monster - Touched by his noodly appendage. (Wikipedia)

AP, Religious scholars mull Flying Spaghetti Monster:

“”For a lot of people they’re just sort of fun responses to religion, or fun responses to organized religion. But I think it raises real questions about how people approach religion in their lives,” said Samuel Snyder, one of the three Florida graduate students who will give talks at the meeting next Monday along with Alyssa Beall of Syracuse University.

The presenters’ titles seem almost a parody themselves of academic jargon. Snyder will speak about “Holy Pasta and Authentic Sauce: The Flying Spaghetti Monster’s Messy Implications for Theorizing Religion,” while Gavin Van Horn’s presentation is titled “Noodling around with Religion: Carnival Play, Monstrous Humor, and the Noodly Master.”

Using a framework developed by literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, Van Horn promises in his abstract to explore how, “in a carnivalesque fashion, the Flying Spaghetti Monster elevates the low (the bodily, the material, the inorganic) to bring down the high (the sacred, the religiously dogmatic, the culturally authoritative).”"

Salon, Proud atheists:

“Steven Pinker and Rebecca Goldstein, America’s brainiest couple, confess that belonging to one of America’s most reviled subcultures doesn’t mean they believe scientists can explain everything.”

Jonathan Miller geinterviewd door Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers interviewt Jonathan Miller naar aanleiding van diens BBC-serie A Rough History of Disbelief uit 2005, binnenkort in de VS door PBS uit te zenden. De 3-delige serie is in fragmenten of integraal ook hier (wederom) te bekijken. Bijzonder de moeite waard.

Sir David Attenborough on God

“Faith will unsettle politics everywhere this century; it will do so least when it is separated from the state”

The Economist: Faith and politics. The new wars of religion:

“Atheists and agnostics hate the fact, but these days religion is an inescapable part of politics.”

Sam Harris:

“Haidt concludes his essay with this happy blandishment: “every longstanding ideology and way of life contains some wisdom, some insights into ways of suppressing selfishness, enhancing cooperation, and ultimately enhancing human flourishing.” Surely we can all agree about this. Our bets have been properly hedged (the ideology must be “longstanding” and need only have “some” wisdom). Even a “new atheist” must get off his high horse and drink from such pristine waters. Well, okay…

Anyone feeling nostalgic for the “wisdom” of the Aztecs?”

Richard Dawkins reviewing Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great in the Times Literary Supplement. Bible belter:

“If you are a religious apologist invited to debate with Christopher Hitchens, decline. His witty repartee, his ready-access store of historical quotations, his bookish eloquence, his effortless flow of well-formed words, beautifully spoken in that formidable Richard Burton voice (the whole performance not dulled by other equally formidable Richard Burton habits), would threaten your arguments even if you had good ones to deploy.”

Physorg.com:

“The study, published in the September 2007 issue of Psychiatric Services, also found that religious physicians, especially Protestants, are less likely to refer patients to psychiatrists, and more likely to send them to members of the clergy or to a religious counselor.”

While Dawkins makes a strong case for why one doesn’t require a thorough grounding in theology to refute religious certainties (you don’t need to be an expert in fairyology to dispute the existence of fairies), and Hitchens draws on his acute observational skills and tireless globetrotting to report on the way “religion poisons everything” – from “Belfast to Beirut to Baghdad, and that’s without leaving the B’s”– Onfray takes another tack entirely. As befits his role as “France’s most popular philosopher” (is there another country in the world where these two words go together?), Onfray delves deep into the internal logic of the three monotheisms, performing what he calls “a pitiless historical reading of the three so-called holy books”. Nor is he alone in his battle: he enters the field backed by a gang of thinkers as bizarrely incongruous as the Dirty Dozen – Epicurus, Nietzsche, Georges Bataille and Jean Meslier, Baron d’Holbach and Michel Foucault, Jeremy Bentham and Freud.

Caspar Melvill: Atheism à la mode

WSJ:

“Says Barbara Meade, a co-owner of the Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.: “Part of the appeal is that he’s a personality; we sold 106 books when he visited our store.”"

Deze week in Slate drie voorpublicaties van Christopher Hitchens’ boek God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

Woensdag: God Is Not Great.
Donderdag: Was Muhammad Epileptic?
(update) Vrijdag: Mormonism: A Racket Becomes a Religion

Maarten ‘t Hart: “Als het mezelf niet betrof, zou ik er reuze veel schik om hebben.”

Quote: “If atheism is a religion then not collecting stamps is a hobby.” (Cloudsoup)

Ronald Plasterk: “God in de politiek is fataal.” (via)

• Klikbare screensaver Uitzendinggemist.nl
  “Eind dit jaar of begin volgend jaar gaat de Publieke Omroep Uitzendinggemist ook in MPEG4 (H.264) uitzenden. Handig, want dan komen de omroeparchieven op fatsoenlijke wijze ook beschikbaar voor OSX *kruist vingers*”
  (tags: nl omroep tv uitzendinggemist)
• Art worth millions? An economist offers a theory on creativity and relative value - Business - International Herald Tribune
  “He has developed something approaching a unified theory of art, which hasn’t won him many fans in the art world but does a surprisingly good job of explaining the relative value of the world’s great paintings.”
  (tags: art artmarket economics)
• Wired 14.11: The Church of the Non-Believers
  “A band of intellectual brothers is mounting a crusade against belief in God. Are they winning converts, or merely preaching to the choir? “
  (tags: atheism culture)