Okay, there’s going to be a climate-gate post up tonight. I promise.
I have to go and perform my legally-binding thing where I go off and marry couples who don’t want a religious ceremony and have few places to turn.
So happy Solstice.
Hint: You can stand an egg on end today. Just like any day of the year. As the bad astronomer points out every year.
Or, for more head-spinning facts and animations (most worked for me) you can go here.
Don’t forget: The meeting is tomorrow!
Well it’s running on into Christmas time, and you’ll all soon be listening to aunts who heard “something” on Oprah, uncles who have a few “theories” about evolution, and plenty of family-based insanity.
Since you gotta love the family (to their face, at least) why not vent a little bit of your woo-caused frustrations and pony up to the bar for the final JSS meeting of 2009 – our first year is down the hatch already!
There’s been a lot in the news of skeptical and scientific interest; from the Pope hunting Martians, Coma-Man, the H1N1, 2012 – you need to catch up!
Once again, the Time will be 19:00 (7 PM for you 12 hour clockers)
The Date: December 22nd (a Tuesday).
The Location: The Ole Tavern on George Street (clicky)
So there ya go.
Be prepared to discuss Christmas myths, wear fun T-shirts, and everyone’s favorite skepticism topic: Do you tell kids about Santa?
Plus, tearful recollections about where we’ve been, what we’ve done, and a cheerful debunking of 2012. The phenomenon, not the movie. I’m pretty sure that, at least, exists.
I’ll see you there. Remember to ask about the free beer.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 2012, beer, christmas, drinking, evolution, extraterrestrials, free beer, H1N1, jackson skeptics, local events, local skeptics, meeting, Oprah, skepticism, the pope
Alright guys, if you couldn’t make it to the Victor Stenger talk at Millsaps College one of the great folks from the mid-Mississippi Atheist Meetup Group has put the whole shebang online.
Having just read The New Atheism I have to say that Stenger hits upon the serious points of that book in the speech.
A funny bit pointed out to me after the speech: Millsaps has hundreds of Christian speeches and presentations per year, and yet none of them have an atheist response afterwards. Yet this speech earns a response from a Christian.
By the way, this is a high-quality video that I am thrilled to present. There is no way I can sufficiently thank Clay for his efforts. I’ve seen some high-level professional videos that don’t have the clarity and quality of this one.
So go here.
Or just click below. If you hit “More from LaHatte” you’ll get into the rest of the video.
Enjoy!
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheists, local events, local skepics, local speakers
At the moment I don’t believe that holocaust denier David Irving will be appearing in Jackson – this press release (via the Jackson Free Press (the “hippie newspaper quoted therein) by Richard Barrett seems to say otherwise:
IRVING DISASSOCIATES FROM JACKSON ITINERARY
JACKSON – David Irving, the British anti-Communist historian,scheduled for appearances in Jackson, Mississippi, October 20-21, 2009, has communicated his “disassociation” from his itinerary, which his host has accepted. Irving-assistant Jaenelle Antas wrote to Richard Barrett:
“Mr. Irving is concerned that you are doing things without consulting him. The press-release contained inaccuracies he would have liked to
correct. The way things are going, it seems likely there will be serious consequences which Mr. Irving has to avoid. He must not be associated, even indirectly, with any group of any kind.”Barrett responded to Antas, saying that “here is the Itinerary for Mr. Irving, as I had set it up. Since I am no longer involved, you may wish to contact those concerned, individually, if you
wish to proceed, on your own. I will not be taking part in or attending any such events, if you choose to go ahead, in any manner which you see fit.Irving had been scheduled for an interview with Jerry Mitchell of the “Clarion-Ledger,” Rhonda Cooper of the “Jackson-Advocate,”Richard Barrett of “All The Way” and Adam Lynch of the “Jackson
Free Press.” He was to have held a news-conference and speech at Jackson City Hall, as well as interviews with Charles Evers over WMPR, Kim Wade over WJNT and Paul Gallo over WFMN. The BBC was, also, to have covered his City-Hall address.
That was October the 15th. THEN -
DAVID IRVING’S STIFF-UPPER-LIP
He had a reputation for being brusque and, even, eccentric. But no one had expected that the British “stiff-upper-lip” of anti-Communist
historian David Irving would be quite so “stiff” by Southern-hospitality standards. Nationalists had scheduled Irving to appear in anti-Communist Mississippi to tout his book, “All Banged Up.” However, it was his hosts, who were footing his accommodations, that got a bit banged up.Shortly before the event, Irving’s assistant, Jaenelle Antas, told her hosts that “Mr. Irving is concerned that you are doing things without
consulting him. The press release contained inaccuracies he would have liked to correct. The way things are going, it seems likely there will be serious consequences which Mr. Irving has to avoid. He must not be associated, even indirectly, with any group of any kind.”Stuart Rockoff had told reporters that Jews, who had orchestrated Irving’s arrest in Europe, were all “abuzz” over the Irving-itinerary. A local hippie newspaper had characterized Irving as “unpopular.” Faced with Irving’s ambivalence over the planned Jackson City Hall venue, Nationalists suggested that Irving set up his own agenda and conduct his own interviews. Talk-shows had offered to do telephone-hook-ups, if Irving did not wish to be in-studio. Irving had been slated to, also, be interviewed by “All The Way.” However, Antas announced that “it was better for us to part ways.” She condemned her hosts for being “very unprofessional.”
This seems pretty par for the course for Irving. Speaking for, and then denying any connection with, racist groups is a common tactic of his. If he needs to sell books, they’ll buy them. If he needs to seem “respectable,” then he distances himself from them.
That said, I am still not certain on the appearance. I know that Irving has “reserved spots” available onhis website for 6 PM in Jackson, the time when, supposedly, he is going to be at City Hall.
I’m also still not certain if he’ll be on the radio – waiting on some returned emails, there. As of my last posting on the subject, he was going to appear on SuperTalk and WTNJ
Keep posted.
This is a re-formatted edition of the information available in paper flier form at Millsaps:
PUBLIC LECTURE
Millsaps College
October 22, 7:00 pm
Academic Complex 215
The New Atheism
Taking a Stand for Science and Reason
Speaker: Victor J. Stenger
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado and Emeritus Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Hawaii
Respondent: Steven G. Smith
Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Millsaps College
In 2004, Sam Harris published The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, a major bestseller. This marked the first of a series of series of bestsellers that took a harder line against religion than has been the custom among secularists: Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris (2006), The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (2006), Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett (2006), God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist by Victor J. Stenger (2007), and God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007) by Christopher Hitchens. These authors have been recognized as the leaders of a movement called The New Atheism.
In The New Atheism, Victor Stenger reviews and expands upon the principles of New Atheism and responds to many of its critics. He argues that naturalism, the view that everything is matter and nothing more, is sufficient to explain all we observe in the universe from the most distant galaxies to the inner workings of the brain that result in the phenomenon of mind and that nowhere is it necessary to introduce God or the supernatural to understand the world. He disputes the claim that science has nothing to say about God and argues that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, when evidence should be there and is not. In the case of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, he argues that the lack of evidence is sufficient to conclude that he does not exist beyond a reasonable doubt. Stenger also argues that since faith is belief in the absence of evidence it should not be used to make any judgments about the world or personal life, that religion has produced many horrors over millennia, that the Bible is unable to solve the problem of unnecessary suffering in the world, and how a common morality exists that is natural, rather than divine. Finally, he discusses the teachings of the ancient sages such as Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Confucius who 2500 years ago provided guidelines for the individual to cope with the problems of living, and dying, that did not depend on the existence of any supernatural forces in the universe, calling this “the natural way” as opposed to the supernatural monotheisms, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Victor J. Stenger is the author of ten books. For more information go to
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/
The response will be by Millsaps professor Steven Smith. I’ve taken classes from Smith myself, he is an intelligent and humorous speaker, and he demonstrated a great amount of fairness in his Philosophy of Religion class, giving me good marks despite my materialistic philosophical leanings.
If you want a little more non-personal proof, Dr. Smith also enjoys reading a bit of Dawkins here and there, and he likes Neuromancer by William Gibson, and Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson, so there’s that.
Patrick Hopkins who will be hosting the debate, is another interesting philosopher, who unfortunately (in this picture) looks like an evil mirror-universe Star Trek character.
Millsaps told us he was not the evil twin.
I hope we’ll see you there!
View Larger Map
Here’s a map!
The beautifully named “Academic Complex” is a ghastly bit of architecture which crouches in tons of concrete over the cavernous parking lot. You can get there right off of Park Avenue, just take the right at the end of the street (after turning off of State Street) and there is a singular entrance underneath the building in the parking lot – or you can make your way up the stairs you’ll see in the parking area, and go in the front door.
From the front door (or the stairwell) head left on the second floor and you’ll make your way into the big stadium-style room 215.
