Cosmos - Carl Sagan Would Be Proud!

Last night I sat down on my couch after a long day at work looking forward to watching the recording of Cosmos, (hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson) I'd made the previous evening. My hopes/expectations were high, though I doubted anyone could stir my emotions and enchant my mind the way Carl Sagan once did. Cosmos was a major catalyst of my deconversion, the picture Sagan painted of the beauty and complexity of nature, the size, scope and truly awesome origins of our universe and life on earth helped open my eyes. His words and the passionate way in which he delivered them cut through the fog that shrouded my mind. The fog created by more than 20 years of trying to reconcile infantile, bronze age explanations of life and the origin of our universe with what I saw through the lens of a microscope, a telescope and between the covers of books. Though Carl Sagan possessed one of the most brilliant scientific minds of all time, he never seemed condescending or aloof, his explanations of concepts like space and time were captivating, perspicuous and elegant and in my case his words were also provocative. Having grown up in an environment where "truth" was taught with a capital "T" and only being allowed to spend time with children and families from my private, Christian School and church; the concepts and ideas Sagan presented were in many cases entirely novel to me. As far back as I can remember I was taught that God spoke the universe into existence in 7 (literal days), that the earth was 6,000 - 10,000 years old and that ideas like evolution or the big bang were contemptible and anyone who subscribed to such preposterous and deplorable notions deserved mockery, ridicule and shame. Oh the irony... I am ashamed to admit that the words, "evolution is only a theory," and "there are no transitional fossils" have passed my lips. However, in my defense I can claim ignorance as an excuse. I was indoctrinated long before I reached an age where I could be held accountable for my beliefs and shielded from "secular ideas" which included most of what science/scientists had discovered about the natural order of things.

Returning to my earlier comment about having high hopes and expectation for the "new" Cosmos series and my skepticism about it being as moving and impactful as the original... This is one of the rare instances when I can say I am truly delighted to be wrong! By the time Neil deGrasse Tyson was standing in the famous "spaceship of imagination" looking down on our planet from space, I was entranced. Tyson's delivery was just as eloquent, equally moving and thanks to major advances in science and technology, even more educational and informative than that of the late Carl Sagan. The icing on the cake was the moment at the end of the episode when Tyson produced Carl Sagan's personal calender and showed his name written in it. As Tyson recounted the snowy Saturday he spent with Sagan in Ithaca and the lasting effect it had on his life, I was literally moved to tears. I think because I was able to identify with the feeling of excitement and wonder that Tyson felt that day, at age 17. I might not have had the chance to visit Carl Sagan's lab or share a cheeseburger with him, but he had the same effect on my life as he did on Neil deGrasse Tyson's. He opened my eyes to the awesome and wonderful world of science, he inspired me to learn all I could about nature, he was my first exposure to the scientific method and he played a major roll in setting me free from the oppressive ignorance of religion.


I'll leave you with a quote from another late, great thinker and atheist, Christopher Hitchens. As always, "Hitch" sums up my feelings in a way I only wish I could.

“One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would like to think—though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one—that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.”

See full episodes of "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" at: www.cosmosontv.com - Hosted by: Neil deGrasse Tyson

A Big Fat, "Fail" by The Friendly Atheist...

"Yes, There Are Pro-Life Atheists Out There. Here’s Why I’m One of Them" - Really..? REALLY???

The title of this post (on The Friendly Atheist blog, March 11th, 2014) is offensive, misleading and downright ignorant. The post was written by a guest author, not Hemant Mehta (the host of the blog), however that doesn't excuse him from allowing such a flawed, flimsy, emotional and downright ridiculous article such as this to be posted on his site.

In my experience (and abortion is a topic I've discussed with a good number of non-believers/atheists/agnostics) I've found the VAST majority are, "pro-life." To be clear I don't mean that in the Right Wing, picket sign toting, abortion clinic bombing, "Jesus loves the little children" sense of the word. I mean it in an objective, literal sense. Humanism and atheism go hand in hand in many cases, and the folks I've spoken to tend to agree that life is valuable and precious. (Which makes perfect sense considering the fact that this is the only moment in all of time that we'll have consciousness and non-believers reject the notion of an afterlife.) However, that does not mean that atheists/non-believers don't support a woman's right to choose, nor do they deny the fact that there are many instances when abortion is medically necessary or otherwise justifiable, such as in cases of rape or incest for example.

The label of "pro-life" is misused in my opinion, that should be the term "we" (non-believers) use to describe our stance. In most cases (again speaking from my experience) atheist/non-believers value life, human and non-human, but we consider the big picture when it comes to abortion. Will the child be born into poverty, drug addiction/abuse or physically, mentally/emotionally or sexually abusive environment(s)? Can the mother/family care for the child, can they feed and clothe the child and otherwise care for him/her? Is there a birth defect that will render the child unable to experience or enjoy life, or worse, will the child suffer unnecessarily and then die a wretched death fed through tubes and kept alive through artificial means? All of these examples and many more are moral considerations that one should take into account when considering "life" in a holistic context.

The religious movement that has labeled itself "pro-life" would be more correctly labeled, "pro-birth." They give no consideration to the actual life of the child or it's mother/father whatsoever, and I find such cruel indifference to suffering and misery disturbing. Although I suppose suffering and misery are sort of the stock and trade of most major religions though, aren't they? The Catholic Church made Mother Teresa a "Saint" for her "work with the poor" after all. Forgetting that in reality she was a friend of poverty and an advocate of suffering, she regarded women as little more than cattle-like vessels for birthing children destined to suffer in abject poverty the same way their parents had. She predicated these vile notions on the belief that suffering in this life led to a reward in the afterlife.

I've gotten off on a tangent, the point is the author of this post not only fails to support any of the arguments their trying make. But they also accused the majority of atheists of being utterly indifferent to human life, and that is not only offensive, it's outright ridiculous. I can only hope that the backlash this article has received from the atheist community inspires the author to revisit their ideas on the subject and will attempt to undo the damage they've done by publishing something so offensive, blatantly illogical and full of holes.

Click here to view the original article on, "The Friendly Atheist."

Confirmation Bias Rears its Ugly Head, Once Again.

Mark Driscoll, the pastor of the Seattle mega-church called "Mars Hill" posted the following on Facebook.

- "A deacon at Mars Hill Church Everett was diagnosed with kidney cancer eight months ago and was given six months to live. He approached the elders for prayer after his diagnosis. They prayed for healing and for Jesus to be glorified. Recently, the man had a scan of his entire body and the results came back with no trace of cancer in his kidneys or lymph nodes."

I responded by pointing out the fact that he failed to mention the months of radiation, chemotherapy, proton therapy, etc that this person underwent, and suggested that those things MIGHT have had something to do with his recovery. I got the following response to my statement from someone I know quite well that saw my comment on Mark Driscoll's page.

- " ... the basis of faith tells us that knowledge doctors etc all came from The Lord. Many good doctors will acknowledge miracles, where they come from we also know."


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This blog post is a word for word response to that person's comment:

The basis of faith (when considered objectively) is to purposefully ignore any and all possibly explanations to the contrary of what a person believes (or wants to believe). In this case, the fact is science and medicine are responsible for the remission of this person's cancer.

The statement/claim in this case was that prayer healed this person, not doctors/medicine, nor was there any mention that those doctors and/or the medicine/therapy he received were "gifts from god". I am challenging the notion that the reason this person has survived beyond the estimation of their doctor(s) is not because of prayer, but because of science, medicine and human beings that have devoted their lives to helping other people. While it is true that some doctors do acknowledge that things occur that they cannot comprehensively explain, and some doctors may label those occurrences as "miracles". It does not necessarily mean that the ONLY other explanation for those happenings is that "god did it". In my experience and estimation, far more doctors are offended by the notion that their 10-12 years of schooling, extensive knowledge, comprehensive expertise, long hours and hard work have nothing to do with the outcome of their treatments/patients. That instead the results are determined by the whim of an invisible man in the sky and entirely out of their hands.

I heard someone say during a lecture once that about 150,000 people die each day on planet earth. If the rest of us, all 6+ billion people prayed for those 150,000 that were about to die, 150,000 would still die that day. Nothing fails like prayer. However we tragically see parents and caretakers that persist in this belief, refusing their children (or the person they care for) medical care for conditions that could EASILY be cured by antibiotics or minor surgery. And the reason they do this is because they are convinced that prayer alone can heal them. In every single one of those cases when medical attention is withheld, the child (person) dies, 100% of the time.

People like James Randi (as one example among many others) have devoted a great deal of time and energy to either proving or debunking claims of miraculous healing and faith healers. Again, 100% of the time these people are shown to be frauds. They're using actors, they have people fill out slips of paper that someone reads to the person on stage through a listening device, some use "mentalist" type manipulations and the list of predatory, fraudulent tactics like that goes on and on. Not once, literally not even a single time have any of these people that claim to be able to heal through prayer and/or the power of god proven to be able to effect any kind of supernatural changes on people/the natural world. For myself and people outside the "bubble" (religious belief/faith) this is obvious evidence that the foundational claims behind these beliefs are flawed. However, for people who do believe, there is always some excuse or explanation that they can use to justify the failure of their beliefs and these kinds of claims. This lessens the often painful Cognitive Dissonance that occurs when religious belief/faith collides with reality and allows the person to continue on without having to question their beliefs or the foundation(s) of those beliefs.

One other thing comes to mind regarding prayer/faith and healing. There have been multiple (10-12) major university studies done on prayer and its effect on and ability to heal or help people heal. In every case the results were the same, prayer had no effect whatsoever on the outcome, people being prayed for did not recover faster or to a higher degree than the people in the control group. And most interestingly, people that knew they were being prayed for did worse than the other 2 groups, this finding was confirmed by multiple studies.

The bottom line is this, the reason this person's cancer is in remission and he/she has beat the odds of surviving beyond 6 months is (solely) because they received highly advanced medical care. You can call it a gift from god, but that just begs the question.... (several questions actually, but let's focus on this one). If god intended for us to have a cure to diseases like cancer, why didn't he just provide them in the bible or through some other means? Why allow such painful suffering, death and loss to continue for thousands of years while we as human beings slowly made the progress necessary in science and medicine to be able to cure them?

The bible says we are god's children and that he loves us like a father loves a child. Would you withhold information from your child/children if they were suffering the way people dying of bone cancer, lung cancer or pancreatic cancer suffer if that information would certainly ease that suffering? Would you call it loving or benevolent if someone withheld information that would relieve their children from such horrific pain and a wretched death? Not a chance! So why let god off the hook? Because the bible says his ways are higher than ours and we shouldn't question his authority? Because it says that we should "just believe", regardless of how much contradictory, conflicting facts/truth/evidence we come across? That is NOT love, that is sociopathic, narcissistic, cruel, indifferent and depraved!

Epicurus said it best, thousands of years ago, when he said:

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?"