Richard Carrier is a writer and historian with a BA in History, MA in Ancient history, MPhil in Ancient history, and a PhD in Ancient history. He's probably most well known for his skepticism of the historicity of Jesus and appeared in the documentary film The God Who Wasn't There voicing some of these doubts. I'll have to add his book Sense and Goodness without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism to my Goodreads "To Read" list.
Scientific skepticism is not limited to laboratory testing, gangly men in white lab coats, and only those with Ph.D.'s. It is a lens that anyone can use to view the world and a tool to dispatch fallacy. Scientific skeptics use science and the scientific method to investigate reality and believe it is the best way (that we're currently aware of) to arrive at truth. We discourage accepting claims on faith, anecdotal evidence, or shady logic. We attempt to remove our emotional biases from what we want to be true. Scientific skepticism is punk at its core. It is anti-authoritarian, critical of established beliefs, strongly individualistic (yet we understand the power of peer review), and non-conformist. In society there are many beliefs and ideas which are generally accepted as being factual or true that are false or do not have sufficient data back up their validity. By having a generally questioning, critical, and scientifically skeptical worldview, in the face of commonly held falsehoods and biased opposition, we are being punk.
Some would say that skepticism is an inherently negative activity, that we are calling into question people's deeply held beliefs which should be respected regardless of their factual validness. There is majesty in this way of thinking, however. By repudiating pseudoscience, faith, and uncritical thinking we are freeing ourselves from mental bondage. Occasionally scientists make mistakes, data becomes more and more refined, we may throw ourselves into a claim which may be reversed by further study, but at least we have the conviction to stand up and say "I was wrong!" Scientific skepticism is the freedom to view the world as close as we can approximate to how it actually is, not what we desperately want it to be. Punk rock is freedom.
Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not
rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather
than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts
science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we
respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for
their own sake.
Now before I launch into describing this band, there are a few websites which question whether or not this is a hoax, which it may very well be. However, there is not much positive evidence to support this claim and they may be prematurely jumping to a conclusion without further supportive evidence, although the burden of proof is on the band to prove their legitimacy, since their claim of being a female-fronted anti-Islamic black metal band in Iraq is a large one (one that I am biased to believe is true). The article traced the band's promo pictures and found them either to be doctored images of other bands or cut-and-paste photography artwork. At the root of it, this is only evidence of whoever this is trying to hide their identity, whether that's because its an American college student making solo anti-Islamic black metal or it's legit and they realize that they would probably be murdered by Islamic fundamentalists in their own country had they released their actual photos, is up to you to decide (or to take the agnostic position, like I have, until further supportive evidence is presented). Interviews with the front woman, known only as "Anahita" have only been through Facebook and not over phone, making her legitimacy harder to establish.
Janaza is a female-fronted black metal band from Iraq. Musically, its nothing too terribly interesting. Lyrically, its jaw-dropping considering its supposed source. The intro is in Arabic, "Kill all the people who don't believe in Allah and don't believe in the judgment day." I believe this is a reference to 10: Jonah in the Quran, a lovely chapter containing several enlightening statements.
10:4
Unto Him is the return of all of you; it is a promise of Allah in truth. Lo! He
produceth creation, then reproduceth it, that He may reward those who believe and do
good works with equity; while, as for those who disbelieve, theirs will be
a boiling drink and painful doom because they disbelieved.
10:45
And on the day when He shall gather them together, (when it will seem) as though they had tarried
but an hour of the day, recognising one another, those will verily have perished who denied the meeting with
Allah and were not guided [1].
Then the first song starts, which primarily consists of repeating "Burn the Quran!" in English. The other songs all contain a "head-chopping/stoning" level of criticism of Islam and the Quran. Numbers like "Islamic Lies" and "When Islam Brainwashed Mankind" continue to drive the point in. I find it also interesting how all of the lyrics are in English. If they were making this music for converting the supposedly brainwashed masses of Islam, wouldn't it be more effective if sung in Arabic? I also enjoy the grammatically incorrect title of the demo.
Continuing my theme of atheist/agnostic composers, to wrench away the arguments that only the religious were responsible for classical music, we come to the influential composer Guiseppe Verdi. Born in 1813 in a small Italian village, he is known primarily for his operas which have become mainstays of popular culture, especially "La donna è mobile" from Rigoletto, "Va, pensiero" (The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) from Nabucco, "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" (The Drinking Song) from La traviata and the "Grand March" from Aida[1]. According to his Catholic wife, Verdi was skeptical of religion.
Verdi’s attitude toward religion is clearly indicated in
a letter written about him by his wife, Giuseppina: “For some virtuous
people a belief in God is necessary. Others, equally perfect, while
observing every precept of the highest moral code, are happier believing
in nothing.”
Elsewhere, Giuseppina wrote: “He is a jewel among
honest men; he understands and feels himself every delicate and elevated
sentiment. And yet this brigand permits himself to be, I won’t say an
atheist, but certainly very little of a believer, and that with an
obstinacy and calm that make me want to beat him. I exhaust myself in
speaking to him about the marvels of the heavens, the earth, the sea,
etc. It’s a waste of breath! He laughs in my face and freezes me in the
midst of my oratorical periods and my divine enthusiasm by saying
‘you’re all crazy,’ and unfortunately he says it with good faith [2]."
When speaking in the general defense of religion people often say, "But what about beauty, expression, emotions, aren't those all difficult to explain without religion?" They may attempt to take claim over classical works composed by the religious. "We wouldn't have Beethoven, Strauss, Bach, and Stravinsky without religion!" We atheists are not immune to the transcendent and the numinous. Enter in Maurice Ravel, a French composer born in 1875. Often compared to the likes of Claude Debussy, Ravel became one of the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music. Ravel was an atheist.
Among Ravel's completed works, there is a notable absence of religious
forms or references. His habitual inspiration came from nature, from
fairy tales and folk songs, and from classical and oriental legends.
Nor was he always sympathetic to the religious works of other composers [1].
Pre-Darwinian evolutionary theory, being an atheist an extremely rare thing. There was just no other competing idea to theism other than a sort of vague deism. Darwin published On The Origin of the Species at the end of 1859 [2] paving the way for scientifically informed atheistic thought.
Tired of having sex where you are awkwardly pumping away at your significant other (or you're the receiving participant of said sexual activity) in ominous silence with nothing but the artless grunts and demure moans of pleasure filling the air? I know I am. So I made this mix of some of my favorite post-punk/darkwave/gothy bands that I can bust my proverbial nut to. Its so good that I felt it necessary to expose it to my general audience (all of you people still clicking on some link that takes you to my anti-anti-fluoridation article, seriously that article generates most of my traffic). So when you are making sweet sweet romantic love to somebody and you have a premature orgasm to The Velvet Underground's Venus In Furs, think of my smiling, disembodied floating head behind your lover staring at you.
Songs for Fucking
1. Beach House - Lover of Mine
2. Sferro - Reverie
3. Chromatics - Hands In The Dark
4. Kraftwerk - Computer Love
5. The Velvet Underground - Venus In Furs
6. Moev - In Your Head
7. The Glove - Mouth to Mouth
8. Jo Lemaire And Flouze - Voices In The Silence
9. Wild Nothing - Midnight Song
10. Craft Spells - You Should Close The Door
11. Blouse - Time Travel
12. Joy Division - Atmosphere
D.A.F. is a German electropunk/Neue Deutsche Welle (new German wave) band. Their music is abrasive yet highly infectious and danceable. Lyrically, concerns throughout D.A.F.'s recording career have
ranged from sardonic reflections on ideology and political violence, to
journeys into a very physical, even brutal, sexuality, sometimes
related from a child's point of view [1]. The lyrics on the album's second track, "Der Mussolini", "Dance the Mussolini, move your behind, clap your hands, and now the Adolf Hitler, and now the Jesus Christ", caused an uproar when it was released.
My alternate reading material, besides Christopher Hitchens' Arguably, is Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire. Being the reader that I am, I'm unable to merely read one book at a time and I have different books stored in different places. Its also nice switching off from Arguably because it's a collection of short essays (I love short stories and collections of essays because it's great for switching between books without getting lost when picking it back up after any length of time) and Hitchens is an extremely literate/heavy writer. I suppose I never really understood his level of literary and historical knowledge until I started reading his journalistic essays. Anywho, I digress, The Botany Of Desire is a book that examines the human relationship with four different plants from the perspective of evolution. It turns the idea of artificial selection on its head, the plants unconsciously make us their gene propagators and in return they give us the traits we desire. There are even a few jabs at the naturalistic fallacy that Pollan sneaks in here and there (which I wasn't expecting). Pollan has a firm grasp on the general concepts of evolution and also writes in an entertaining and easily digestible manner which makes it an entertaining read. I will report further when I have consumed more of the book, until then here is his TED talk which explores some of the general concepts.
Due to my unceasing search for music for the dark disco night I'm curating, I've discovered there's dance music out there that I don't absolutely hate. I've always enjoyed IDM groups and glitch music but that stuff is impossible to dance to. Lo and behold, I discovered that there are techno artists making throwback retro music. Always arriving late to the party, it seems that this style has already come into popularity and is already derided by critics as being a bygone fad. Fuck the critics and fuck the party.
What I also like about this band is that the name is obviously a play on the classic Super Nintendo game ActRaiser. The game had a strong religious subtext and is seen as an allegory for Christian monotheism.
I'm curating a dark disco night at the club where I normally throw shows and I've been spending HOURS downloading music and refining my playlist. This is an INVISIBLE ARTERIES post. I was in the middle of a downloading spate and I thought, "How am I going to work Brian Eno into this dance night?" There are several tracks on this record that work (this is the most danceable music I've heard from either of these two ambient/drone godfathers). See also my earlier Brian Eno post for reference.
My latest reading material has been Christopher Hitchens' Arguably, a collection of random essays from the late/great atheist provocateur. Its rekindled my fascination with his debates, for he is without a doubt one of the best debaters I've ever watched and I'm extremely disappointed I was never able to see him in person. Hitchens will be forever remembered as a master linguist, literary expert, and possessing a rapier-like wit able to poke holes in any theistic argument.
This sophomore effort by the technical death metal band Atheist is often hailed as a landmark album in the genre. It features jazz-like harmonies, latin rhythms, complex time-structures, and endless baffling riffage. I'm excited for this post because I get to label it simultaneously death metal and jazz.
Unquestionable Presence
1. Mother Man
2. Unquestionable Presence
3. Your Life's Retribution
4. Enthralled in Essence
5. An Incarnation's Dream
6. The Formative Years
7. Brains
8. And the Psychic Saw
This roundtable debate on fluoridating Wichita's municipal water supply aired on KPTS. It included Wichitans for Healthy Teeth members Pamela Amar, a lawyer, and dentist Dr Rob Daken against Dr. Steven L’Hommedieu of Advanced Alternatives for Health and Dr. Charles Hinshaw, the director of the Bio-Center Laboratory at the Riordan Clinic.
After the opening speeches, the moderator states "So many issues are reduced to 'Who do you believe?' and whether there are any unstated motives that might influence a position or another. What part does that play in this discussion?" The lawyer immediately responds, in true lawyer fashion, with "I don't think it plays a part as far as the leading studies showing what [the truth is]." I agree. But, I find it enlightening to examine people's professions and expertise to really understand why they might have certain biases against a particular position. Dr. Steven L'Hommedieu's Advanced Alternative for Health is exactly what it sounds like. It's an "alternative" medicine center. Here is a list of their services from their website:
Kinesiology
Natural Medicine
Nutrition
Chiropractic
Food and Environmental Sensitivity
Assessment
Heavy Metal and Chemical Detoxification
Acupuncture
Low Level Cold Laser Therapy
Microcurrent Therapy
Laboratory Testing and Imaging
Possessing a comprehensive knowledge
of kinesiology, natural medicine, nutrition, Chinese medicine and
chiropractic, he is able to logically integrate alternative and
science-based evaluations and procedures with cutting-edge accuracy [1].
Now, you can say that these services are "science-based" all day, but the fact of the matter is that most of these services contain large pseudoscience doses, well above the recommended level. As Richard Dawkins says, "There is no such thing as alternative medicine. There's medicine that works and medicine that doesn't."
Moving on, Dr. Charles Hinshaw works for the Bio-Center Laboratory at the Riordan Clinic. The Riordan Clinic is a natural health complex in Wichita that provides a holistic approach to medicine. They have testing, supplements, event-space rentals, lectures.
The Bio-Center Lab at the Riordan Clinic was established in 1975 and has
dedicated itself to providing accurate clinical analysis focusing on
nutritional medicine. Our specialties include testing for pyrroles,
histamine, spermidine, spermine, cytotoxic food sensitivities,
parasitology, analysis of red blood cell fatty acids and minerals, along
with many vitamins [2].
Sounds scientific enough, until you investigate an article written by Dr. Charles Hinshaw which is posted on the site. Entitled Flu Shots? Just the Facts, You Decide supposes that there is a real debate between scientists about whether flu vaccines are safe (there isn't). And he suggests getting the real "facts" about flu shots from the dreaded pseudoscience/alternative medicine guru http://www.mercola.com. I plan on writing a full debunking article on Dr. Mercola in the future (because he is often sourced by quack doctors) and will post a link here once its posted.
Neither of these men are dentists and both are steeped in pseudoscientific thinking. While this does not invalidate their arguments, its important to know as much information as possible to consider whether personal biases may influence their conclusions.
See also my fluoride mythologyblog post, for specific refutations of studies presented against fluoridation.
I've been on a post-punk kick lately and have been mildly obsessed with Gary Numan (it's happened before). This often overlooked first record by the Tubeway Army features all the staples of Gary Numan greatness: science fiction themes, classic analog synths run through guitar pedals, and angular rhythms. This record is also decidedly more punk than Numan's later solo output, but still has the obvious signs of what is to come. Gary Numan has also been an outspoken atheist for much of his career, although he has some interesting contradictory beliefs (go figure) made clear in this Fortean Times interview:
FT: You are on record as being an atheist... does that rule out belief in other kinds of strange phenomena for you? GN:
I believe in pretty much everything apart from God. I believe aliens
are real, demons, possession, poltergeists, all of that. I believe in
ghosts but I do not believe in Heaven; to me, a ghost is just one of
nature’s tragic mistakes. They shouldn't be there, but they are. It does
indicate some kind of life after death, but that has nothing to do with
a Heaven. If you believe in one God creating everything then I don't
understand why the idea of many Gods is so laughable. None of the God
ideas make any sense to me but one God is perhaps the most ridiculous of
all.
So you believe in demonic possession but don't believe in God or deities? How would demons manifest without a theological system to assert their existence? Unless they were independently asserted demons divorced of their theological sources, the beliefs would be contradictory. You're a fucking weirdo Gary Numan, but I love you.
It frequently strikes me as particularly interesting that many left-wing people embrace various anti-science stances. This was shown to me time and time again while I was involved with the Occupy Portland movement, which was largely a left wing endeavor. I volunteered on the education committee and spent many days running/maintaining the Occupy library. Conversations with random Occupiers often led to anti-vaccination, government conspiracies (a lot of 9/11 truthers), anti-GMOs, and once or twice anti-fluoridation. There was one instance where I was "accosted" by a presumably right-wing individual who attempted to convince me that climate change is a lie/not caused by humans, as if that particular stance would make me abandon all left-wing ideologies if I accepted it as true. Since becoming a skeptic, generally I've become much more critical of embracing any ideological stances which may interfere with scientific bias. People are so quick to label themselves as anarchist, socialist, communist, liberal, conservative, or any other general political label without considering the generally accepted scientific biases that come coupled with any particular political ideological group. While I would generally describe myself as a radical, its hard to just blindly label myself as such from now on without tacking on some ancillary qualifiers, my new self-label being a pro-science radical. I would also encourage those on the side of science to start considering appending your own political views as such, lest you become additionally burdened with those commonly accepted anti-science stances of your own political label.
"I think religious belief is some sort of mental illness, some sort of
unrecognized schizophrenia. Your mind is so freaked-out, so fucked-up by
the thought of dying and nothingness, that it just invents heaven. It's
a weird area, religion."- Jim Reid, vocalist/songwriter of Jesus and Mary Chain
Darklands
1. Darklands
2. Deep One Perfect Morning
3. Happy When It Rains
4. Down On Me
5. Nine Million Rainy Days
6. April Skies
7. Fall
8. Cherry Came Too
9. On The Wall
10. About You
"One of the things that has concerned me in the last few years is there's been a real debate that essentially discredits science by saying that scientists are self interested, that the reason that people are researching climate change is that there is something in it for them and the practical impact of that really worries me because it allows people to ignore the vast body of scientific evidence, in an area like climate change, and cling to "Well, you know I don't feel hotter today than I did yesterday so its obviously made up." The example in Queensland that really worried me recently was the Queensland government giving permission to local councils to stop putting fluoride in water. Now, the biggest health intervention in dental care in Australia for decades is putting fluoride in water. Any dentist you talk to can tell you who grew up in Queensland where they've had less fluoride in the water, they've got a mouth full of fillings compared with people who've grown up with fluoride and it drives me nuts that we've got people in the Queensland Parliament saying, one guy who's a bodybuilder in the Queensland Parliament, that he would rather take banned substances for a year than drink a glass of water with fluoride in it. It's nuts." - Tanya Plibersek, Australian Minister for Health AUDIO ONLY (MP3)
Hail of Bullets is a Dutch death metal band. All of the band's lyrical content is about the Second World War, which I think is cool as fuck. It also features Martin Van Drunen from Pestilence and Bolt Thrower. This particular album is about the rise and fall of the Japanese empire. In Japanese the Emperor is called the Tennō (天皇), which means "heavenly sovereign" [1]. The line of Emperors were believed to rule by divine mandate, which undoubtedly influenced the title of this album.
On Divine Winds
1. The Eve Of Battle 2. Operation Z 3. The Mukden Incident 4. Strategy Of Attrition 5. Full Scale War 6. Guadalcanal 7. On Coral Shores 8. Unsung Heroes 9. Tokyo Napalm Holocaust 10. Kamikaze 11. To Bear The Unbearable
Tom Lehrer is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater. His songs are musical parodies of common styles on piano with satirical original lyrics. He's probably best known for his song "The Elements" where he recites all of the elements that were known at the time (in 1959) to the tune of "The Major-General's Song" from The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan. "We Will All Go Together When We Go" is an ode to the coming nuclear apocalypse. "A Christmas Carol" is probably one of the best Christmas songs I've ever heard. Lehrer earned his AB in mathematics (magna cum laude) from Harvard University in 1946. He received his MA degree the next year, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He taught classes at MIT, Harvard, and Wellesley.
In this Arizona debate Dr. Paul Connett, the founder of The Fluoride Action Network (FAN), and Dr. Howard Farran, DDS, winner of the Arizona Department
of Health Service Dental Public Health Award for his efforts in
fluoridating the City of Phoenix, trade blows over water fluoridation. I think Dr. Farran's initial presentation could have been more thoughtfully approached. I would have opened with attacking anti-fluoridation from the bottom up by examining belief, conspiratorial thinking, and the scientific method. Instead he begins by attempting to show the large scientific consensus on the effectiveness of fluoride, which your average anti-fluoridationist is already aware of. The house is obviously packed with anti-fluoride people, you can tell by their yells and the absence of clapping for Farran. Most of the studies which Paul Connett refers to are debunked in my previous blogpost so I feel like its unnecessary to say anything more about them except, like all conspiracy theorists, he loves cherry-picked data. He even references the same video for professionals to watch (the one covered in my fluoride mythology post) instead of reading his book.
![\ln y(r_{12})=\rho \int \left[h(r_{13}) - \ln g(r_{13}) - \frac{u(r_{13})}{k_{B}T}\right] [g(r_{23})-1]\, d \mathbf{r_{3}}. \,](http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/f/4/2/f42cc18bb99c5ff861f27d7c8f05d3ed.png)
