Clueless Idiot of the week: Senator Jim Walsh of Fianna Fail in Ireland

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Clueless Idiot of the week: Senator Jim Walsh of Fianna Fail in Ireland

Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland has reported today that Senator Jim Walsh of Fianna Fail made the following sweepingly inaccurate comment about Atheist Ireland and also about atheists in general when he was speaking on the floor of the Irish Parliament. “We’ve got a lot of representations from liberal groups, and particularly Atheist Ireland, and I want to say that, I said in the past here, I think, that atheists, like people of belief, are people of faith. It takes faith for anybody to believe there is a God, and equally it takes faith to believe there is no God. And in many ways I feel reassured by Atheist Ireland because, if there wasn’t a God, well then there wouldn’t be anything … [Read more...]

“Faith” really is just pretending to know things you do not actually know

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"Faith" really is just pretending to know things you do not actually know

Dr. Peter Boghossian takes the stance that the word Fath is simply pretending to know things that you do not really know at all and I truly do agree with that thought - but don't take my word as a basis for accepting this, because here is the man himself describing it ... This stance is a direct challenge to the very foundation that religious beliefs rest upon. Tempting as it might be to go for the symptoms such as homophobia, intolerance or creationism, a far more effective strategy is to directly remove the foundation that all of that has been built upon. Key points here ... Remove faith and the rest will fall away. Faith has nothing to do with morality, it neither makes you a … [Read more...]

Creationism at #QEDcon

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Creationism at #QEDcon

Standing outside in the street face-to-face with a chap clutching a bible in his left hand and vigorously thumping it with his right in order to give emphases to it as his source for reliable verified "truth" was a rather unexpected encounter last weekend at #QEDcon QEDcon is of course a wonderful celebration of science, scepticism and rational thinking, and a truly fascinating place. There you will meet a mix of really interesting people, so of course nobody was actually promoting Creationism inside. Ah but lurking outside the door of the hotel on the Saturday were a couple of bible thumpers. So how did it all come about? Having come to the conclusion that the hotel coffee did not … [Read more...]

#QEDcon – A link and a few clips

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Question ... Where can I find lots of #QEDcon stuff such as pictures, and links to follow (stalk) others who were there? - Here (That's a link to  conferize) And so here (via that link) are the highlights for the entire conference ... Oh and perhaps you might have forgotten it, so here is the Mathematical Pi Song And as a quick patch to keep you going while we await the intro clip, here is the one from 2013 ...

Awards at #QEDcon – Leaving Fundamentalism

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Awards at #QEDcon - Leaving Fundamentalism

Last night at #QEDcon the best blog of the year award went to Jonny Scaramanga for his fabulous Leaving Fundamentalism website. Here below you can see a picture (taken by Kevin Friery‏@Therapeutic1) where Nate Phelps presents Jonny Scaramanga with his award at #QEDcon #skeptic #atheism And yes, that is "the" Nate Phelps, the son of Fred Phelps of Westboro baptist. Nate has of course left all that Westboro Baptist Fundamentalism far behind, and so having him there to give out an award for a blog entitled "Leaving Fundamentalism" is indeed ever so appropriate; Jonny was of course thrilled to discover that it was Nate Phelps giving out the award. The blog itself .. is … [Read more...]

#QEDCon – Sat 12th April – just Rob’s pictures

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#QEDCon - Sat 12th April - just Rob's pictures

Once again, this is simply me stealing a small selection of some of the fantastic photos taken by Rob so that you get a quick 30,000 foot view of what has been happening. Tempting as it might be to actually type in some notes ... nah, I'm too busy enjoying it all, I want to pay attention. It's back ... you know that you are in the right place when you find this ...   First speaker ... #QEDcon decided that Elizabeth Pisani should talk about sex and drugs... Next up was the amazing Richard Wiseman who took un an an amazing journey through a mixture of magic and psychology ...   Now we have @BeautyByGeeks at #QEDcon #BigBangMeetsBarbie telling us all … [Read more...]