ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 436

Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic to Lead EPA Transition

By Robin Bravender

Donald Trump has selected one of the best-known climate skeptics to lead his U.S. EPA transition team, according to two sources close to the campaign.

Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, is spearheading Trump’s transition plans for EPA, the sources said.

The Trump team has also lined up leaders for its Energy Department and Interior Department teams. Republican energy lobbyist Mike McKenna is heading the DOE team; former Interior Department solicitor David Bernhardt is leading the effort for that agency, according to sources close to the campaign.

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Inexplicable miracle, personally witnessed by Richard Dawkins

No Lourdes grotto this, or Fatima hillside, but the prosaic surroundings of Vancouver airport. At approximately 5 am Pacific Standard Time today, Monday 7th November, 2016, a sleep-deprived Robyn Blumner and I were waiting resignedly in a long line to pass through passport control. A middle-aged man with neatly coiffed white hair and glasses was hopping on one leg at the back of the line. Deeply moved by the pathos of his plight we, and everybody else in the line, gave way to him and he hopped painfully to the front. Some half an hour later we saw the same man walking normally on two legs, without any trace of his previous disablement. A blessed miracle!

With hindsight we might have guessed that he was destined for sainthood. It was attested by the heroic way he bore his suffering without crutches, wheelchair, or even a cane. And, again with hindsight, I rather fancy the mysterious sound I faintly heard as he passed me must have been the fluttering wings of the Holy Spirit.

I wanted to photograph him in order that his image should be preserved for posterity in the annals of the beatified. For some reason Robyn wouldn’t let me, saying something about lawsuits. To be sure, he might have been in a good position to hire a good lawyer, for we later saw him in First Class, as befitted his distinguished, expensively-dressed appearance. indeed, he could well have been a lawyer himself. I thought it unlikely that such a saintly man would sue, but Robyn tellingly countered that with God in his corner we couldn’t take chances.

I shall be transmitting this eye-witness testimony to the Vatican and to WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com.

Caught in the Pulpit, pg 143

“Twenty-six participants in the present study were asked what they had gained and what they lost as a result of changing their religious beliefs. These questions came toward the end of the interviews and in a few cases afterward, in writing or over the phone. Our participants responded quickly and easily to this exercise, in contrast to their demeanor at the other points during the interview process, where they struggled to articulate their thoughts or feelings. They seemed to welcome the opportunity to talk about the changes in their religious beliefs in terms of gains and losses, and they expressed themselves clearly and without reservation. Much of the discussion preceding these questions pertained to the difficulties and pain that these nonbelievers had experienced along the way. Those who were still in the clergy were still facing these issues, but their reflections on what they had gained indicated that they felt freed from pretending to themselves, even though they continued to pretend to others.”

–Linda LaScola and Daniel Dennett, Caught in the Pulpit, pg 143

Discuss!

After Dinosaur Extinction, Some Insects Recovered More Quickly

By Nicholas St. Fleur

The asteroid that smashed into the Earth near Chicxulub, Mexico, some 66 million years ago annihilated the dinosaurs and obliterated about 75 percent of all plant and animal species on Earth. The devastation affected insects living thousands of miles north and south of the impact zone as well.

In western North America, earlier research found that it took nine million years for ancient insects to recover from the extinction event. But on the other side of the world, in South America’s Patagonia region, new findings suggest that the insects bounced back twice as fast.

Scientists don’t know why the two regions rebounded at different rates, but studies of fossilized leaves with nibbles and bite marks from insects showed evidence of Patagonia’s speedier recovery.

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Honesty, RIP: Facts take a beating across US

By Matt Sedensky

NEW YORK (AP) — Is this when it ends for that ancient ideal, the truth? Is this where it has come to die, victim of campaigns and conspiracies, politicians and internet trolls and the masses who swallow their rhetoric?

Rest in peace, honesty?

“The value of facts in a democracy has taken a beating,” said David Barrett, a political science professor at Villanova University.

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From hate to deep respect

Dear Professor Dawkins

 
I hope you’ll perhaps permit me to call you Richard. I know I thanked you when we met last night at the opening reception for writing The God Delusion – a book that has changed my entire existence – but after having spent time with you personally, I feel compelled to try to explain how much this weekend, meeting you in particular, has meant to me. I cried last night. Sobbed, actually. You wouldn’t know, but for years your name was one I hated – was taught to hate – someone who actively stood for everything in opposition to what I held dear. To pick up a book by you and read it would have been unthinkable just 10 years ago. Dan Barker (& the desire to understand “the other side”) started my deconversion process, but reading your book unlocked an entiely new world for me. The best new world. This conference has been nothing short of transformative for me.
 
I apologise if I’ve appered to stalk you a bit

Richard Dawkins, you saved my life.

Dear Prof Dawkins,

I see you have met my friend Melissa.  I’ve actually never met her, but nonetheless she is incredibly important to me.  You see, I became acquainted with her because of you.  And the two of you together (along with a small legion of people I’ve never met) saved my life.  Let me explain…no, that would take too long, let me sum up.

I was a conservative American evangelical pastor who accidently became an atheist.  I hated it.  I hated losing my religion.  Truth be told, I still hate it.

I didn’t chose to become an atheist, it was something forced upon me.  The Truth, which had always been knocking at my mental door, had forced it’s way into my life.  It stood there, naked, unwelcome, and immovable.  One day, I knew I didn’t believe any more.  That hurt.  It hurt probably more than you can possibly imagine.

I didn’t want to live anymore.

My entire life was wrapped up in my faith, in my god.  Realizing he couldn’t possibly be real was devastating to me.  As I write this now, tears well up into my eyes remembering the pain.  I know it must seem ridiculous, trite even.  But faith was not just my career, but my reason for living.

I was so fortunate that I heard about the Clergy Project.  A place for me, filled with people like me. I visited the page half a dozen times before I drummed up the courage to fill out the application.  And when they accepted it, and wanted to interview me, I had to sit in the parking lot of a local pizza shop to talk to a screener.  I told him my story.  I said, out loud, for the first time, I was an atheist.  And the man on the other end of the phone, the Clergy Project Screener, understood me.  He had been in my shoes.  He let me into the club.

He asked me what I wanted to be called?  I dared not revealed my real name!  So I called myself John Jameson, as in the whiskey maker.  I called myself  Jameson because my loss of faith made me want to crawl into a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey and drink until I died.

But once inside the Clergy Project, I realized how many people were just like me.  This inspired to write my story, which in turn lead to me live blogging my coming out experience.  This would later be picked up by Hemant at the Friendly Atheist blog, which brought tons of people to my blog, including Melissa which you have had the pleasure to meet.

The support and love my readers gave to me imparted hope to me.  I could hope that things would work out.  I could hope that there was life after faith.  I could hope that my wife would eventually understand me.  I could hope that I could my family together.  Eventually when I found myself without a job, readers like Melissa, personally gave their own money to me, every month, to ensure my family’s financial survival.

I the end Prof Dawkins, things worked out for me.  This was, in part, because of you.  Your foundation played a crucial role in the launch of the Clergy Project.  I have no idea how much of a role you personally may have had in this.  But it doesn’t matter to me.  You, in some part, saved my life and my family and I am in you debt.

I cannot possibly repay you for your help in the creation of the Clergy Project, but I hope you know that I am grateful.

And for any of my readers, especially for those who have kept in touch, and those who gave financially to my family…for as grateful as I am to Prof Dawkins, I am still grateful for you!

Things for me are better than I could have hoped!  I wish I could hug you all. I love you all.

Prof Dawkins, Melissa, Clergy Project members, and PNF supporters if you ever need someone to talk to…never hesitate to reach out.  I owe you all.

PNF, aka John James, but actually Brendan Murphy

An Unrepentant Sinner’s Path To Atheism

By Donald A. Collins

I got to thinking recently about how I came to become an atheist. It happened so long ago that the origins of setting up my certain descent into Hell can’t be precisely dated or actually codified in precise words. Probably I was half convinced by the time of my first marriage on September 10, 1954 at age 23, but certainly by the time of my second marriage on August 31, 1976 I was quite hard core. Still, my wife and I went to considerable trouble, she being Jewish and I a nominal protestant, to find a liberal clergyman to officiate! Why? Not sure.

As a widower on the occasion of my 3rd marriage, November 26, 1994 both my wife, Sally, and I had officiators from each of our families, her brother, Bob, an Anglican priest, and my cousin, Ted, an Anglican bishop, the former reading passages from Corinthians, and my cousin giving a memorable homily that kept carefully to a sectarian script at our request.

Hey, let’s hear those verses Bob read. I find them wonderful. And since my faith consists of faith in humanity not any god, I guess I qualify to try to live up to these magnificent goals.

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If a ‘Big Whack’ Made the Moon, Did it Also Knock the Earth on Its Side?

By Kenneth Chang

A cataclysmic collision not only created Earth’s moon, but may have also knocked Earth over on its side, scientists proposed.

In a paper published last week by the journal Nature, the scientists say their numerical simulations indicate that the collision of a Mars-size object with the early Earth left our planet tilted at an angle of 60 to 80 degrees and spinning rapidly, once every two and a half hours, or almost 10 times as fast as today.

But the simulations also show how the dynamics of the moon and Earth slowed down and straightened up over the next four billion years of the solar system, leaving them where they are today.

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For Melinda Gates, Birth Control Is Women’s Way Out of Poverty

By Celia W. Dugger

Melinda Gates has made providing poor women in developing countries access to contraception a mission. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which she leads with her husband, has donated more than $1 billion for family planning efforts and will spend about $180 million more this year.

Since 2012, she has helped lead an international campaign to get birth control to 120 million more women by 2020. Four years later, a report explains why achieving that goal is proving tougher than expected. This is a condensed and edited version of our conversation about family planning.

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