Carnival of the Godless 50

Dear Reader, welcome to Salto sobrius and the 50th Carnival of the Godless! Salto is a blog about archaeology and skepticism and stuff, kept by a Swedish archaeologist. The Carnival collects good godless blog writing every second week.

There is currently another carnival going on here as well, the 44th Skeptics’ Circle, and that’s where you’ll find skeptical writings about non-religious issues. But if, for instance, you feel your faith in Amaterasu the Sun Goddess beginning to fail, then this is the carnival for you. It's actually for you even if that belief is getting stronger every day. Dawkins knows you need it.

I'm a board member and journal editor for the Swedish Skeptic Society, and we quite often run into the demarcation line between these two blog carnivals: mundane skepticism vs. the sacrilegious variety. Non-profit organisations in Sweden by tradition avoid political and religious affiliations (unless they're political parties or gatherings of the faithful, that is). So does our association, even though the members tend to be atheists and agnostics. When someone sends us a gods-bashing piece for the journal, we regretfully have to direct them to the Swedish Secular Humanist Society. But blogging imposes no such restraints. Mwahaha.

We've got two main sections this time: one on general godless issues and one on creationism, that is, the belief that ancient creation myths are historical truth. Hold on tight to your prayer rugs and joss sticks, folks -- here we go.

• Amy Alkon, famed Advice Goddess, passes on some remarks by Daniel Dennett on Pope Ratzi's recent islamophobic speech.
• Mark over at the Skwib has the latest news about Dr. Maximilian Tundra, the self-proclaimed Prophet of the Viking Pasta, or the First Church of the Noodly Norsemen. (I'm a Noodly Norseman myself. Mark should read my recent entry on spiritual kimchi and righteous ramen.)
• Beware of the Dogma's NonProphet discusses a recent study on religious affiliation in the US which reported a lower level of nonreligious than prior studies had found.
• vJack at Atheist Revolution answers the common challenge, "If you are an atheist, why do you spend so much time reading/thinking/talking about religion?".
• Doug at Eight Hour Lunch riffs psychedelically on fish car-stickers and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
• Varkam at the Neural Gourmet goes after eschatology with all cannon blazing: "The very notion of an afterlife is both inhumane and immoral".
• Paul at Aurora Walking Vacation muses sadly about fundamentalist terrorism and the sense of insecurity it has forced upon Americans.
• Alon at Abstract Nonsense follows up with a discussion of Christian and Islamic terrorists. Why are there no Islamists among Canada's many Muslims? Could it be that provocation is somehow lacking there?
• Alonzo the Atheist Ethicist discusses recent US legislation supporting Christian theocracy.
• Mojoey at Deep Thoughts discusses conservative radio host James Dobson's views on abortion rights.
• Matt-Olly at 10,000 Reasons to Doubt the Fish has an entry on a godless system of morality.
• Dave at the Picket Line looks at the sadly current issue of government-endorsed torture from the perspective of godless morality, turning to the works of Hannah Arendt for materials.
• Jon Swift muses that the debate over torture illustrates how Christians can get back to traditional values by changing with the times.
• Peter of Lunartalks reports from a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. It's discussing small matters like the future of life on Earth.
• Paul at North Gare analyses the atheism and/or agnosticism of biologist Richard Dawkins and writer/blogger John Scalzi.
• The Ridger at the Greenbelt discusses why she thinks science and religion could coexist, but won't.
• Tammy at TriSanity wants no more toxic myths about big daddy in heaven looking over us all.
• Jim Benton reports chillingly on some reading of Christan literature on physical discipline in child rearing: Bible-based baby-beating.
  

Creationism

• Hwaet! Akusai at Action Skeptics skewers an unsubtle creationist re-telling of the Beowulf poem.
• Stuart at Daily Irreverence encourages evolution-doubters to go all the way and start doubting all science. Really, folks: is it reasonable to believe that airplanes fly and cars move without the aid of horses? And he follows up with an entry on the relationship between revealed belief and scientifically tested truth.
• Jim Benton explores the logical ramifications of a belief in divine creation.
• Shalini at Scientia Natura re-refutes the old creationist argument that evolutionists reject the notion of an all-powerful God because they want to escape the responsibilities for their actions. (Of course not. To achieve that end, evolutionists drink six-packs.)
• Zeno the maths teacher at Halfway There offers a long strait-shootin' refutation of an essay by James Doggone Melton of the Bible Baptist Church in Sharon, Tennessee. Yee-haw! And then he done kick sand in the face of y'all's favoritest B.C. faith-based cartoonis', Johnny Hart.
• Mark at Good Math, Bad Math re-bunks (that is, de-de-bunks) evolutionary algorithms.

Amen to that! This has been the 50th Carnival of the Godless. The next one is due up at the Greenbelt on 15 October. Until then -- if the Witnesses knock, take half a day off from work, serve them tea and cookies and make them read this.

[More blog entries about atheism, agnosticism, religion, creationism; ateism, agnosticism, religion, kreationism.]