When Dan met Annie Laurie

March 13, 2018 • 12:30 pm

Few people realize that the co-Presidents of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker, met when they appeared together on Oprah Winfrey’s “A.M. Chicago” show in 1984. Fewer still remember the time when Oprah was overtly anti-atheist and her show a bit of a tabloid venue—a milder version of Jerry Springer.

You can see the “meeting”, and a lot of anti-atheist hostility, in this rare archival video. Dan, Annie Laurie, and her mother Anne Nicol Gaylor, who founded the FFRF with Annie Laurie in 1976, were invited onto the show to explain and defend atheism.

Dan, who had more hair then, had recently left the ministry, and Annie Laurie and Anne were already known as anti-theist activists. According to Wikipedia, Dan and Annie Laurie began dating six months after this show and got married in 1987.

Note the blatant anti-atheist antagonism evinced by both Oprah and her audience. Anne, Annie Laurie, and Dan all remained remarkably composed in the face of this hostility. I hope to ask them about this episode when I have dinner with these fine nonbelievers tonight (sadly, Anne Gaylor passed away in 2015).

What? I must be gay because I’m not worried about being #MeToo’d?

March 13, 2018 • 10:45 am

I don’t know who writes the Dark Buzz  physics blog, but it’s someone named Roger—someone whose latest post, “Krauss is being silenced“, made me chuckle. After noting that both Sam Harris and I have expressed our beliefs that Lawrence Krauss is in all likelihood guilty of sexual malfeasance, Roger speculates why. His conclusion? I have nothing to lose. Get a load of this logic:

Coyne has a popular blog, and probably most of his readers think that he is gay. He denies it, but he blogs a lot about his personal life, and it is obvious that he has no wife, no girlfriend, and no kids. Furthermore, he has stereotypical gay interests in music, arts, clothing, and pets. And his political views are mostly what you would expect from a gay atheist professor.

I am not saying this to criticize, but to give background for his opinions. He does not appear to have any worries that any woman is going to metoo him.

I have no way of knowing how he has flirted with women in the past, and I don’t see how it is anyone’s business.

No Roger, it’s not anyone’s business, NOR YOURS EITHER!

Now there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being gay. I’m just not—I’m one of those old, white, cis-het males who rank lowest on the oppression scale. I’m not worried about being #MeToo’d because I don’t have a history of abusing or harassing women. There are some of us, you know!

The rest, about the connection between one’s interests, one’s atheism, and one’s sexuality, you can judge for yourself.

If I could have imagined all the ways people would go after me for my stand, I would never have dreamed up this one. Thanks, Roger, for a long moment of amusement. You’re an idiot.

NOTE: This is not the place to debate Krauss’s guilt or innocence; if you want to do that, you can discuss it on the Dark Buzz post. Comments that violate this policy will be removed from the thread.

What’s your meaning and purpose?

March 13, 2018 • 9:15 am

Here’s survey I’m taking to see whether a theory I have, which is mine, bears any resemblance to reality. Here are two questions I’d like readers to answer in the comments. Here we go:

If a friend asked you these questions, how would you answer them?

1.) What do you consider the purpose of your life?

2.) What do you see as the meaning of your life?

Now I know there are a lot of nonbelieving readers, so I don’t expect that many of the answers will involve “God.” I am not implying that either meaning or purpose must be conferred by some kind of deity—or even by forces of beings outside yourself. Further, you may consider the questions ambiguous or meaningless, in which case say so.

I got curious about this since yesterday Andrew Sullivan asserted that the last few centuries of human progress, showing big improvements in worldwide well being and material welfare, rob life of meaning, purpose, and spiritual sustenance. To claim that is to claim that people’s lives actually have those attributes. (You can also expatiate about what brings you “spiritual sustenance.”)

I’m trying to find out whether, in this audience, people really feel that there’s meaning and purpose in their lives, and, if they have some “spiritual sustenance,” where it comes from.

Sullivan also implied that atheists have no source of these attributes, so asking an audience comprising mainly the godless might be instructive.  Please humor me and answer the questions.

Thanks!

Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

March 13, 2018 • 6:45 am

It’s March 13: not a Friday but a Tuesday. It’s also Chicken Noodle Soup Day. (Ecch: what about International Matzo Ball Soup Day?) It’s also National Elephant Day in Thailand.

I’m off to Madison today (see my events for the FFRF here), so posting will be light to almost nonexistent until Saturday. Grania, though, has agreed to do the Hili posts. Cheers for her!  As always, I’ll do my best. Please keep your emails to me infrequent until I return.

On this day in 1639, Harvard College was named after the preacher John Harvard. Fun fact: (Professor Ceiling Cat Emeritus went to the two oldest colleges in America: William & Mary, founded 1693, and Harvard College, founded 1636).  On this day in 1781, William Hershel discovered the planet of Uranus (no jokes, please!). On March 13, 1845, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto was premiered in Leipzig; Ferdinand David was the soloist. On this day in 1930, news of the discovery of Pluto (yes, a planet1) was sent to the Harvard College Observatory.

On March 13, 1943, the Nazis liquidated the Jewish ghetto in Kraków, sending some to the Lager in Plazów and killing many on the spot. On this day n 1991, the U.S. government announced that Exxon had agreed to pay a billion dollars to clean up the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.  On this day in 1996, the Dunblane School Massacre took place in Scotland, with 16 children and one teacher shot by Thomas Watt Hamilton, who then committed suicide. This remains the deadliest mass shooting in UK history. Unlike the U.S., however, Scotland took action, passing two laws banning the possession of most handguns in Great Britain (Hamilton had used four legally obtained handguns in his slaughter). Now why can’t the U.S. respond like that? Yes, I know, the Second Amendment, interpreted so broadly as to be meaningless. Finally, on this day five years ago, Pope Francis was elected the 266th Infallible Head of the Catholic Church.

Notables born on March 13 include astronomer Percival Lowell (1855), whose work helped spur the discovery of Pluto, Hugh Walpole (1884), L. Ron Hubbard (1911), Edward O’Hare (1914; WWII pilot whose name remains on Chicago’s O’Hare Airport), and Neil Sedaka (1939). Sedaka sang what I consider the best of the doo-wop songs, “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” (1962), a song he wrote and lip-synchs here on the Dick Clark show:

Those who died on March 13 include Shakespearian actor Richard Burbage (1619), Henry Shrapnel (1842, invented the explosive whose debris retains his name), Susan B. Anthony (1906), Clarence Darrow (1938), Bruno Bettelheim (1990), and Robert C. Baker, inventor of the vile chicken nugget (2006).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is trying to see if she really moves:

A: What on earth are you doing?
Hili: I’m trying to understand Zeno of Elea’s paradox of the arrow.
Nevetheless, she moves!
 In Polish:
Ja: Co ty tam wyprawiasz?
Hili: Próbuję zrozumieć paradoks Zenona z Elei.

In nearby Wloclawek, Leon sees no use for decoration. He wants noms!

Leon: And what would anybody do with such flowers? (In Polish: “I po co komu takie kwiaty?”):

And up in Winnipeg, Gus snoozes away. Staff Taskin said this: “The scene as I left for work today. What a life.”

Reader Merilee sent a timely rendition of a famous Peanuts cartoon:

Some tweets found by Grania.

The first tweet about Putin:

And the response:

This cat really wants to come in. Poor kitty!

https://twitter.com/invisibleman_17/status/973092803185119232

And, more seriously, the women of Iran continue their protest against the hijab and other forms of repression. This one engages in the salacious and prohibited act of dancing:

https://twitter.com/ArminNavabi/status/973076706125742081

I love it when regular people become comedians on Twitter:

I can’t vouch for the truth of this tweet, but here you go:

Tom Nichols got this letter after answering one of his readers. I sometimes get emails nearly this entitled:

Finally, Matthew found a cat who doesn’t like mail (I wish it could be trained to just reject junk mail):

 

Free chinwag featuring two atheists this Wednesday in Madison, and other FFRF events

March 12, 2018 • 1:45 pm

On Wednesday I’m doing three gigs in Madison, two viewable in real time, one of those attendable in person, and one for later.

  1. First, there will be a free event at the FFRF’s new headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin: a conversation between Dan Barker and me. We had a great chat in Texas not that long ago, and I expect this one will be fun, too. The FFRF’s notice:

Jerry Coyne, professor of evolution & ecology at the University of Chicago, will discuss his books Faith vs. Fact and Why Evolution is True at 7:00 PM, Wednesday, March 14th at Freethought Hall in downtown Madison. Coyne was the recipient of FFRF’s Emperor Has No Clothes award for plain speaking on religion in 2011. He will be joined by FFRF’s co-president Dan Barker as they explore science and the incompatibility of fact and faith. Books from both authors will be available for purchase and signing at this event. Hot beverages and light snacks will be furnished. This event is free and open to FFRF members, family and friends.

Dan has a new book out on free will, which is both determinist and compatibilist, and I hope we have some back and forth on that, too.  At any rate, if you’re in the area, do stop by. And if you want a book signed and make a cat noise (like ‘meow’ or ‘hiss’), I’ll draw a cat in your book. I will be wearing cowboy boots.

2. On Wednesday at noon you can see me, Dan, and Annie Laurie on the FFRF’s “Ask An Atheist” show, broadcast live on their Facebook page. You can submit questions during the show, or email them to the FFRF. It will also be put up later on YouTube.

3. I’ll be taping a video show, also with Dan and Annie Laurie, for the new “Freethought Matters” series. That isn’t open to the public, but will also be on YouTube later.