What’s next for Russia?

March 20, 2014 • 2:15 pm

The Ukraine, of course. It doesn’t take much prescience to see that Putin is already inciting agitation there, and I expect that another phony referendum will follow, and that country, too, will be absorbed into Russia. With his vision of a greater Russia, and the fact that nobody can do anything to stop him (sanctions won’t work, of course), Putin will keep looking for Lebensraum.  Military action on the part of the U.S. or NATO is unthinkable, for both sides have nuclear weapons.

Or so Ceiling Cat thinks. CC predicts that the Ukraine will be part of Russia in two months.

I never thought I’d see the Cold War resume in my lifetime.

I got the book! You know, the one with the best arguments for God

March 20, 2014 • 9:44 am

In the game of Theological Whack-a-Mole, in which one book after another is proffered as the “best argument for God and/or religion,” only to be replaced by another after the first is found wanting, there is supposedly now A Mole That Can’t Be Whacked. And that is the book I’m holding below, which I finally procured via interlibrary loan.

photo

Yes, it’s David Bentley Hart’s new book, which I’ve written about here and here. The world of Sophisticated Theology™ is thrilling to Hart’s effort, singing in chorus that, this, at long last, is the book that makes the strongest case for God. This is the book that we, as atheists, must confront if we’re to have even a shred of credibility.

Here, for example, is the breathless praise of Hart’s book from Damon Linker in The Week:

One of the many virtues of theologian David Bentley Hart’s stunning new book, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, is that it demolishes this facile, self-satisfied position [that of the New Atheists], exposing how completely it relies on a straw man account of God for its cogency. Atheism may well be true; a society of secularists might get along just fine without any form of piety. But until those unbelievers confront the strongest cases for God, they will have failed truly and honestly to rout their infamous enemy.

. . . That bracing and bold assertion, like the others that pack nearly every page of The Experience of God, should be questioned and subjected to scrutiny. But it should also be pondered. For provoking deep thought about the profoundest human questions, and for taking an intelligent stand in defense of faith and against its complacent, cultured despisers, Hart deserves the gratitude of a large and appreciative audience.

Okay, I accepted that challenge and got the book. (I didn’t want to pay for it, and the copy in our library was sent to another school on interlibrary loan, where it appears to have been purloined.)  I will begin reading it immediately, for I’m eager to see the Best Case for God. I’ll report on it when I’m done.

In the meantime, as I’ve said before, I don’t see why we can’t play the same Whack-a-Mole game as do the theists.

So, you religionists, don’t bother to criticize atheism until you’ve abandoned your facile and straw-mannish view godlessness, and truly pondered The Best Case for Unbelief. Don’t open your mouths until you’ve read the following:

The complete works of Robert G. Ingersoll
Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
Dawkins’s The God Delusion (criticized far more often than read)
Hitchens’s God is Not Great
Dennett’s Breaking the Spell
Harris’s The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation
George Smith, Atheism: the Case Against God
Herman Philipse’s God in the Age of Science? A Critique of Religious Reason
Victor Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis
Walter Kaufmann’s Critique of Religion and Philosophy
David Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Natural History of Religion and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

And when you’re done with those, I’ve got more up my sleeve. After all, the Best Arguments Against God just keep on coming.

Readers are invited to add to the list.

BICEP, gravitational waves et al.

March 20, 2014 • 8:10 am

Reader Justin sent a link to this animated video by MinutePhysics that tries to explain what the BICEP project really revealed about the Big Bang (I say “tries” because I’m not a physicist). Do note, though, that Official Website Physicist™ Sean Carroll was an advisor on the science, so it must be right!.

One thing I took from this video (and again, readers in the know can explain it) was the statement that “this discovery marks the first confirmation that gravity is indeed a quantum mechanical phenomenon.” It was my impression that the unification of gravity and quantum mechanics was one of the great unsolve problems of physics, and I’m wondering if the BICEP results will help that project.

Note that two minutes in, the video tells you how to get a free audio book, and the selection includes one recommended by Randall Munroe, the creator of xkcd.

As for the significance beyond physics, it’s explained in yesterday’s The Far Left Side cartoon by Mike Stanfill, a strip I must check more regularly. (Stanfill always adds some explanation below his cartoons.)

3-19-14-science-vs-religion

Readers’ wildlife (and cat) photographs

March 20, 2014 • 5:45 am

I got nothing today: I am struggling with a book,  have three new talks  to write and deliver in the next three weeks (one at a conference next week on the evolution of morality at Oakland University in Michigan, and two Storer Lectures at UC Davis), must file two final reports on grants, prepare for teaching Speciation this spring, and, of course, keep up this website. It’s too much! Which reminds me of a joke:

Morris gets a new dog and can’t wait to show him off to his neighbor. So when the neighbor comes over, the guy calls the dog into the house, bragging about how smart he is. The dog quickly comes running and stands looking up at his master, tail wagging furiously, mouth open, tongue hanging out, eyes bright with anticipation.

Morris points to the newspaper on the couch and commands, “FETCH!”

Immediately, the dog climbs onto the couch and sits down. His tail wagging stops and the doggie-smile disappears. Looking balefully up at his master, he says in a whiny voice……….”You think this is easy wagging my tail all the time? Oy! It hurts from so much wagging! And you think that designer dog food you’re feeding me is good? You try it. It’s dreck! Too salty! And what do you care? You just push me out the door to take a squirt twice a day. I can’t even remember the last time you took me out for a good walk,”

The neighbor is amazed. “What the hell is that? Your dog is sitting there talking!!”

“Oh, I know”, explains the dog owner, “He’s young, and I’m still training him. He thought I said “KVETCH!”

But on to the good stuff. Reader Charlie Brown sent me three photographs and some information:

Here are a few backyard hummingbird photographs taken at my home in Mesa, Arizona. I’m primarily a landscape photographer but over the last few years I’ve become fascinated by hummers. Our yard is primarily planted with desert plants and the birds were initially attracted to blooming ocotillo. After a few failed attempts to photograph them high in the ocotillo I broke down and put a feeder on our patio.  We usually have two or three year-round residents competing for territory in our yard with the feeder being the focus of their disputes. I believe that these are Calypte anna or Anna’s Hummingbird but I’m not really a birder and could be wrong.

I’ve taken hundreds, if not thousands of pictures and perhaps one or two percent are keepers. Here are two of my favorites:

Taken on a cold day: feathers fluffed against the chill

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Although the bird above looks different from the one below, Charlie thinks they are both Anna’s. Readers can weigh in on this.

Hummingbirds

And a cat as lagniappe:

In compensation for bombarding you with more bird pictures here is a Cat. His name is Milo and he’s a rescue (as are all our six cats). He is the most talkative cat I’ve ever lived with. He weighs about 16 pounds but he carries his weight with dignity and aplomb. He’s been with us since 2003 and was about two when he decided it was OK to move in. He’s also particularly proud of his striking green eyes.

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Perhaps that is what Jerry Coyne (the cat) will look like when he grows up.

It’s spring!

March 20, 2014 • 4:52 am

Today is the spring equinox, although the temperature is barely above freezing in Chicago. To celebrate what should be happening, though, Google has a nice animated doodle showing flowers and spring-y stuff.  Note what the figures spell out.

I reproduce a screenshot below, but go here to see the whole thing:

Screen shot 2014-03-20 at 6.45.27 AM

Also known as the vernal equinox, the 20 March is the first day of spring.

And the heathens are out in force! The Independent reports:

During an equinox, the Earth’s north and south poles are not tilted toward or away from the sun. This phenomena occurs twice a year: on 20 March and on 22 September.

English Heritage have confirmed that, weather permitting, Stonehenge will be open from the start of the equinox at 5:45am until 8:30am, to allow Druids and Pagans to gather and see the sun rise above the ancient stones, according the IB Times.

Druids and Pagans will celebrate the ancient Saxon goddess Eostre, who symbolises fertility and new beginnings.

Eostre, schmeostre: it’s still a god.

The Ecklund/accommodationist post published in The New Republic

March 19, 2014 • 1:49 pm

My post yesterday on Elaine Ecklund, her data, and the fundamental incompatibility of science and religion has been picked up by The New Republic; I rewrote it fairly extensively and it now bears the title, “Another vapid effort to claim that science and religion can get along.” It’s important to me to have secular and anti-accommodationist views expressed in a mainstream venue, so if you haven’t yet read the piece, or simply want to please Professor Ceiling Cat by clicking over there, and perhaps engaging in the discussion to come, by all means do so. Or, if you want to pass the link along, you’re most welcome to.

Another Ceiling Cat Special

March 19, 2014 • 1:47 pm

My invented recipe, the “Ceiling Cat Special” (which a reader says is merely a variant of a Central American dish), has been prepared by reader Grania. My own version uses black beans, rice, yogurt, and lots of caramelized onions, while Grania made it using kidney beans, rice boiled in chicken stock, onions, and Greek-style yogurt, served with a side of cherry tomatoes.

She pronounces it delicious, and here it is:

CC special

One can’t patent recipe names, but I do think this is one of the tastiest, and healthiest dishes you can make in 10 minutes (after the rice is cooked, of course).