Rationality Follow-Up

This is a point that I meant to include in my post about rationality, but it deserves its own post so it's fine. Here's a point that I know for a fact that the atheist activist blogger PZ Meyers likes to make and I believe Dawkins has pushed it once or twice:

Nothing Must be Held Sacred

It's extremely important that this idea be combined with every single person's individual creed when trying to make the world a more rational place. To emphasize his point, PZ Meyers once committed his act of "Great

Desecration" in which he took a rusty nail and jammed it through a communion wafer, a page from the Qu'ran, and a page from the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

Now at first I was somewhat upset that he felt the need to include the page from the God Delusion in there for a number of reasons, but then I began to see his point. He was trying to show us that these things which he treated so poorly are nothing sacred; they're just two pieces of paper with ink and a piece of bread. Getting offended or upset over them just seems silly.

Now of course it's acceptable to value the information that such non-sacred objects provide. Information, experience, and knowledge all go towards living a more rational lifestyle, and even the brilliant Christopher Hitchens admitted reading a bizarre but pleasant form of poetry when reading the Qu'ran in its original Arabic. But being willing to kill/die over a few scraps of paper with ink on them? That's just ridiculous.

TL;DR Information is important, but holding things sacred is stupid.

Darwin Day Picture

As we bid farewell to Darwin day, I'd like to share an excellent picture with everyone.

Support Darwin Day!

United States’ Representative Pete Stark has just introduced a bill (H. Res. 81) into Congress that looks to designate February 12th as “Darwin Day”.

In a statement Representative Stark said, “Darwin’s birthday is a good time for us to reflect on the important role of science in our society. It is also a time to redouble our efforts to ensure that children are being taught scientific facts, not religious dogma, and to fight back against those who seek to undermine the science of climate change for political ends.”

The bill can be read in its entirety here and I urge everyone that is interested in making this bill into law to e-mail their representative.

Also, here's an amazing picture:

Burden of Proof

I have an apple in my hand.

Now, do I really have an apple in my hand? You can't know for sure until I show you my hand holding an apple, right? You might take my word for it, but that's only because it really doesn't impact you very much. But you sure wouldn't be willing to bet your life on it until I showed you an apple inside my hand.

Now what if I told you this apple was in fact Omniscient and outside the bounds of time and space?

Would you take my word for it?