title, what title?

The fairy tale of Sodom of Gomorrah is one of many peculiar tales in the Abrhamic religion. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah are involved in homosexuality. Yahwe or Allah depending on which version you are reading decides to destroy these cities because of this "incredible crime". He sends his angels to warn Lot, the only believer in the city. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah surround his house, and demand the angels to be returned to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, for a little bit of homosexual orgy. Lot, the prophet, offers his virgin daughters to the mob instead. The angels intervene and people go home. Lot, this wonderful father, is the only male to escape the devastation of the cities. His wife, who commits the crime of looking back at the city is turned into salt. In the Biblical version, his daughters seduce Lot and have babies from him... This disgusting tale of morality is one of the causes of the terror on and discrimination against homosexuals all around the wor...

Mr. Deity is God. Lucy is Lucifer. Mr. Deity is funny. Mr. Deity is serious. Everyone should watch Mr. Deity.

... be good without God. Yet another atheist bus campaign. This time from Obama's home state. I think this is better than their original plan "In the beginning, man created God"

A strain of indescribable post-modernism may be termed anti-scientism. According to this strain, scientific method is "just another story," along the stories told by religion, tradition, mysticism. Of course the actual argumentation is far more complex and subtle -which I do not claim to have explored-, but the common theme is more or less the same. Recently rhe rise of religion in both eastern and western societies, and their natural clash with modern values based on truths obtained by scientific method, has undoubtedly created a problem of ontologically categorizing the places in the society and meanings of science and religion. On the one hand there is the so called New-atheists, New-humanists, or as they describe themselves the "Brights" - to be fair they call those who are insistent on a supernatural powers the "Supers". They are of the opinion that religion should ultimately be taken out of the public discourse, and left to persons only just like wha...

This is from the avesome blog Pharyngula . Click to zoom. On the left is a timeline of universe, with Human involvment in it. Just in case you still think we play an important part in the Universe. On the right the same timeline from a young earth creationist point of view, which takes Genesis in Bible literally. Yes, there are still some crackpots out there.

Odtü'lü olmaktan gurur duymak.

Two very funny strips from Calvin and Hobbes, to match the winter spirit: This ones about the feelings of every student about snow: http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2009/02/10/ This ones about the existence of God: http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2009/02/02/

Dan Dennet likens the erosion of the conception of God in the public sphere from an omnipotent and omnipresent power which is playing around with everything in the universe, to a "form of energy/force/power" that binds everything together and various variants of this somehow "new-age" conception, to Mount Everest eroding to the gracious hills of the Hill Country. Before judging the truth value of this analogy, I asked myself what do I understand from the word Energy? From the Physics textbooks, I remembered the definition: "Energy is the ability to do work." But what is work then? Again the textbook definition of work is "transfer of energy." What? So energy is supposed to be "the ability to transfer energy." What a great definition! It turns out defining what energy is not that easy, especially in terms of the two modern theories of Physics (yes they are also only theories like Evolution, a fact that doesn't lessen their value or t...

This is hilarious -and very informative on the travesty of Proposition 8-: "Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... by Jack Black

... You simply dance Drum'n'Bass. If you are Afroamerican, you dance like a pro: and if you are white, you make a fool of yourself: White man can't dance.

Auth (c) 2005 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Reprinted by permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.

If you have been to a large Western city, you probably have seen church advertisements like "Jesus loves you" or "Jesus saves" on public transport. They involve no public spending. In Turkey, I cannot imagine such advertisements, but a lot of public money is spent on religion. I wonder, what would be reactions to such an advertisement on a bus in Turkey: "There is probably no god. Now stop worrying. And enjoy your life." It is worth noting that the Anglican Church welcomed the advertisement. They argued this would motivate people to think about God, and draw the same conclusion as they did...

Richard Dawkins'in sitesi Harun Yahya takma adli Adnan Hoca'ya hakaret icerdigi gerekcesiyle Türk mahkemelerince Türkiye'de erisime kapatildi. Hicbir aciklama olmadigi icin asagidaki yazinin mi baska bir yazinin mi bu kapatmaya sebep oldugunu bilemiyorum. Sansür arkasinda gerceklerin örtülmemesi icin Richard Dawkins'in Harun Yahya'nin Yaratilis Atlasi adli komik kitabi ile ilgili yazisinin cevirisini yayinliyorum, bu blogu takip eden ve blog sahibi olan herkesten de aynisini yapmasini rica ediyorum. Zehirli Yilanlar, Kaygan Yilanbaliklari ve Harun Yahya Richard Dawkins - Ceviri Kutluhan Celik 2006 yilinda, Musluman Turk apolojist Harun Yahya tarafindan yazilmis, Atlas of Creation isimli kitabi, siparis vermemis olmasina ragmen, tamamen ucretsiz olarak posta kutusunda bulan dunya capinda onbinlerce bilim adamindan biri oldum. Onbir dilde yayimlanan kitabin tezi, evrimin yalan oldugu. Ana "kanit", her biri gunumuzdeki karsiliklari esliginde sayfa sayfa sunul...

There is no benefit from hiding the facts for the sake of political correctness. The scriptures of the three Abrahamic Religions include pieces that can be used to justify terrible acts of violence. Here is a piece from Deuteronomy 7, from the Old Testament: "When the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you." This is a mild excerpt. I invite interested reader to read more on Deuteronomy, especially what it suggests people to do, when one of their family members, in case they commit the ultimate "crime" of worshiping other gods. Here is a piece from Koran, Sura 9, Sentence 5: "So when the sac...

The second half of the final season of the best thing on TV, Battlestar Galactica, will start January 2009. I am already dreaming about it. Literally, I had a dream about the show last night, in which I was Adama, and had to command my ships against Cylon base ships to find earth. After reaching earth, I led a search effort into the underground caverns where we found human survivors from thousand of years ago. Fascinating dream. One of the reasons I love BSG is that it can discuss contemporary issues pretty openly, as it is set in the future in an imagined society. So there is no holding back due to concerns of "hurting" certain group of peoples feelings. In the episode The Woman King , a group of Saggitarians -an imagined nation in BSG, is taken on board the Galactica. Then a deadly epidemic breaks out. However the interpretation of Saggitarians of their holy texts forbids them from using modern medicine. The show opens up with a woman's struggle with her faith and the p...

Iddalar korkunc . Bu iddalar'i siyasallastirmadan -yani secim malzemesi yapmadan, ortada iki taraf varmis, ve birinin eline koz gecmis gibi davranmadan- sadece suclulari hedef alarak yargiya tasimak laik ve demokratik bir duzene inanan herkesin sorumlulugudur. Özgürlükler'den yana oldugunu idda eden Basbakan'dan ya da onun Icisleri Bakani'ndan birsey beklemek cok da mantikli degil, zira özgürlük anlayislarinin sadece kendi dar dünya görüsleri ile ilgili oldugunu kendileri dahi biliyorlar. Tarih ile ilgili bir konuda ettigi sozler yuzunden Orhan Pamuk'un pesine dusen aktivist hukuk adamlarindan hukuk camiasi icinde özgürlüklere inanmislarinin da olduguna inaniyor, onlarin harekete gecmesini bekliyorum. Bu vesileyle acilen ihtiyacimiz oldugunun bir kez daha altini cizmek istedigim Americans United tarzi laik sistemi demokratik yollar ile korumak icin kurulmus, siyaset üstü bir sivil toplum örgütünün bu ve bunun gibi davalarda finansal ve hukuki olanaklarina ihtiyac d...

It is unbelievable and disappointing at the same time to witness, that the farce of a scientific hypothesis called Intelligent Design will be taught in Biology classes as supplementary material in one of the states of the greatest democracy in the world. In this great article Gary Marcus brings to attention the falsehood of the conception of an intelligent design, by listing some of the biases in our mind as well as design flaws in our body. This discussion reminded me the answer of Sir David Attenborough, the legendary nature documentary producer, to questions regarding creationism: My response is that when Creationists talk about God creating every individual species as a separate act, they always instance hummingbirds, or orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to think instead of a parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that's going to make him blind. And [I ask them], 'Are you telling me...

I do not know any contemporary Western democracy where ideas of a single man are felt so profoundly in the politics and daily life. It is therefore perhaps difficult for those living in these democracies to appreciate the status of Mustafa Kemal, the founder of the single democracy in the Islamic state tradition, in the Turkish society. I´came to believe that an agreement of a true "separation of state and religion in a society is one of the main pre-conditions of democracy. In the face of rising Political-religion -Political Islam, Political Christianity, Political Hinduism- his revolutionary reformations he undertook in the 1920's have been attacked from the political Islam side in Turkey very harshly these days. In one of the recent such rows, two young Islamists were taken to the court after they declared on TV that they did not like Mustafa Kemal, but preferred the old Iranian revolutionary leader Khomeini. The draconian protection of revolutionary ideas laws -which are t...

I am reading this very interesting book called Breaking the Spell by the American philosopher Dan Dennet . The book is an attempt to summarize the previous scientific work that try to explain all forms of religion as a natural phenomenon, based on our genetic and cultural evolution, and make further very intriguing philosophical and scientific speculations. Along the evolution of religion, the concept of divination plays an important role. Divination is any form of delegating important decisions in human life to the God, Gods, or Ancestors. Divination takes very different forms, from looking at the broken stern bones of a human sacrifice, to looking at feces' of animals or the kings to see the future, or help us taking important decisions! As a matter of fact all forms of astrology and fortune telling are nothing but cultural traditions that exploit the basic human trait of looking for an intelligent agent behind everything in the world, and the human insecurities when it comes ...

Ergenekon firtinasi icinde unutuldu gitti. Yasamim boyunca tanik oldugum en vahsi eylemdi. Lütfen bazi sorulari kendinize sorun. Hangisi daha önemlidir? Sizin gibi yasayan, nefes alan, aciyan, sevinen, aglayan, kizan, kufreden, asik olan, yaratan, dusunen bir insanin hayati mi, yoksa inanclariniz mi?