Free Inquiry Forum

From DiscoverMag Blog:

Are you there God, and if so, will you please provide an emissary that can go head-to-head with Christopher Hitchens without getting spectacularly flayed?

That was the pertinent issue during yesterday’s “Big Questions conversation” at the Pierre Hotel, hosted by On Faith and the John Templeton Foundation. The luncheon pitted Hitchens, the anti-deist poster child, against Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, a physicist, theologian, and author of God at the Ritz: Attraction to Infinity.

Given the pro-God squad’s spectacular failure the last time it staged a debate like this, the buzz among the predominantly male and heavily tweeded crowd was, “Will Albacete bring his A game against a man known for his cerebral disembowling of religious delegates?”

The answer, unfortunately, was a resounding no. While the monsignor presented a charismatic and sympathetic figure—his Isaac Hayes-esque vocal resonance was worth the trip alone—his arguments, if one could call them that, didn’t make it past a freshmen theology class.

Full article

From guardian.co.uk:

America’s corrosive culture wars, in which evangelical Christians are never far from the front line, are about to be reignited by a Borat-style take on organised religion.

A new ‘documentary’ by the man behind Borat - and made using the same hit-and-run techniques - will open in New York at the beginning of next month. Provocatively titled Religulous (think ‘religious’ and ‘ridiculous’), it will mock the beliefs of the world’s major religions, recruiting unwitting assistance from the ranks of the faithful.

The project has already inspired protests at its premiere at the Toronto film festival earlier this month, and US satirist Bill Maher and director Larry Charles have been accused of misleading participants. Maher has conceded that several sleights of hand were necessary to persuade people to perform. ‘It was simple: We never, ever, used my name. We never told anybody it was me who was going to do the interviews. We even had a fake title for the film. We called it A Spiritual Journey. It didn’t work everywhere. We went to Salt Lake City, but no one would let us film there at all.’

Unlike Borat, which simply sought to satirise, both Charles and Maher - former host of the talk show Politically Incorrect for Comedy Central - have made clear that, while they were looking for comic potential from their engagements with believers, their ultimate aim was not to poke gentle fun but to demolish.

Employing the same robust approach as Supersize Me and Bowling For Columbine, Religulous sees Maher challenge his interview subjects over their knowledge of the literal historic facts of their religions.

Full story

From Newsweek, Sam Harris on Sarah Palin and Elitism:

We have all now witnessed apparently sentient human beings, once provoked by a reporter’s microphone, saying things like, “I’m voting for Sarah because she’s a mom. She knows what it’s like to be a mom.” Such sentiments suggest an uncanny (and, one fears, especially American) detachment from the real problems of today. The next administration must immediately confront issues like nuclear proliferation, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and covert wars elsewhere), global climate change, a convulsing economy, Russian belligerence, the rise of China, emerging epidemics, Islamism on a hundred fronts, a defunct United Nations, the deterioration of American schools, failures of energy, infrastructure and Internet security … the list is long, and Sarah Palin does not seem competent even to rank these items in order of importance, much less address any one of them.

Read the full story here.

From CFI:

From PETA:

For more than three months, PETA went undercover at an Iowa pig factory farm, which supplies piglets who are raised and killed for Hormel products. PETA found rampant cruelty to animals - committed by workers and supervisors. The farm changed ownership and management during PETA’s investigation, but that made no difference to the animals who were born and confined there: Abuse and neglect were widespread during PETA’s entire investigation.

WARNING: Disturbing video

From ABC News:

Why do so many people hold beliefs that are clearly false? A recent story on ABCNews.com said 80 million Americans believe we have been visited by aliens from another planet, and numerous studies show that millions of people believe in ghosts, extrasensory perception and, of course, alien abductions.

According to biologist Lewis Wolpert of University College, London, all those beliefs are clearly false, and they all share a common beginning. It may well have started when the first human realized he, or she, could make a fire by rubbing two sticks together.

Wolpert is the author of a new provocative book exploring the evolutionary origins of belief, called “Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast.” The title comes from Lewis Carroll’s classic “Through the Looking Glass,” when Alice tells the White Queen that she cannot believe in impossible things.

“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” the Queen replied. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Wolpert argues that our wide range of beliefs, some of which are clearly false, grew out of a uniquely human trait. Alone in the animal world, humans understand cause and effect, and that, he says, led ultimately to the invention of tools, the rapid rise of sophisticated technology, and of course, beliefs. Even the earliest humans understood that many events that shaped their lives resulted from specific causes. Therefore, there must be a cause behind every event.

Searching for that cause, Wolpert says, led to the rise of religion because surely there must be some purpose behind all this, some ultimate cause at work in the universe.

From LiveScience:

Fierce individualists, Americans figure that we choose our own political beliefs, but actually it could come down to biology.

Individuals who are more easily startled by threats are more likely than others to support protective policies, such as military spending, the Iraq War and the death penalty, finds a new study.

Researchers over the years have put forth several factors to explain a person’s political beliefs, including religion, culture, genetics and everyday experiences.

While the new study involved a relatively small number of participants and doesn’t topple any of these ideas, it adds physiology as another driver of political leanings. It suggests, at least for those with strong political views, that some people are somehow built differently than others, either through genetics or life experiences or both.

From The Hawk Eye:

Can the power of prayer stem the tide of crime in Burlington?

Councilman Garry Thomas believes it can.

On the steps of Burlington City Hall Wednesday, ministers and concerned citizens stood shoulder to shoulder with Thomas to send a message to criminals — God is watching and so are they.

From Salon.com:

Sept. 15, 2008 | WASILLA, Alaska — The Wasilla Assembly of God, the evangelical church where Sarah Palin came of age, was still charged with excitement on Sunday over Palin’s sudden ascendance. Pastor Ed Kalnins warned his congregation not to talk with any journalists who might have been lurking in the pews — and directly warned this reporter not to interview any of his flock. But Kalnins and other speakers at the service reveled in Palin’s rise to global stardom.

It confirmed, they said, that God was making use of Wasilla. “She will take our message to the world!” rejoiced an Assembly of God youth ministry leader, as the church band rocked the high-vaulted wooden building with its electric gospel.

That is what scares the Rev. Howard Bess. A retired American Baptist minister who pastors a small congregation in nearby Palmer, Wasilla’s twin town in Alaska’s Matanuska Valley, Bess has been tangling with Palin and her fellow evangelical activists ever since she was a Wasilla City Council member in the 1990s. Recently, Bess again found himself in the spotlight with Palin, when it was reported that his 1995 book, “Pastor, I Am Gay,” was among those Palin tried to have removed from the Wasilla Public Library when she was mayor.

“She scares me,” said Bess. “She’s Jerry Falwell with a pretty face.