Skepticule Podcast #41 (Special Episode)

The Skepticule Podcast #41 is out now.

This is a special episode recorded at The Sunday Assembly in London.

SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2013

Skepticule-041-20130203

Skepticule shownotes for episode 041 20130203

This is the forty-first episode of Skepticule — aka the Three Pauls Podcast and is a Sunday Assembly special 

Paul Thompson ("Sinbad") 
The Skeptical Probe
http://skepticalprobe.blogspot.com/

Paul Orton, militant agnostic 
Missing God Gene 
http://www.missinggodgene.com/

Paul S. Jenkins
Notes from an Evil Burnee
http://www.evilburnee.co.uk

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• Sunday Assembly
• Harry Cliff

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• Pippa Evans
• Sanderson Jones
• Independent: Comedians of the Antichrist give first atheist church their blessing
• Unbelievable? with David Robertson, Simon Jenkins, Rory Fenton and Sanderson Jones
• Sunday Assembly is on Facebook and Twitter

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• Hops & Glory PH, Islington
• The Nave
• London Black Atheists on Facebook, Twitter andMeetup.com
• Clive Aruede, Heather Brown, David Walter
• Ann Widdecombe:  Does Christianity Have a Future? — BBC
• Richard Holloway
• Outnumbered: Karen's Spiritual Journey — YouTube
• Old Harry's Game — Andy Hamilton — BBC Radio 4
• Atheist Bus Campaign

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Send feedback to feedback@skepticule.co.uk, write a review oniTunes or post a comment below.

Skepticule is a production of Willowsoft Communications


Skepticule is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Direct download:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/revup/Skepticule-041-20130203.mp3

Pope Francis ditches the Bling.

Well, His Holiness Pope Francis is of to a good start.

It seems he's got rid of the outrageously extravagant golden throne and replaced it with a more modest plain white chair.

Gone too is the raised platform carpeted in finest red trimmed in gold.

The ermine lined red velvet cape and the elaborately gold embroidered stole are conspicuous by their majestic absence.


That's not all... Those beautiful red loafers, hand crafted by Pope Benedict's personal cobler: Andriano Stefanelli are replaced by comfortable plain black lace-ups, a little battered but well cared for.

Gone is the beautifully intricate golden crucifix depicting some guy hanging from a torture device, replaced by a simple iron cross.

The solid gold Papal ring belonging to Benedict, according to tradition, now has to be destroyed, presumably in the fires of Mordor. Pope Francis has opted for a simple silver plated signet ring.

There is a saying "The Clothes Maketh the Man". If this is so, I'm expecting to see a switch from a Vain, arrogant, self glorifying hypocrite to someone who is more in touch with reality, someone who realises such a vulgar display of extravagant wealth is offensive to most of the world, especially to those living in abject poverty and doubly so when the man festooned in Golden Bling, living in a palace is pointing his finger at the rest of the world criticizing us for greed and the desire for material wealth.

My hope is that Pope Francis will also have a clear out of all the perverts, corruption and hypocrisy from within the clergy. Perhaps this is too much to ask. It maybe the case that the Vatican expects superficial changes to the Papal image and a thorough PR makeover will divert our attention from the fundamental flaws within the Roman Catholic Empire.

I could be very mistaken in my observations. It maybe the case that the Papal Throne makers are at this very moment constructing an even more elaborate display for another Peacock Pope... but so far... this does not seem to be the case. While far from acceptable, things do seem a little less repugnant in the Vatican.

Only time will tell.

Marriage Equality

The Government has now voted (400 to 175) to approve same-sex marriage in England and Wales.

However, in the weeks leading up to this vote there were many highly vocal protests that such an action would cause a total breakdown of society as we know it. One of these vocal opponents to marriage equality was The Archbishop of Southwark, Peter Smith.

Archbishop Smith asked parishioners to mail their anti-gay views to parliament.

Archbishop Smith distributed one million anti-gay marriage postcards for churchgoers to mail to parliament expressing their opposition to the marriage equality bill.

See the [full article] in GayStarNews:-


Archbishop Smith had previously countered the Governments statement on the Equal Marriage consultation:-

"This response has ignored the key concern expressed by many people in this country; that is the proposed change to the meaning of marriage."

Yes it does, In the same way the abolition of slavery was a change in fundamental human rights... In the same way suffrage was a change to the meaning of women's rights... In the same way the repeal of the Witchcraft act changed the meaning of church inspired fear, hatred and superstition.

He speaks of change as though it was a bad thing. When something is inherently wrong, it needs to be changed.

"We are in danger of forgetting what marriage has always meant: a union of one man and one woman for love and mutual support, open to the procreation of children."

Clearly, Archbishop Smith has never heard of King Solomon's 700 wives and 300 concubines. Should we also prevent the elderly and the infertile from marrying because they can't procreate? The only criteria we have left is "love and mutual support". Gay couples meet that requirement.

"It is more than a way of recognising committed loving relationships. Marriage matters to families, stability, and the common good of society. We risk grave long term social loss by rushing into such ill-considered legislative change."

So if Marriage is a good thing, why would MORE marriage cause damage to the stability of society. Surely "Divorce" is far more damaging to loving relationships and families, in fact Divorce is usually catastrophic to a marriage but I don't hear Archbishop Smith shouting very loudly about Divorce.

"The consultation showed that nearly half of the 228,000 questioned did not think that civil marriage should be open to same-sex couples and the figures did not take account of the petitions received, which were universally opposed and signed by over 620,000 people."

Oh, I see, All the people who signed the petitions against same-sex marriage were universally opposed to same sex marriage. Archbishop Smith must think we're stupid. Obviously no one who is pro same-sex marriage is going to sign the petition against same sex marriage.

Let's face it, this has nothing to do with the sanctity, tradition or definition of marriage, this is all about the hatred of the gay community, it's about Homophobic Bigotry. 

But bigotry in the marriage department is not new..

This is a picture from the Little Rock Inter-racial protests of the 1960s. The Religious right used exactly the same arguments the gay marriage opponents use today.

When blacks and whites were eventually allowed to marry in 1967, Society didn't collapse. The institution of marriage was not destroyed.

In fact, we look back and recognise the misguided bigotry of the day.

The same will happen for gay marriage. 50 Years from now, our grand children will look back and shake their heads in disbelief at the bigotry within our conservative society.

Furthermore, the religious right will be claiming the credit for releasing the gay community from their oppression at the hands of homophobic bigots in the same way the religious right have claimed the credit for the abolition of slavery and suffrage for women. 

The Churches do not hold any monopoly on Marriage, they are not the custodians of the definition of Marriage, they do not have the authority to impose their traditions on people who do not subscribe to their Churches. They can have an opinion and can impose restrictions on their own adherents but NOT on the rest of the population. 

Skepticule Extra Podcast #37

Skepticule Extra shownotes for episode 037 20121125

This is the thirty-seventh episode of Skepticule Extra — aka theThree Pauls Podcast. 

Direct download:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/revup/SkepExtra-037-20121125.mp3

Paul Thompson ("Sinbad") 
The Skeptical Probe
http://skepticalprobe.blogspot.com/

Paul Orton 
Missing God Gene 
http://missinggodgene.blogspot.co.uk/

Paul S. Jenkins
Notes from an Evil Burnee
http://www.evilburnee.co.uk

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• Church of England
• Giles Fraser — Guardian
  
• Britain's Christians are being vilified, warns Lord Carey — Telegraph
• CofE 39 Articles

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• National Secular Society AGM
• NSS General Principles
• Unbelievable? — Angus Ritchie & Kile Jones
• Eric Hovind
• Euthyphro dilemma
• Justin Brierley
• Deuteronomy 13
• Unbelievable? — Arif Ahmed & Glenn Peoples
• Say Hello To My Little Friend

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• The Prayer Company Inc — Dawn Eves
• Creflo Dollar Dancing in Money — YouTube
• Peter Popoff — Miracle Springwater — YouTube
• Disturbing mind manipulation — YouTube
• Benny Hinn documentary — YouTube

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Send feedback to feedback@skepticule.co.uk, write a review oniTunes or post a comment below. There is also a Skepticule Extra Forum for further discussion of topics covered in the show (plus other topics). Follow the link to try out the forum.

Skepticule Extra is a production of Willowsoft Communications


Skepticule Extra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Direct download:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/revup/SkepExtra-037-20121125.mp3

Paedophile Boss lectures Atheists on human dignity

The man who presides over the worlds largest paedophile ring has recently accused Atheists of denying human dignity.

This is the man who actively suppressed knowledge of the global child abuse scandal within the Catholic Church in case it damaged the reputation or the assets of the Church.

This is the man who on Dec 12th 2012 bestowed his blessings on Rebecca Kadaga, the speaker of the Ugandan legislature who is sponsoring the 'Kill the Gays' Bill.

This is the man who organised special dispensation for Robert Mugabe, one or the worlds top 10 evil dictators to bypass an EU travel ban so he could attend the Beatification ceremony of Pope John Paul II.

This is the man who had his butler arrested and jailed (and forgiven) for exposing corruption and money laundering within the Vatican Bank.

This is the man who smacked down Dominican Nuns because they wanted the Catholic Church to focus less on issues of sexual orientation and more on social justice and the human dignity of all people... including women.

This is the man who condemns 2 million people to death from AIDS every year in Africa because he has decreed the wearing of Condoms is a Sin in the eyes of God.


This is the man who has the audacity to lecture me on Human Dignity.


Links:-

Pope blames Irish Clergy for child abuse problem in Ireland. 

Pope blocks dismissal of Paedophile Priest.

Open letter to the Pope urging further dismissals for cover-up culture.

National Catholic Register pulls article blaming the children for their own abuse.

Text of 1985 letter from future Pope Benedict on California sex abuse

Abuse victim sues Pope Benedict over failure to defrock

Pope blessed 'Kill the Gays' sponsor

Pope's anti-condom message is sabotage in fight against Aids

Dr Hugh Ross - Lying for God

On the 23rd of June 2012, Premier Christian Radio broadcast the debate "Is there evidence for a cosmic creator?" on the Unbelievable radio show hosted by Justin Brierley.

The Theological combatants were:

Dr Hugh Ross - Astrophysicist - Astronomer, Christian Apologist He has worked at Caltech, MIT, Yale, Fermi Labs, JPL He is the founder of the "Reasons to Believe" Organization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Ross_(creationist) http://www.reasons.org/

Prof Lewis Wolpert - Cellular Biologist University College London He is Vice President of the British Humanist Association http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Wolpert

The debate was hosted by the Imperial College Christian Union and was moderated by Monya Zard of Imperial College.

Before the debate had started, Red Flags started to appear. In the proposition "Is there evidence for a Cosmic Creator" the word "Cosmic" is ambiguous but if we assume the definition "Pertaining to the the Cosmos", we have a problematic mismatch between debating participants. An Astrophysicist and a Cellular Biologist.... debating Cosmology???


Dr Hugh Ross opened with the claim that The Bible has 10 times more cosmology than all the other religion's holy books combined.

He presented an example of where the Bible clearly states the universe began from a Space/Time Singularity -  "In the Beginning God created the heavens and the Earth."  He goes on to explain that the Hebrew word for "Create" [bara] means: "to bring into existence that which did not exist before."

This is incorrect. The translation of [bara] can be: to Shape, Fashion, Create or Transform.

This is exactly what most bronze age cultures believed... that their particular God created everything. There is no mention of a Space/Time Singularity and there is no way this passage in the Bible predicts or describes (implicitly or explicitly) a Cosmic Singularity. In fact, if this is the standard of evidence required by a professional Astrophysicist then I propose that the story of Goldilocks predicts a singularity, Space/Time and the Holy Trinity with: "Once upon a time, there where three bears". Such an analogy my sound flippant but both interpretations are equally tenuous and contrived.

I would have liked to have asked Dr Ross for his scientific evidence as to why the first law of thermodynamics is not violated by his claim. Remembering that he is presenting Scientific evidence and not Supernatural evidence.

I let this pass, It is nothing more that the standard technique of re-interpreting scripture to match that which is known. Scripture supported a geocentric universe until science discovered we lived in a Heliocentric system. Now the same scripture supports a Heliocentric system.

Dr Ross then made his first extraordinary claim.

He held up a document, the document was a scientific paper by Roger Penrose and Steven Hawking entitled "The singularities of gravitational collapse and cosmology."

Dr Ross read out the conclusion of the paper from the final paragraph:

"If mass exists in the universe and if general relativity reliably predicts the movement of bodies in the universe then space and time must be created by a causal agent who transcends space and time."

This is either a deliberate Lie or he has been fooled into believing a document modified by Creationists containing that paragraph.

But, he was holding the document and apparently quoting verbatim from the final paragraph.

The paper he is referring to is archived at the Royal Society and is available free of charge to the public. It can be downloaded from here:

http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/314/1519/529.full.pdf+html

I have studied the paper in it's entirety. The document does not contain the paragraph quoted by Dr Ross or make any conclusion even vaguely resembling his quote.

Read the concluding paragraph yourself and see if you can crowbar in an interpretation that in any way resembles the quotation.

If Dr Ross really had that paper in his hand and had read the final paragraph, he would know what he was saying was not true.

There are only 2 possibilities.

• Dr Ross deliberately and knowingly lied.
• Dr Ross was deceived into believing a fake Creationist version.

If the former then he has some serious explaining to do. If the latter then he is incompetent and does not bother to fact-check anything that agrees with his preconceived beliefs.

This is epitome of intellectual dishonesty. Dr Ross knew Prof Wolpert (A Biologist)  would not have read that paper nor anyone else at the Christian Union. He knew Prof Wolpert could not rebut that quote because the quote does not exist and could not be verified during the debate.

Dr Ross claims the Bible shows us that God is the author of the 2nd Law of thermodynamics in the following verse:-

NIV Romans 8:21 - "that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God."

Call me Mr Pedantic but everyone else I know interprets Romans 8 as an explanation of salvation from death if you live in accordance with the Spirit and do not follow a sinful nature which leads to death. It takes a major effort of self deception to interpret this passage as Gods promulgation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.  Why would Paul be writing to the Romans explaining the gift of salvation freely given to all... and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics?

Things now go from bad to worse.

Dr Ross states that the Bible gives us a testable numeric entropy curve for the cooling of the universe. He displays a classic entropy curve supposedly predicted by the Bible overlaid with 13 data points representing temperatures measured by scientific observation. The Biblically predicted entropy curve precisely matches the curve measured by modern science.

During the Q&A period Dr Ross was asked to state where in the Bible this precise, quantified entropy curve was defined. Dr Ross attempted to sidestep this question, he evaded the question, tried to answer a different question and pretended not to understand the question even though it was re-phrased clearly and succinctly by the moderator.

I too would like to challenge Dr Ross' assertion that the Bible quantifies the temperature of the Universe over 14 Billion Years and that these Biblical Measurements correlate with modern scientific measurements. Dr Ross has gone to the effort of extracting enough of these measurements from the Bible to be able to plot an accurate entropy curve. It should be no problem for him to indicate which verses he used for his calculations.

Just when I thought Dr Ross' arguments had hit rock bottom... Things declined even further.

Dr Ross quotes 3 statements from a paper by 3 un-named Atheist Physicists entitled "Disturbing implications for a cosmological constant". The original paper can be downloaded from:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0208013.pdf

The 3 un-named Atheist Physicist are: L. Dyson , M. Kleban and L. Susskind  of the Department of Physics at Stanford University.

The 3 quotes Dr Ross read from the paper are:-

Quote 1. 

"Arranging the universe as we think it's arranged, that is, governed by dark energy would have required a miracle."

This statement does not appear anywhere in the paper. The closest I can find to this statement is in Ch6 p19 which discusses a hypothetical universe where the temperature  of the CMB is 10 degrees K instead of 2.7 degrees K.  The paper states that such a scenario would generate vastly more possible worlds but:

 "In all of these worlds statistically miraculous (but not impossible) events would be necessary to assemble and preserve the fragile nuclei that would ordinarily be destroyed by the higher temperatures. However, although each of the corresponding histories is extremely unlikely, there are so many more of them than those that evolve without “miracles,” that they would vastly dominate the livable universes that would be created by Poincare recurrences."

If the quotation does refer to this paragraph, Dr Ross has fabricated the quote, applied it to a hypothetical scenario and attributed it as a conclusion of the authors. This is a gross misrepresentation of the authors.

Quote 2. 

"An external agent, external to space and time, intervened in cosmic history for reasons of its own."

This is a deliberate alteration to what was actually stated in the paper. The full text of the statement reads:

"Another possibility is an unknown agent intervened in the evolution, and for reasons of its own restarted the universe in the state of low entropy characterizing inflation. How-ever, even this does not rid the theory of the pesky recurrences."

• This is presented as a hypothetical.
• It does not mention an "External" agent.
• It does not say the hypothetical agent was "External to Space and Time".
• He fails to mention that this hypothetical scenario is rejected.

This is a complete fabrication and misrepresentation by Dr Ross or perhaps Dr Ross was again deceived by a fraudulent Creationist version of the paper and he failed to do any fact checking.... like actually read the original paper.

Quote 3. 

"the only reasonable conclusion is that we do not live in a world with a true cosmological constant."

A minor point, Dr Ross omitted the first word of the conclusion: "Perhaps".

He also forgot to mention that the conclusion is given on the assumption that the scenarios discussed in the paper assume:

• There is a fundamental cosmological constant.
• We can apply the ideas of holography and complementarity to de Sitter space.
• The time evolution operator is unitary, so that phase space area is conserved.

Finally, Dr Ross argued earlier in his presentation that God created the universal constants and the laws of cosmology. He now cites a paper that speculates there is no cosmological constant.

Dr Ross claims he has studied all the major religions and they all get cosmology wrong and The Bible gets it all correct. He says that Islam states the stars are closer than the planets and that Christianity does not make this mistake.

I would like to see Dr Ross' professional opinion as an Astronomer regarding the orbital trajectory of the Star of Bethlehem which moved across the sky and then hovered over Bethlehem.
Also - Mark 13:25 - The stars will fall from the sky.
And - Revelation 6:13 - and the stars in the sky fell to earth.

I'm disappointed with Premier Christian Radio for practically making Dr Ross their poster boy on the DVD for this lecture/debate series, even titling the DVD "Reasons to Believe" after Dr Ross' Mission. At very best this debate was technically and intellectually questionable at worst, it was a showcase for dishonest debate tactics, fabricated facts and misrepresentation.

If you have a claim for Truth, that Truth will stand firm on it's own merit. Truth relishes scrutiny and examination because honest scrutiny can only make Truth stronger. If you have to resort to lies and misrepresentation to promote your claim of Truth, you don't have Truth, you only have an empty claim.

When Truth becomes inconvenient and optional for a belief, it gives me Fewer Reasons to Believe.

The Ross/Wopert Debate - Is there evidence for a cosmic creator?
http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/c75cd729-4e4d-427e-855b-29f66520b42d.mp3

Premier Christian Radio - Unbelievable
http://www.premiercommunity.org.uk/group/unbelievable

Huckabee & Hovind - Self-Aggrandising from Sandy Hook Shootings

Mike Huckabee and +Eric Hovind  are just two of the most despicable excuses for human beings that I can think of.

Within minutes of of the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn, Huckabee and Hovind were up on their self-aggrandising soap boxes trying to score theological points on the back of murdered children.

Here's a few example of their cold heartless promotion of the Christian agenda :

"No Surprise, We've 'Systematically Removed God' From Schools."
"Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?"
"And since we've ordered God out of our schools, and communities, the military and public conversations, you know we really shouldn't act so surprised ... when all hell breaks loose."
[Mike Huckabee]


"Are you happy now that the shooter grew up in a school without God?"
[Eric Hovind]

"God Could Have Saved Those Kids, but He Won’t Go Where He’s Not Wanted."
[Bryan Fischer (AFA)] (Whoever he is?)





What they are indirectly referring to is obviously the adherence to the 1st Amendment that prevents state run organisations imposing any religious activity, doctrine or test on any citizen. Consequently, Schools are not allowed to impose mandatory worship of any deity on their pupils.

Huckabee and Hovind twist this to mean that God has been "Removed" or "Ordered Out" of Schools. Thus making a mockery of God's supposed Omnipresence.

Clearly this is not the case. Children and Teachers can pray in School whenever they feel like it. Praying is not banned in any US School.  This is a deliberate and cynical attempt to demonize and spit in the face of the constitution and the rights given to all US Citizens.

Children and Teachers can pray to their hearts content at school, then can pray on the way to school, they can spend all their lunch breaks praying, They can spend every single minute of spare time praying and I'm sure many of them pray all through lessons instead of learning about reality.

So let's examine the utter stupidity of what Huckabee and Hovind are actually claiming:

We know Christian kids and faculty can and do pray to their God as much as they like in school. What they can't do is force all the Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and Atheist kids to worship their particular brand of God.

So according to the claims of Huckabee and Hovind, all those Christian prayers offered in School were totally useless, it FAILED to prevent evil entering the Sandy Hook Elementary School. The only thing that would have prevented this tragedy was to force Atheist and Jewish kids pray to Jesus every day.

But this causes a serious problem for Huckabee and Hovind. They are in effect admitting that Christian prayer is totally useless, God doesn't listen. The only thing that would have been effective would have been the additional prayers of Atheists.

I'm pleased that these two cold hearted bigots without any form of compassion or empathy are beginning to realise that Christian prayer does not work and that only the inclusion of Atheists could have had any effect.


If you really want to help:
Prayer clearly doesn't work, it only serves to make you feel better about yourself for not doing anything. Ignore Huckabee and Hovind, Get up off your damn knees and send money to:

http://newtownmemorialfund.org/
http://www.weareatheism.com/donate/nonbelievers-giving-aid-support-sandy-hook-elementary/
https://newtown.uwwesternct.org/

Prayers will help you feel more righteous and caring about yourself.
Donations will help rebuild the lives of those affected by this tragedy.

Do NOT donate to any Facebook site claiming to be collecting donations for Sandy Hook Elementary School, it is almost certain to be a scam..... set up by despicable people trying to profiteer off someone else's tragedy.