Last night I attended a release party celebrating Hitchens’ “God is not great” being released in Swedish, with the title “Du store Gud?”, by Fri Tanke Förlag (Freethought Publishing). There was a discussion between Elisabeth Sandlund, the editor of a christian newspaper and Åke Ortmark, a prominent journalist who was recently elected onto the board of the Swedish Humanist Association (which I guess makes us colleagues). The editor, an obviously intelligent lady with a lot of what I’d have to call spunk, had been atheist for a long time but met god at the confirmation of her handicapped daughter.

All in all it was a fun, friendly discussion. She wasn’t a creationist and I think ethically she and I would agree on most things - although she’s against euthanasia and thinks that diagnosing handicaps in the womb and preventing these fetuses from growing is a slippery slope. We shouldn’t give the scientists free reins, she opined, forgetting that it’s not the knowledge that’s dangerous, but the application. She also made a few other slightly baffling comments; for instance she was under the impression that scientists are pursuing a final answer and would be happy the day we know everything there is to know. During my turn to speak in the discussion afterwards I pointed out that the very jobs of scientists depend on there being more questions to ask.

I also asked her a question that seemed to piss her off, as she didn’t answer and instead made herself seem like an idiot. She had been lamenting the misuse of christianity during the crusades and in catholic countries outlawing homosexuality and the like. I asked her if it isn’t a little problematic to believe that her version of christianity is the right one, when these other christians believe just as fervently as she does that they’re doing the right thing. Huffily, she said that by that logic, all atheists like Stalin.

Yeah, I have no idea how she made that connection. The old “atheism led to the Holocaust/gulags/whatever” fallacy has been debunked ad nauseam, but in this case it’s not even applicable. I wasn’t saying that her personal faith was responsible for crimes against humanity, or that she’s in any way connected to these, I was asking how she knows that she really happens to believe in the right version of christianity, when there’s so many of them. Perhaps I phrased the question poorly, though. I am, after all, only human. Unfortunately she rushed off afterwards, panting “I have to get home to my handicapped child!” (she referred to her daughter often, and it irked me. Clearly she thinks she’s special because her daughter has a mental handicap. I have nothing but contempt for people who use their handicapped children as arguments in a debate, it’s so obviously fishing for sympathy), so there wasn’t time to resolve the matter.

Other than this, nothing out of the ordinary was said. Ortmark failed to answer a question from a christian about objective morality, probably because he as a Humanist doesn’t believe in any such thing and hence didn’t even understand the question. Sandlund repeated the old fallacy that Swedish ethics = Christian ethics, and failed to answer all the questions that normally lead people to reject god, such as the problem of theodicy, and complacently stated that she’s happy to hand over those problems to God, and that in fact, she feels it strengthens her faith that she doesn’t know everything. A lovely bit of rationalising - “This is a problem that might dent my faith. Therefore, I must believe it strengthens my faith.”

In short, the message to take home was that even nice, intelligent christians are still, well, christians. They still have an imaginary friend and they still believe in miracles, contrary to all evidence.

christianity, humanism, åke ortmark

Reader kai shared this interesting story: Why Flowers have Lost their Scent (making it more difficult for bees to find them), and points out that perhaps the most interesting bit of the story is the deluge of irate comments denying global warming. Global warming denialism is of course nothing new, but it’s interesting that the denialists feel compelled to attack even a story that doesn’t even mention climate change.

People are accusing the story of being a sloppy bit of - well, either science, or science journalism, or both. They seem entirely incapable of separating the original study from the dumbed-down media version. Someone said that the stupid scientists should’ve moved away from their ivory towers universities and instead gone to the countryside to do the study, as apparently in the countryside there’s no pollution at all. Someone else snorted derisively about the scientists magical ability to sort out pollution from car exhausts from all the other kinds of pollution (planes, factories, what have you) - as if it cannot possibly have crossed the minds of the scientists to find out exactly what these different pollutants actually are and how much they contribute to average pollution.

In short, many commenters display an absolutely baffling lack of respect for these working scientists, seemingly assuming they’re paid off by liberal politicians who want to make people feel guilty about driving cars. When all the scientists have really done, as far as I can tell, is figure out that scent molecules from flowers are easily degraded by pollution. They claim there is “no separation between science and politics”, which is clearly a case of projection, as they themselves are unable to look past their denialist agenda to consider the actual science behind the story.

Pollution in various forms is affecting the world around us. One study isn’t going to tell us exactly to what extent. But to discount the effect of pollutants on flower scents entirely just because you can smell the roses (the people who said this must have missed that the flowers haven’t stopped producing scents, the scent just doesn’t reach as far as it used to - you’ll still be able to feel it if you’re standing in the damn rose garden!) … I don’t know whether to blame this on scientific illiteracy or just plain stupidity.

flowers, bees, science journalism, pollution, global warming

On reading Life - The Science of Biology I ran across the following statement:

Of course, humans are obviously much more complex than fish

We are? Which part of us, apart from the brain? I’m honestly confused. There’s no qualifying statement, no explanation as to how they measure complexity. Not only is “humans are more complex than fish” a rather drastic statement to make, but the way they do it - as if it’s a widely known and accepted fact - takes me aback.

But perhaps I’m just a dullard who missed some essential point during my education. If some enlightened reader would like to explain to me how we’re more complex than fish and how this is obvious, I would be much obliged.

biology, fish, humans, complexity

Apologies about the unannounced hiatus. Blogging will resume shortly.

Nearly as cute as the chickens from two weeks ago, this is a tiny planktonic sea star larva:

The part that actually looks like a star was only a couple of millimeters across but had a fully functioning ambulacral system, complete with tiny flailing suckers that it used to crawl across the bottom of my petri dish.

sea star

ScienceDaily reports on an interesting phylogenetic study in their imaginatively named article Tree Of Animal Life Has Branches Rearranged, By Evolutionary Biologists (who else?).

The big shocker: Comb jellyfish — common and extremely fragile jellies with well-developed tissues — appear to have diverged from other animals even before the lowly sponge, which has no tissue to speak of. This finding calls into question the very root of the animal tree of life, which traditionally placed sponges at the base.

To clarify, comb jellies (Ctenophora) are not grouped with the other jellies, corals, anemones, hydras etc. (Cnidaria), and at least on the course I very recently took on systematic zoology, we were taught that Cnidaria is most likely the sister group of Bilateria (the rest of the animals), Ctenophora is the next group down, and then Porifera (sponges) sits at the very base of the animal tree. The question was whether either Ctenophora or Cnidaria were more closely related to Bilateria, or if they were a monophyletic group that itself was the sister group of Bilateria - but Porifera’s place at the base of the tree was never in question.

Although I have the original Letter to Nature I haven’t had the energy to actually read it yet, although I did look at the pretty pictures. The figures suggest that Cnidaria and Porifera compose a taxon that is the sister group of the rest of the animals, and Ctenophora is now the basal group.

I must say I instinctively feel very skeptical of this, but since I haven’t reviewed the evidence I’ll obviously reserve judgement. Sponges have no real tissues and can only barely be considered animals. Also they share a very interesting characteristic with some colonial organisms that might very well be the sister group of animals, the Choanoflagellates. Pharyngula recently blogged about this.

I’m hoping more accomplished scientist bloggers will pick up on this story as I’m interested what they have to say - if anyone sees a post about it, please don’t hesitate to point me in the right direction!

On a sidenote, ScienceDaily has illustrated their article with a picture of Cnidarians, apparently thinking that “comb jelly” means “any ol’ jellyfish”. [They’ve now changed the illustration - I suspect I wasn’t the only one who mailed them about it.] Comb jellies don’t swim by pumping clumsily like jellyfish - they’re the ones with the combs of beating cilia that refract light like rainbows.

biology, evolution, systematics, tree of life, animals, jellyfish, sponges

Tonight, the president of the Swedish Humanist Association, Christer Sturmark, will meet Ulf Ekman, the founder of a prominent evangelical, charismatic christian cult in a debate. The cult in question is called Livets Ord, lit. Word of Life. It was invented by Ulf Ekman in 1983 (the year of my birth, incidentally). Some would probably object to my calling it a cult, especially since they’ve toned down the more controversial stuff in order to be more accepted in mainstream society. But a lot of to me very scary beliefs remain; the guilt and shame complex, the idea that homosexuality is a sin, and that women should submit to their husbands (even though men and women are supposedly equal under god - how they reconcile the two is an interesting exercise in twisted “equal but different” logic).

The debate takes place in Livets Ord’s home town, Uppsala, in fact in their own buildings, and there’s likely to be a lot of cult members there. Me and a few other Humanists will attend but we’re probably most definitely going to be a minority. Those of you who know Swedish can follow the debate live from Livets Ord’s webpage. It will also be aired on SVT2 on friday at 9:30 in the morning.

livets ord, ulf ekman, christer sturmark, humanism, christianity

Welcome to Life Before Death and the latest edition of Carnival of the Godless! I’m your hostess, Felicia, and originally I had big plans on making this carnival something … speshul. Then I realised that nothing I could possibly come up with would in any way add to the quality of the many, many posts submitted, which is why I’ve simply elected to let them present themselves with representative (or sometimes not so representative) quotes. So, without further ado:

HankFox.com: The Good Stuff - “I don’t know a single atheist, I’m not sure I’ve even MET one, who hated humanity, or wanted anything bad to happen to anybody.”
Also at HankFox.com: The Brassican Heresy and Atheist Questions.

The View from Here: Benny Hinn - What a Friend He Has in Jesus - “Despite the overwhelming evidence that Hinn is the lowest form of con man, exploiting the emotional and spiritual needs of the desperate, viewers, many of whom can ill afford it, will no doubt continue to donate millions of dollars annually in the hope of realizing some small improvement in their lives.”

The Barefoot Bum: Fine Tuning - “In short, the Fine Tuning argument is speculative, probabilistically meaningless, and, even if true, doesn’t establish anything interesting. I think it’s safe to say that, after Pascal’s Wager, it’s the second worst apologetic ever.”

Epsilon Clue: Where Are all the Reflective Christians? - “These people do believe in a magic man in the sky who helps them find their car keys /…/ So why aren’t the intelligent, reflective Christians telling them they’re full of shit?”

defryer.com: The Multiple Stages of Faith - “‘Faithlessness’ as a definition of the absence faith is really only used in a religious context since no one really knows or cares about our extent of faith in any other context. No one is ostracized (except possibly on a local level) for their lack of faith in government or purity of food or future direction of the stock market.”

Greta Christina: On Illness, Bodies, and This Weird Free Will Thing - “If there is no God and no soul, and everything we are is comprised of physical things and the relationships between physical things… then when you change those physical things, the self changes as well. Our selves are not in our own hands nearly as much as we like to think.”
Also from Greta Christina: The Meaning of Death, Part 3 of Many: Fear, Grief, and Actually Experiencing Your Emotions

A Swedish American in Sweden: Sweden Separates the Church and State - “I don’t buy creationism, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a subject that should be taught in public schools. At the same time though skeptical of the complete banning of a subject or idea.”

Rational Apologetics: God is Evil - “God doesn’t care if we’re good or not — he only cares if we stroke his ego.”
Also at Rational Apologetics: The Elijah Challenge

The Skwib: The Lost PowerPoint Slides (Wacky Ancient Greek Atheist Edition) - “soul is just an exceedingly fine and spherical kind of atom - or perhaps superstition - in any case, it’s not that different from a goat.”

Surgeonsblog: Funnyman - “The mind reels. It’s like walking into a crime scene, wading through body parts, and, because the perpetrator wrote “Hah hah” in blood on the wall, saying he must have a humorous streak.”

Wild Philosophy: My Favorite Moral Bible Passages - “To summarize, morality requires that we beat our children, control our women, or burn, stone, or sell them, execute homosexuals, cast the sick out of our society to fend for themselves, and completely and utterly destroy any society with which we are at war (except for their virgin girl children, whom we are free to rape). Truly, God is great, and will reward us with many slaves if we keep His ways!”

Free Thinking Joy: Religion is mental horror vacui - “Whereas religions must fill the mental vacuum at any price, using gods and other stuffing material, science just tries to construct useful theories that grow into the empty space, but never filling it completely.”

Alexander the Atheist: Zeus Endorsement - “Rather than engage in voter fraud to ensure a win for Zeus I have decided, instead, to officially endorse him as my candidate of choice for the Coolest Fabricated Deity in an attempt to stem the tide of this Odin fanaticism.”
Also from Alexander: End Times: 2,000 Years and Counting

Skeptic’s Play: The moutnain theologians - “Soon he realizes that the mountain goes much higher, but the path is poorly marked and obscured in fog. He points it out to the theologians, but they cannot see the markings.”

Fannie’s Room: Blasphemy! (Part I) - “I think the idea that God is some sort of male being is a quaint man-made idea.”

ShakaOfEarth: ‘Earth Worship’ on the rise among evangelical youth - “Wouldn’t a smart parent allow their child to explore all the different faiths? Oh wait, Evangelical like to brainwash their kids and hate anything that even looks like it might allow their offspring to learn about reality.”

Bay of Fundie: Fundie Atheists - “For all practical purposes, God does not exist. If there is not now nor has there ever been any evidence for a god, then in practical, real-world terms, it is identical to making the statement that a god does not exist.”

Atheist Revolution: “In God We Trust” Must Go - “How do you suppose American Christians would feel about using currency on which “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is the greatest) was printed? How about “We Believe in Evolution,” “Secular Democracy,” or a similar slogan?”

Rational Responders: How to Respond to a Superlicious Christian - “As much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, if you believe something without sufficient evidence, you are irrational.”

Atheist Ethicist: Hope - “Actually, I do grow warm and fuzzy in a blanket of science. Well, warm, at least.”

Homo Academicus: This Atheist - “…she is always asking me about my opinions or beliefs on all sorts of things, trying to see how far my atheism goes. I thought I’d save some time and just compile it all here.”

Long Live the Village Green: Upon the rack of this tough world… - “Before he died, I thanked my dad for being the best dad I could ever hope for. I told him how much I appreciated all the gifts he gave me: love for theatre and all the arts, for science and philosophy, for literature and history, for books and book collecting, and for Shakespeare!”

The Gaytheist Agenda: “Why do Atheists Hate America” - “…without faith and Christianity “America as we know it” would cease to exist. Of course to an extent that second part is true. Just imagine how much bigotry and oppression we could dispense with by eradicating Christianity alone.”

And finally, my own entry here at LBD: On Happiness: “The difference between atheists and religious people is that atheists are aware that our personal happiness is entirely up to ourselves and not some imaginary friend.”

carnival of the godless, atheism, religion, science

Upon digging through some old folders on the computer I found some nearly psychedelic pictures taken during a course in organism biology. We spent a lot of time in a lab looking at pre-prepped slides of plant and animal tissues, marvelling at the incredibly beautiful staining (and hopefully learning a thing or two in the process). Below is a picture of the sorus of some fern - you’ve probably seen them sometime, small brown clumps on the underside of a fern leaf. Except in botany class, it’s not brown:

A sorus is in fact composed of many small sporangia, where the spores are formed. The sporangia, when mature, flick the spores away from the mother plant. Here’s a close-up of some sporangia, where you can see the individual spores inside them:

I took the pictures simply by holding my digital camera up to the eyepiece (or one of them) of the microscope. Modern technology, eh?

ferns, botany

I’m cranky today. The reason is most likely a relapse into SAD, which I tend to suffer bouts of every winter. In light of this, one would assume today isn’t the best of days to write about happiness, but bear with me (and please excuse the somewhat rambling nature of this post).

Often in discussions about the relative virtues of atheism and religion, personal happiness is brought up. We atheists are told we cannot possibly be happy, or at least not as happy as christians/muslims/jews/whatevers. Because we don’t have god in our life. Immediately, atheists snap back that we are indeed happy, in fact we couldn’t be happier. We’re so happy, happy, happy that it’s a wonder we don’t explode. It’s like we forget, in our eagerness to prove to the religious that one can lead a fulfilling existence even lacking god, that happiness isn’t the standard human condition.

Am I basically happy with my life? Oh, yes. I have a lot to be very happy about, like my wonderful family, my amazing boyfriend, and biology. But am I happy all the time? Oh hell no. Are you?

Seriously. If anyone can honestly answer that they’re happy every minute of every day - because they feel god’s love or because they’re looking forward to the UFO coming to take them to Paradise Planet or whatever - I would have to question their sanity. Feelings of happiness and discontent is the mechanism by which our brains reward good behaviour and punish doing things that are bad for us. If we were perpetually happy, we would cease working toward a better life for ourselves and our loved ones. The human mind is a problem-solving tool, and it needs motivation.

That is not to say that depression is a good thing. If you’re always feeling like life is pointless, there is something wrong, and you should seek help. But my point here is that there is nothing wrong with admitting that you’re not always happy. In fact, I think it’s a problem for many that they feel unable to open up and admit to themselves and to others that they are not happy with something, be it their entire lives or just that horrible purple shirt their spouse insists on wearing to a nervous family dinner. And keeping those feelings bottled up, pretending that everything is perfectly fine when it’s not, is just about the worst thing you can do for your long-term happiness.

In the end, I think most people enjoy similar levels of happiness and unhappiness. Regardless of your circumstances your brain will still reward you with happy feelings when something good happens, and punish or motivate you with bad feelings when you need to do something to change your situation. The difference between atheists and religious people is that atheists are aware that our personal happiness is entirely up to ourselves and not some imaginary friend. We know that when bad things happen, it’s due to circumstances, enemies, or bad choices and that we are the only ones who can do something about it. And conversely, we also know that when good things happen, it’s due to circumstance, or our own actions, or the good will of other human beings. We never worry about being punished for faltering in our faith, and we never let some sky-god take credit when we have every right to be proud of ourselves or grateful to those around us.

As for my own current crankiness, I know most of it has got nothing to do with anything outside my own head. It’s an african mammal’s unfortunate reaction to lack of sunlight (and, well, exercise). If my brain were designed, I’d blame the designer, but as it is, all I can do is ride it out, and try to remember to eat properly and not snap at people too much.

atheism, happiness, religion, depression