For better or for worse I have been installed as a member of the blogging team. Many of you will be familiar with my posts on the boards, though to date my more significant contribution has been in the live chat.  With this additional role on the blog I hope to stimulate discussion on a variety of topics of interest to members of the league.

But what to do with this first post? Not an easy question to answer, so I suppose I ought to introduce myself to those who have not had reason to interact with me to date. I’m from the UK and was raised as a Catholic in accordance with my Mothers religious belief. I attended faith schools from the age of 4 until 18, one Church of England, the others Catholic. My religiosity throughout that time was inversely proportional to my ability to think critically and my exposure to new information.

As I grew older any notion of God receded into the background. In my early teens I reasoned my way out of organised religion, concluding that no God could possibly condone the sort of service that the church seemed to require. For starters, there was no way that I could sit on those damn wooden benches for a full hour and actually concentrate on the droning priest’s sermon, and the very act of attending church seemed to go against the stuff that was in the Bible anyway: Jesus condemned those who made loud noises about their religion, for example. At that time I became something akin to a deist. God couldn’t be as described by religion, but at the same time it made sense that one existed. The simple fact of existence rather than non-existence along with the seemingly infinite nature of time and space both suggested some form of transcendent being, I figured that the various religions were simply examples of people trying to get closer to this being.

The straw that broke the camels back of my religiosity was the realisation that “I don’t know” is an acceptable, if unsatisfying, answer. Indeed it is the only answer that can be given honestly in many situations. After becoming atheist I didn’t give the matter a great deal of thought until I was introduced to creationism. I had remained blissfully unaware of the phenomenon up until my early 20′s and was simply staggered that anyone could believe such nonsense. On first learning of it I figured it must be some minority cult akin to the flat earth society. My shock on discovering how pervasive the belief is had a profound impact on my life. It transformed my atheism, fairly benign until that time, to anti-theism, a position that grows stronger daily. I find religion to be divisive, intolerant and hateful once you scrape away the respectable echelons of the moderate faithful.

I threw myself into the youtube community and devoured the offerings from all the usual suspects: AronRa, Thunderf00t, Potholer54 and many others. I joined the Richard Dawkins Discussion Forum, arguably the greatest resource on the net and sadly no longer with us, and I witnessed and took part in some stimulating scientific discussion. Through those boards I learned how to do real research, how to dissect a scientific paper, how to spot logical fallacies and indeed how to think critically on any proposition. Reading posts by the likes of Calilasseia gave me more of a science education than anything I received at University and stimulated my interest in biology, in particular evolutionary biology.

On discovering the league of reason I was quick to join and after a few weeks/months of the live chat CosmicSpork made me a chat op. I now spend far more time than is healthy in the live chat, but I enjoy it and learn something most days. At the very least there are a bunch of people who will pick apart any ideas I happen to have which I find extremely useful: If I can’t defend a position it isn’t worth holding. I’m an avid reader of science, with a keen interest in layman’s philosophical discussion. I have no idea what direction my blog posts will take, I know I hold some controversial views and I hope to be able to stimulate some debate.

And so, we begin

Squawk

Most of you probably know me already, or have at least argued with me over some trivial detail in an unimportant thread. I’ve been here since the earliest days of the League of Reason and it’s become one of my favourite online communities. I hail from New Zealand which is a nicely sized nation in the South Pacific. I consider myself very lucky to have been born surrounded by all this natural beauty – see Lord of the Rings for your walk in the local park. I’m still finishing my university education but have so far completed a degree in biotechnology.

I’m a lifelong atheist but it wasn’t until the final years of college that I got into scepticism. I’m a member of the NZ skeptics and do what I can to help out on worthy causes. I might as well pimp the new sceptical podcast: The CUSP . If I have to choose a label I’d go with freethinker because I think that best sums up the way I (want to) approach new information and ideas. I’d also like to consider myself a fierce proponent of all things scientific and have done my best to inform people on matters involving evolution, global warming, vaccines, homeopathy, and other alternative medicines.

Enough of what you agree with me about, where can we have an argument? I think objective morality exists, GM agriculture is a good idea, and support the wars on Iraq and Christmas. Threads can be found around the LoR and other sites in which I (attempt to) defend these positions. I love to read and would probably class myself as a bit of a bibliophile. Whether you agree with my positions or not, I hope my blog posts will make you think about current issues facing atheists, freethinkers, and sceptics and that you get something out of them.

Before I came to this site I had never heard of Carl Sagan so I’ll finish with a quote from him that goes right to the heart of my philosophy: “It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” I think that’s exactly right.

Blog: Indoctrinating Freethought
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Aught3 and http://www.youtube.com/user/Belikescopes

It’s very late and I’m tired but I said I will have a blog by Sunday and if I don’t deliver I will OCD my brains out over it. I’m awesome like that. So please excuse my possible ramble.

In this blog I will mainly adress the Theists. I heard many of them saying that they KNOW certain things in regards to God and what they say to be “the Creation” . Even in the recent debate between Thunderf00t and Ray Comfort, Ray said a couple of times that (unlike Thunderf00t) he KNOWS what the truth is.

I will try to argue why this claim cannot possibly hold water.

First of all, what does “to know” mean anyway?  Can we say that we know anything at all ? I would say we can. For instance, I KNOW that there are more than two people writing on this site. I know this because I can count, I can read, I personally know more than two of them, etc. The point is, I can say I KNOW this because it is in my immediate and direct observation.

I can also say I know that Human and Chimpanzee DNA is about 98.5 percent identical. This is clearly not in my immediate and direct observation but I can still say I KNOW it because I have sufficient data proving it. All facts gathered through observation and experiment point to this conclusion, none of them point against it.

But let’s try another example. Not to long ago, if anyone asked me to define a triangle without mentioning its angles, I would have said that any given 3 points that are not in a straight line form a triangle . And I thought I KNOW that the sum of the interior angles of any triangle is 180 degrees. But I was wrong. This is true if the given triangle is in Euclidian space. But if someone could draw a triangle in the near neighbourhood of a Black Hole with such intense gravity forces, the interior angles of that triangle would NOT add up to 180 degrees. The results are very different depending on how Space bends. So suddenly, even if I was certain I KNOW something, at some point I realized that my so called knowledge was in fact a belief.  And I was wrong in my belief because I was ignorant of the data.

I still have certain beliefs. For instance, I believe that Quantum Mechanic could be eventually proven not to contradict Determinism. I don’t believe that the atoms act randomly but rather that at atomic level there might be laws we haven’t discovered yet and variables we cannot calculate. Which, imho,  is not to say that the atoms are not subjected to the cause and effect rules. And I believe that (strongly I may say) because EVERYTHING in the observable Universe is subjected to the cause and effect rule. But I am willing to admit that I don’t KNOW that and there is a possibility I might be wrong. And if, at some point, all evidence will lead to the conclusion that atoms can act randomly, I will change my belief. I highly doubt this will happen, what I am trying to say is that I don’t rule out this option because I realize this is something I believe and NOT something I know.

How about God ? When you say you KNOW God is real and He created everything, what do you base it on?  On a book with origins and authors very dubious (to say the least). God is not in your immediate and direct observation and there is no collected data to support his existence. He cannot be proven through observation and experiment. So you are left with your book. And how do you know that your book is the Truth ? Because it says so in your book. Can you spot the problem with this ? (hint : it starts with a “c” and it ends with “ircular”)

And you may say now that according to this logic, Atheists cannot say they KNOW there is no God. Which is correct and I don’t know one single Atheist who says so. An Atheist will say he does not BELIVE in a God. The difference between the logic  of an Atheist and the logic Theist is that the first doesn’t believe because of lack of evidence while the former believes DESPITE  the lack of evidence.

Where I am going with this is that you cannot say that you KNOW your God is real. You only BELIEVE he is real. And if you accept that what you call knowledge is in fact a belief, you will also have to accept the possibility that you might be wrong.

I’m just sayin’

Criss

My excitement ebbed some what when I discovered I had just joined the League of Reason rather than the Justice League of America or the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but I guess it will do. I will however have to return the spandex bodysuit and red y-fronts that I purchased specially. I’m keeping the cowl however as it’s dead sexy.

Seriously I am unbelievably honoured to have been made a part of this blog. Honoured and incredibly intimidated at the same time. There are some seriously heavy hitters involved in this thing. I love the stuff that these guys, and gals, come up with and I am right now feeling rather out of my depth. I actually think Superman and his friends would be less disconcerting right now. Gulp.

Anyway my first task as a newbie League member is to introduce myself. I am RabbitPirate, so named because pirates are awesome and rabbits are, er, fluffy! Unlike many of the bloggers here I do not come to the League of Reason with a massive Youtube following. In fact if you were to visit my page you would discover I have no subscribers, no views and only one video…which is actually a repost of something someone else made. What I do instead is blog, and try to write books, but mainly blog. I have been blogging for a number of years now about anything and everything that peaks my interest. However recently I have turned my attention away from such important issues as what I did at the weekend and how much my job sucks on to stories relating to science, religion, skepticism and critical thinking. It is these areas where my passion lies.

I live in the UK just outside of the university city of Cambridge. Alas however that is about as close as I have ever come to higher education as I decided instead to jump straight into the fun filled world of IT support, a decision I regret more and more with every passing day. I spent most of the first twenty odd years of my life as a Christian and even considered going into fulltime ministry work. While I no longer hold the beliefs of my youth I would not describe myself as an atheist, partly because I don’t really like labels, after having the label “Christian” tell people everything about me for so long, and partly because I think it would make my Mum cry if I did. That said if I was forced to call myself anything I would probably go with “skeptic”.

When not blogging I like to spend my time reading, writing stories I never actually finish, watching stupidly large amounts of sci-fi on TV, going to the cinema (honestly could I be more of a geek) and arguing with Ray Comfort on his blog…and by arguing I mean he says something stupid, I correct him and he ignores me completely. Meh, it’s a hobby.

Well that’s me, hopefully by the time I get to my first real post I will have thought of something interesting to say as right now I’m drawing a complete blank.

Thanks for your time,

RabbitPirate

I’m SchrodingersFinch, but you can just call me Finch.

I come from a world you may not understand, or more specifically, Finland. Finland is the second greatest place on Earth. In Finland women are beautiful, men alcoholics and evolution a fact. Ironically, Finland is one of the most secular countries in the world but we also have a state church. Everyone who reads the Bible, as I’m sure you all do, should know that 21st century Finnish Evangelical Lutheranism is the one true Christian faith (don’t listen to the Swedish spawn of Satan!).

We Finns are a peculiar lot. We’re shy and don’t talk much, but when we do it’s usually something important. I hope this is also the case with blogging (or at least the latter part), but I can’t promise you anything. Writing a blog is something completely new to me, so please bear with me until I get the hang of it.

I feel honoured to be a part of this blog. As you can see, there are some big names and lots of talent involved. I only hope I can match up. When it comes to writing skills I’m definitely not the best since English isn’t even my first language. But I guarantee I will never confuse the word “their” with “they’re” or “your” with “you’re”.

Here are some relevant facts about me. I’m an atheist (gasp!), but more of the moderate kind. I am, however, strongly against creationism and other such nonsense, although I rarely encounter them in real life. I am also a science geek and proud of it! My main interests are physics and biology, but I also enjoy mathematics, chemistry and all the innumerable varieties that exist. As most of you probably know, I’m a moderator on the League of Reason forums and you can also find me on Youtube. Feel free to PM me if you have anything to say or ask. I usually have time to respond to all of them.

Hopefully I’ll have something more interesting to write about soon. If I had a cool catch phrase like all the big Youtubers this would perhaps be a good place to put it.

SchrodingersFinch

I never expected to become a blogger.  Especially not one associated with musicians, a lawyer, an Astrophysicist, a Biologist, and a teacher.  I do not have any such title.  I am a computer major and a math tutor.  My educational goals have been delayed by several events I won’t get into, but I still plan to transfer to the University of California Davis under their B.S. degree program of Computer Science and Engineering.

I am not sure exactly what I will blog on.  I do have a varied set of interests.  I can probably whip out something interesting on health and fitness, cooking, or PC repair.  I’ll see what inspires me!

I have given some thought as to the purpose of people like me in this venue.  What I mean by people like me, are individuals who lack the education of AronRa, AndromedasWake, Thunder00t, etc. however we still accept real science and work to both promote and defend it from those who wish to undermine it for their own religious and political agenda and send us back into the dark ages.  And I really mean that.  If the Creationists ever were to win, that is exactly what we would have; another dark age.

Anyway, the point of the “everyman’s” anti-Creationism videos that I think is under valued is that they help refute the “Evil Evolutionist Conspiracy” card.  You do not need to be a trained scientist to either debunk Creationism or have a modest understanding of science.  I am here to prove that we are not simply putting blind faith in “Evolutionism” because we just hate God… or what ever psychological projection Kirk Cameron, NephilimFree, or theanswersofnwo3 are trying to plug.

Well, that’s it for my first post.  I look forward to what this newest venue.  I would like to thank AndromedasWake and CosmicSpork for their hard work in making this website a fast success.  And I would also like to thank the hundreds of people out there who have put their trust in me.  Thank you for reading, once again, my name is JRChadwick.

P.S. Don’t worry, I won’t end every post with that line, I just thought it was a nice reference to my channel!

Us Australians understand all too well how misguided those northern hemisphere folks are with their map making activities. They have even managed to infiltrate the ultimate education system with their unholy doctrine of Northpoleisupism. Yes you read it here first. I can boldly declare that the organisations who have traditionally targeted nautical navigation establishments and small travel book stores in Notting Hill have managed to reach their Holy Grail. Google Earth.

On a less serious note, I am actually quite honoured to be invited to contribute to this blog. It is a bold step by the organisers to invite someone to contribute to their blog where upon reading only a handful of my emails it is apparent that my writing skills are crap. I am encouraged however by the inclusion of someone with even less ability in this area, Theo Warner. If not for the inclusion of him, I might feel somewhat intimidated (lor). Much thankness must go to the “sporks” (cosmic or otherwise) for the amazing work accomplished on the technicalities of this site, e.g. should the light bulb be a bayonet or screw in fitting (P.S. I’m glad he went with the screw in. A wise choice in my opinion). We should also thank our resident Astrologer, Andromeda’s Wake for selecting the correct date to launch the updated version with optimal planetary alignments. I was puzzled for sometime over the constant emails with something about a Venus entering Uranus, but I finally worked it out.

So what role will I play as a blog contributor here at LOR? For those of you that are aware of my YouTube channel “djarm67″, you would no doubt be aware that I am a theist. Shock! So I guess my role here would be primarily to make fun of religions from the inside (lor) Alternatively, I could simply extend my attacks on creationism and its attempts to subvert the educational systems of the world. Who knows, we may even have a few interesting discussions.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy what I contribute. You may not always agree with what I contribute, but that’s OK. Just understand that you have been indoctrinated from a young age into the cult of Northpoleisupism.

DJ

At the time, the League of Reason was living in Port Author. We dated for a few months. The League of Reason was kinky, to say the least, but it makes for good stories while sipping Chablis on a hot Louisiana morning with the guys. In the end, we broke up. I got the house in Marblehead and the League of Reason got this website, which is why it’s so surprising to be so graciously invited back. The League of Reason and I had dinner a few nights ago. We split a Caesar salad and talked about the old times. The League of Reason still looks young and I was tempted to make a move, but I’ve decided to keep it professional… for now.

For the record, my name is Theo Warner — that is actually my name and it wasn’t until someone pointed out that it almost sounds like an admonition against God that I’ve felt the need to say: “that is actually my name.” But, it is. I am professionally employed as a Special Education teacher and my degree and certification qualifies me to speak competently as an expert in a variety of fields, none of which are of any interest to anyone who isn’t the parent of a child with a disability. Prior to this and after college, I worked in advertising and publishing while I worked out my life and my career ambitions. And now, for the most part, my free time in consumed with creative writing (poetry, short stories, and novels… which I should take more seriously, I feel) and general thinking about the world (philosophy, religion, theology, literature, linguistics, cultural studies, modern cultural theory, gender theory, education theory, psychology, and so on.) I like books, too. I want to sleep in a bookstore, just to see if it feels good.

Most of you are probably aware of my YouTube channel. It’s pretty big stuff and I’m kind of a big deal. I mean, basically, people cower of the mere mention of my name. I routinely point out how deplorable some of the more legendary YouTubers are… JezuzFreek777 comes to mind. VenomFangX is another. There are others. In the war between us and our worser demons, YouTube is just another battle ground. We didn’t seek it out, but it comes under threat and I’m glad to be there on the front lines. I look about this blog as an extension of that effort. I hope that I can use these posts as a way to solidify my thoughts and have a little fun.

Your servant,

Theo

I’m Th1sWasATriumph. I’m an atheist, scientific pantheist and secular humanist, and my videos and musings tend to be on religion – specifically, how ridiculous it is, and how its exalted position in society can and should be challenged. I view religion, along with various related and unrelated pseudosciences and supernatural\paranormal beliefs, as at best misleading and at worst openly destructive and divisive.

I’m a moderator on this very forum, which is all very shiny – sort of like a tarnished sheriff’s badge I can flash at people whose seats I want to occupy. I have no real problem using my powers for evil. As for Youtube, well, TAKE THIS www.youtube.com/Th1sWasATriumph

My other passion is space, although I got into it pretty recently so my knowledge on the subject is bleak. I’m fascinated by the nebulous reality of very very big things a very very long way off, though I sometimes think that if I ever truly comprehended the scale of the universe my mind would simply implode, Lovecraft-style.

I’m also a musician\composer, primarily guitar-based. My music tends to be about the 80s and is completely unrelated to science, atheism or religion. It does, however, rock your face.

Common initial responses to me in conversation: 

OMG you haf quote portal/I’m making a note here: huge success/Can I call you by your acronym?

Believe me, you can say nothing to me that hasn’t been said by wiser people in bigger fonts. Stop it.

I can name-drop the mighty AndromedasWake with legitimacy, as I appeared in his music video and he lent his voice to a couple of mine. Such company to keep. We’ll be blitzing TAM later on this year in League shirts and supercilious smiles.

Finally, give some kind of virtual handshake to CosmicSpork, whose digital mastery is the sticky web holding this whole shebang together. I find that looking directly at my monitor is impossible; the awesome can only be ingested in small portions. Any more than that and the world would crack in half like a clump of soil, spilling us all screaming into the core of space.

Stay tuned for musings of greater or lesser worth.

If you’ve been a regular visitor, you might just notice a few changes around here. Actually, it’s rather a lot of changes, that have been planned for some time to be implemented together. You are now viewing the blog, but don’t fret, the forums are still here!

Firstly, before I get started explaining all of this, I would like you all to raise your glasses in a toast to our highly committed and brilliant webhamster, CosmicSpork. He has given many hours of his free time to designing everything you see here. He has also provided resources for you to promote the site, available to download from the Vault of Awesomeness! Without his help, this site would not be what it is today. He deserves all our internets. Thank you very much CosmicSpork for your hard work and dedication!

So, a blog eh? Just what the hell is this all about? We’re calling it phase 2. From now on, when visiting the site, you will be greeted with this page. You’ll notice a link to the forums (and chat) at the top left, as well a list of latest forum posts on the right. You’ll also notice that the forums look very similar to the blog, even though the two are running on different software. Again, we must stop to thank CosmicSpork for his wizardry.

Luckily, you won’t have to read this message every time you visit the site, as we have a crack team of bloggers who will be providing your daily reading material. I really am thrilled with all the people we’ve got onboard, but rather than go on about it, I’ll let them introduce themselves as they see fit. I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to see them here as well!

If you’re new to the site, head on over and sign up to the forums. You’ll not only be joining our community of Leaguers, but you’ll also be able to post comments on the blog and use the chat room. If you were a member of the old forum (still accessible in read only form at this link), you’ll need to reset your password. Simply fill out the ‘Send password’ form to do this, then log in with the password sent to you and change it back.

Don’t forget to point your readers to either the RSS or Atom feed. On behalf of all of us here at the LoR team, I hope you enjoy the new site and look forward to seeing you in the forums!

Clear skies,

TK/AndromedasWake