blake johnson

Wired has an article in the November issue about the "new atheism". This is essentially a more aggressive form of atheism which says that not only is there no God, but belief in God is dangerous. Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett seem to be leading the charge in this fight, seeing as each has recently published a book on the subject.

One doesn't have to look far to understand the motivation behind this movement. I mean, look at all the trouble religion has caused in the middle east. But, does Dawkins really need to be so bellicose? As an example of the sorts of things he says which get me riled up:

Highly intelligent people are mostly atheists

Maybe in certain sub-samples of "highly intelligent people" this is true, but I also know a lot of wicked smart people for which it is not.

Also, how is it that Dawkins and Dennett miss the rather obvious objection to atheism that it is really just another faith? They've exchanged their faith in God for faith in a rule-ordered universe.

It's over. My account has expired. I'm expecting to have more time now for reading, planning my honeymoon, and maybe more blogging.

Speaking of having more time, my redesign of the lab website went live yesterday.

Just read this article on the New York Times. The way these music executives talk about mp3 players really pisses me off. Check out this quote:

“It’s a major change for the industry,” said David Geffen, the entertainment mogul who more than a decade ago sold the record label that bears his name to Universal. “Each of these devices is used to store unpaid-for material. This way, on top of the material people do pay for, the record companies are getting paid on the devices storing the copied music.”

I also have only 100 songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store on my iPod, but the majority of the rest of the music is ripped from my personal CD collection. Just because I didn't download it from iTMS doesn't mean I didn't pay for it, but it seems like that is the mentality of the music industry.