Tijs Van den Brink spreekt met Ronald Plasterk over niet geloven.
Kijk ook de aflevering met Erik van Muiswinkel.
The morality of God
Voice of Reason: Sam Harris
Tribute to Christopher Hitchens
Zoals vertoond op de 2012 Global Atheist Convention.
An Atheist’s Guide to the 2012 Election
Penn Jillette wijdt uit over de kandidaten van de Amerikaanse presidentsverkiezingen van 2012.
Sam Harris on “Free Will”
Het boekje van Sam Harris is hier verkrijgbaar voor een prikkie.
His new book is short (96) pages, to the point, and will change the way we all view free will, as Oliver Sacks wrote: “Brilliant and witty — and never less than incisive — Free Will shows that Sam Harris can say more in 13,000 words than most people do in 100,000.” UCSD neuroscientist V.S, Ramachandran notes: “In this elegant and provocative book, Sam Harris demonstrates — with great intellectual ferocity and panache — that free will is an inherently flawed and incoherent concept, even in subjective terms. If he is right, the book will radically change the way we view ourselves as human beings.”
Islam and the Future of Liberalism
My criticism of Islam, as of any other religion, is aimed at its doctrine and the resulting behavior of its adherents. I am not talking about races of people, or nationalities, or any other aspects of culture. And yes, there are more moderate strands of the faith: The Ahmadis, for instance, resemble what many liberal Westerners imagine the “true” face of Islam must be like. I still find their creed disconcerting: According to one of the websites affiliated with this movement, Ahmadis believe that the “Holy Qu’ran is the word of God which is to guide mankind forever, and the Holy Prophet Muhammad was the perfect model of Islamic teachings whose example shall forever be binding on every Muslim to follow.” To my ear, the words “forever” and “perfect” and “every” and “binding” convey the scent of despotism about as well as “a thousand-year Reich”—especially when one considers the actual contents of the Qur’an and the example set by Muhammad. However, the Ahmadis at least claim to believe that jihad “primarily signifies a spiritual, intellectual and moral struggle to reform oneself and others” and to condemn “all use of force except in unavoidable self-defense.”
The New Enlightenment – Sir Paul Nurse
Inspirerende lezing van Nobelprijswinnaar Paul Nurse voor een zaal vol BBC-coryfeeën.
De belangrijkste boodschap van dit verhaal is, mijns inziens, dat Nurse uitlegt waarom je in godensnaam vertrouwen zou moeten hebben in de wetenschap. Dat is namelijk velen nog niet duidelijk.
“Science can improve our health and quality of life, help solve the world’s biggest problems, and support sustainability. It influences nearly everything we do, from heating our homes, turning on the radio, using our phone, browsing the internet, the food we eat, the pill we take for our headache.
And science is absolutely essential to drive our economy. Science matters to us all.”
Transcript
Something From Nothing
Auteur en evolutiebioloog Richard Dawkins en theoretisch natuurkundige en schrijver Lawrence Krauss bespreken biologie, kosmologie, religie en meer.
Origins Project @ ASU 4 februari 2012.