{"id":8741,"date":"2012-08-19T09:27:28","date_gmt":"2012-08-19T16:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/?p=8741"},"modified":"2012-08-19T09:27:28","modified_gmt":"2012-08-19T16:27:28","slug":"chatting-atheism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/19\/chatting-atheism\/","title":{"rendered":"Chatting Atheism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I took part in a conversation about contemporary atheism, which appeared on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/townsquare\">The Point<\/a>, which is a web series spin-off of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Young_Turks_(talk_show)\">The Young Turks<\/a>, which itself is both a web series and a show broadcast on Current TV. (Got all that?) My co-panelists were <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelshermer.com\/\">Michael Shermer<\/a> of the Skeptics Society and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beinggayisdisgusting.com\/\">Edward Falzon<\/a>, author of the (satirical!) book <em>Being Gay is Disgusting<\/em>, and it was hosted by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/cara-santa-maria\/\">Cara Santa Maria<\/a>, science correspondent for the Huffington Post.<\/p>\n<div class=\"lyte-wrapper\" title=\"Atheists On Religion, Science, And Morality (The Point)\" style=\"width:640px;max-width:100%;margin:5px;\"><div class=\"lyMe\" id=\"WYL_s3lwG4MytSI\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><div><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/s3lwG4MytSI\/hqdefault.jpg\" \/><meta itemprop=\"embedURL\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/s3lwG4MytSI\" \/><meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT45M24S\" \/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2012-08-18T19:26:42Z\" \/><\/div><div id=\"lyte_s3lwG4MytSI\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/s3lwG4MytSI\/hqdefault.jpg\" class=\"pL\"><div class=\"tC\"><div class=\"tT\" itemprop=\"name\">Atheists On Religion, Science, And Morality (The Point)<\/div><\/div><div class=\"play\"><\/div><div class=\"ctrl\"><div class=\"Lctrl\"><\/div><div class=\"Rctrl\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><noscript><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/s3lwG4MytSI\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/s3lwG4MytSI\/0.jpg\" alt=\"Atheists On Religion, Science, And Morality (The Point)\" width=\"640\" height=\"340\" \/><br \/>Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/noscript><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"Can we prove there is no God? Does it make sense to equate religion with science? Do theists have a monopology on morality or is secular morality superior? Was Richard Dawkins right to bring up the religious beliefs of Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney? Cara Santa Maria (Senior Science Correspondent, Huffingtonpost.com) leads this week&#039;s panel on &#039;The Point&#039; to discuss these issues and more with Michael Shermer (Publisher - Skeptic Magazine), Sean Carroll (Theoretical Physicist - Caltech), and Edward Falzon (author of &#039;Being Gay Is Disgusting&#039;). Special thanks to James Randi (Founder: James Randi Educational Foundation), Paul Zachary &quot;PZ&quot; Myers (Blogger: Pharyngula.org - Professor U Of MN-Morris), and AJ Johnson (Development Director for &#039;American Atheists&#039;) for sending in their points. Subscribe: http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/subscription_center?add_user=townsquare Watch More Points: http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/townsquare Cara Santa Maria: http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/cara-santa-maria\/ Michael Shermer: http:\/\/www.skeptic.com\/about_us\/meet_michael_shermer.html Sean Carroll: http:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/ Edward Falzon: http:\/\/biblicalmorality.com\/ Point-Maker James Randi: http:\/\/www.randi.org\/site\/ Point-Maker PZ Myers: http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/pharyngula\/ Point-Maker AJ Johnson: http:\/\/www.atheists.org\/ Twitter List To Follow: Moderator Cara Santa Maria: http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/carasantamaria Panelist Sean Carroll: https:\/\/twitter.com\/seanmcarroll Panelist Michael Shermer: https:\/\/twitter.com\/michaelshermer Panelist Edward Falzon: https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/EdwardFalzon https:\/\/twitter.com\/thepointtyt https:\/\/twitter.com\/stevenoh88 https:\/\/twitter.com\/cultureshlock https:\/\/twitter.com\/tytmedia Support The Point for FREE by doing your Amazon shopping through this link (bookmark it!) http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/?tag=townsquaretyt-20\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"lL\" style=\"max-width:100%;width:640px;margin:5px;\"><\/div><\/p>\n<p>The format of the show is that we hear three very brief pre-recorded &#8220;points,&#8221; to which the panelists then respond. In this case, all the points and all the panelists were already confirmed atheists, so we could put aside for the moment the endless arguments about whether God exists and focus on the very interesting questions of what to do about the fact that he doesn&#8217;t. The points we heard were from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.randi.org\/site\/\">James Randi<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/freethoughtblogs.com\/pharyngula\/\">PZ Myers<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HappiestAtheist\">AJ Johnson<\/a> of American Atheists. I wasn&#8217;t familiar with AJ before this event, but her video was very strong; I think (hope) we&#8217;ll be hearing a lot more from her in the future.<\/p>\n<p>It was a great talk, although it did reinforce my conviction that while we atheists are mostly right on the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Metaphysics\">metaphysics<\/a>, we need to really raise our game when it comes to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Epistemology\">epistemology<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Metaethics\">metaethics<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I took part in a conversation about contemporary atheism, which appeared on The Point, which is a web series spin-off of The Young Turks, which itself is both a web series and a show broadcast on Current TV. (Got all that?) My co-panelists were Michael Shermer of the Skeptics Society and Edward Falzon, author of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}