The Pale Blue Dot - A Tribute to Carl Sagan

Here's tribute video by TheThinkingAtheist to Carl Sagan.

Perspective. Awe. And wonder.

Examining the Existence of a Historical Jesus

Here is a presentation by David Fitzgerald at Skepticon 3 titled "Examining the Existence of a Historical Jesus".

In this presentation, information about the historicity of Jesus is drawn from books on the subject and presented. It touches on the lack of contemporaneous extra-biblical evidence, the contradictions within the gospels themselves, the fact that none of the gospels were eye-witnesses, the difference between Paul's Jesus & the Jesus of the gospels and other interesting tidbits.

Why Science is Better Than Religion and Always Has Been

Also from Skepticon 1 is this presentation by Richard Carrier entitled: "Why Science is Better Than Religion and Always Has Been"

I like it.

PZ Myers - Science Ed: Science vs Religion

Yea, this is old stuff. This is PZ Myers at Skepticon 1 back in 2008. It's kinda sad considering that it still applies after more than 2 years.

Enjoy!

PZ Myers at World Atheist Convention

An entertaining rant/speech by PZ Myers at the World Atheist Convention Ireland 2011.

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiL8Xqf9w1o
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzHO3fVRLbA
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cun4VsQpQMU
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-pML7cfV-o

Enjoy!

Quran's factual origins

Just as I have come to know that the Bible is a translation of several books written by different authors, decades after the events which they purport to describe by non-eyewitnesses whose stories were transmitted by hearsay in the intervening decades, I am interested to know what real history has to say about the formation of the "holy" book known as the Qu'ran.

L'Orientalist now has 2 videos with information pertaining to the topic and here they're.

The Inimitable Qu'ran

Did the Umayyads change the Qu'ran?

The creator of the videos provides citation of the literature he uses on his blog linked in the information below the video itself on Youtube.

Of objectivity and oughtness

QualiaSoup has uploaded the third video of his series on morality: Of objectivity and oughtness.

What's so Queer About Gay Marriage?

In this presentation, SisyphusRedeemed, a philosopher on Youtube outlines four arguments against gay marriage, and argue why they don't work.

Those are the secular arguments. Religious arguments can go play with the other childish arguments while actual moral and legal arguments are discussed.

And yes, I think Singapore is being, how do you put this..., backwards for still having 377A.

** On a side note, this happens to be my 200th entry.

Moral Absolutes and Morality

DiscoveringReligion has two videos up discussing further the religious idea of moral absolutes from their god.

It echoes and expands the same idea I briefly mentioned in the last part of this blog entry: Morality: Subjective, Objective.

L'Orientalist on Islam

A channel, L'Orientalist, with well referenced, clear content about Islam from a skeptic's perspective has come to my attention. I'd thought I'd post one of his videos here.

What do you think?

For liberal/moderate muslims, if you take issue with this video, may I ask, is it that the facts presented were incorrect or from the standpoint of your personal theological interpretation (in spite of the book's contents)? For the record, I only care about the former; the latter, not so much.