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Comment by Darrel Ray on October 10, 2009 at 11:23pm

Just spoke in Portland this week about my book and 7 people stayed after to talk about getting an RR group started. Hope we can see on or two in the area soon. If you know anyone in the Portland area who might be interested, let them know.

Comment by Jerry Howell on October 8, 2009 at 9:01am

Marshall, thanks for the link. I downloaded ASH1, 2, and 3 and listen to them yesterday. I like your format hope you keep it up.

Comment by Marshall on October 4, 2009 at 1:05pm

For those of you who haven't heard our interview with RR's founder (Darrel), check out the group for The Agnostic Salvation Hour and listen to epidsode ASH2.

Comment by Darrel Ray on October 4, 2009 at 10:54am

Off to Portland this week to speak at Reed College about The God Virus. If you know of anyone in the Portland area, let them know. Here is a link to the Reed College event. You will notice that Richared Dawkins is trying to upstage me by coming to Portland State on Oct. 10. I think I'll let him slide this time. I will also be letting people know about RR and hoping to get some interest and getting some groups started in the Portland area.

Comment by Richard Goscicki on September 11, 2009 at 8:02am

Mariana, If you're taking a philosophy course perhaps we could exchange ideas about individual philosophers. I'm starting a course in November with my Humanist group.

But look out. I've always appreciated the line by Theodosius Dobzhansky, the 1920s paleoentologist and member of the evolution synthesis.

"Any book written before 1859 (the year of Origin of Species) is essentially worthless."

It's like a reading a book by a geologist who believes the world is flat. Dobzhansky exempted David Hume from the statement.

Comment by Richard Goscicki on September 7, 2009 at 6:16pm

I forgot the Youtube link for the Dawkins/Lennox debate. Very information and educational. You hear both sides. There's about 12 videos, above is the promo.

Comment by Richard Goscicki on September 7, 2009 at 5:54pm

Mariana, let’s switch to the “It’s a Race” discussion above. We’re getting off the track of Recovering from Religion. Just a thought, depending on how you and Darrell feel. I don’t’ know if our conversation is what he had in mind.

Let me tell you, I feel like I’m reading Anne Frank in your posts for some strange reason. You are about the same age as she when she wrote her diary and you have a similar precocity and objectivity.

and that there are lots of religious scientists who manage to amalgamate their belief in God with evolution.

This actually happened to me when I was teaching bio. The other biology teacher was as pious and orthodox as can be. My attitude was, “how the hell can you study biology and not believe in evolution. The teach bio is to tell the story of evolution.” He somehow “amalgamated” the two ideas and got away with it. I don’t even think he even thought about it.

Actually, I did some research on this, years ago. Pope John Pope II wrote a papal bull stating that evolution is okay with Catholics as long as they concede that God intervened. Remember the Sistine Chapel painting where God holds out his finger and “inspires” Adam who is holding out his finger as they nearly touch. The idea is, man- (and woman-) kind evolved from lower life forms but along the way God infused a soul, and the early hominid became Homo sapiens. (What a misnomer. In my book Mirror Reversal, mankind is Homo vacuous.)

To me, what a cope out. Why doesn’t the Bible say anything about this? Talk about biblical prophesies, why the heck doesn’t the good book make any predictions with some teeth—like the JFK assassination or the Protestant Reformation. All we get are vague statements that future bible writers can fill in after the fact.

As a side note, I share the opinion that scientists should no longer publicly debate creationists-- it only reinforces the idea that it's a viable alternative to real science.
I think they should debate, how else are we going to change things. Here’s a great debate between Dr. Dawkins and a hard-headed Irishman (aren’t they all?), John Lennox, who holds that Christ is the answer. We can discuss it, if you’re into philosophy.

Comment by Richard Goscicki on September 6, 2009 at 12:15am

"I cannot believe someone as intelligent as yourself doesn't believe in God."

Mariana, your father messed up the line above. Actually, Ayn Rand said this to the archconservative, William F. Buckley, “You are far too intelligent to believe in Gutt.” (She had a bit of a Russian accent.)


The Blind Watchmaker and Climbing Mount Improbable both try to explain to believers (non-believers of Darwin) how so much complexity as modern animals and plants can evolve given ages of time. The Azoic Age was 500 million years. That’s the period of time with no life at all on the planet. A lot can happen in a half billion years. JWs can’t seem to understand the power of time and the evolutionary algorhythm. Simply put, it’s variation of a googol of gametes, (eggs and sperm), which are selected naturally, and then somehow retained. Even Darwin never fully understood the retention process, (he called them factors) but the Evolutionary Synthesis of the ‘20s confirmed Darwinism with the onset of the new science of genetics. Picture this little program running over and over for four billion years. Variation, Selection, Retention.

A JW kid knocked on my door last year and he was very interested in evolution. We wound up having several conversations over the next few months and I think I might have opened some doors in this thinking. I haven’t seen him in a year, but I think I might have saved his life.

He fed me the whole "atheists are dogmatic" shtick and even used the word "Darwinist."

The above is very wrong. The word “dogmatic” means referring to dogma or doctrines. Tell your friend atheists don’t have any doctrines. We just don’t believe what clergypersons are telling us. It’s the churches that have all the infallible doctrines.

I read a post on Pharyngula recently about ignorance being considered a virtue by some people…

This statement speaks for itself and doesn’t need any comment. Fear of knowledge is a sad thing. To me it’s closing the door on life and trying to be safe and content in a mental cage.

Mariana, I would suggest not getting into discussions or arguments with doctrinaire people. You’re a very bright girl, so use your brain to make yourself independent through education. Once you’re able to live your own and take care of yourself, you’ll see how friends and family will have much more respect for what you say and who you are.

As the old Yiddish singer named Fanny Brice (Funny Girl) liked to say: you gotta use all the brains ya got.

Comment by Richard Goscicki on September 4, 2009 at 8:32pm

Fun post. The fundagelicals have such weird beliefs it's fun to think that our disbeliefs are equally as strange to them. I think having so many co-believers has a lot to do with their certitude.

I get a laugh out of Copernicus’ book coming out in 1550. The Revolutions of Orbs had to be the most radical, revolutionary book ever written until The Origin of Species. Picture what the population could have made out of some crazy Polack telling them that the world was really spherical, not flat. It must have blown their minds. All you have to do is open your eyes to see he was wrong. It proves that common knowledge doesn’t make it so.

On the micro/macro controversy, the idea is preposterous. Fundagelicals (I like that word) say that okay, there’s microevolution. Species can evolve inside a genus but not jump from one genus to another. Dogs can change according to their niche— grow larger, stronger, or more ferocious so we get cocker spaniels, Pomeranians and pit bulls.. But a dog cannot evolve into a buffalo or elephant—sorry that’s macroevolution.

This concept shows a gaping ignorance of the concept of Darwin’s theory. Nobody says that dogs evolved into elephants or humans evolved from present-day apes. Evolutionary theory states that humans and apes, dogs and elephants, have a common ancestor. If we go back in time and descend the phylogenic tree, we’ll find a creature who parented both. Not at once, of course, but over thousands of years.

There is cogent proof for this. Check out the first paragraphs of one of my blog posts, the part about hemoglobin. The molecule is thousands of atoms long and is exactly the same as in all mammals.

Mammals have the same organ systems: same digestion, reproduction and elimination, etc.. I can’t see how the God believers can dismiss this as coincidence.

As far as your differences with you family goes, I’d suggest not getting into arguments with them. They’re not going to change at their age. The conditioning and indoctrination runs too deep. Also, religion has built-in defense mechanisms which are quite dangerous to outsiders. They associate apostates and heretics as children of the devil.

That’s why Darrell’s movement is so important. Deprogramming is a slow long-term process.

Comment by Darrel Ray on September 4, 2009 at 8:16pm

Mariana: I have been watching with curiosity the discussion that you have started. Thanks for sharing your experiences. The thing that impresses me is the depth of your knowledge and study, and yet you were raised in such an insular environment. You have really done your homework. As the founder of Recovering from Religion, I love to hear the stories of people who escape religion. In some of our groups we have a few ex-JW people. Sometimes, I think their stories are among the most heartbreaking since it disrupts normal family relationships so profoundly over an imaginary being.

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