Everyone should read this book

I just bought a copy of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris and even though I'm only a chapter or so into it so far, I have to say that everyone should read this book.

Harris has got the guts to say what a whole bunch of us have thought but NOT said for a long time: that the biggest, most important threat to humanity at this time is religion. But it goes much further than that. Anyone that isn't scared by this book has their head in the sand.

Religious fundamentalists will hate the book and I really don't expect any to read it, but I'd still implore them to try. Religious moderates and liberals might have an easier go, even though Harris has some harsh words to say about them and these comments have led to some criticism; having read at least part of what Harris wrote on that subject, I tend to side with him on those points.

I used to think that religion and reason could live side by side provided that governments stuck to reason when making policy, and religious extremism could be softened somewhat with decent education. Thanks to Harris, I no longer believe this and I'm almost ashamed to admit that I ever subscribed to such a naïve view. I am now worried that religious ideas may very well destroy us if we don't do something to stop it happening, and quick.

There was a time when it didn't matter so much if some head of state ruled his domain according to religious dogma. In an age of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, this is no longer true. All it would take these days is, for example, for a devout Christian ruler of a powerful country to believe that a global war would presage the second coming, and that the end result would be that the deserving get to heaven while the rest go to burn forever - the "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" approach - and that is very scary. And if that sounds far-fetched, think for a moment about Dubya, his belief in the power of prayer and the two billion dollars of illegal funding for "faith-based initiatives".

There's a lot more to it that just this, of course, but I'm not going into it all here. Buy a copy of the book or borrow it from your local library, but whatever you do, read it.

Incidentally, check out the Point of Inquiry podcast (the feed URL is in the sidebar to the right) - they have a two-part interview with Harris talking about the book. Very interesting.

Podcast Fever

It's been weeks since I posted anything here. I've been far too busy with work, other writing projects, messing with home videos and playing games to have had a thought coherent enough to slap into this blog. The only reason I'm writing this right now is that I looked at the Augmented Reality page and noticed green mould growing in the corners and rust on some of the fonts. (There's no point looking for it now - I've cleaned it off, and enriched the blog with vitamin B12 too.) Time to write something, I thought.

Recently I've been rather interested in Podcasts, an interest sparked by a couple of factors: first, I bought Kate an iPod and I was so impressed with what it could do (as far as being able to hold the equivalent of many, many, many CDs in something that'll fit in my pocket) that I promptly went out and got myself one too. The second factor was undoubtedly the inimitable Deek Deekster and his interest in podcasting.

I should point out that Deek has recently mentioned a scaling-back of podcasting - something about blog/pod balance, it seems. All the same I recommend his podcasts; they're better produced than some radio programs. More on his podcast below.

I must admit that I was even tempted to perhaps create an occasional podcast myself, but I've got far too many other things I want to get done right now... a writing project I really want to get finished and some more homebrew DVDs, for starters.

Any road up, here's a selection of some of the finer podcasts that I've come across. I've also added these to the sidebar. To use the link, right click on it and select "Copy Link Location" (you are using FireFox, aren't you?). Now you can paste it into iTunes or whatever you use to capture podcasts. But I didn't really need to tell you that, right?

Pod of Funk

Finest quality, superior workmanship. Deek mixes funky music tracks with interviews; the result is as professional as any radio show. The latest edition, Pod of Funk #4, includes the first part of an interview with Ashley Slater which I found really interesting, not because of his music (not my speed at all, sorry), but because that hoopy¹ Slater comes across as a frood² who really knows where his towel is.

CNN News Update

Hourly news updates, apparently always 3 minutes and 56 seconds long. Concentrates on US news, of course, but still interesting.

Digital Planet

A tech podcast from the Beeb.

Paranormal Podcast

Entertaining claptrap about ghosts, UFOs and other pseudoscience, but presented in a straightforward way without getting overly strident or silly. Interesting.

Point of Inquiry

Podcast of the radio program of CSICOP's Center for Inquiry. The antidote to Paranormal Podcast.

New Scientist

Weekly (I think) science news updates.

Skepticality

These guys do something I admire - instead of pussyfooting around pseudoscientists and crackpots, they take the no-holds-barred approach that the nutcases richly deserve. Kudos to them.

SETI Institute

Podcast of the SETI institute (duh!), hosted by Seth Shostak.

¹ Hoopy: really together guy. ² Frood: really amazingly together guy. You mean you never heard the original Hitch Hiker's Guide?