NoBull.ws - Update 2005-03-11

Table of Contents

Planned Articles

Exactly What Is Skepticism?

A Few People I Admire - At Least Sometimes!

Addition to "Scientific Method"

Contradictions in the Qur'an

Other Problems with the Qur'an

Evolution of Species through Natural Selection

The Big Bang and Our Expanding Universe

How We Know the Earth Is Billions of Years Old

Some UN Agencies Worthy of Our Support

UNESCO's "Man and Biosphere" Program

The Value and Danger of Intuition

Blog

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From Bill Dearmore

This is the free No Bull Update newsletter from the No Bull Website at http://www.nobull.ws . You are receiving it because you subscribed to it on or about .

What's New on the Site?

As you can see from the Table Contents in the left-hand column, I have added four new articles and updated two old ones since I last emailed you.

I originally wrote " Saved in the Nick of Time! " about 16 years ago, and have updated it slightly several times. This time, I deleted a few redundancies and added some material about how traumatic it was to realize my god was not real.

" If I Believe in a Fictious God, What Have I Lost? " This is a response to a question I have been asked many times. Usually I just note this is one half of Pascal's Wager and that it has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of God. This acquaintance actually wanted an answer to the question, though. I've listed several, and I'm sure there are a lot more to add when I think of them or somebody calls them to my attention

A Christian fundamentalist will contend there are no contradictions or other errors in the Bible. Many will specify the Authorized King James Version. Of course, there are many obvious contradictions, and I've listed just a few here as " Contradictions in the Bible ."

Did you know? As you walk up the steps to the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., which houses the Supreme Court, you can see near the top of the building a row of the world's law givers and each one is facing one in the middle who is facing forward with a full frontal view -- it is Moses and the Ten Commandments! Of course you didn't know it, because it's not true.

No doubt you've seen the email that's circulating the Internet and trying to demonstrate how very many Christian symbols are in our Federal Government's buildings, courtrooms, and similar places. You'd think the Ten Commandments especially were just about everywhere. Most of it is simply not true!

I copied "Do You Know?" from the Atheist Outreach with their permission and linked it as " Found on the Internet ." It refutes the items in this spurious email one by one. From time to time, I'll probably find other items worth copying, and list them also under the "Found on the Internet" link.

" Links to Other Useful Sites " is self-explanatory. I'll be adding more pretty often, and it's probably not necessary to mention it every time as an update. Please be sure to read my disclaimer before clicking these links, which are here for your convenience.

Yeah, I made up some of the " Frequently Asked Questions ;" but most are actual questions I am truly asked occasionally. I'll add new ones that seem appropriate when I hear them.

What's Coming on the Site?

In the next few weeks, I want to redo " The Scientific Method " and add maybe another 50% to it. I realize it's too dry and uninteresting in its present form, and it doesn't have to be. Discovery and learning should be exciting, and the scientific method is the best way humans have to generate knowledge. It's powerful and wonderful, and the article needs to show that better.

Then I want to finish and post the article on skepticism and the other articles on the Bible and the Qur'an.

After that, I hope to be able to discuss scientific topics more.

I want to explain how biological evolution works in a way that everybody can understand. We won't go into every detail, obviously, because even a doctorate in evolutionary biology couldn't do that. But we'll discuss enough of the fossil evidence to see what it shows. Then we'll talk a little about genes and mutations, natural selection, punctuated equilibrium, and other related ideas. Don't worry. We'll make it simple, and it's already fascinating! It may require more than one article.

Some people say the earth is no more than 6,000 years old. How do we know it's actually 4.55 billion years old? Almost a million times older than many claim. You'll learn right here how we can tell.

What's New with the Update?

You've probably noticed the spaces between a link and any punctuation before or after it. This is because I've learned that some email clients will consider the punctuation part of the link without the space. This makes the link wrong, of course, and it doesn't work.

As far as I know, every link in this issue should work with any email program unless you have links disabled. If you're using AOL Release 9.0, see the note under the logo at the top of this page.

If you have trouble with any of these links, please let me know which ones and what kind of email software you are using. With all the different kinds of software and hardware some of you may be using -- and with all the possible option settings -- it may be impossible to make this work perfectly for everybody. But I would like to try.

Tell me what you'd like to see on the No Bull website.

I want to write about science in many areas; about reason, logic, and rationalism; about controversial matters that deal with science-related subjects like cloning, abortion, stem cell research, and more. Everything will be dealt with in a skeptical manner.

Is there something specific you'd like to see on the site that I haven't mentioned? Or maybe something I'm already planning that you'd like to see sooner?

I'd like to have your suggestions and criticisms. If you like what you see, it would be nice to hear that, too.

Let me have your suggestions and comments.

Copyright 2005 Bill Dearmore. All rights reserved. Opinions expressed herein are mine unless otherwise designated. They are not necessarily shared by any scientific society, university, or any other organization; but don't blame me. I'm trying my best to tell them.