Via The Sam Harris blog….

Lawrence M. Krauss is a renowned cosmologist, popularizer of science, and director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University.  He is the author of more than 300 scientific publications and 8 books, including the bestselling The Physics of Star Trek. His interests include the early universe, the nature of dark matter, general relativity and neutrino astrophysics. He is also a friend and an advisor to my nonprofit foundation, Project Reason. Lawrence generously took time to answer a few questions about his new book.

Here is the first question from Sam Harris (bold) and and the answer from Lawrence Krauss.

One of the most common justifications for religious faith is the idea that the universe must have had a creator. You’ve just written a book alleging that a universe can arise from “nothing.” What do you mean by “nothing” and how fully does your thesis contradict a belief in a Creator God?

Indeed, the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” which forms the subtitle of the book, is often used by the faithful as an unassailable argument that requires the existence of God, because of the famous claim, “out of nothing, nothing comes.”  While the chief point of my book is to describe for the interested layperson the remarkable revolutions that have taken place in our understanding of the universe over the past 50 years—revolutions that should be celebrated as pinnacles of our intellectual experience—the second goal is to point out that this long-held theological claim is spurious. Modern science has made the something-from-nothing debate irrelevant.  It has changed completely our conception of the very words “something” and “nothing”.  Empirical discoveries continue to tell us that the Universe is the way it is, whether we like it or not, and ‘something’ and ‘nothing’ are physical concepts and therefore are properly the domain of science, not theology or philosophy. (Indeed, religion and philosophy have added nothing to our understanding of these ideas in millennia.) I spend a great deal of time in the book detailing precisely how physics has changed our notions of “nothing,” for example.  The old idea that nothing might involve empty space, devoid of mass or energy, or anything material, for example, has now been replaced by a boiling bubbling brew of virtual particles, popping in and out of existence in a time so short that we cannot detect them directly.  I then go on to explain how other versions of “nothing”—beyond merely empty space—including the absence of space itself, and even the absence of physical laws, can morph into “something.”  Indeed, in modern parlance, “nothing” is most often unstable.  Not only can something arise from nothing, but most often the laws of physics require that to occur.

Now, having said this, my point in the book is not to suggest that modern science is incompatible with at least the Deistic notion that perhaps there is some purpose to the Universe (even though no such purpose is manifest on the basis of any of our current knowledge, and moreover there is no logical connection between any possible “creator” and the personal God of the world’s major religions, who cares about humanity’s destiny).  Rather, what I find remarkable is the fact that the discoveries of modern particle physics and cosmology over the past half century allow not only a possibility that the Universe arose from nothing, but in fact make this possibility increasingly plausible.  Everything we have measured about the universe is not only consistent with a universe that came from nothing (and didn’t have to turn out this way!), but in fact, all the new evidence makes this possibility ever more likely.  Darwin demonstrated how the remarkable diversity of life on Earth, and the apparent design of life, which had been claimed as evidence for a caring God, could in fact instead be arrived at by natural causes involving purely physical processes of mutation and natural selection.  I want to show something similar about the Universe.  We may never prove by science that a Creator is impossible, but, as Steven Weinberg has emphasized, science admits (and for many of us, suggests) a universe in which one is not necessary.

I cannot hide my own intellectual bias here.  As I state in the first sentence of the book, I have never been sympathetic to the notion that creation requires a creator.  And like our late friend, Christopher Hitchens, I find the possibility of living in a universe that was not created for my existence, in which my actions and thoughts need not bend to the whims of a creator, far more enriching and meaningful than the other alternative.  In that sense, I view myself as an anti-theist rather than an atheist.

Go check out the rest of the discussion over at Sam’s blog.

tip to Le Cafe Witteveen.

from NPR.

This week on Fresh Air, we’re marking the year’s end by revisiting some of the most memorable conversations we’ve had in 2011. This interview was originally broadcast on December 13, 2011.

In the FX TV series Louie, comic Louis C.K. plays a divorced father of two struggling to balance his comedy career with being a single dad. The show, which has just been picked up for a third season, is often based on events that have happened to C.K. in his own life.

C.K.’s boundary-crossing humor has always appealed to other comedians, but in the past year, the stand-up comic has also racked up a series of honors from more mainstream sources. GQ recently called him the “funniest comic alive” and named him their “Comic Genius of the Year.” Rolling Stone said C.K. is currently the “darkest, funniest comedian in America.” And Time called Louie the top show of the year, shortlisting C.K. on the magazine’s list of the most influential people in 2011.

C.K. writes, directs, edits and produces Louie, which has been nominated for several Emmys. He took a similar hands-on approach for his latest comedy special, Live at the Beacon Theater. The hourlong broadcast, filmed in front of a live crowd over two nights in November, was produced with C.K’s own money, edited entirely by him, and then released independently on his website, bypassing network cable and video.

An Unorthodox Way To Release A Comedy Special

C.K. asked his fans to contribute $5 directly to him via PayPal, in exchange for two streams and two downloads of the unencrypted, high-definition show. He explains that he chose the unorthodox method of sharing his special to see if releasing a video himself could potentially make money.

“I’ve never seen a check from a [TV] comedy special,” he tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “It never ends up being that. … This time, I just thought this might be interesting to give this a try. Put it on my website, make it $5, make it really, really easy for people to enjoy. To make it as close to a viral video as possible, instead of having it on TV.”

here is the first 4 minutes of the interview…..  (whole interview is here)

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via Reuters.

(Reuters) – Ricky Gervais says he wants to improve on his controversial performance at the 2011 Golden Globe Awards — by being even more outrageous the next time around.

Ohhhh….  I can hardly wait.  I want to watch the Golden Globe Awards this year.

The British comedian said his third time hosting the annual Hollywood awards ceremony in January 2012 would definitely be his last.

But he is aiming to go out with a bang.

“They must be mad. Not sure if I’m flattered that they trust me or insulted that they trust me. Either way…they shouldn’t trust me,” Gervais said in a statement on Thursday.

Mwaaaaa Haaa Haaaaa…….

The caustic creator of TV mockumentary “The Office” last year insulted Golden Globe organizers with jokes about bribes and took shots Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie’s critically-panned movie “The Tourist” that was up for a Golden Globe nomination.

Many of the jokes in the televised broadcast fell flat with the gala audience of A-list stars. The president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which hosts the event, said afterward that Gervais would not return.

“I don’t think anyone had the right to be offended but they were. This year I’m going to make sure their offense is completely justified,” Gervais said on his blog on Thursday.

He asked fans to pass on their “favorite targets for the monologue.”

After Golden Globe organizers announced he’d be back one day earlier, Gervais wasted little time in tweaking more ribs in Hollywood. He posted a Twitter message saying that he told Oscars host, comedian Billy Crystal: “He’d better not use any of my holocaust or pedophile material” at the Academy Awards ceremony in February 2012.

Gervais also gloated over being invited back again, saying it was a tough decision for him because “I was worried that I couldn’t improve on last year.”

“What actually tipped the balance and made me say yes, was the fact that it would shut up all those…idiots who said that I’d never be invited back,” he wrote on his blog.

His hiring will be either a problem for celebrities and Golden Globe organizers or a stroke of genius for the NBC television network that airs the awards show if more people tune in just to see what Gervais says.

The timing also will be good publicity for the comedian’s new TV venture, “Life’s Too Short” which will make its U.S. debut on HBO in early 2012.

Gervais’ new show is a documentary-style comedy about the life of a showbusiness dwarf, featuring 3 ft 6in (1.07 meter) actor Warwick Davis as a version of himself.

Johnny Depp also appears on the TV show in a cameo role as himself, sparring with Gervais over his money-making career and suggesting that, for at least one Hollywood star, all is forgiven.

Here is the video from last years show….

I don’t like the start of this story.  Reality IS a better story!

Listen to Richard explain how they got it wrong.

Here is the book – The Magic of Reality

It comes out in the states on October 4th.  You can order your copy on Amazon.

Here is a sample review….

“I wanted to write this book but I wasn’t clever enough. Now I’ve read it, I am” —Ricky Gervais

A Freethough Classic! 

I am starting a collection of Freethought Classics.  The best of audio, video and books from years gone by.  This will become a tool and a resource for new and established freethinkers. 

My first entry is “Letting Go Of God” by Julia Sweeney.

The audio for the CD was recorded on November, 19 2005.  So it is time to celebrate the five year anniversary.  You can buy the CD at Amazon for just $9. 

Here is the summary from the Amazon page…

Julia Sweeney says she was a “happy Catholic girl” when, one day, she walked into church and signed up for a Bible-study course. “What an eye opener that was!” she says. “Next thing you know, I was on a quest for something I could really believe in. I traveled to places like Bhutan, Ecuador, and my local Starbucks looking for answers. Would I embrace Buddhism? New Age pseudo-science? Was I a freak for feeling the way I did, or were there other people out there just like me? I was grappling with serious questions. But, somehow, a lot of the things that were happening to me seemed, well, funny.” Equally comedic and insightful, Letting Go of God is Sweeney’s brilliant one-woman show about her struggle with her faith. Grappling with the seeming contradictions in Adam and Eve, Noah, the Ten Commandments, and even the teachings of Jesus – and trying to understand the Bible’s messages about morality, family values, and human suffering while faced with door-knocking Mormons and wise-cracking priests – Sweeney takes listeners on her very personal journey from God to “not-God”. This performance was recorded on November 19, 2005, at the Ars Nova Theatre in New York City.

Below is a videos sample of the monologue recorded at a later date for TED.  You can get your copy of the DVD from Amazon.

I hope this stays up long enough for you to see it….

here is the text - just in case.

“I can’t control what people think this was.  I can only tell you my intentions.   This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear.  They are and we do.  But we live now in hard times, not end times.  And we can have animus and not be enemies. 

But unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke.  The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder.  The press can hold its magnifying up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic. 

If we amplify everything we hear nothing.  There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats but those are titles that must be earned.  You must have the resume.  Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate–just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe not more.  The press is our immune system.  If we overreact to everything we actually get sicker–and perhaps eczema. 

And yet, with that being said, I feel good—strangely, calmly good.  Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false.  It is us through a fun house mirror, and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass shaped like a month old pumpkin and one eyeball.

So, why would we work together?  Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin assed forehead eyeball monster?  If the picture of us were true, of course, our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable.  Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own?  We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is—on the brink of catastrophe—torn by polarizing hate and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do.  We work together to get things done every damn day!

The only place we don’t is here or on cable TV.  But Americans don’t live here or on cable TV.  Where we live our values and principles form the foundations that sustains us while we get things done, not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done.  Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives.  Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do—often something that they do not want to do—but they do it–impossible things every day that are only made possible by the little reasonable compromises that we all make. 

Look on the screen. This is where we are. This is who we are.  (points to the Jumbotron screen which show traffic merging into a tunnel).  These cars—that’s a schoolteacher who probably thinks his taxes are too high.  He’s going to work.  There’s another car-a woman with two small kids who can’t really think about anything else right now.  There’s another car, (referring to the Jumbotron blowing in the wind) swinging, I don’t even know if you can see it—the lady’s in the NRA and she loves Oprah.  There’s another car—an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah.  Another car’s a Latino carpenter.  Another car a fundamentalist vacuum salesman.  Atheist obstetrician.  Mormon Jay-Z fan.  But this is us.  Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear—often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers. 

And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile long 30 foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river.  Carved, by the way, by people who I’m sure had their differences.  And they do it.  Concession by conscession.  You go.  Then I’ll go.  You go. Then I’ll go.  You go then I’ll go. Oh my God, is that an NRA sticker on your car?  Is that an Obama sticker on your car? Well, that’s okay—you go and then I’ll go.

And sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute, but that individual is rare and he is scorned and not hired as an analyst. 

Because we know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light we have to work together. And the truth is, there will always be darkness.  And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the promised land. Sometimes it’s just New Jersey.  But we do it anyway, together.

If you want to know why I’m here and want I want from you, I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me.  Your presence was what I wanted. 

Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder.  To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine.  Thank you.”

Not a surprise… Bill O is a tool.  He has his closed little mind (pin head?) and can’t stand to let someone else talk – even when he is on their show. 

He has a fit about the 9/11 Mosque.  When Joy tries to say something he turns to her like a child and says, “Listen to me because you’ll learn.”  What a jerk.  Then he goes off the rails with… “Muslims killed us on 9/11.”

Watch it and let us know what you think.