Venture Brothers marathon update, and some links

[dougo]

The Venture Brothers marathon will be tomorrow (Saturday), 2pm, my place. Sorry for the short notice, but there appears to be a critical mass already. (But more are welcome, just let me know).

Meanwhile, some miscellaneous links for your Friday entertainment and edification:

From jwz, A New Pope: a video recontextualization of last year's Pope ceremony in a sci-fi setting. I guess this is kind of old but I hadn't seen it before.

From static_zombie, Kevin Smith ambushes Joel Siegel, an audio clip from the Opie & Anthony radio show. Apparently Joel Siegel acted like a butthead during a screening of Clerks 2 and Kevin Smith calls him up to yell at him, on the air.

From markdominus, a request for oyster jokes. Got any good ones?

From memegarden, An editorial from Christianity Today in favor of allowing a Wiccan pentacle on a soldier's grave. According to the article, there are approved religious symbols for atheism and humanism. Anyone know what they are? Update: Wikipedia has the full set of symbols.

Comments

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

Who came up with that "Athiest" symbol? I hate it! It looks like it says "I worship atomic power!". And the Humanist symbol isn't much better.

I wonder if not having a symbol on the tombstone is a legal option? That's certainly the one I'd prefer, if available.

[mshonle.livejournal.com]

Well, an atom to represent science is at least much better than a lab beaker.

I wonder what Objectivism's symbol would be. "A=A" or maybe a fat dollar sign?

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

I guess the reason I would prefer no symbol is that I very much disagree with the position that "I'm an athiest" means "my religion is science". Most people attempt to form most of their conclusions about the world on the basis of observation and rational thought. They make an exception for some things, where they choose insted to have faith in what their religion teaches. I feel that I do my best not to make such an exception at all, rather than to have blind faith in science, so I feel that a lack of symbol is much more appropriate than a symbol of science.

[mshonle.livejournal.com]

I think the Darwin fish would be a cool symbol. Although evolution is clearly science, the fish-with-feet symbol itself is a reaction to religion. But, yeah, overall I wouldn't want any symbol either. Runner's up would be the yin-yang, and a lower-case lambda. I dread to think someone might have the "hacker's symbol."

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Since most religions are about what happens to you after you die, maybe the best symbol for atheism would be an icon of a gravestone. Or a pile of dirt? Or a skull and crossbones! Arrr!

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

But what would be the icon on the gravestone in the icon?

[dougo.livejournal.com]

The last visible dog?

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Dawkins and Dennett call themselves "Brights", which makes me cringe, but their symbol is not bad:

[artname.livejournal.com]

Tora tora tora!

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Aha, that atomic logo comes from the American Atheists organization, 1963. And it's not a truncated image, the bottom link is meant to be open: it "signifies that all is not yet known". There's more about the logo on their website.

[artname.livejournal.com]

Move closer, dammit, the marathon sounds fun.