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I've got a crew of ~4 kids going into 5th grade, and like many kids they're extremely interested in science. I went shopping on amazon for books for them but I felt that the books I found there were likely to be too childish for them - I don't them to feel like I'm "treating them like kids." I'll guess they could handle books written at a 7th grade level. Anyway, based on their interests, I'd especially like to find books at a middle school level about disease and immunity, poisons, and the brain. However, I will not reject any good books about science in general. (My own interests turn more toward evolution and astronomy, but I want to let the kids explore things that they love.) Also, I'd like them to think about their ideas about chance and coincidence and their intuitive statistics. As in, "I almost died because I was on a plane that went to San Francisco and I sat in the back and the people who died on the Asiana flight were sitting in the back. If I'd been on an Asiana flight...." Anyway, any suggestions about great science or math books for middle schoolers are welcome!

Back in my student days, I really liked the lines from Ecclesiastes, "Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh."

I suspect that you and I use the word "impossible" in different ways, but I need some help from experts to figure it out. For instance, what would have been the condition of Jesus' brain after three days of death, even if they'd stored the body in the best possible conditions available to them? As far as I can tell (here is one area where some knowledgeable person could help us), the neurons of his brain would have lost their connections, even if they would survive. Just in case that's true, let's posit that the neurons of his brain reconnected themselves - this would seem to be a necessary but not sufficient cause for resurrection, and we can put off for now the question of what would cause the neurons of a corpse to behave in this way, though before we finish we'll have to consider that. What I want to figure out is, what approximately would be the odds of them reconnecting themselves in so precisely the same configuration that when he comes back to life, he knows who he is, knows how to walk and talk, recognizes his friends, etc.? That seems to me to be the first thing we have to figure. I'd bet the odds are already astronomically low - as in, we would need a fair portion of the universe full of 3-day old corpse brains reconnecting before we could expect any to know who they were upon revival. Next, we need to calculate the odds of a single neuron being preserved in a corpse for three days (under the best conditions a cave in first-century Palestine could offer), and multiply that by the number of neurons... and figure out the number of neurons that would not be preserved. Then we need to calculate the possibility of the molecules that had composed those neurons spontaneously reassembling themselves into neurons. (Of course the molecules don't have to be in precisely the same neuron or precisely the place in each neuron - the odds will be low enough anyway. It's the same as the odds that a number of molecules would just fall together forming a neuron - multiplied by all the neurons that would have burst after three days.) If any of the molecules would have been broken down, we'll have to calculate the chances of their component parts spontaneously reassembling. We might have to perform similar calculations for muscle decay - rigor mortis would have set in, right? We could try to calculate the odds of the muscle cells doing whatever they would need to do to recover from that. We'll have to figure out something like the odds of the multiplying gut bacteria spontaneously dying off in a way that would enable the resurrected body to resume digestive functions in a timely fashion. Etc. In the end of course what we'll find is that there is no way that a 3-day old corpse spontaneously revives. Of course some supernatural agent could blatantly interfere, violating the laws of nature, but our goal is to establish the naturalistic plausibility of a resurrection from the dead, so that we can evaluate things like how strong we need the historical evidence to be - in order to rationally conclude that the resurrection is a plausible interpretation of the historical evidence, the odds of the historical evidence being wrong need to be greater than the odds of a 3-day old corpse resurrecting. I know this is more that a little quixotic - most of these calculations could only be at best very rough estimates - but still, it could be an interesting intellectual challenge. I mean, trying to think of way to figure this out is going to involve figuring out - this is fun - something like the odds of a thousand hurricanes assembling a kajillion jumbo jets - but I think with some creativity we (especially those among us who know a lot about cell biology, biophysics, decomposition, etc.) can come up with a way of giving a rough mathematical expression to how physically impossible a resurrection would be. At the low end, if it's easier, I think we could figure out the odds of a human body spontaneously emerging from a soup of biochemicals - figure out the odds of various common proteins self-assembling (we'll have to assume the soup is being warmed so that we can get the energy for these reactions; if anyone knows how to figure the odds of the right amount of heat being in the right place at the right time, that'd be great) - figure out the odds of those proteins happening to fall together as a human cell - and figure out the odds of a bunch of human cells happening to fall together as a human body (we can assume they're all next to each other anyway, but you've got to get the right cells in roughly the right places - no good to have liver cells distributed randomly throughout the body, all the liver cells by chance have to happen to be right in the right place to form a liver). This might be nice for the Christian side - after all, the odds of a resurrection must be better than this! And even if we ultimately can't put a numerical estimate on many of those things, at least we would be able to easily show how good the odds of abiogenesis (a single tiny cell forming) look compared to the odds of resurrection. For practice, an analogy I've used in debate with Christian friends is the odds of tomato soup reassembling itself into a tomato. Maybe that's an unnecessary diversion, but still, it's a good illustration. Of course all along we can make just about any assumptions necessary to enable us to proceed with calculations...

Ok. We'll move on from here.

Sorry, I will continue it to say this: I do not believe that I have misinterpreted Iggy's posts or his intentions, but if I have, I apologize. However, for the record: nothing that I ever posted here (or anywhere else for that matter) implied that I condone acts such as the riots over the Mohammad cartoons, stoning women for adultery, or throwing acid in a girls' face. Applying a statement I made in an unrelated context to those situations, whether to imply that I oppose freedom of speech or in a later instance to imply that I might condone - as by "hoping" that I would not "disparage people who" oppose - such actions, was rhetorical gamesmanship unfair to me, to the words I wrote, and to the ideas I expressed. To reiterate the latter (and bring us back on topic): the world is broken, but people who believe in God are not necessarily broken. They are bad philosophers, but as far as this issue alone goes I find no reason to further condemn religious believers as a whole, nor do I feel the emotional need to do so. And to defend myself against possible misrepresentations of those ideas: When anyone - religious or otherwise - commits horrible acts such as murdering the innocent, torture, physical assault, sexual abuse, or even things like vandalism, bullying, or verbal assault, of course I would do and say more than that they are bad philosophers. Further, I explicitly affirm the right of people to say insulting things to each other, even if or when I don't find it productive or satisfying.

You can't help yourself, or you're doing it on purpose. I've explained myself already and I stand by what I've written before. There is no reason for us to continue this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/us/rhode-island-city-enraged-over-school-prayer-lawsuit.html?_r=1 Here is a case where some mockery will probably do some good, as the community probably realizes it should be ashamed of itself.

Thank you!

I'll check out that thread tomorrow. Thanks for letting me know about it.

Nope, sounds fair enough to me. One thing you might want to consider is, why did religion evolve? Why did humans evolve the ability to experience things that just aren't actually there, and to form very powerful emotional attachment to those things? (Even if not all of us can have such experiences, at least some in every society can, and it may be that all of us can.) Why do beliefs about invisible entities so often involve stronger feelings than beliefs about visible ones? Whatever is going on there, it is something deep, extremely important, and thoroughly irrational.

Yes, it certainly is. Whether X is true (or whether X has been sufficiently justified) is one kind of question. To me, as an atheist, there is no more intellectual justification for believing in any deity than there is for believing in UFOs, fairies, ghosts, angels, and so on. However, another question is why people believe things. People are not primarily scientific, rational calculators moving through life trying to figure out which beliefs are true. In fact, only a tiny minority of people put much effort into finding out things like whether their religion is true. Whether the subject is religion, science, or history, the fact is that most people just aren't very concerned to rationally evaluate their beliefs. And the people who do put any effort into such projects are usually - often enough even consciously - primarily seeking to justify the beliefs that they already hold (and subconsciously, I'd argue, their motive is that they believe doing so will increase their status within their community), rather than just trying to figure out what happens to be the case. And that's not mental illness or childishness or whatever. That's because of the way we evolved. We almost cannot help but care more about things like our status within our society than about things like whether there is a logical fallacy in the ontological proof of God's existence, or whether George Washington was an Evangelical Christian, or whether the speed of light has been constant throughout the history of the universe. If our belief about the latter sort of question has relevance to our status within our society, then we will usually determine our belief on those questions according to our estimation (usually performed subconsciously) of how our belief will affect our status. The reason that science works well is not that scientists are so much more rational than other people, but because status within the scientific community depends almost entirely on whether the evidence supports a scientist's claims. But few communities are like that - and probably no religious community consistently is. Now let's put the question like this: if a person getting emotional and material support from her community depends on her believing that Puff the Magic Dragon makes watermelons grow, what should she believe? I'm not asking what the fact of the matter happens to be, I accept as well as you do that no substantial evidence could defend her community's beliefs; all I'm asking is, what should an ordinary person believe in that circumstance? Let's intensify it. What if doubting that Puff the Magic Dragon makes watermelons grow will lead to her complete expulsion from the community, and she knows of no community likely to receive her in short order? And finally of course, what if expressing such a doubt (even accidentally) might lead to her community harming her or her family? Those are the circumstances in which religious beliefs are forged, and that is why most people believe the religion of their family and larger society without putting any serious or careful thought into the matter. We can insult our entire species as dishonest, irrational wretches, but the fact is that for most of our history, and perhaps even now in most or maybe even all societies, to be a complete outcast was to be short-lived. To be wrong about what makes watermelons grow was to be... nothing more serious than wrong about what makes watermelons grow. The only rational course for most people most of the time was to accept what their community said about such things, and only to question the community when it could lead to increased status (as it can among scientists) or when it could lead to some other very significant (and probably immediate) benefit. This brings us to the point where I can answer your question. If you are in a devoutly Catholic family and all of your friends are devoutly Catholic and a large part of the reason that your friends and family will support you is that you too are Catholic, then believing that the Sacred Heart of Jesus can help your watermelons grow is something very much like a rational belief. It will not occur to many people in such a situation to worry about whether the claim is empirically well-founded. It's not that the gods of actual religions are empirically or philosophically superior to Puff the Magic Dragon, it's that there are a lot of people in the world who find themselves in situations where little is to be gained and much to be lost by doubting the god(s) of their religion. In the actual, real-life context in which most people find themselves, a belief in the spirits of their community is not in any practical sense equivalent to a belief in a cartoon character. And it's not that they're childish or mentally ill, it's that they're real-life physical human beings who need community support and would benefit from higher social status, and not purely ethereal beings who need concern themselves with nothing but the disinterested pursuit of rationally justified belief. Were we the latter, there would be no religion. Nor would such beings strive to outdo each other in how cleverly and originally they can scorn people who do not share their conclusions. "The farts of pink unicorns cause erections in leprechauns" and "faith is a mental illness" are good fun among atheist friends, and you'll get due credit for them, but they are neither farsighted rhetoric attempting persuasion, nor the result of a sincere attempt to understand someone else's beliefs.

Not all religious people - not even all Muslims - are pouring acid on girls' faces or killing people over cartoons; religious belief doesn't seem to me to lead necessarily to such actions; and even if it is your contention that theism necessarily does lead to such actions, that kind of thing hadn't explicitly been the subject of any posts relevant to this discussion. We were discussing whether religious belief is inherently and necessarily childish, broken, silly, and/or mentally ill - descriptions that I find inaccurate, and cannot but believe were meant to be insulting. Besides inaccurate and insulting, I found them unnecessarily insulting. Now (and I think this ought to go without saying), I would not favor any law limiting anyone's ability to use even counter-productive satire or insult. (Of course, as it may for some reason need to be said, I'm also against domestic abuse, murder, arson, most forms of violence, book-burning except when threatened by hypothermia, cruelty to sentient beings, etc....) From this point forward, let it be explicitly understood that I am discussing not legal limitations on free speech, but rhetorical strategies. I'm all for using the full rhetorical toolkit in efforts to persuade people to adopt true beliefs and abandon false beliefs. That rhetorical toolkit includes both satire and insult, and I approve of them both wholeheartedly when used productively. Characterizing all religious believers as broken, mentally ill, childish, and/or silly is obviously counter-productive. It may well boost our self-esteem, but not only will it not help any religious people to see the error of their beliefs, it will lead at least some religious people not to take seriously our more valid objections to their beliefs. (Edit: Again, just for clarity and my god I can't believe I'm needing to do this - the preceding five paragraphs are solely about persuading ordinary people with irrational beliefs, especially religious believers, to question those beliefs, and have absolutely nothing at all in any way whatsoever to do with our policy regarding atrocities committed in the name of religion. If the subject were how we should deal with religious terrorists or whatever, the question would not merely be about helping them see the error of their beliefs, but about protecting innocent people from them. Any construal of the preceding five paragraphs as in any way objecting to such protection will be maliciously unfair to me, as similar construals have been in the past.)

Let's start here. What I said was that religious people are not all childish, and that claiming that they are is meant to be insulting, and I don't feel the need to insult them all (as childish, broken, whatever) just for believing in a god - I'm content to say it's bad philosophy. I didn't and haven't said that people shouldn't ever be insulting to religious people, and even implying that I'd said anything of the sort is a malicious mischaracterization of my position. My god. Do you really think that I would oppose speaking out against such actions? Just in case: Of course I favor not merely speaking out against such actions, but preventing them by legal force, and when it's too late for prevention, punishing them by legal force. But really, dude, what were you accusing me of? You ask the question precisely in order to suggest that I might not be against opposing such actions, even merely speaking against them. Edit: And might I add, that is far more insulting to me than anything that I have said about you. It is an insult to my character, my morality, everything about me. And you did it intentionally, viciously, with malice aforethought. There's two halves to this. First, I did confuse you with iNow, but second, perhaps you only meant to be asking what kind of speech I might be against, but in the process of asking that question you implicitly argued that I, in the post to which you were responding, had implied that I would be against satirizing religion, and later you most explicitly and intentionally (and maliciously) suggested that I'd saying nothing against the acid incident except "a theistic belief has no evidence to support it," and implied that I might even be against anyone else saying more than that against it. Ah, there's a third half. (Call me Macbeth.) Academically dishonest? This is a message board, not a journal.

I can't comment on anyone believing anything on faith alone because I don't take that to be an accurate description of anyone's psychological processes. But I understand that you might simply be intending to ask about whether religious people are childish. The word "childish" ordinarily means something that only immature adults do, and I do not think that's an accurate description of all religious people. Nor would I equate "childish" with "broken," though the latter is so vague that it's impossible to discuss meaningfully. At least "Mentally ill" is a term that we can try to use with some precision, and it seems to me that it was used earlier as a synonym for "broken." And I've already said, it does not appear to me that most religious people are mentally ill. Are straw man arguments childish? I don't think so. They're bad arguments, but normal adults make them all the time. As might be seen here: So yes, both you and Iggy suggested that I was against free speech - the straw man that was constructed is the one that pretends that I'd said anything against satire of religion or any other form of free speech. My pointing that fact out was not a straw man. I need to apologize to Iggy and iNow, whom I'd conflated! Iggy accused me of being satisfied to say nothing but "a theistic belief has no evidence to support it" in response to acid being poured on someone's face in the name of theistic belief. It was not a straw man for me to point out that Iggy accuses me of being satisfied to say nothing but "a theistic belief has no evidence to support it" in response to acid being poured on someone's face in the name of theistic belief. That is precisely what he did. (Edit: My bad. You're drawing a distinction between Iggy accusing me of not being willing to speak out against such action and Iggy accusing me of being against speaking out against such action. Fine, but notice that he wrote, "I hope you would not disparage other people who do choose to speak up against, and insult directly, such stupidity." He assumes that I do not have anything to say against such actions except that "a theistic belief has no evidence to support it" - taking that quote so far out of context that I can hardly believe he did it anything except maliciously - and then he implies that I might "disparage" other people for speaking out against the pouring of acid on girl's faces. It wasn't a straw man by me: "I hope you would not disparage" was meant precisely and solely to imply that I might disparage such people for doing so, or that I might be against them doing so. Again, that was precisely and solely what he meant to imply. My pointing it out was not a straw man argument.) But, as that Iggy's post was a complete (and probably malicious) mischaracterization of anything I've ever argued, Iggy was the one who created a straw man.

Now I'm basically against speaking out against people pouring acid on girls' faces. And you want an apology for my mischaracterizing your positions. What simple question did you ask? What my position was? My only position in this discussion is that not all theists are mentally ill, childish, or silly. That isn't hard to understand. I have not denied your right to hold or express such opinions - though you've mischaracterized my posts as having done so. Nor have I denied anyone's right to satire anything - though you've mischaracterized my posts as having done so. You will get no apology for mischaracterizing your posts unless you can prove that I have done so. And yes, you intentionally did nothing other than draw a direct line from what I'd written to - first, the riots in response to the cartoons of Mohammad, and now to acid thrown on girls' faces for going to school. You are intentionally doing nothing other than slandering me - and let's get to the reason why - because I don't agree that all religious people are mentally ill, broken, childish, or silly. For holding that position, you have accused me of saying that you can't speak your mind, or that you can't satire Islam, or that my position has anything at all to do with the riots against people who do so, or the pouring of acid on a girls' face. You are apparently unable to have a civil discussion with someone who disagrees with your diagnosis of religious people.