1. Ask The God Delusion author Richard Dawkins

Comment #94275 by Laurence Winch-Furness on December 5, 2007 at 6:27 am

This was my question:

"I have been a keen reader of your books, and have noticed that strident atheism has been a theme from the Selfish Gene to the God Delusion. While I have heard that you became an atheist after learning about evolution, when did you begin to oppose religion, and see it as incompatible with science? What brought you to these conclusions?"

2. Gamma-Ray Wipe-Out

Comment #47202 by Laurence Winch-Furness on June 3, 2007 at 12:57 pm

Frem the descriptions of its effects, this sounds worse than the Permian event. The questiona arises, why wasn't it as comprehensive an extinction?

3. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #45890 by Laurence Winch-Furness on May 29, 2007 at 1:54 pm

I reckon there probably are a few people who simply will not give up their beliefs. About 15% of the population of Sweden, the world's most secularised nation, are theists. About 15% of top level scientists are. Perhaps this represents those whose brains are wired up for ireconcilable faith? Still, achieving the elemination of faith in 85% of the world's population is a worthy enogh goal.

4. It came like yesterday

Comment #45510 by Laurence Winch-Furness on May 28, 2007 at 3:32 am

"Now if we can just come up with something to survive the sun imploding ...."

Don't think we'll be alive that long, not because we're inherently self-destructive (although that's true as well) but just because no species has survived for more than a couple of million years, and while we may last longer, if we expand our rescource base beyond the solar system I strongly dobt if we could last anything like as long as a billion years (the time it takes for the earth to become uninhabitable) thus the expansion, followed by the implosion of the sun is unlikely to trouble us.

5. Lightning damages Jesus statue

Comment #44321 by Laurence Winch-Furness on May 24, 2007 at 10:54 am

"Don't look for any religious symbolism here - it was only a freak act of Mother Nature, says Sister Ilaria."

Foolish unbeliever, can ye not see that a noodly apendage clearly guided the lightning bolt?!!!!!

6. The Fastest-Growing Religion

Comment #43400 by Laurence Winch-Furness on May 21, 2007 at 9:23 am

Here's a lovely piece from christian fundementalists on Wicca:

http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/wicca.htm

# the witches in Wicca have been watching too much Bewitched,
# the witches in Wicca have been watching too much I Dream of Jeannie,
# the witches in Wicca having been watching too much Sabrina the Good (or Teen) Witch, and
# the witches in Wicca having been watching too much Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Yep, I can agree with that. Everything afterwards is bull though.

7. Global Warming (includes commentary about creationism)

Comment #40408 by Laurence Winch-Furness on May 14, 2007 at 8:51 am

What has Richard Dawkins got to say about global warming? I've only heard him mention environmentalism breifly.

8. Ted Haggard Is Completely Heterosexual

Comment #39913 by Laurence Winch-Furness on May 12, 2007 at 9:15 am

Did Dawkins have anything to say about Ted Haggard's outing? I'd be quite interested to know just how much shadenfreude he felt!

9. World's most prominent atheist takes on the Biblical God (and other topics)

Comment #39599 by Laurence Winch-Furness on May 11, 2007 at 9:06 am

I gave up after 5 minuites, these people are nauseating beyond belief. (pun unintended)

10. Lou Dobbs w/ Hitchens on Al Sharpton's Bigoted Remark

Comment #39526 by Laurence Winch-Furness on May 11, 2007 at 4:06 am

"Oh this is the height of irony. One delusional person calling another delusional person , delusional." It's a case of the celestial teapot calling the kettle fictious.

11. Disney daughter calls Muslim Mickey evil

Comment #39197 by Laurence Winch-Furness on May 10, 2007 at 6:47 am

"Only one in a milion people has the evil gene. Hitler had it. Walt Disney had it. And Freddy Quimby has it"-Dr Hibert.

Never trust the political credentials of a seven foot screeching cretinous rodent.

12. More on the Atheism Front

Comment #39191 by Laurence Winch-Furness on May 10, 2007 at 6:42 am

The nightline debate was amzing, the way those smug retards just crumbeled under Brain Sapient's arguments.

13. Hitchens, Sharpton and Faith

Comment #38796 by Laurence Winch-Furness on May 9, 2007 at 7:55 am

Mr. Hitchens: "Are they separable?"

Mr. Sharpton: "Yes, very much so."

Actually, id have to agree with Sharpton here. We have grown so used to the religion of our cultural backround being the sole representative of belief in god, we often forget that to disprove religion is only half the task of atheists, the other half is to disprove the existence of god itself. However, theists are the worst culprits at not seperating the two concepts. I sometimes feel sorry for the deists, they may be wrong, but they hardly get a look in durring most theological debates!

14. Massive explosion is brightest-ever supernova

Comment #38556 by Laurence Winch-Furness on May 8, 2007 at 3:45 pm

Arrrgghh! It's a portent of the impending rapture!!! Oh wait, no it isn't. Same time next year then guys?

15. The kiss that brought immorality debate to a head

Comment #37598 by Laurence Winch-Furness on May 5, 2007 at 10:13 am

Ahmedinajad is not a fundementalist, he's a machievellian pragmatist who feigns religious extremism in order to gain support. If the Iranians get rid of him, which seems likely as he's fucked up the economy, I'd be woried about any reformsit sucessor being overthrown by the revolutionary guard. imagine the Ahatollah with the bomb. (shudders)

16. Just 120 Trillion Miles From Home

Comment #36168 by Laurence Winch-Furness on April 30, 2007 at 11:55 am

"It bugs me that astronomers constantly blow smoke at the public about the colonization of space. Here is why humans will NEVER set foot on another planet:
1) No propulsion system will ever get a spacecraft large enough to carry humans close to the speed of light. Mass increases to infinity as it approaches the speed of light thus it takes infinite energy to accelerate it.
2) If we COULD send astronauts to the closest Earth-like planet at near light speed (we can't), they would be long dead before they arrive (20 light years!).
3) Radiation destroys cells quickly in space. The longer you're there, the quicker you screw up your DNA. Worse are the effects of zero gravity on human physiology--your entire musculature atrophies VERY quickly. Just look at Russian cosmonauts who return in wheelchairs after 1 year in space.

Colonization is bullshit and always will be. Astronmers need to learn more biology. It also bugs me that Earthlings seem to conclude that Earth-bound problems will be solved when we colonize other places--no, they won't. We will simply export our prejudice, greed, lust, and other failings to the new place."

Erm, artificial gravity, radiation sheilding, suspended animation anyone? While such technologies remain in the relm of science fiction at the moment, they are within our technological grasp. There's also a fair few technologies that could potentially acelerate a spacecraft to a perceptible fraction of the speed of light, as I aluded to above.

17. Just 120 Trillion Miles From Home

Comment #36121 by Laurence Winch-Furness on April 30, 2007 at 8:29 am

I have my own idea for how to get there, based on one of the designs outlined in Cosmos:

The spacecraft looks like a giant umbrella. Effectvely, a huge curved dish is used to focus the particles of solar wind into a tank. The craft is placed at the larange point of Mercury, until it has filled it's "fuel tank." When ready, the charged particles are slowly released into the path of a high powered laser, or some other method of particle aceleration, which aclelerates them down a long ionised tube (ionised to the same charge as the particles so as to repel them away from the walls) the charged particles should reach near light speed and push the craft along, gradually building up speed to eventually reach a perceptible fraction of light speed. To slow down, the craft can turn itself around, and collect more particles from the solar wind of Glise itself. (It would probably have to compleate several eliptical orbits before braking sufficiently)

18. New Noah's Ark ready to sail

Comment #35920 by Laurence Winch-Furness on April 29, 2007 at 10:19 am

were there any woodworms on the Ark? That would have been funny: "Right, now have we got all the insects? And the woodworms? Yes? Oh good, now.... ahhh, shit...

19. New Primate Species Found In 42 Million-year-old Texas Fossils

Comment #32158 by Laurence Winch-Furness on April 16, 2007 at 2:54 am

This fossil is a tool of statan and should be burnt!!! :-) Seriously though, I'm suprised palentologists still manage to work in Texas.

20. Atheist Apostle

Comment #24536 by Laurence Winch-Furness on March 7, 2007 at 6:19 am

To anyone who tries to insinuate that Stalin or Mao etc were bloodthirsty because of their atheism, consider this. Stalin, educated by orthodox preists, and trained to become a monk. Mao was influenced heavily by confuscianism. Pol Pot was trained as a buddhist monk, and even invoked the buddhist doctrine of renouncing atachment when defining his moral codes. All these people were indoctrinated by religion, and yet this did not turn them into good people.

Incidentally, the next person to insinuate that hitler was an atheist in my presence will get punched in the spleen.

21. Pope is warned of a green Antichrist

Comment #24014 by Laurence Winch-Furness on March 4, 2007 at 7:21 am

"Well green was always thought to be a somewhat Devilish colour. Look at Sir Gawain and the green Knight or the Green Man or Robin Goodfellow. All dress in green and were mischievous spirits. I would not be suprised if the Devil did wear green."

I shall take great pains to wear more green then. A relatively moderate christian freind of mine jokingly remarked that I might be the antichrist, as people are generally at their most spiritual at my age, and I am already even more enthusiastically atheist than Dawkins. Funnily enough green and black are my two favorite colours.

Interestingly, one of my science teachers told me that the idea of green being an unlucky colour came from the habit of leaving flowers by the bedsides of the sick. At night, when the plants stoped photosynthesising, they used up some of the oxygen in the room, thus increasing the chance of the patient dying.

22. William Crawley meets Richard Dawkins

Comment #23681 by Laurence Winch-Furness on March 2, 2007 at 3:44 am

"You imediatly face the problem of where the knob twiddler comes from". Good point, but a bit of a double entendre. I nearly collapsed laughing!

23. Evolution Sunday

Comment #21881 by Laurence Winch-Furness on February 11, 2007 at 11:35 am

Of course its daft for christians to support evolution, since it is inconsistent with their beliefs and therfore ilogical. However, belief in a god, especially a religious (rather than a deistic one) is ilogical, so both the creationist and Darwinist christians are being illogical. I for one would sooner have the later brand of illogic, if were going toh ave to put up with one at all. (and it seems likely that we will.)

24. Give us back our bones, pagans tell museums

Comment #20745 by Laurence Winch-Furness on February 6, 2007 at 9:00 am

"Drown witches". Or in this instance, "Practice witchcraft" might be more apropriate. (I know a few members and ex-members of the neo-pagan Wicca sect, and they describe themselves as witches)

Can't the museums just compleatly ignore these loonies?