1. Cheap plaster saint

Comment #289029 by bendigeidfran on November 23, 2008 at 5:02 am

They can replace it with any number of genuine Catholic relics from the medieval torture museums of the world.

2. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians

Comment #287974 by bendigeidfran on November 21, 2008 at 4:19 am

Own up, Laurie. Your avatar reveals a masterplan for a hair transplant match. You'll be a golden god like Robert Plant.

3. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians

Comment #287960 by bendigeidfran on November 21, 2008 at 3:43 am

I've just this minute thought of some further advice. If you hear some curious sloshing noises, don't just stay playing on the internet - it could be the washing machine flooding the kitchen. And for last week:- Always answer the door promptly to firemen as you may have set fire to the chimney without noticing.

4. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians

Comment #287941 by bendigeidfran on November 21, 2008 at 2:51 am

Also, it's not winning that matters, it's how you play the game....like Laurie's team in 1981 cricket world cup vs NZ.

5. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians

Comment #287926 by bendigeidfran on November 21, 2008 at 1:43 am

Ty90 - Just bum around for 20 years and there should be fewer options to worry about.

6. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians

Comment #287924 by bendigeidfran on November 21, 2008 at 1:39 am

The alien/theology problem was solved in may by the 'pope's astronomer' Jose Gabriel Funes. The aliens would be 'our brothers' and 'children of God as much as humans are'.

He goes on to say 'The Bible is not a book of science...it's a love letter written by God to his peple in the language of two or three thousand years ago'.

7. Single-Celled Giant Upends Early Evolution

Comment #287919 by bendigeidfran on November 21, 2008 at 1:13 am

Sounds huge to me. What is the next biggest known single cell'

8. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #285310 by bendigeidfran on November 17, 2008 at 2:23 am

I agreed with each post in turn. What a pisser being a dummy.

9. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #284857 by bendigeidfran on November 16, 2008 at 1:24 am

Why did I say volunteers' I forgot for a moment that atheism is a religion. We can do it to babies if we wear silly hats.

10. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #284852 by bendigeidfran on November 16, 2008 at 1:07 am

Perhaps Steve is right and we should ditch the A word and all those T-shirts. Volunteers could instead 'come out' with transgenic luminous penises that would be an ideal conversation starter re common descent, and handy also for nocturnal hitchhiking, and finding the toilet in the dark etc.

11. Church Preaches The Music Of Beethoven

Comment #284845 by bendigeidfran on November 16, 2008 at 12:28 am

Who is touring heaven right now' I think Elvis made it by saying 'Lord have mercy' a lot. However most of the other rock stars must be elsewhere. My guess is Elvis on vocals, mother Theresa on lead guitar, Diana, queen of hearts on tambourine and Queen mum on bongoes.

12. Astronomers capture first images of newly discovered solar system

Comment #283921 by bendigeidfran on November 14, 2008 at 2:39 am

They'll get 'Dr. Who' in a century. I wonder if they'll fall for the 'TV detector vans operate in your area' line.

13. Does Religion Make You Nice?

Comment #280858 by bendigeidfran on November 8, 2008 at 3:10 pm

Can't find that quote in my brothers karamazov. Perhaps I don't have the one true book.

14. Unknown 'Structures' Tugging at Universe, Study Says

Comment #280800 by bendigeidfran on November 8, 2008 at 11:24 am

Well we know God's TSP (telepathy service provider) does not permit unlimited downloads.

15. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #280778 by bendigeidfran on November 8, 2008 at 10:23 am

They're both wrong on 'The brothers Karamazov' as noone says 'If there is no god then everything is permitted'.

16. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #280437 by bendigeidfran on November 7, 2008 at 2:08 pm

Is there more to this than meets the eye' I mean my 3 year old pulls the cat's tail so many times and then the cat scratches her. Both seem innately aware of free will/morality/justice without knowledge of any god. Also the punishment is proportional. My daughter says 'sorry cat' yet with religion surely she should kill the cat, and all cats in our town and all their kittens and their kittens' kittens etc.

17. Gay Marriage Outlawed in California

Comment #280237 by bendigeidfran on November 7, 2008 at 8:39 am

Melanie Phillips = Pain implies hell

18. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #280165 by bendigeidfran on November 7, 2008 at 4:20 am

more fire....less firewater! so much better than vs Turek where he almost fell asleep at the end.

19. Hitchens Debates Rabbi Wolpe on God

Comment #280119 by bendigeidfran on November 7, 2008 at 1:58 am

We don't yet know if the universe is fine-tuned. I think Hitchens deals with fine-tuning ok. He does seem to waffle more over morality/free will questions. Perhaps there's more to it than I can see - to me the problems disappear if we consider ourselves evolved biological computers of sorts. Still Hitch is the man with the brain and the friends that know...it's just my spider senses tell me there's a smack-down one-liner somewhere to shut the whining theists up.

20. Swatting attacks on fruit flies and science

Comment #276077 by bendigeidfran on November 1, 2008 at 8:30 am

It is a capital mistake to theorise ahead of the facts! I have left money for the flies in my kitchen for over a week now and they've done absolutely no research at all. I fail to see why we should let these insignificant insects hold us to ransom. I will not be raising the stakes anymore. I've already gone to a fiver and they're still holding out on me. If they do know anything they're not telling me. Waterboard them I say.

21. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #275240 by bendigeidfran on October 31, 2008 at 2:36 am

Black wolf - you did it all wrong. You went at least 3 posts without an internal contradiction and you didn't mention Hitler. Also is your caps lock not working'

22. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #274991 by bendigeidfran on October 30, 2008 at 3:25 pm

He said 'enjoying the suffering of others' etc and then 'irony'. His comic timing was off as he was concentrating on staying awake.

23. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #274957 by bendigeidfran on October 30, 2008 at 2:57 pm

@131 black wolf

God could leave us our free will to firmly decide upon an evil act, but he is uniquely placed as judge and mind-reader to intervene the nanosecond before the evil act is carried out, after the signal has been sent from the brain. Evil could be prevented without compromising free will.

24. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #274889 by bendigeidfran on October 30, 2008 at 1:47 pm

Please expand Steve. Can you go all the way to nothing'

25. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #274865 by bendigeidfran on October 30, 2008 at 1:15 pm

I thought Turek ended up looking scared and bewildered and Hitchens looked like he's been on the elvis presley diet.

26. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #274522 by bendigeidfran on October 30, 2008 at 6:29 am

It was nice of Turek to concede that God is spaceless and timeless i.e. nowhere, never.

Hitchens says he drinks to make other people less boring - he nearly fell asleep towards the end. Did he drink too much or too little'

27. Turek vs. Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist?

Comment #274502 by bendigeidfran on October 30, 2008 at 6:01 am

I thought the bewildered guy did ok considering what he had to work with. He came across as sincere, if befuddled, unlike d'souza or Craig who are clever enough to know they are lying. I think Hitchens is right to go light on the science when anyone can now look it up for themselves, and concentrate on banging home the immorality of religion which is an idea more likely to make someone question their beliefs. 'I am a hypocrite who poisons Christianity' - Turek!

28. Why Children Like to Share

Comment #273754 by bendigeidfran on October 29, 2008 at 8:30 am

I recently re-read Richard's books and was surprised at how much they had improved since I last read them. I am ashamed to say that the constant drip of decades of media misrepresentation must have interfered with my memory.

29. 'Probably' the best atheist bus campaign ever

Comment #271604 by bendigeidfran on October 26, 2008 at 4:52 am

I'd like to see nationwide:- 'If your bishop/whatever lived on the average wage, x lives could be saved' etc.

The money's only just pipped Rowan's salary and he could easily be replaced with a sack of shit with a silly face drawn on it.

30. Countdown: Palin Wants To Help Special Needs Kids By Doing Away With Science

Comment #271200 by bendigeidfran on October 25, 2008 at 11:50 am

Great opportunity for free air time for someone/everyone to point out why fruit fly research is relevant to humans. It must seem incredibly odd to a creationist - what on earth have flies got to do with us' Are we cousins or something'

31. All aboard the atheist bus campaign

Comment #269020 by bendigeidfran on October 22, 2008 at 2:07 pm

Have we had:-

'God answers paraplegic boy's prayer....

...answer:- No!'

32. In conversation with... a computer program

Comment #267037 by bendigeidfran on October 20, 2008 at 6:13 am

Or we can console ourselves that it only 'not-thinks' better than we can think.

33. In conversation with... a computer program

Comment #266669 by bendigeidfran on October 19, 2008 at 2:22 pm

At one point Kasparov insisted some of Deep Blue's moves were being played by people. That should have won some kind of honorary Turin prize. He also lost one game before the computer was out of it's opening book and not 'thinking' at all - outpsyched.

34. In conversation with... a computer program

Comment #266633 by bendigeidfran on October 19, 2008 at 12:58 pm

It's hard to know what we're trying to program. Perhaps we can evolve intelligence in a large enough cyberspace - and hope it bothers to talk to us.

35. In conversation with... a computer program

Comment #266440 by bendigeidfran on October 19, 2008 at 1:48 am

Deep Blue's success was foretold a decade before by a prophet in 'the extended phenotype'. AI is the struggle to get computers to appear stupid in human fashion.

36. From Science Fiction to Science Fact

Comment #266210 by bendigeidfran on October 18, 2008 at 10:54 am

The cytosolic phosphorylation ratio in the mammalian heart is inversely related to body size. I think the respiratory chain fails. Kong might well overheat too.

37. Ricky Gervais and The Archbishop Of Canterbury

Comment #266193 by bendigeidfran on October 18, 2008 at 9:34 am

He lies mellifluously in a soporific tone. That's all the gig requires.

38. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #265661 by bendigeidfran on October 17, 2008 at 7:14 am

Yabber Daabbah Don't.

39. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #265583 by bendigeidfran on October 17, 2008 at 4:08 am

Not only is evolution disproven, my cat has also disowned me, and I'm not allowed to take the neighbour's dog for 'walks' anymore. I suppose I won't be needing the fossilorapide machine now either. £4 trillion out the window.

40. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #265507 by bendigeidfran on October 17, 2008 at 12:09 am

Richard won't debate my cat. What is he afraid of?

41. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #265096 by bendigeidfran on October 16, 2008 at 2:28 am

Well at least he was polite. I think his point was:- 'You can't judge a book by it's content'.

42. [UPDATED] Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation

Comment #264869 by bendigeidfran on October 15, 2008 at 10:39 am

Are we then to assume that the life forms we see today are unchanged, as intended, Allah's best efforts? With magic a child could do better. Perhaps He is a fuckwit.

43. Ricky Gervais and The Archbishop Of Canterbury

Comment #264638 by bendigeidfran on October 15, 2008 at 2:09 am

Laurie - some of the Palin thread makes youtube look good.

Did anyone remake 'It's a wonderful life'? The maid is straight out of Tom & Jerry.

Anyone know where I can see Rowan get a proper grilling? A lovely voice and beatific smile seem to be enough. I'm told Bin Laden has beautiful eyes too. Any studies on people taking more horseshit from beardies?

44. Ricky Gervais and The Archbishop Of Canterbury

Comment #264488 by bendigeidfran on October 14, 2008 at 2:00 pm

He doesn't need 6 minutes with a giggling Gervais and his christ-like forgiveness horseshit, he needs 6 minutes with Hitchens kicking him in the nuts. Metaphorically.

45. Richard Dawkins at Conservative Party Conference 2008

Comment #264480 by bendigeidfran on October 14, 2008 at 1:36 pm

Forward to enslavement by benevolent dictator robot gods.

46. Ricky Gervais and The Archbishop Of Canterbury

Comment #264445 by bendigeidfran on October 14, 2008 at 12:15 pm

That was pointless drivel by two smug self-worshippers. The Church of England has only recently sold it's millions of shares in the arms trade. That must be some disarming smile Rowan's got.

47. Strippers, armadillos inspire Ig Nobel winners

Comment #263701 by bendigeidfran on October 12, 2008 at 2:01 pm

A leather bound, beautifully illustrated, weighty Bible is surely holier than a free hotel version. If it smells old it will be more authentic. A satisfactory thud on closing should drive the sermon home.

48. How can the Earth be so perfectly suited for life by coincidence?

Comment #263638 by bendigeidfran on October 12, 2008 at 6:57 am

Thanks extremophiles...we are returning the favour as quick as we can.

49. How can the Earth be so perfectly suited for life by coincidence?

Comment #263611 by bendigeidfran on October 12, 2008 at 1:40 am

Nowhere on the earth is perfectly suited for life, and no life is perfectly suited for the earth.

50. Science owes its origins to Christianity or Religion

Comment #260244 by bendigeidfran on October 5, 2008 at 1:18 am

The tail is wagging the dog out of existence.