1. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175408 by The Soilworker on May 5, 2008 at 11:03 am

Holocaust denial is just as stupid, if not moreso, than the denial of evolution. In fact, I can understand if fundies can't see that the evidence of evolution is around us but requires more grey matter to process. Holocaust evidence, on the other hand, is definitely tangible and immediate (dont get me wrong, evolution evidence is too). Why don't you pro-Palestine fuckers go the hell away and just admit that you hate Jews and you want to squabble over that chalky, arid shithole for millenia. I'm no Jew sympathizer or anything, but the denial of the Holocaust is simply asinine. All forms of internment camps and forced submission and captivity are terrible - no one is playing favorites. Jews and Palestinians are equally retarded for fighting over a veritable wasteland. Why don't we just stick to the topic at hand which would be the above video/interview and at least leave the squabbling to the forums.

2. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175116 by The Soilworker on May 4, 2008 at 1:14 pm

Pretty run-of-the-mill interview. The sound of trucks backing up in the background is rather obnoxious though...

3. Museums teach society lacking in science literacy

Comment #173115 by The Soilworker on April 30, 2008 at 11:24 am

Though I'm supposed to be working and I'm on the clock when I'm at the zoo, I find myself simply watching the animals for hours upon hours and forgetting that "oh yeah, I'm supposed to be interpreting to the zoo guests." I've been going to Zoo Atlanta since I was 5 and I would've never dreamed in a million years that I would work there! Hooray for our giant pandas and second largest U.S. gorilla collection!

4. Museums teach society lacking in science literacy

Comment #173000 by The Soilworker on April 30, 2008 at 8:21 am

I'm an informal educator! It's fun! I work at Zoo Atlanta. I work alot with the NightCrawler program which is an overnight experience that school groups can participate in - they can spend the night in the zoo! The only downside to my job is having to see all the "religious academies", christian and jew alike, that are a tremendous disservice to the kids. I don't tiptoe around them though, I tell it like it is! Pandas are an excellent example of evolution! Embrace them!

P.S. - Upon seeing a Smilodon (saber-toothed tiger) skull and hearing me talk about it, a kid actually came up to me and told me, "um, we learned that there is no prehistory". Sadness. Disgrace. Religion.

5. Upside-down church sculpture on hit list

Comment #155539 by The Soilworker on April 4, 2008 at 5:31 pm

None of the aforementioned sculptures are anywhere near as scandalous as "The Mexican Who Had Sex Again". The town was torn for months.



I agree with Rod The Farmer's comment at the top - the intent is kinda vague. I mean, I kinda take it as the church BEING the device that roots out evil. I don't think it's iconoclastic ENOUGH for me. How about a church or mosque that's perpetually aflame? Wonderful symbolism to keep the Canadians warm...

6. Beware the Believers

Comment #152369 by The Soilworker on March 30, 2008 at 8:36 pm

It's simply much too clever to come from the ID camp. I enjoy parody and hip-hop and atheists, but I'll be damned if the funniest part aren't the disembodied/juxtaposed heads floating around with all their new-found finery. Hitchens' face was especially hilarious, what with the "I heart booze" sweatband too.

7. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148689 by The Soilworker on March 23, 2008 at 3:46 pm

Calm down, MPhil:

Comparing scientists and Darwinian processes to Nazism and genocide is HARDLY on par with calling a puffed-up security/copyright enforcer a "Gauleiter". To be honest, I had to Wiki it to know what it was. I'm sure it was an analogy to the guard's inflection and "presence" rather than to his intent, which was the low road that EXPELLED took...

8. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148684 by The Soilworker on March 23, 2008 at 3:38 pm

While I AM sorry you had to sit through that schlock film (without PZ with you for good-natured under-your-breath film critique), I would have LOVED to see the look on Mathis' face when you stood up in the audience! Priceless! Oh the knots in his stomach and lumps in his throat! I can't wait to watch this film (and the nonsense it advocates) implode on itself...

9. I suppose it's due ('Expelled' review)

Comment #148604 by The Soilworker on March 23, 2008 at 11:46 am

Please don't misinterpret my original post as anti-semitic, simply that I hate that the showing of random Hitler/Panzer/death camp clips invoke rage and guilt and people completely miss the boat in the fact that genocide and rational thought/reason are complete opposites. When the nutjobs say that science and progress created the technology for such genocide, why not say that the creation of swords, catapults, arbalests, etc. was responsible for crusades and jihads? It is at best a completely fallacious claim and at worst, a dangerous and malicious attempt to dismantle any attempts at true scientific advancement.

10. I suppose it's due ('Expelled' review)

Comment #148601 by The Soilworker on March 23, 2008 at 11:41 am

Ben Stein is a conservative, fundamentalist, narrow-minded Jew who feigns intelligence. So he knows some trivial facts and speaks in a droll monotone - that doesn't give him a shred of veracity. His pathetic attempt at film shows this. I can't even call it a documentary since it hardly documents anything that isn't spliced, misrepresented, duped, or stolen (infringed).

The proposed (imagined) notion that creationists are being discriminated against and are being UNDERfunded is simply asinine. Entire MUSEUMS are constructed to house nothing but lies. Tax breaks and subsidies are handed out to religious organizations like candy, all the while short-changing actual science during which time people like Stein create such schlock.

11. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #145020 by The Soilworker on March 17, 2008 at 7:22 am

"....utter bullshit!"

Um, I just had to hit the DUMP button...



How absurd. It's satellite radio which means people pay good money to hear Dawkins say "bullshit". Brava, Richard. Let them hit the DUMP button a dozen times in any interview. Grrrr. Only in the U.S.S.A.

12. The ethics of mixing science and religion

Comment #142555 by The Soilworker on March 12, 2008 at 6:01 pm

NOT taking money from a blatantly religiously motivated fund (or at least headed by one) is NOT a moral. Fuck that! Take the money - goodness knows that religion owes science WAY more than 1.6 million....

13. Cutting Edge: Baby Bible Bashers

Comment #132777 by The Soilworker on February 25, 2008 at 7:46 am

I think "bashing" takes on its UK meaning here, I wager. Hitchens uses it alot in the sense that to "bash on" means to carry on, to persist, to plow forward, implicating some resistance to the forward progress. Clearly, the babies (and their parents) were meeting different forms of resistance. And rightly so.

14. Richard Dawkins on five of his favorite books

Comment #132168 by The Soilworker on February 24, 2008 at 11:44 am

I would have bet money that some Douglas Adams would've graced the list....

15. Cutting Edge: Baby Bible Bashers

Comment #132159 by The Soilworker on February 24, 2008 at 11:21 am

It really hit home for me because my biological father is just like that guy (the redneck, I mean). He tried to "raise" me in the abhorrent Southern Baptist tradition; thank goodness for visitation rights and the fact that most of my childhood was spent with my socially-liberal, not-very-religious mom. I can pity the young boy but I also realize that it only takes a little seed of doubt to germinate into a blossoming, robust tree of reason. All hope is not lost for kids like him...