1. Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson Debate

Comment #304360 by Ex~ on December 20, 2008 at 8:15 pm

I can't get the video to play.

Can anyone help me out here?

2. Brain quirk makes eyewitnesses less reliable

Comment #298659 by Ex~ on December 8, 2008 at 10:28 am

Meh, it's quite simple, we need a national curriculum for public schools, made up by professionals, not stay-at-home mothers turned into school board members.

As for homeschooling, my girlfriend was homeschooled, and she had a far better education than anyone in my highschool.

3. 'Atheist bus' more like a bandwagon on highway to hell

Comment #293935 by Ex~ on November 30, 2008 at 11:22 am

A response I wrote:

In Mary Kenny's deeply distasteful and horrendously second-rate screed shamelessly printed by the Independent, a publication I would hope screens the quality of its contributors better next time, she spends the whole while telling us all how dreadfully evil atheists are, how they are responsible for all the ills of society, and how they are, excluding the small minority Kenny gives the passing admittance "might" exist, on the whole child abusers, drug addicts, neglectful parents, and, she claims, in a stroke of the greatest irony, "caustically intolerant."

I have never read such a disgustingly intolerant screed since I tried sitting down to "Mein Kampf" a year ago and gave up a few hours later.



It is amusing one brings the subject of Baby P into things, when one may read in the Good Book Mary professes to believe in, the untold slaughter of every firstborn child in Egypt, the stories chockfull of human sacrifice to Jehovah, including the ritual sacrifice of one's only daughter, the incestual abuses commanded by God, the burning alive of woman and child in the womb, and other such untold horrors that any moral being would gasp at and tear apart the book they were written in with the utmost expedience.

Baby P certainly died from the neglect and abuse of his parents (and I'd lay a tener on them being Christians), but if the God of Mary's bible had his way he'd have been offered as a blood sacrifice long before.


Indeed, to have any morality whatsoever, all of us, Christian or not, must reject the thoroughly disgusting abomination that is the Bible, a relic of barbaric ages past that, thanks to secularization, scientific progress, and rational enlightenment, has given way to a rational morality that is nothing more than a progressive removal from the God idea at each step. Christians choose to merely ignore their own Bibles, the only difference with Atheists is that we're honest about it.

4. Atheism, a positive pillar

Comment #286272 by Ex~ on November 18, 2008 at 12:30 pm

>Not when more people would automatically
>disqualify an atheist for the presidency (53%, >according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll) than a gay
>candidate (43%), for example, or a Mormon (24%).

Jesus Fucking Christ, I hate Americans so fucking much. More so because of the 43% figure, though.

5. Church Preaches The Music Of Beethoven

Comment #285493 by Ex~ on November 17, 2008 at 8:50 am

You guys are all heathens, I'm joining the Church of Trevor Wishart.

6. Islamic Theologian's Theory: It's Likely the Prophet Muhammad Never Existed

Comment #285491 by Ex~ on November 17, 2008 at 8:45 am

I'd like to read his book. The reason he gave (that it took a while to put his name on coins) was absurd, I hope he has better than that. I like to think I've seen enough evidence to say pretty squarely that the Prophet Muhammed is the most well documented prophet of the Abrahamic Religions.

7. Does Religion Make You Nice?

Comment #280506 by Ex~ on November 7, 2008 at 4:23 pm

>In The Ten Commandments, she
>approvingly quotes Dostoyevsky:
>"Where there is no God, all is permitted."

Dostoyevsky never said that, nor did he ever write that, nor did his fictional character, the extraordinarily stupid and pig-headed Ivan Karamazov, that Dostoyevsky would roll laugh in the face of anyone who ever quoted for moral advice, ever say that.

Please point to me where that so-called "quote" is from. In all the four times I've read The Borthers Karamazov, I have never seen this so-called "quote".

8. President Obama: Bad News For the New Atheists and Other Fundamentalists

Comment #279086 by Ex~ on November 5, 2008 at 2:21 pm

This article is nonsense.

Obama speaks corageously and powerfully about the need to make America tolerant of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and people "with no faith at all."

Obama is very good news for all atheists.

9. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #278055 by Ex~ on November 4, 2008 at 11:25 am

Just voted after lunch.

No line whatsoever.

GO MEDICAL MARIJUANA AND EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH IN MICHIGAN!

10. Fred Phelps's son is an atheist: Running from hell

Comment #277266 by Ex~ on November 3, 2008 at 9:48 am

The truth will set you free.

11. Swatting attacks on fruit flies and science

Comment #275548 by Ex~ on October 31, 2008 at 9:59 am

Amen. People like Sarah Palin are a plague on this country. Imagine if this contemptible ignorant idiot was put one cancer-ridden 72-year-old's heartbeat away from the presidency.

12. Atheist Bus Campaign Comic

Comment #274797 by Ex~ on October 30, 2008 at 11:34 am

I hate this comic for reminding me of that terrible Joan Osbourne song.

"Just a stranger on a bus"

Now it's going to be stuck in my head. I'm going to have to go all Pi on myself.

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

Comment #274257 by Ex~ on October 29, 2008 at 8:07 pm

Ugh, he keeps on with this nonsense, I just want to refute it again:

"What makes a moral action right in a materialist worldview? By what standard is it right or wrong?"

Well by what standard is "God's nature" right or wrong?

Is it moral because it's God's nature, or is it God's nature because it's moral?

If it's moral because it's God's nature, well then God could have a nature, for instance, that leads him to command the mass genocide of entire civilizations. Obviously that's not moral.

If it's God's nature because it's moral, well then God's nature merely confines itself to the limits of something outside itself. Thus, God's nature is not the ultimate basis of morality.


You see when you get into these objectivist arguments, they trip themselves up in their own fallacious reasoning.

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

Comment #274249 by Ex~ on October 29, 2008 at 7:46 pm

The last part at around 89 minutes was absolutely hilarious.

Hitchens just cooly answers questions and goes off into musing analytical diversions, while Turek rabidly shouts at Hitchens that he's not allowing for morality.


Anyways, I don't think Hitchens sufficiently answered the question (I don't blame him, it's a stupid question), but what was being asked was this (I'll try to directly quote):

"How can there be any morality if it's just your opinion vs mine?"

Well this is silly. We all have innate senses of morality, and we all share the same earth. Naturally there will have to be a collective morality developed. We all seem to agree that murder is wrong, and so our collective morality legislates against murder. Perhaps one person may come along and say "murder is right", well where does that come from? Why does he think that? Well, either its religion, or its insanity. Either way the collective must banish and annihilate him from their collective for violating the moral standard ennacted by the collective.

Naturally, this collective moral consciousness can always be improved upon, with rational thinking towards standards we can all approve and agree upon.


People like Turek imagine some magical universe where nobody agrees on anything moral, while simultaneously saying that "you know morality" and "it's written on your heart". Well yes, I know it, and yes, it's innate, and yes, it's written on all our "hearts", so to speak, but it wasn't written there by God, it was written there by social conditioning and evolution. And the reason we can say "this is wrong" and "this is right" and be saying more than mere opinion, is because we all share that same moral compass embedded within us.

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

Comment #274184 by Ex~ on October 29, 2008 at 5:39 pm

His main argument is perhaps the must repugnant and distasteful argument of all.

He lists all these great mysteries, these great questions, and says "you have to answer all that, and if you can't answer all that convincingly, then theism is more reasonable."

What utter nonsense. It's like you have a canvas, and on one end you have Renoir with his paintbrush and pallet, and he's going away slowly at the canvas filling it up with beautiful art, and then the creationist runs in with his canvas, and he dumps a bucket of paint all over his canvas while yelling "GOD DUNNIT!" and proclaiming himself the winner of the race, and the better painter, because he has his canvas entirely filled and Renoir is taking his time.

It's the most repugnant, infantile, anti-intellectual argument, it's the "God of the gaps" argument. "Hey, look at all these questions I can answer simply by filling in "GOD DUNNIT" on the exam! My worldview wins because I can answer more questions more quickly!

In the end, the theist doesn't answer anything. He scream "Goddunit!" at the top of his lungs, and then, when the good secular scientist discovers how it really happened, and how there's nothing supernatural at all about some particular phenomenon, the theist quickly checks that off his list of GODDUNIT gaps like it never happened, and like it says nothing about the fundamental structure of his argument.

16. Dole Ad Fabricates Audio Of Opponent Yelling 'There Is No God'

Comment #274120 by Ex~ on October 29, 2008 at 4:14 pm

Man, I hope the Dems get their 60. Shit, I hope they get every fucking seat. The Republicans are pathetic, wipe them completely out and start again, keeping in mind what one made the GOP so grand in the first place.

17. Somalia: Rape Victim Executed

Comment #274115 by Ex~ on October 29, 2008 at 4:10 pm

Sick and perverse. God save us all.

18. Premier debates with Dawkins

Comment #272575 by Ex~ on October 27, 2008 at 3:50 pm

@ Comment #2

"Why must there have been some cause to the universe? I ask."

Because we know the Universe had a beginning.

19. If You Open Your Mind Too Much Your Brain Will Fall Out (Take My Wife)

Comment #270776 by Ex~ on October 24, 2008 at 4:03 pm

Well, this is stupid, he's being eminently open minded. He's saying, I'm open, give me an example, and I'll look at it.

The lyrics in this song are preaching open-mindedness.

Personally I think the quote is bullshit, and the first time I saw it (the "your brain will fall out" quote) was on a Church Sign. No surprises there.


Atheists are 100% open-minded.

20. ''Religulous' Is Brilliant, Incendiary

Comment #265783 by Ex~ on October 17, 2008 at 9:37 am

The movie was god-awful. Bill Maher has succeeded in making the ONE thing MORE ridiculous and reprehensible than the Abrahamic religions.

21. Legal case against God dismissed

Comment #265365 by Ex~ on October 16, 2008 at 2:04 pm

@ tvictor


I don't think the court has ever recognized the existence of Santa Claus.

22. Strippers, armadillos inspire Ig Nobel winners

Comment #260488 by Ex~ on October 5, 2008 at 3:35 pm

How exactly would one use Coca-Cola as a contraceptive?

23. New Rules for Sarah Palin and Her Witchdoctor

Comment #260385 by Ex~ on October 5, 2008 at 12:34 pm

I never found Maher that amusing, but lately he's been great. Who knows, I may even see his movie.

24. Earliest reference describes Christ as 'magician'

Comment #258211 by Ex~ on October 1, 2008 at 3:25 pm

This is totally non-news, CHRSTOU could be anyone.

25. Artist Builds Temple of Science

Comment #257123 by Ex~ on September 30, 2008 at 4:49 am

The TED talks hall is my chapel, and TED talks are my sermons.

26. Coming soon: 'In God We Trust' tags

Comment #256356 by Ex~ on September 29, 2008 at 4:52 am

>*Require a minimum sentence of life
>imprisonment for anyone who kills or
>attempts to kill a law-enforcement officer.

Yikes. This will totally not be abused.

27. Hail, ceaseless complexity: Review of 'Reinventing the Sacred'

Comment #256001 by Ex~ on September 28, 2008 at 4:29 pm

>This simplistic, with-us-or-against-us worldview
>is as deficient in subtlety as it is in humor. We know
>what we know because of science, it says. Science
>explains everything. So anything that falls outside that
>explanatory system must be false, illusory, even evil.
>What such defenders of science fail to see is that this
>line of reasoning betrays a dreadful misuse of the
>scientific method.


No, it's called REASON. REASON is our ONLY way of explaining ANYTHING. Anything that falls outside of reason is laughable.

>Science cannot explain why human beings act and feel
>and think in the way they do in specific circumstances

Why the fuck not?

28. Conservative Pastors to Break Law by Endorsing a Candidate

Comment #255825 by Ex~ on September 28, 2008 at 10:37 am

Cool. More tax revenue that should have been collected in the first place.

29. The world according to Hitchens

Comment #255481 by Ex~ on September 27, 2008 at 5:09 pm

Hitchens wants to be called an intellectual?

LOL

That's all I can say about that.

LOL

30. Ministers to Defy I.R.S. by Endorsing Candidates

Comment #254921 by Ex~ on September 26, 2008 at 12:07 pm

If you want to give endorsements, then pay your fucking taxes like every other business. Easy as that.

31. It Takes Just One Village to Save a Species

Comment #254140 by Ex~ on September 25, 2008 at 12:01 pm

@ j.mills

Euthanasia is entirely unnecessary. We just need fewer children.

Unfortunately, our current economic situation simply doesn't work that way. Capitalism must always grow to be sustainable, or it will devolve into brutality division and chaos.

Before we can maintain zero-population-growth rates, we need to do away with Capitalism.

32. More atheists are sharing their views

Comment #254136 by Ex~ on September 25, 2008 at 11:57 am

[quote]Christianity accounts for 78 percent of Americans, compared with 86 percent in 1990.[/quote]

:-D

33. Russian woman put on trial in Dubai for drinking juice in public

Comment #254131 by Ex~ on September 25, 2008 at 11:49 am

lol, Islam. Muslims crack me up, in a sort of "holy shit it's a psychopath with a gun, but he is SOOO fucking backwards and stupid I have to laugh."

34. Pope: Religion has a place in politics

Comment #254127 by Ex~ on September 25, 2008 at 11:48 am

Religion has its place in the history books.

35. Catholic maternity wards 'face closure' if abortion law passes

Comment #253343 by Ex~ on September 24, 2008 at 10:21 am

If they don't want to follow the law, they shouldn't accept government money.

It's a fucking referral, for crying out loud, you're not required to perform any abortions, all you have to do is be reasonable and you get to even keep your government funding.

36. Art teacher made student pray to Jesus for forgiveness

Comment #251147 by Ex~ on September 21, 2008 at 6:18 am

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation?

xD


@ Titiana:

Actually, she didn't force him to pray in front of his peers, she took him outside the classroom. And I don't remember them mentioning that he was PHYSICALLY forced to pray.


While this situation is CERTAINLY worth a firing, I think firing her would probably just make things miserable for the kid. If any of the other kids liked that teacher, or even didn't know her, they'd be pissed off at the atheist kid who got her fired because she exercised her "freedom of religion" (this is how these nutcases "think").

Some hefty, hefty punishment is in order, though. I just don't know what it could be.

37. God, Evolution and Charles Darwin

Comment #249592 by Ex~ on September 18, 2008 at 10:35 am

Clear-thinking undermines religious belief. Darwin just happened to think fairly clearly on certain matters.

38. Eoin Colfer to write sixth Hitchhiker's Guide book

Comment #249589 by Ex~ on September 18, 2008 at 10:30 am

This is Blasphemy.

For it is written: any who will add unto the words of this series, to him I will add the horrors written in this book.

39. YouTube Removes Viral Video on Palin's Churches For Inappropriate Content

Comment #248349 by Ex~ on September 16, 2008 at 4:56 am

Disgusting. I'm boycotting YouTube. Time to close my account and move all my videos to Vimeo or somewhere decent.

40. Religion in America: Why Many Democrats and Europeans Don't Get It

Comment #248007 by Ex~ on September 15, 2008 at 12:34 pm

Answer: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

41. Christian Couple Staying Together For Sake Of God

Comment #246495 by Ex~ on September 12, 2008 at 11:34 am

>Linda said that she and Benjamin plan
>to stay committed to their loveless
>marriage "just until [they] die."

There is enough brilliance in the syntax of this sentence alone to make the article worth reading.

42. Bizarre Anti-Spore Website Takes Issue WIth Stance On Creationism

Comment #244910 by Ex~ on September 9, 2008 at 6:28 pm

This is so obviously satire it doesn't even enter the realm of Poe's law.

43. Ancient trees recorded in mines

Comment #244669 by Ex~ on September 9, 2008 at 9:56 am

Who knew the Noaic Flood could make giant coal mines! Sounds like an exciting discovery for YECs!

@ Schuermannator

Website rules. I found it off Diesel Sweeties.

44. Evolutionists Flock To Darwin-Shaped Wall Stain

Comment #243613 by Ex~ on September 6, 2008 at 12:05 pm

This is brilliant satire.

I actually laughed out loud when Dawkins started speaking in hushed tones about how sacred and important his first-edition of The Origin of Species was to him in his latest documentary. Seriously: Darwin was NOT the first person to come up with evolution, nor natural selection, and he even neglected to publish his material until he realized other people had come to the same independent conclusion as he did.

I understand being a "Darwin bulldog" and all, especially in America where intelligent design runs rampant destroying our nation, but healthy skepticism of even the most brilliant and proven ideas and a bit of humility is important in science, or you just become another irrational faith-based robot like the creationists.

Darwin is awesome, but seriously, calm down on the worshiping, Dawkins et all.

45. Participating In Religion May Make Adolescents From Certain Races More Depressed

Comment #243158 by Ex~ on September 5, 2008 at 8:15 am

>um, religions all seem to
>teach the premarital sex is
>a sin why would the above
>statement affect females
>more than males?

Because its much more looked down upon on females. Go read the Bible, if a woman commits adultery, she's a harlot, if a man commits rape, he's just getting to marry the woman.

46. Participating In Religion May Make Adolescents From Certain Races More Depressed

Comment #243155 by Ex~ on September 5, 2008 at 8:12 am

I think everyone's interpreting this wrong, and the answer seems very obvious:

Who attends church the most? Whites and blacks. They attend churches filled with white people, or churches filled with black people.

If latinos or asian americans want to attend church, they will undoubtedly find themselves in a predominantly white church, or maybe, perchance, a predominantly black church.

It's the attitude of the whites or, perchance, the blacks, towards the asians or latinos that undoubtedly causes this depression.

While if you're white and you go to church, you are accepted and loved and supported, when you are asian or latino in a white church, they see you as different and odd and are increasingly less accepting.

It's as simple as that, I think, and I have witnessed it firsthand.

47. Museum in censorship row over Darwin sign

Comment #240877 by Ex~ on September 1, 2008 at 8:13 am

That is absolutely terrible prose, and a horribly unsatisfactory explanation of evolution.

It should be painted over, and the museum should get some people who can fucking write.

48. Better Know a Lobby - Atheism

Comment #240460 by Ex~ on August 31, 2008 at 1:52 pm

What do you think of the fact that a belief in God has led to some of mankinds most stunning achievements

*she nods*

>>WHAT. WHAT??? This is our secular coalition leader? A belief in God didn't lead to any of those great achievements! Amazing talented artists led to those achievements! HUMANITY led to those achievements!


Well there's [sic] a lot of artists who are not religious.

Name one.

Ehmmm... there's a list that I have in my office.

What a shame,

I'm not remember...

What a shame it's up in your office. Looks like I won.

Was Picasso an atheist?

That's your example?

If you take a visit to the museum of modern art --

The guy didn't know how many tatas to put on a lady's torso. Okay? "Yeah throw one over there throw one over there." I'll tell you one thing, God knows where that stuff goes, 'cause he put it there.

When it comes out right I mean there are people who are born with various other...


>>WHAT THE FUCK? This is our secular coalition leader? Who's defending Picasso's abstract art by claiming he was painting pictures of hermaphrodites or "intersexual" people???

Wow. She severely disappointed me.

Colbert was hilarious, though.

49. God Only SEEMS Nonexistent!

Comment #240348 by Ex~ on August 31, 2008 at 11:30 am

He should have quoted the Psalms:

"The fool says in his heart there is no God"

So, obviously, you'd have to be a fool to think God doesn't exist.

50. Genesis and the origin of the Origin of the species

Comment #239731 by Ex~ on August 30, 2008 at 9:08 am

>What it dealt a death blow to
>was one very poor argument
>for the existence of God, namely
>the argument from design.

I will concede that it is certainly a poor argument for the existence of God, however, that does not mitigate the fact that it was the only accepted argument for the existence of God, the one all the philosophers and theologians relied upon, and the one Anthony Flew was convinced of.