1. Jerry Falwell's Hit Parade

Comment #42097 by tomjlawson on May 17, 2007 at 3:43 pm

Terrorist comes from the French terroriste which was ascribed to French Revolutionaries for their use of terror to spread democracy and equality...

...so, I guess that does not describe Mohammed in the least!

2. The Creation Museum: Prepare to believe

Comment #41225 by tomjlawson on May 15, 2007 at 4:41 pm

Wow. Disregarding the stooge in the foreground, this picture is awesome...

http://www.alrcnewskitchen.com/creationmuseum/graphics/looy2_web.jpg

Anyone else wondering why those blood-thirsty dinosaurs are leaving that lady alone? They appear to be looking for a salad bar, maybe?

3. Facing Off on Evolution

Comment #41199 by tomjlawson on May 15, 2007 at 3:57 pm

I would have loved to have seen Brian reach behind his chair and grab a Tiktaalik roseae fossil. What would they have to say about an animal that resembles a crocodile but has scales and fins? I think Kirk might have called it a Crocashit, no?

I like Kirk's defense..."As I understand it..." as if it's okay for him to do all of his research on evolution at the Discovery Institute and never set foot in a real museum. Maybe he thinks that he'll burst into flame if he goes in, like we non-believers joke when we enter churches. (My skin doesn't burn, but it definitely crawls...)

4. Kirk Cameron Proves That God Exists

Comment #39925 by tomjlawson on May 12, 2007 at 10:05 am

Zaphod says:

Troy Patterson from Slate I am sick of telling people this but I will tell you "Agnosticism is not an alternative to atheism". You can be an agnostic atheist. No atheist I know says he/she can prove 100% that god doesn't exist. That said I am as agnostic about god as I am agnostic about the FSM or The fabled pink unicorn. Agnosticism just means without knowledge.

The ambiguity of this term is detrimental to the eradication of pseudoscience and irrationality. Agnosis means "without knowledge," agnosticism means "without belief in the supernatural."

Atheism does not say what you think about ghosts, ESP, psychokinesis, The Secret, Bigfoot, etc. You might think it encapsulates how you feel, but it does not. Atheism is strictly limited to theism, and the fact that theism falls into the category of the supernatural it seems a little redundant to say that you are an agnostic atheist - it's like saying you're a religious bible-thumper. AND, no theist can be agnostic because that would be like a biology student not accepting the theory of evolution. Please reference the ancient Gnostics and you will find that Gnosticism is "knowing that all matter is evil and only through spiritual truth can one be saved." This means any spiritual truth. Just put your faith in the insoluble and you will be fine.

Religion is not going anywhere anytime soon, but someone somewhere will continue to spot Bigfoot or claim they're psychic if we don't fight the fights we can win, i.e., disprove, otherwise we'll live in a world full of ghosthunting atheists, Feng Shui atheists, psychic atheists, alien-abducted atheists, karmic atheists, atheistic astrologers, etcetera, etcetera...

5. More on the Atheism Front

Comment #39350 by tomjlawson on May 10, 2007 at 11:46 am

Their debate back in 1960...

Hitchens: Is not.

Wilson: Is so.

Hitchens: No way.

Wilson: Yes way.

Hitchens: I see this is getting us nowhere.

Wilson: I see a loser.

Hitchens: I see a turd.

Wilson: YOU are!

Hitchens: YOU are, triple stamped with infinity!

Wilson: Darn. Well, my Dad can beat up your Dad!

Hitchens: Oh yeah? Bring your Dad here tomorrow!

The next day...

Hitchens: Where is your Dad?

Wilson: He had to go to work today. He's not coming.

Hitchens: Do you even have a Dad?

Wilson: Yeah! He's at work!

Hitchens: I don't believe you.

Wilson: He dropped me off! He bought me these shoes! He gave me this scar! Anyway, where's YOUR Dad?

Hitchens: I don't have one.

Wilson: You have to have one.

Hitchens: Perhaps, but I don't. I'm better off without one, I tell you.

Wilson: Well, I don't trust people that don't have a Dad. People without Dads grow up without morals or discipline, and perhaps they turn out gay.

Hitchens: Do you want a knuckle sandwich?

Wilson: I'm just saying!

Hitchens: So your Dad's not coming?

Wilson: No.

Hitchens: Huh. Interesting.

Wilson: But he's real! I can bring a picture of him!

Hitchens: That won't convince me.

Wilson: Then you just have to believe me.

Hitchens: That isn't going to happen.

Wilson: Well, he's real.

Hitchens: Fine. It doesn't matter to me.

Wilson: You should care. He can help you with your homework. He can play catch with you. Everyone needs a Dad.

Hitchens: Not everyone.

Wilson: You have to believe me!

Hitchens: Why is that so important to you?

Wilson: I don't know. I guess I'm not sure if having a Dad is all that great. He works a lot! I hardly ever see him, and when I do see him he usually gets mad at me and hits me. But he did put my bike together for me!

Hitchens: So you think that if I believe Dads are great then perhaps you won't doubt it.

Wilson: Yes.

Hitchens: Well, NOT having a Dad is quite nice. I have no scars, I learned how to build my bike myself, I walk to school every day and listen to the birds singing, if I have trouble with the homework I ask the teacher for help. When I want to play catch I call a friend.

Wilson: Who punishes you when you're bad?

Hitchens: Well, I try hard not to get into trouble, but if I do I get a detention from the principal.

Wilson: Detentions last for thirty minutes! What kind of punishment is that?

Hitchens: You're right, I'd rather carry a scar for the rest of my life.

Wilson: Well, I love my Dad.

Hitchens: I'm happy for you.

Wilson: So you believe I have a Dad?

Hitchens: Of course not. But I'm glad that you're happy with your situation. Rest assured, I'm quite happy with mine. Don't worry about me.

Wilson: My Dad is real.

Hitchens: Want to go on the swings?

Wilson: My Mom says I might get hurt.

Hitchens: Okay, want to play hide-and-seek?

Wilson: Sure!

Hitchens: All right. Go hide and I'll find you.

Wilson runs off to hide.

Hitchens: Sod.

Hitchens runs off to the swings.

THE END

6. Hitchens, Sharpton and Faith

Comment #38910 by tomjlawson on May 9, 2007 at 1:03 pm

Agreed, yeahok.

For which faith is the Reverend being revered? He obviously has invented his own religion that does not have God dictating to some sap in the desert...otherwise HItchens arguments are spot on.

But that is the Sharpton Shield - if his God has no texts then Hitchens cannot touch him. THIS is a personal formula for delusion with collusion.

7. Lou Dobbs Interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #37434 by tomjlawson on May 4, 2007 at 12:50 pm

Liveliest Crib says:

True enough, but a couple things: (1) I'm not sure it's right to say that the immigration laws we have now are the laws the founders established (though that's an insignificant quibble; and (2) Dobbs is also on record saying that once immigrants do arrive here legally, they should not celebrate the culture of their origin. We as Americans, he contends, should only be celebrating our unity as Americans, and not pay any public homage to our diversity.

Yeah, Dobbs is kind of stuck in the 18th century in his "melting pot" mentality. (The founding fathers were pretty pissed at Britain and all new arrivals had to renounce their British citizenship.) There is still an old U.S. law that says all immigrants need to renounce their former citizenships and become true Americans, which is why there is a rumour that dual-citizenship is illegal for Americans. I live in Canada now - a proud "tossed salad" rather than a "melting pot" - and the U.S. embassy here says that if I want to be a Canadian citizen I have to give up my U.S. citizenship. It's that black-or-white mentality of "either you are or you're not." This is why Arnold Schwarzenegger cannot run for the presidency. Arnold could give the finger to Austria and the States still would not trust his loyalty to them. Old laws die hard in the Excited States of America...

8. Lou Dobbs Interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #37412 by tomjlawson on May 4, 2007 at 12:06 pm

phil rimmer says:

Wow, an intelligent responce from the mainstream American media. Fair brought a tear to me eye.

Lou Dobbs? Who he? Is this response unexpected? I'd be grateful if someone from the US could explain to an ignorant limey.

Dobbs loves the founding fathers and every document they wrote. He has taken a bit of flack for being so adamantly opposed to illegal aliens that are in the States - about 12 million foreigners live there illegally, mostly Mexicans. He is NOT anti-immigration, he is for LEGAL immigration. This misconception leads people to think he's racist and closed-minded when in actuality he just wants people to respect the laws that the founding fathers laid down for his country. He knows that the problem with religion is the same problem Americans have with patriotism, and that is the plain fact that moderately religious people have not read the bible and your average patriots have not read the constitution...

9. Your favorite book in the last 25 years?

Comment #37230 by tomjlawson on May 3, 2007 at 7:21 pm

"Why People Believe Weird Things" - Michael Shermer

10. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #36550 by tomjlawson on May 1, 2007 at 2:02 pm

"Comfort" is the key word. When you want to take something dangerous away from somebody they cry, "It comforts me!"

Where else do we hear statements like this?

Oh, yeah, the National Rifle Association. Every NRA member has a gun for one reason: to protect themselves from the imaginary. They think that all minorities want to steal their stuff, that homosexuals and pedophiles want their kids, and that sex addicts want to rape their wives. Scary thoughts, but those are the moderate gun owners that live in the suburbs! The fundie gun owners are in militias waiting around for the great race war to start so they can defend white power.

There are plenty of safer ways to find comfort. Personally, I like to eat junk food.

11. 'god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything' by Christopher Hitchens

Comment #36262 by tomjlawson on April 30, 2007 at 5:10 pm

What Hitchens and the rest are doing is telling the children that their blankies are dirty and full of holes, that it's time to throw the blankies away, but rather than providing a new blankie they digress about how bad their dirty, ratty blankies are for them. How does this help?

Face it, most people are not ill-informed or misinformed, they're frightened children, so although Hitchens may scoop up a few of the converts that Harris and Dawkins missed there will be plenty of scared kids with death-grips on their blankies. Defeat their fears and they might let go...

When "Lose Your Fears in 7 Days" hits the bookshelves then we might see a major change, but until then it's just spitting in the rain.

12. Was Muhammad Epileptic?

Comment #35170 by tomjlawson on April 26, 2007 at 1:17 pm

Where is today's "Baghdad" of scientific and social progress? Geneva? New York? London? Wherever it is, it is not safe from another religious "un-smart" bomb.

13. Dinesh D'Souza says I don't exist: an atheist at Virginia Tech

Comment #33524 by tomjlawson on April 20, 2007 at 1:39 pm

denoir said:

I'm not talking about what somebody else should do to console a grieving person. I'm talking about what the grieving person chooses to do to cope with the loss.

No one knows how to cope with a loss by themselves. That is why there are grief counselors. Do you think that priests don't need to talk to someone else about a death because they have it all figured out?

Grief counselors are excellent at what they do and most do not fill the bereaved person's head with "comforting" words of their loved one's afterlife. There are many books on bereavement and coping with the five stages of death. My wife is a funeral director and we have a book entitled "Funerals without God" by Jane Wynne Willson, and it is filled with hope and treasures that religious people may never uncover. Here is a sample, a quote given for the death of young people by Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn:


"Some people are bound to die young. By dying young a person stays young forever in people's memory. If he burns brightly before he dies, his light shines for all time."


This is a true statement. Not a fantasy. No wings and halo required for this vision. After which the officiant might say that the person's death was not a blessing, nor a test of faith. To focus on the death blinds you from celebrating the short life lived. The deaths may have been meaningless, but the lives were not.


Then there should be a moment of silence, not for prayer, but instead that everyone might "select a special, happy memory of that person" as they knew them and would like to go on remembering them. This might sound familiar to religious people, and they might think they invented it, but religion has nothing to do with it. Anytime religion gets mixed in, the spotlight moves from the deceased to those they left behind or to Jesus or to God. Either it's a reminder to repent, or a test of faith, or the work of the devil. No, we humans are not so helpless.


This is the work of a mental-defective that could have been avoided, and that is something that no one on that campus wants to be responsible for, so let's either apologise profusely to God or blame Satan because humans are just not powerful enough to stop something like this.


Give me a break. People will even stoop low enough to say that he was mentally ill and completely incapable of changing. Cho was at the mercy of three things: his mind, his Lord, and the people around him - and all us non-believers know how much the Lord helped him, don't we? What's left?

His mind. If Cho had been speaking to a human counselor instead of his version of God our world might be 33 people richer. Now what's left?

The people around him. Oh, but there was nothing they could do. Some students may say that they tried to get him to open up, but did they really? Are they telling themselves that because they kind of acknowledged his existence by asking him for a pencil? Well, that doesn't cut it. This kid thought he was alone, and that may not be the case, but he easily convinced himself that it was, so how does a person convince themselves of that if it's not true? He was alone long enough to make all of those videos and take all of those photos in his dormitory's rec room. Where was everyone? I'm afraid to say that people might have seen him doing that and no one paid any attention. Well, perhaps they muttered "freak" under their breath as they walked by...

14. Dinesh D'Souza says I don't exist: an atheist at Virginia Tech

Comment #33495 by tomjlawson on April 20, 2007 at 11:55 am

Satanburiedfossils:

* Why is it that during a crisis, Xtians conveniently ignore the suspicious absence of the Deity? Unless, of course, there happens to be a positive outcome, in which case the same Xtians claim to be able to clearly discern the Deity's fingerprints!

I was watching CNN from the very beginning, and during the period where they were telling the students to stay inside and away from windows. CNN had a student on the phone and he remarked, "It's cold, windy, and snowy today for a reason. Most people I know won't even come to school today because of this weather. Thank the Lord for this bad weather."

This was well before anyone knew what was actually going to happen, so here is an instance where someone thought God was helping out, but in the end God was busy watching over some team's basketball game or something. I wonder what that kid was telling himself after he found out that 32 people had been slaughtered...

15. Iran Exonerates Six Who Killed in Islam's Name

Comment #33239 by tomjlawson on April 19, 2007 at 4:51 pm

Muslims install new versions of their Windows operating system every couple of years, but they will never update their operating system for how they live, so it's only a matter of time before they become completely obsolete...

I'd like to hear from the moderate Muslims on this one.

16. Sam's Flea!

Comment #32822 by tomjlawson on April 18, 2007 at 10:32 am

Re: thompjs

In regards to Hanna Rosin's quote on the back cover:

"In the interaction between Doug Wilson and Sam Harris, one of them is wrong and one is right. If you can't figure it out after reading this exchange, you never will."
Hanna Rosin
Washington Post staff writer & contributing editor, The Atlantic Monthly

Hanna is saying that only open-minded persons will come to the right conclusion, which excludes those that have not, and will not, budge on their opinions. The Douglas Wilson camp apparently doesn't see that Rosin thinks it's Sam Harris that is right, and that he's obviously winning the argument to boot...

By the by, I tried to hunt down the article they got that quote from and, alas, I could not find it, but I hope it surfaces because it would be quite enlightening.

17. Hey Mom, I'm an Atheist

Comment #30946 by tomjlawson on April 10, 2007 at 12:13 pm

That is definitely a kid that needs a little Proverbs 22 & 23 and perhaps even a little Matthew 15:4...

For those without a bible, it's about beating him with a rod and perhaps having him killed for the hurt he's putting on his poor mother.

But seriously, child abuse anyone? Can we have her locked up? If not, why not?

18. Prophets of the new atheism

Comment #30709 by tomjlawson on April 9, 2007 at 12:48 pm

Mr. Klinghoffer has read "TGD" and Sam Harris's books as thoroughly as he has read the holy bible, i.e., he has heard phrases uttered by friends, has read small summaries in magazines, and he listens to his pastor's opinions and takes them as his own.

THIS is how you read anything you want to either believe in completely or write off wholeheartedly. Mr. Klinghoffer is an ID'er, and ID'ers are known to only read the first few pages of any book...

19. Aids Victims Risk Lives

Comment #29530 by tomjlawson on April 3, 2007 at 9:42 am

Africa is a prime example of what is wrong with religion. The Missionaries do not want a cure discovered, nor do they want people treated. Missionaries want there to be a reason for them to be there, and for them to beg you "for just the price of a cup of coffee a day." This is why they teach Africans abstinence, rather than provide condoms, other birth control, or even safe sex practices!

So sad that Africa has to be the world's largest social experiment, and the main reason to ban religion...

20. The Case for Teaching The Bible

Comment #27784 by tomjlawson on March 26, 2007 at 5:34 pm

Could it be that people are religious because they haven't read their own book? After all, one key method to remain religious is to avoid reading anything contradictory to your beliefs.

I cannot help but remember the atheist debate, sans atheist, on CNN where the reverend said that they should go back to the way it was in the 18th c. by teaching the bible in schools. Well, Reverend, you're getting your wish, but I'm sorry it's not going to be "taught" the way you had hoped.

I see this as a total win-win for both sides, and I hope the atheists in the US and Canada don't fight it because this is the perfect thing - a Trojan horse.

"There is nothing like the faint sound of millions of foreheads being smacked..."

21. God and His Gays

Comment #27599 by tomjlawson on March 25, 2007 at 2:44 pm

DavidJMH says:

"Again, homosexuality is not an acceptable lifestyle; it is a mental sickness, a physical perversion and a social vice...The only upside about homosexuality, is the lack of maturity and cowardliness exhibited by adherents is not passed into the genetic pool."

I'll have you know that mental illness IS passed into offspring and the genetic pool. Manic-depressives have manic-depressive children, schizophrenics can give their children schizophrenia, etctera. Homosexuals rarely get their "illness" from their homosexual parents, so if it isn't a mental illness, what is it? Good try, though...

22. God and His Gays

Comment #27594 by tomjlawson on March 25, 2007 at 2:20 pm

Homosexuality is genetic, as is bi-sexuality. Some animals can spontaneously change sex to accomodate procreation where there is a shortage of partners, and it's safe to assume that the hard-wiring of this trait remains in humans, but that humans have either lost the physical abilities or never had them at all, although hermaphrodites may be a by-product of this earlier ability or a failed mutation to develop it.

Hermaphrodites usually have to choose a sex, then they're given steroids and surgery to complete the process. This does not guarantee that they'll feel completely male or completely female. It's mainly cosmetic. This transformation is more for societal acceptance rather than personal reasons.

It's interesting to note that hermaphrodites are not mentioned in the bible. Hermaphroditism is a gray area, and gray areas are not common in the black and white world of the bible. By this fact, Christians should be okay with physical bi-sexuals, but not okay with someone that feels bi-sexual, for "a man shall not lie with another man." A question for a fundie: If a hermaphrodite "chooses" to be a woman, has surgery to make it so, but cannot reproduce, should she be able to get married and adopt? If the answer is "yes" then the argument against homosexuality is moot, for the physical limitations are not related to sexual attraction. The hermaphrodite could have easily become a man and fallen for a man. If the answer is "no" because the whole thing sounds un-natural, then where does it end? Banning infertile couples from marrying because they cannot reproduce? No, because marriage is between a man and a woman, right?

The true question is why homosexuality is called a sin in the first place. It's not because it makes you feel icky, or that it just doesn't look right. Obviously it is a sin for the sheer reason that it hinders life. For an island with nothing but homosexuals would eventually become uninhabited. God wants fruitfulness and multiplication. But where god has failed, look to science to help that island.

Cloning technology will inevitably make reproduction possible for gay couples, as well as sterile couples. This may be the true reason behind the fundies' opposition to it, besides the fact that it steps on god's foot. If life is no longer halted by the lack of natural reproduction, like it is now with In Vitro Fertilisation, will the sin still exist? Or will it be seen as cheating and un-natural? Children born from IVF and fertility drugs might not think so.

And if the sin of halting life is gone, and you still feel icky, well, that's your problem. I, personally, cannot stand to see someone eat a raw tomato, but I have no reason to stop them. When your literary reason ceases to exist, and you see two men kissing in public, your only option is to celebrate the power of love or find something else to look at.

23. If only gay sex caused global warming

Comment #27216 by tomjlawson on March 23, 2007 at 3:16 pm

Graham,

The main hindrance is superfluity. This superfluity is prolonging the debate, and this debate is pushing a better environment away.

Let's just replace the phrase "climate change" with "evolution." Evolution has a great scientific consensus. Lots of evidence, too. But it's debated every day, and it is denied every day. Some people, most people in the US, are still not convinced of it and probably won't be in my lifetime. If our future depended on people being convinced by scientific evidence, that of which contradicts what they believe, then we would be screwed.

Scientific evidence and consensus means nothing to Joe Public. Joe wants to know how it affects him on a personal level. Joe doesn't care about drowning polar bears. Joe doesn't care if the sea level is going to rise 20 inches and flood a small island in the Pacific. Joe is not scared of the temperature going up 1 or 2 degrees in his lifetime.

Joe wants to know why his son has asthma. Joe moved to the suburbs for the clean air and his son got asthma. Joe wants to know the reason. And he wants to know what a smog alert is, and what do they mean by air quality? And on the air quality map, why is the city of LA green and his small suburb out in the valley orange? Shouldn't it be the other way around? And why do the people on the news say that he shouldn't spend too much time outside today?

Joe thought it was cold outside today. Global warming sounds like a good idea today. It snowed in Malibu this past winter! Joe thought the globe was warming! Hard to know who to believe, so he just shrugs it off. He just wants his family to be safe, which is why he's going back to Iraq next Tuesday. It's not about the oil. It's about spreading freedom. Right? At least that's what Joe keeps telling himself.

24. If only gay sex caused global warming

Comment #27187 by tomjlawson on March 23, 2007 at 12:59 pm

Remember when we thought that the universe revolved around us? Remember when we denied that we could have evolved from lower forms of life? We're special, damn it!

To say that humans are causing such drastic climate change in such a small amount of time is self-condemning and self-congratulatory at the same time. When will the vanity end?

Most people see the earth as a bleeding lump on the ground getting kicked by humans, and some of us instead see her standing tall itching an anthropogenic scratch on her bottom.

But it's better to believe there's something we can do about it. After all, only lowly animals are easily frightened and helpless creatures. Surely we powerful humans have the ability to knock nature out of the driver's seat and steer us in the right direction!

If dogs had the self-awareness that we do I'm sure they would blame GW on their flatulence.

And please tell me how I'm a conservative, SUV-driving, plasma TV-watching glutton being paid by the oil companies because I'm pretty sure I'm a liberal who buys gas once a month and loves the outdoors.

If I had the money I'd be living in a small house with a waterwheel attached to it, solar panels on the roof, and a backyard full of windmills, but I don't, so until then I'll just keep doing what I can to achieve what I really believe we can accomplish: cleaner air, cleaner water, and longer, healthier lives.

If those are the things we're trying to accomplish with this wishful fight against global warming then we need to change the argument because an oil company can easily deny causing a hurricane, or deny things that might happen in fifty years, but what they can't deny is the brown haze that floats above every major city in the world.

Let's start with that and get away from the extinction of polar bears because I know something about people, and that is that they love breathing and really don't give a fig about what happens to polar bears. Don't show a bird caught in an oil spill, but instead show a group of children with asthma.

But sheep aren't herded by telling them where the pen is located, they're herded by throwing stones at them or by having a dog snap at their heels. Is this how far we've come in our million years? That we still have to communicate by throwing stones and barking dogs? Surely we're better than that...

25. Non-believers can be bigoted too

Comment #25632 by tomjlawson on March 14, 2007 at 11:57 am

The fact that the USA was founded as a secular nation, with a few passages to discourage religious affiliation, and has remained as such for over 200 years is quite promising.

Save for a couple of religious slogans and a few scornful laws passed by some states, the majority of the secular foundation has remained intact, and if any damage was to be made it definitely would have been achieved in the last six years by their current administration, Teapot knows they've tried, but so far, so good.

It's good to know that politicians will still say whatever is necessary to get elected, even if it means pretending that they are religious...

26. Top Scientists Warn of Water Shortages and Disease Linked to Global Warming

Comment #25491 by tomjlawson on March 13, 2007 at 5:28 pm

Replying to: misterpost

Sorry I said too much. I'm not saying solar and wind are not good options, but they are hardly the best technologies we can come up with, and if we're pressured to accept them and set up an infrastructure, then we may bankrupt ourselves and miss out on the technology that trumps them...

27. Top Scientists Warn of Water Shortages and Disease Linked to Global Warming

Comment #25447 by tomjlawson on March 13, 2007 at 7:04 am

Solar panels and windmills will do you no good on calm, cloudy days in 2050...

It's seems ironic that our new power solutions should rely on nature when nature is causing us to change. We don't know what the weather will be like in fifty days, let alone fifty years, so why assume that windmills and solar panels are going to be of much use? What if the clouds block the sun for a hundred years? What if we lose the wind for months at a time?

There are better solutions out there, but we're being pushed off the cliff by Kyoto to "change our ways before it's too late."

A religious person's biggest argument to an atheist is, "What if you're wrong?"

What if we're wrong? Let's assume that by 2050 we've corrected our mistakes (burning fossil fuels) and the planet just stays the same or gets worse. A terrible scenario, but a possible one. What then?

By that time we're neck-deep in failing technologies that we hastily invented to correct the mistakes that could have sustained us while we perfected the right technologies.

The jury is still out as to whether CO2 is even linked to global warming, so why is that still the argument for change? And why do we have to change "as soon as possible?"

People may wonder that if we're not causing it, and there's nothing we can do to reverse GW, then why change our ways? That's like a Christian asking an atheist, "If there's no purpose for life then why should we go on living?"

If we're going to change our lifestyles we need to do it for the right reasons, and not before we're ready...

I don't know about you, but I've always liked the idea of cleaner air to breathe and fresher water to drink, even before global warming.

28. Response to Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris

Comment #25004 by tomjlawson on March 9, 2007 at 3:59 pm

That is completely not true! Never seen a dog NOT act like a dog? I have a Pug, a dog, that acts like a cat all the time! He uses his paws to grab toys, he scratches me on occasion, he attacks like a cat, he hisses like a cat, he "cleans" his face with his paws, he sleeps precariously on the back of my sofa, pees like a cat, tries to cover feces with grass and dirt, and hates to be on a leash! I could probably teach him to use a litter box, if I wanted. So there, Shaykh Hamza, there you go! Some animals act like other animals. The human animal is no exception. You got served, dude.

If it walks like a cat, and talks like a cat, it might be a Pug.

29. Falwell says Christians shouldn't focus on global warming

Comment #23948 by tomjlawson on March 3, 2007 at 5:44 pm

Folks, we're at the end of the last ice age, and with the end of an ice age comes ice melt, and unfortunately when we lose such an amount of ice it throws our planet off balance, and the slightest change in our earthly mass is not something to ignore. Pole shift is a very controversial theory (partly because most voices about it are from doomsdayers and psychics, but mainly because it predicts drastic changes in the earth's crust), but I'm referring to merely an imbalance of mass that would cause an earthly tilt leading to fluctuating weather patterns. When the ice age hit it may have caused a pole shift then, and now the poles are shifting back. Scientists have yet to find the natural cause for global warming because Pole Shift Theory was laughed off years ago as pseudoscience, but it's not so laughable anymore:

Science 8 September 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5792, p. 1369

Random Samples
New findings support an old but controversial theory that Earth's poles have on occasion made gigantic shifts in their placement. Such major relocations, known as "true polar wander," are believed to result from changes in weight distribution on a planet's surface, such as those caused by a huge volcanic eruption. This would cause the planet to realign itself in relation to its spin axis, moving the poles.

Evidence that Earth's poles shifted dramatically about 800 million years ago has been found in magnetic rocks in Australia and China. Now, a team led by geologists Adam Maloof of Princeton University and Galen Halverson of Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, have added data from Norwegian rocks. As magnetic mineral grains were deposited or excreted by microbes in the rocks, they aligned themselves with Earth's magnetic field, becoming frozen compasses pointing to an ancient north pole. Maloof and Halverson estimated from a stack of deposits laid down over the course of 20 million years that during that time, the north pole shifted more than 50 degrees--about the distance between Alaska and the equator.

The paper, published in the September-October issue of the Geological Society of America Bulletin, is an "important one," says geologist Rob Van der Voo of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and it will help scientists determine how the continents fit together in the ancient supercontinent Rodinia.

Sorry for all the text, but the link wasn't working.

It's much easier to blame everything on humans, isn't it? Why not, so I will. We may not be responsible for the ice melting in the first place, but we're definitely not helping with our SUVs, our energy dependence, our darn jets and cruise ships. If only we had known. But there are also plenty of other "natural" things going on that don't require our input and may just get us off the hook...

Check out the link below to see what our sun is busy doing:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast15feb_1.htm

30. Falwell says Christians shouldn't focus on global warming

Comment #23784 by tomjlawson on March 2, 2007 at 5:39 pm

Well, the news channels are more than happy to taunt us with the idea of an asteroid hitting the earth all day until we tune in at 11 and find out it's actually a 1% chance, but that's not propaganda that's just selling soap. It's when the person traveling the world with a slide show about the 1% chance just happens to sell asteroid-impact insurance, that is when it is propaganda. Listen, I'm all for changing the sick ways people gorge themselves on non-renewable resources. I already drive a tiny car, I live in a small townhouse, my carbon footprint is well below the average, but telling people that the WTC memorial is going to be under 20 feet of water if you don't unplug power-sucking appliances and drive a hybrid? Come on, that's Bush saying there are WMD in Iraq.

Try as Gore might, he's never going to stretch 7-30 cm into 20 feet! But telling Manhattanites that the water is going to be ankle-deep in a century's time and that they'll have invest in a good pair of galoshes is not going to get them to ditch their gluttonous lifestyles. As it turns out, the inconvenient truth isn't the warming, or the cooling, or the smog, or any of the regional climate fluctuations, it's the lifestyle sacrifices that humans have to make in order to survive, but all of the sheep that Falwell represents are missing the point and look at it like it's a fancy weather report...

The movie poster should not have a power plant spewing a hurricane, that's impersonal, the hurricane should be coming out of the tailpipe of an SUV. Nothing would say it better.

31. Falwell says Christians shouldn't focus on global warming

Comment #23724 by tomjlawson on March 2, 2007 at 8:38 am

Let us not forget that an Inconvenient Truth uses scary propaganda such as Manhattan being underwater in 50 years when in actuality, according to the new IPCC report, Manhattan will be slightly moist in a hundred years time, which won't bother those of us with flying cars and jet packs. Al Gore is an environmental fundamentalist with a well-meaning agenda, and should be busy updating his facts, but the facts just aren't scary enough to sell wind farms and plug-in hybrids, so he will undoubtedly continue to scare the masses into believing whatever he believes to further fund his consulting firm...

...why can't we just want cleaner air for the sake of breathing easier? The inconvenient truth is that people are scared animals, they're scared of car crashes (bigger vehicles calm them) and they're scared of the dark (every light in their house has to be on). People must be cured of their need to suck the resources out of existence, until then we're destined to live in a loop...

32. Preaching the word via satellite: Megachurches branching out

Comment #22022 by tomjlawson on February 12, 2007 at 11:22 am

It sounds like a new way of running scared.

I used to live in a city of 140,000 people and 83 churches, not counting public schools being used as churches on Sundays. Why so many churches? And why are schools being used as churches? Does any religious person realize what is happening? Instead of having one church per faith, there are at least 3 versions of Anglican, or 4 versions of Catholic, and it's not that the churches are running out of room. In fact, most churches right now are in danger of folding because the congregations have been thinned out by having too many churches to choose from! This explains the use of schools, being that the churches do not have enough money to build...churches! Even the Crystal Cathedral in California is $3 million in the hole. That alone should calm the fears that religion is on the rise. Luckily for science and rationalism, religion is dividing itself out of existence. Religion was rising like a wave, but now it's crashing on the beach and receding away.

33. Evolution Sunday

Comment #21876 by tomjlawson on February 11, 2007 at 10:33 am

Learning about evolution in church is like learning how to make stew in a toilet. Sure it can be done, but in the end your stew is going to taste like your last flush.

34. The God Delusion

Comment #21872 by tomjlawson on February 11, 2007 at 10:19 am

I anxiously await the spectacular outcome when "TGD" is published in paperback...

35. Panel discussion on atheism where no atheists are included

Comment #21649 by tomjlawson on February 10, 2007 at 10:25 am

"The meek shall inherit the earth."

It used to mean the Jews, but nowadays...

Merriam-Webster defines "meek" as: "enduring injury with patience and without resentment" and "deficient in spirit or courage."

Deficient in spirit? Who does this sound like people? Make sure you tell all the Christians you know that it looks like atheists are going to inherit the earth. Sad for them, but true. I'm sure someone has realized this before, but I just came to the conclusion today. Anyway, congratulations, everyone!

36. The questions science cannot answer

Comment #21648 by tomjlawson on February 10, 2007 at 10:25 am

"The meek shall inherit the earth."

It used to mean the Jews, but nowadays...

Merriam-Webster defines "meek" as: "enduring injury with patience and without resentment" and "deficient in spirit or courage."

Deficient in spirit? Who does this sound like people? Make sure you tell all the Christians you know that it looks like atheists are going to inherit the earth. Sad for them, but true. I'm sure someone has realized this before, but I just came to the conclusion today. Anyway, congratulations, everyone!

37. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #21485 by tomjlawson on February 9, 2007 at 12:15 pm

Which is it, Mr. Sullivan?

"My acceptance of God's existence - of a force beyond everything and the source of everything - goes so far back in my consciousness and memory that I can neither recall "finding" this faith nor being taught it."

"I have lived with the voice of Jesus read to me, read by me, and spoken all around me my entire life - and I heard it that day."

Either he found his way to spiritualism by the power of Jesus or he was systematically indoctrinated. The contradiction is blatantly obvious in his essay. Did Mr. Sullivan have an epiphany, or was it the tornado of dogma he was surrounded by as a child? The former is nonsense and the latter is the truth, but it's the nonsense that Mr. Sullivan really wants to believe...

38. Interview with Alister McGrath, author of 'The Dawkins Delusion?'

Comment #20854 by tomjlawson on February 6, 2007 at 7:53 pm

Find me a violent act that inevitably doesn't come back to religion and I will find you on a different planet. Even the genocides of Darfur were religiously motivated because although it was Arab muslims killing African muslims the Arabs read the racial preference of Arabs in the Qu'ran. If religion is removed from the equation all violent acts fall apart. The biggest argument is that Hitler used eugenics and atheism to justify his exterminations. If there were no Judaism, what reason would Hitler have to murder 6 million of his citizens? Try six degrees of separation with every historical atrocity and I bet you it leads back to a religious idea, and most of them will not need all six degrees.

39. Believing In Things Unseen Is Not Delusion

Comment #20758 by tomjlawson on February 6, 2007 at 9:55 am

I love the history argument. My American mother's best argument is, "How do you know George Washington existed? Did you know him? Have you seen him?", in which I would reply, "Well, there is tons of evidence of his existence, from documents he's written, an historical consensus, the country you're living in, his decaying body in his grave." I usually wouldn't get past the word "evidence" before she would walk away shaking her head. That word seems to be Kryptonite to religious people.

40. Root of All Evil? Discussion

Comment #20435 by tomjlawson on February 2, 2007 at 11:42 am

What I would have liked to have heard was a scenario where all religious texts are eradicated around 1000 CE creating a separate timeline where humans are left with nothing but their well-evolved wits about them, and where no atrocities occurred based on religious ideologies, i.e., the Inquisition, the Crusades, witch trials, infanticides, genocides, racism, slavery, sexism, hate crimes, beheadings, stonings, civil wars, 9/11, familial an societal ostracisms, and on and on and on. Not that we humans have been good little boys and girls, for we've killed over the pettiest of things (one merely has to watch the evening news), but at least those abominations above would not be in the history books.

Religion is an addiction, like cigarettes. Smokers know it is bad for them yet they do it anyway. They are inducted while in their youth and by the time they notice the effects it is having on them they are lost in the quagmire of addiction. But it makes them feel good. It comforts them when they are stressed. Where have we heard this before? There is a Judgement Day, my friends, but it is a single day in every religious person's life where they realize their "error in judgement," and when the days are complete we will all live in peace and harmony. THAT is my idea of heaven on earth. Of course, we'll keep the police around because nobody's perfect.

41. What a Friend We Have in Dawkins

Comment #20311 by tomjlawson on February 1, 2007 at 5:21 pm

Who on earth could have known that the "holy war" was actually going to be a war against religion rather than a war for it?

But let's not attempt to convince ourselves that we atheists are actually going to mobilize and eradicate irrational thinking from the planet. Unfortunately, it's going to have to come about like everything else...by evolution. Perhaps some of the extinct hominids were fundamentalist worshippers of the God of Oxygen and lived by breathing alone...that is, until they all died from starvation. But we all know that isn't true, or do we?

Why do we atheists care so much what happens to our religious neighbours? I thought we were cold-blooded, immoral, murderous, blaspheming infidels? Little do they know that while they're trying to save us from a fictional afterlife of hellfire we're busy trying to save them from a real life of wasted time. If only they knew...

42. Just 'Evolution in Action'

Comment #20263 by tomjlawson on February 1, 2007 at 10:35 am

This was the stance that the Family Research Council had one year ago...

"However, we also recognize that HPV infection can result from sexual abuse or assault, and that a person may marry someone still carrying the virus. These provide strong reasons why even someone practicing abstinence and fidelity may benefit from HPV vaccines." - Moira Gaul, Policy Analyst for the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.

Source: http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=LH06B03

Are they really against it, or is there an agenda to make the social conservatives look like idiots? Have they changed their minds? Perhaps they are merely wishy-washy because they are both for the vaccine as well as against it, just like they are for condom-use, but don't want them handed out to their teens. Sounds like the zealots just being zealots, and the innocent children of these people may suffer for it, but unfortunately child abuse is protected by religion because it's condoned in the scriptures...