1. Atheist bus ad campaign provokes bitterness in Barcelona

Comment #315028 by sornord on January 8, 2009 at 12:50 am

Can't wait to hear the whining if/when this ever hits the US!

(I still don't know if the Root of All Evil program was ever broadcast there.)

2. What Will Change Everything?

Comment #310775 by sornord on January 2, 2009 at 1:16 am

Artificially generated life-form

Discovery of extra-terrestrial life.

3. The Religious Support Behind Proposition 8

Comment #289028 by sornord on November 23, 2008 at 4:59 am

Florida had the same thing on the ballot but the wording of the proposed state constitution amendment was such that only a husband and wife (i.e. marriage of a man to a woman) would be able to claim joint legal benefits. Too broad. I voted no but the measure passed.

I think that the gay community may be doing itself a disservice and engendering a lot of ill will toward itself by trying to change the definition of "marriage" instead pushing for legally identical "civil unions" (which are already permitted in most states to my knowledge.) It's a hot button issue and strikes me as more an effort to obtain publicity and media coverage than a defined legal status.

4. Cheap plaster saint

Comment #289022 by sornord on November 23, 2008 at 4:39 am

And what is it about Catholics and their statues anyway?

One year while in the US at Xmas time, my mother-in-law kept saying there was going to be an important visitor coming at midnight to spend Xmas eve with us. "Who is it?" I asked, and she said she was going to let it be a surprise but that it was someone famous. She had met and worked with a few local TV people and Washington Redskins football players over the years so I expected someone of that nature.

My wife and I went out to visit other family and as we returned, my mother-in-law said, "she's here!" I go in expecting to see perhaps a local television personality but instead there is this elaborate, three-foot high doll standing on top of the dining room hutch, with a priest and a couple of women standing there going gaa-gaa over the "midnight visitor," (I don't remember who/what it was supposed to be, some saint or other.)

I was inadvertently the Xmas Grinch because I just blurted out, "It's a doll?!?!" You'd have thought I'd flashed Queen Elizabeth or something...

5. Cheap plaster saint

Comment #289019 by sornord on November 23, 2008 at 4:31 am

I got that same Florida Atheist Holiday from my parents, my aunt, mother-in-law, and wife...sheez!

My response to them was that not believing in gods or other supernatural crap to make a day "holy" means atheists don't NEED a holiday...EVERY day is reason to celebrate...then I said they could keep honoring the pagan celebrations that were relabeled as Christian fest days.

6. Marine census discovers more than 200 new species

Comment #282284 by sornord on November 12, 2008 at 12:47 am

Based on some of the comments I read in this and other threads, everyone here on this forum should be reminded from time to time that the GOP has no monopoly on the religious fundies in the US. They can be found in all political groups. Media coverage seems to paint the picture that the typical Dem is a secular, educated person with liberal values. There is a considerable portion of the Democratic bloc that is just as bound up in fundamentalist religion as the Republicans are accused of being.

7. The Retirement of Richard Dawkins: Reflections on a Stewardship

Comment #264553 by sornord on October 14, 2008 at 7:23 pm

Happy retirement professor...please let's hear from you again soon...

I confess I'd never heard of you until a 2005 article in Discover magazine, "Darwin's Rotweiler," but when I read that I had to know more about your writings, TV/Video presentations and have devoured them ever since. You have eloquently stated in "The God Delusion" (video and book) and other items what I have felt in my heart and mind vis a vis science and religion since I was a teenager. It has made me somewhat of a pariah at times in the eyes of my wife, parents and much of my family and friends but I still feel liberated, vindicated, enlightened and yet, as always, full of the awe and majesty from the REAL world because of it. My mind has been expanded.

"sornord"
Stephen Wilson

8. Conservative Pastors to Break Law by Endorsing a Candidate

Comment #255820 by sornord on September 28, 2008 at 10:21 am

Never thought I'd be cheering the IRS...

9. Saudi OKs Killing 'Immoral' TV Execs

Comment #246759 by sornord on September 13, 2008 at 4:05 am

Hmm? Same people that revere a geezer who fucked a 9-year-old think satellite TV is obscene?

10. Knowledge regained

Comment #246757 by sornord on September 13, 2008 at 3:52 am

"Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"

Charlton Heston, Planet of the Apes 1968
Aisha, some tent in a desert 622

11. Knowledge regained

Comment #246227 by sornord on September 12, 2008 at 2:09 am

What's gonna happen when some nutbag cleric or other interprets the evolution explanation, no matter how "gentle," as infidels saying that Mohammad was an ape?

12. 'Climate crisis' needs brain gain

Comment #244509 by sornord on September 9, 2008 at 1:45 am

May not be exactly scientific, but Penn & Teller's "Bullshit" program of this season addresses global warming/climate change raises a few questions that should also be investigated:

A) The "carbon credit" scam: largely unregulated and more of a "voluntary guilt tax"

B) Global temperatures track solar activity versus CO2 levels. The vast majority of CO2 is naturally produced by rotting plants, volcanic activity, etc.

C) Al Gore is a self-promoting hypocrite. His mansion uses more electricity in one month than the average US household uses in a year. Sure, they said, he buys "carbon credits" but since he owns the carbon credit company he buys them from, who's getting the money.

13. Palin's Church May Have Shaped Controversial Worldview

Comment #242398 by sornord on September 3, 2008 at 3:53 pm

Without even thinking about or researching it much, if he wanted a more qualified woman as his running mate, wouldn't Condoleeza Rice have been a more reasonable choice?

14. Palin's Church May Have Shaped Controversial Worldview

Comment #242375 by sornord on September 3, 2008 at 3:29 pm

I haven't even finished watching this and my jaw is dropped. I'm a rarity here - a conservative atheist, who usually voted Republican - and this has me just shaking my head. Granted these remarks may be improvised (giving her the benefit of the doubt when she she said she didn't think she'd make the event) but I'd have hoped that something more like a reasoned, professional presentation would be here instead of this church-camp cheerleader delivery...

This is the sort of stuff that sent me running from church to get away from these sheep!

SW

15. Plan to exhume cardinal is 'homophobic'

Comment #237684 by sornord on August 27, 2008 at 2:04 am

Why the fuss about gays when in their own holy book it says, "They rod and thy staff they comfort me."?

16. 'The Genius of Charles Darwin' DVD (PAL Region 2) Available Now

Comment #233346 by sornord on August 19, 2008 at 7:06 pm

Thank you!

17. Last Night's TV: The Genius of Charles Darwin, Channel 4

Comment #233345 by sornord on August 19, 2008 at 7:02 pm

#3 - my earliest post...well, damn. Almost...

Just watched Ep 3 (courtesy of uTorrent, but will buy when it's out legally! I promise!)

This series is superior to his lectures to kids (from 1991 as I recall, which I also purchased.)

Loved the part where he cracked up at the nutjob emails...

I wonder, however, what an on-camera exchange between Richard and Kenneth Miller would have been like. I've corresponded a couple of times via email with Miller and he seems a very personable fellow. And, contrary to the way he's commonly described, Richard seems the personable fellow too.

Would have been a much more engaging discussion, I think, than the one with Rowan Williams (also seems a likable guy.)

"Sornord"
Stephen Wilson

18. Vicar supports Life of Brian ban

Comment #222861 by sornord on August 1, 2008 at 2:37 am

When I lived in the West Bank/Israel, we watched that film repeatedly to help us laugh at the Israeli/Palestinian idiocy that surrounded us. It poked fun at a lot more than just Jesus!

As an American neighbor there said about the Israelis and Palestinians: "These are two people who deserve each other!"

19. Red hot enlightenment led me to believe in one fewer god

Comment #218172 by sornord on July 25, 2008 at 1:52 am

Americans, never tell an English lass she has a nice fanny.

20. How Anecdotal Evidence Can Undermine Scientific Results

Comment #217143 by sornord on July 24, 2008 at 1:54 am

50: Because celebrity status doesn't guarantee intelligence, or common sense, just public attention.

21. New legal threat to school science in the US

Comment #207579 by sornord on July 10, 2008 at 3:03 am

Teaching ID side-by-side with evolution is a perfect way to educate students about what the scientific method is, the ubiquity of logical fallacies, the nature of human irrationality, and the varieties of magical thinking. Debunking ID is like shooting fish in a barrel, after all.

22. IT'S A GODDAMNED CRACKER!

Comment #206932 by sornord on July 9, 2008 at 1:50 am

So after you swallow the "body of Christ" do you turn Jesus into shit?

23. Saudi Marriage Officiant : 'It Is Allowed To Marry A Girl At The Age Of One'.

Comment #199376 by sornord on June 25, 2008 at 3:55 pm

That is about the most revolting thing I have ever seen in my life...and we are supposed to "respect" the Muslim culture because it "saved classical knowledge" some 1700-odd years ago? What have they done for us lately!!??

Fu**ing bloody primitives! Absolutely disgusting!

24. Scientists confirm that parts of earliest genetic material may have come from the stars

Comment #193309 by sornord on June 15, 2008 at 8:47 am

Carl Sagan said on COSMOS 28 years ago, "We are all made of 'star stuff,'" referring to the fact that all heavier elements are forged in and by stars.

Chemistry works the same everywhere.

25. Storm erupts over 'virginity' divorce

Comment #186757 by sornord on May 31, 2008 at 9:10 am

The relevant issue is the lie. I read of a couple, who were not religious, whose marriage fell apart after the wife revealed to her husband she had slept with about 50 men before him, when previously she had only claimed six. It destroyed his trust in her.

I know finding out something like that from my wife would be a dagger to the heart too...something hard to get over.

26. Sean Carroll on the Today Program

Comment #154264 by sornord on April 3, 2008 at 2:26 am

The Florida education system is also under a similar attack as Louisiana's, using the same "educational freedom" argument I hear is the latest tactic from the Discovery Institute.

SW

27. Beware the Believers

Comment #151652 by sornord on March 29, 2008 at 6:18 am

The RD South Park episode wasn't that good but this one is hilarious. Wonder what the Sam, Eugenie and the others think...

28. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #150334 by sornord on March 26, 2008 at 6:02 pm

Happy Birthday, Dr. Dawkins...listened to your appearance a few weeks ago on the Alan Colmes radio show, where you announced you're retiring this year and in retirement will write more books. I wait with anticipation for them.

Stephen Wilson

29. Full house captivated by atheist Dawkins' take on religion

Comment #142708 by sornord on March 13, 2008 at 3:25 am

I do hope security wherever Richard appears is VERY tight. There are a lot of fundie nutjobs in the US who think he is evil incarnate and might want to take a shot at him.

30. Richard Dawkins' US Tour begins this week

Comment #138150 by sornord on March 4, 2008 at 2:03 am

Too bad he's not going to Florida. There's another ID bruhaha in the Board of Education going on down there. Some state senators in Tallahassee are putting out the "it's just a theory" babble on evolution.

Sometimes I think Homer Simpson is right: Florida is America's wang.

SW

31. Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts

Comment #135454 by sornord on February 29, 2008 at 1:57 am

Let's hope the Islamo-fundies don't start hunting down reformers in Turkey...

32. Whale Evolution

Comment #130984 by sornord on February 21, 2008 at 4:15 pm

That clip is from a 7-part PBS series entitled, naturally, "Evolution". Good series I have watched multiple times, though I bought it on VHS before DVDs were, uh, intelligently designed.

33. U.S.: 'Demonic' militants sent women to bomb markets in Iraq

Comment #120611 by sornord on February 2, 2008 at 5:55 am

And where are the Muslim voices of protest? Or is the all the fault of the Zionist Entity? The Infidel Crusaders? The Great Satan? or any of the other BS labels

Reminds me of the 2005 Boxing Day Tsunami: a disaster impacting large numbers of Muslims and only a pittance of aid from the Muslim world, which includes some of the richest treasuries on the planet.

Just pathetic!

34. Pope says some science shatters human dignity

Comment #120600 by sornord on February 2, 2008 at 5:15 am

I would find it hard to be dignified in that goofy get-up Herr Ratzinger and his predecessors wear. What's with those crazy hats anyway?

35. The New Theology

Comment #113616 by sornord on January 20, 2008 at 7:25 am

All those hoops to jump through to rationalize God?

The pieces fall together nicely if one goes on the premise there is no God in the first place...

36. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #111650 by sornord on January 15, 2008 at 10:06 am

Wow! I'm sure there are many of us frequenting this site that wish we had the wherewithal to live our lives as you have...

Best wishes for speedy recovery and return to the fray...

Stephen Wilson
Florida, USA

37. Let us kill all the teddy bears

Comment #94904 by sornord on December 7, 2007 at 1:38 am

I dropped a healthy sh*te once and proclaimed, "Oh...my god!" so naming your dog Allah seems perfectly acceptable too.

38. Nurses Told to Turn Muslims' Beds to Mecca

Comment #94188 by sornord on December 5, 2007 at 1:37 am

Meaningless rituals = More stupidity...will it never end?

Reminds me of when I was assigned to Medan, Indonesia over 20 years ago. We had a maid, whom I asked if she was Muslim. She replied in pigeon English that she was. I asked if she really prayed to Mecca five times a day and again she said yes. I then asked, "Which way is Mecca?" She said she didn't know so she always bows toward the airport that was near our house.

39. The Year of Living Biblically

Comment #84670 by sornord on November 3, 2007 at 7:04 am

Interesting comment near the end...

Jacobs said he never prayed but doing so as part of this project led him to believe (only during course the project, one hopes.) His comment was about how much behavior influences thought.

To me this demonstrates how prayer is more than just a delusional comfort technique - thumb sucking for adults? - but also a tool by which the delusion is ingrained into and perpetuated by human psychology: the bedrock of the brain washing.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." - Joseph Goebbels

40. The US is a Christian Nation

Comment #82678 by sornord on October 27, 2007 at 7:52 am

The US is not actually a democracy, per se, but a democratic REPUBLIC since elected REPRESENTATIVES legislate in the name of their constituents.

And that will be the whole my career as a civics teacher...

41. Cheney and Obama: It's Not Genetic

Comment #80700 by sornord on October 22, 2007 at 4:58 pm

Perhaps those more knowledgeable in genetics than I am can verify but I recall reading some years ago that at third cousins and beyond a random stranger's DNA will usually show just as much "family relation" to yours...or something like that.

So at the distances discussed here, just about anyone could be related to anyone else?

42. Does fundamentalist religion cause the rejection of evolution? or is it the other way around?

Comment #80303 by sornord on October 21, 2007 at 8:41 am

The fundies' own dogma concerning evolution paints them into a corner: A major fundie principal is that the Bible is literally true. If the facts on the ground prove evolution (for all practical purposes), then the primary fundie principal is shown false and casts doubt on their entire foundation, i.e. the literal truth of the Bible.

Sort of like the iceman's realizing the future won't include him unless he can get refrigerators banned somehow...

43. Scientists Feel Miscast in Film on Life's Origin

Comment #74260 by sornord on September 28, 2007 at 2:02 am

Can the producers be sued? Seems an arguable case for fraud to me.

44. A Virus Among Honeybees

Comment #69409 by sornord on September 11, 2007 at 6:49 am

In addition to stressing the bees/hives making them more vulnerable to the virus' effect, trucking from place to place could also have spread the virus by the likely contact between trucked bees and local bees in that area buzzing among the same crops.

45. Young Muslims begin dangerous fight for the right to abandon faith

Comment #69376 by sornord on September 11, 2007 at 3:07 am

"Is there a way to support and encourage these people?"

Get them and their stories & movement on television: CNN and other televised news media, attention-getting celebrities supporting the cause.

All must recognize, however, this carries an increased risk to these brave people.

I also note Mr. Jami compares the rise of radical Islam to the rise of Nazism, which I have done for years in private conversations. "Islamo-fascist" is the correct term. Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, love him or hate him, regularly uses this term and has at least nailed this one.

46. Curriculum for Baptist School

Comment #62519 by sornord on August 10, 2007 at 3:07 am

Absolute consistency in math: wonder what will happen when they get to irrational or imaginary numbers...or will they get to THAT level of math?

Sounds more what I imagine a Madrassa would be...

47. Scientific Savvy? In U.S., Not Much

Comment #54447 by sornord on July 7, 2007 at 6:58 am

Just personal observation but, as one who came up through the US school system in the '70's, and raised kids through it in the '90s and '00's, it seems that sciences, maths, and critical thinking take a back seat to promotion of self-esteem (deserved or not), political correctness, multi-culturalism, social skills and socio-political activism.

(In the words of Eric Cartman, "Tree hugging hippie crap!")

Because it was screwed up over the course of a couple of generations, I think it likely to take a couple of generations to change course...

48. A battler beyond belief: Review of 'God is Not Great'

Comment #50319 by sornord on June 16, 2007 at 6:06 pm

Stalin, Mao, Hitler, et al. were each at the center of a "cult of personality"...that probably shared many of the same psychological underpinnings as religious cults

And while we're on the subject, couldn't any religion be considered a successful cult?

49. PBS Revelation: Network's 'Wall Of Separation' Has Religious Right Genesis

Comment #49700 by sornord on June 13, 2007 at 2:51 am

The Passion was the most boring movie I've seen in decades!

50. Bengali Translation of The First Chapter of The God Delusion

Comment #49697 by sornord on June 13, 2007 at 2:48 am

If not already done, TGD should be translated into Arabic and copies by the millions air dropped over the entire Muslim world...for a start.