51. Mount Vernon schools to hire investigator in Bible case

Comment #169305 by MorituriMax on April 25, 2008 at 6:33 pm

Hmmm, I think I'll take the branding charge with a grain of salt, unless they can actually prove he did do that..

If it turns out he did do it... well one hopes he won't be teaching kids anymore. I don't really mind the Bible on the desk, it is his desk and we have the freedom to read what we want.. now if he has a shiny apply on there, that's just beyond the bounds of good taste... 8 )

52. Yoko Ono sues over use of John Lennon videos

Comment #169303 by MorituriMax on April 25, 2008 at 6:28 pm

I want Richard to do a new Imagine Shirt..

Imagine

[insert picture of Ben Stein in the corner with a dunce hat on and a sign around his neck: id10t]

A World Without Religion

53. Interview with Dan Dennett

Comment #168034 by MorituriMax on April 24, 2008 at 1:30 pm

Why is the beginning part even in this supposed "interview with dan dennet"? Couldn't whoever posted this say where we can click in the timeline to skip the opening boring discussion?

54. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166141 by MorituriMax on April 22, 2008 at 7:56 pm

Elaine Fleeman sputtered,

How could natural selection create the first living cell? There is no advantage to non-living material becoming a living cell, so the process had to be pure chance, a result of random atoms forming thousands of extremely complex molecules within a few micrometers of each other at the same time. It is statistically a highly improbable probable event, and it bears all the earmarks of design.

Wow... someone who got it about as wrong as you can get it, and with her first sentence. Evolution ISN'T ABOUT HOW LIFE STARTED! NATURAL SELECTION DIDN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH HOW THE 1ST CELL WAS CHOSEN OVER PREVIOUS WHATEVER THEY WERE BEFORE THEY WERE CELLS! Arg!

That's not even addressing the fact that for an all powerful creator, he sure is a complete schmuck at actually designing stuff. He designs babies that can get born with AIDS? Birth Defects? Genes that mutate? Etc. Etc.

55. The Child Preachers

Comment #165471 by MorituriMax on April 21, 2008 at 1:52 pm

Santi,

Well good luck on raising your kids, it's tough enough without the constant distractions of the information age. Sure, it has its upside, but geesh, sometimes it's nice to just get away from the information superhighway.

56. Pope's Views on Science Invoke Spirited Debate

Comment #165468 by MorituriMax on April 21, 2008 at 1:50 pm

Everytime I see the Pope with his arms out wide, that manic grin on his face, his wide eyed stare, man he creeps me out Big Time.

57. The Child Preachers

Comment #164522 by MorituriMax on April 20, 2008 at 11:10 am

Santi wrote,

I agree with you that there is a North Korea quality to isolationist fundamentalist culture.

Well the use of "isolationist" is incorrect as the views I told about are not isolationist and in fact are commonplace here in the south and elsewhere in the USA where the same churches are entrenched.

Santi wrote,

Likewise, an atheist family, or a secular state, may breed religious fanatics.

But not always on purpose. Religious families set out to teach what they teach their children quite purposefully, "all those other people are satanists chil' and don't you ever ever forget it"

Santi wrote,

I think that human beings are always moving toward the transcendent at some level, and always feeling empty and unfulfilled.

Strange, since for one to two hundred thousand years we didn't have religion, and yet we survived in good enough shape to reach a population of several billions.

Santi wrote,

Who would you all bet has a more economically successful adult life: the African American child preacher, or an African American child, perhaps living next door to him, who spends time after school watching television?

I would rather use Warren Buffet and Bill Gates as counter examples. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet both were atheists and I would dare say they made and contributed far more money, in spite of the threats of going to hell if they didn't. I don't know of any hellfire spewing baby robots who grow up to be as successful as them. I do know that without the indoctrination they have a better chance of being successful as something other than another Jim Jones from Guyana.

Something popped into my head just now as I was reviewing this post... animals don't have religion and they don't kill each other because they are different. They go through life killing what they need to survive, protecting their little parts of the world from other animals who also try and survive. None of them go out of their way to kill each other for Religion or money, or because that other group of monkeys have white streaks in their hair as opposed to white patches. Pure and simple they live, breed, have offspring, and die.

Yet they don't commit mass suicide because they don't have a God or even the notion of why they would need one.

As Christopher Hitchens pointed out, if we were around for say 100,000 years, why is it that God totally ignored everyone for all that time, then finally in the last couple thousand he suddenly sent someone down to save us all. It certainly didn't seem to occur to him that all the countless people before that were burning in Hell already.

58. The Child Preachers

Comment #164388 by MorituriMax on April 20, 2008 at 7:14 am

agree with theantitheist, and what is scariest about the indoctrination is that they don't want to be cured.

I always cringe inwardly when the people I work with start the christian spiel on gay people, since my brother is gay. They have absolutely no problem "judging" gay people as being immoral and going to hell even though one of the tenets of their faith is that only God judges you. I guess all the people who got killed in the Katrina disaster because they were sinners were somehow holding up God's judgement so he called them all home early to get in a good game of golf.

But that is what the child preachers have to look forward to, and they even get a headstart on other kids.

The most amazing thing about Christianity is that they say that free-will is the most precious gift god gave us, and yet that is the first thing the Church wants them to give up. In fact, they give up their children's free will before they are even old enough to decide for themselves to give it up.

59. The Child Preachers

Comment #164257 by MorituriMax on April 19, 2008 at 9:43 pm

First, the kids are probably engaging in this behavior no more than a couple of times a week--and what they are getting is actually quite extraordinary.

Wow... I thought I wouldn't be getting into this thread... but saw that and... wow...

How on earth do you even begin to think that what the children are put through to turn them into bible-preaching hellfire and brimstone-spewing little robots is something that just happens a couple times a week? Just curious...

How would you feel if YOU were being subjected to 24 hour a day 7 day a week behavior modification where every waking second you were either 'praising' god or memorizing the good book? The only escape you have is when you are asleep, and then I wouldn't put it past the parents to have tapes playing in the room with the child.

I work with 6 or 7 people in alabama, and they basically can't talk without there being some kind of consideration for how it comes across religiously or whether god is listening in and how he would judge their behavior.

Then while I am working nearby, they have their radios and cd players going with 7 or 8 hours a day of "praise jesus", "sweet jesus", "pray to the lord and he'll fix your situation", quotes from the bible, etc. etc.

So you might want to rethink the "a couple times a week" view.. they only get away from God with these kinds of parents when they die. Almost like North Korea.

60. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #163917 by MorituriMax on April 19, 2008 at 9:24 am

Santi

Not paticulary interested in joining a thread about child abuse. That child-preacher stuff sickens me almost as much as the Priests molesting children.

One final comment here, you mentioned the number of Hitler references here as if that is something you find offensive to some degree, yet you're willing to buy a DVD with clips and video references of the Nazi Death Camps and which makes a direct connection to Evolution and those camps purpose?

Have a good one! Good luck in the child preacher thread.. heh.. {kidding}.

61. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #163617 by MorituriMax on April 18, 2008 at 4:04 pm

Santi wrote,

And I'm not trying myself to police the scatalogical on this site, but I'm exercising my turn in talking here to point it out as being a display of ignorance and to express my opinion that it is crass and unbefitting of a movement whose culture is presumably dedicated to understanding and reason.

Taking the people who post here as representative of the 80 million or so atheists worldwide is not going to give you an accurate baseline for the behavior of said atheists.

I skimmed through most of the responses and didn't really see anything that made me want to report them. Again, you don't have the right to not be offended. Some people here just have buttons that are fine tuned to the drivel that ID-ten-tees and creationists regurgitate.

The very concept of Expelled is offensive to me and I guess when you keep sticking your neck out to recommend, for whatever reason, that we give them the benefit of the doubt, well you're probably going to get clotheslined.. heh heh.. is it right? Maybe not... is it free speech? Yep.. is it sometimes rude and offensive? Probably.. but I overwhelmingly give the people here high marks for their commentary.. and I put any negative remarks toward ID propoganda right up there with moms apple pie, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I don't think it's personal, you're just the closest thing in this thread to an apologist for the ID movement.. you win some, you lose some.

Reminds me of a movie, I think it was called The Big Hit, where it was a bunch of yuppie hitmen, and one of them, mark wahlberg, always did all the work while the other hitmen laid around chatting how they were going to spend their paychecks.. at one point Wahlberg admitted to Lou Diamond Phillips that he didn't want his victims to dislike him. Phillips took him aside and said, "Those people you killed? All their relatives DON'T LIKE YOU!"

8 )

62. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #163539 by MorituriMax on April 18, 2008 at 1:39 pm

Santi wrote

But man, there are a lot of smug, impatient, intolerant people posting here, quick to flame you with scatological vindictiveness if you don't tow the party line. I'm pretty shocked. Perhaps I'm naive, thinking a site devoted to free thinking attracts, well, free thinkers.

One slight correction, the party line only applies if we all belong to a party, but if we are free thinkers, as most atheists are, that is by definition not possible. One reason atheists are so easily overruled by politicians pushing religious agendas is that we only share the term "atheist," we don't actually all belong to a monolithic group who coordinate with each other on what is the "approved" view.

Perhaps you are on the receiving end of your own argument, you seem to be asking everyone to toe the politically correct line of accepting lies and propoganda from creationists who want us all living under the pope and king. Anybody researched lately how well that worked for the peasants who couldn't leave their own village and weren't legally entitled to even read and write?

We, as freethinkers, are very resistant to someone who basically says to support the very people who want to tear down science and free thought, and so unintelligently as well.

Finally, I don't know if you're an American or not, but I'll tell you what I tell them, you don't have to constitutional right to not be offended. In England this discussion would be considered tame. Watch the Hitchens versus Hitchens debate if you want to see some really "shocking" exchanges...

Have a good one!

63. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #163154 by MorituriMax on April 18, 2008 at 3:11 am

Why are we, as atheists, so wedded to an implicit orthodoxy, and narrow range of opinion on these posts here at the Dawkins site? Can't we have a little less predictable, and less polemical, discussion?

If you are referring to Evolution, that narrow range of opinions covers a HUGE segment of many sciences, all of which collectively, overwhelmingly support Evolution.

It's like arguing that gravity isn't necessarily as absolute as different people "argue."

In my opinion, this video sums it up beuatifully.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiNGK3y5Ypg

Gotta go to work, will check out the remaining posts here then.

64. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #162947 by MorituriMax on April 17, 2008 at 5:42 pm

Wow Santi... you have this way of evoking responses more than anyone else here..

You keep using Expelled as some kind of guide to measure people like mesomeodel against.. that in itself is an insult to them.

How anyone can watch any part of it and then assume that Expelled is strong enough on it's own to judge people's reactions against it is giving the piece of tripe 10,000 times the due it deserves.

If you don't think it is a collection of lies, all you have to do is see the 15 second clip where Ben Stein asks a Professor who is supposedly teaching Evolution where life came from and not know with certainity from that clear and umambiguous question that Ben Stein is either lying through his teeth or intentionally ignorant. All he has to do is a 10 second search on the internet re: Evolution/Abiogenesis.

If you don't see it from that single (of many) clip, you really have no business even commenting on the film in this forum.

Or perhaps next you'll tell us that you don't think the Holocaust happened because that Genius President of Iran has proven it never happened?

PS (I keep falling back on Nazi's/Jews because it's so hilarious how they exploit that in the movie Expelled).

65. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #162841 by MorituriMax on April 17, 2008 at 2:40 pm

Hmm, it's okay to see a movie that factually claims Evolution = Abiogenesis = Nazi Death Camps, but it's not okay to buy things at Wal Mart without feeling guilty that you are destroying people's lives around the globe?

Wow..

66. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #162838 by MorituriMax on April 17, 2008 at 2:34 pm

Santi, one interesting thing about Expelled reflects the entire ID movement.

They never provide any scientific evidence to make ID stronger, they only ever attack Evolution.

Never... ever... ever... has ID actually demonstrated any scientific value to the world. You really want to pay money to reinforce their position by allowing them to say, "See? Millions of people support us since they paid to see the movie."

That's like paying Hitler for the gas he used to kill the Jews in the Ovens. If you pay them, you support them.

We keep supporting them, eventually we go the way of the muslim civilization back when it was the pearl of the world scientifically and culturally, then the fundamentalist muslims took over and they've been stuck in the Stone Age ever since.. but sure, heck, go ahead and support the people who want us to go back to living in huts and praying to God to take care of us.

PS and i'm not trying to make this discussion more heated either, I'm just using the same kind of extreme reasoning that is praised in Expelled. They used Nazis, I use Nazis.. hopefully it's clear what I am trying to say, no Darwin isn't responsible for the creation of BS.. heh heh..

67. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #162832 by MorituriMax on April 17, 2008 at 2:20 pm

I'm definately not going to go see this movie.. I'll wait till it comes out on toilet paper. And I'll start my all-burrito all-the-time diet when it does.

Santi, should we encourage small children to go in to movie theatres with their parents and watch hardcore pronography? After all, there might be some "cultural" benefit to the children. Who are the parents to say definatively that they know there isn't? Besides, the 8 bucks you spend to see it surely is going to help the economy in these harsh times.

68. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #162821 by MorituriMax on April 17, 2008 at 2:06 pm

Gasp! You mean they're using media without the permission of the.... uh wait, why would they stop at just stealing the cell animation from XVIVO?

Heh heh.. may they drown in lawsuits.

How did that line go, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's, for everyone else, nada!"

69. Teacher Expelled Over Religion

Comment #161973 by MorituriMax on April 15, 2008 at 10:31 pm

I still love the commercial I keep seeing where Stein asks the Professor how life began...

D'Oh! Must be the world record for how fast can we imply Evolution = Abiogenesis in the creationist mind. And act like it is what Evolution is actually about...

"And on the 7th day... God created Fossils!"

70. Teacher Expelled Over Religion

Comment #161678 by MorituriMax on April 15, 2008 at 1:53 pm

Please tell me there are lawyers who are going to jump in and help this woman? Maybe the people who cracked the whip on ID with Judge Jones should get in touch with her, if they aren't already.

Geez, what's left, voodoo rites being required curriculum in medical school?

71. Inadequate, private and late apology with grotesquely inadequate excuse

Comment #159178 by MorituriMax on April 11, 2008 at 2:33 pm

Wow... so if the kid getting shot put bigoted thoughts in her head.. maybe the alcohol DID make Mel Gibson come across as anti-semitic.

Amazing.

"I hear the next Star Trek Movie is coming out soon, only in about 500 years.. that's the same date that the Jews will forgive Mel Gibson."

72. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #157085 by MorituriMax on April 8, 2008 at 2:44 pm

Wow... I thought we were back in Medieval Times there for a sec.

One person said, "Well if not for the devil, how can you possibly have a satisfactory answer for how 6 million people were killed by Hitler?"

Hmmm... that's like saying, "How can you possibly understand how 500,000 people were killed by waves on a beach without the devil?" (Tsunami a couple years ago).

I mean, if we can't say that a single man and his system (Hitler) can kill 6 million people, then you also can't say that a bunch of water can drown hundreds of thousands of people. Fact: water can kill you, and enough water can kill LOTS of people.

Fact: a single bomb can kill hundreds of thousands of people. You don't need a supernatural devil to make that possible.

Fact: wind can kill MANY people and wipe out whole towns or cities.

So there is no need to reach for a supernatural answer as the only one that is satisfactory.

73. Sue Blackmore debates Alister McGrath

Comment #150377 by MorituriMax on March 26, 2008 at 7:38 pm

I find it the height of hypocricy and intellectual dishonesty for McGrath on one hand to claim there is this all powerful God behind his faith.

He claims that imprimatur of authority, but then says, well sure some Christians are bad, but every group has bad people.

Yeah, but OTHER GROUPS DON'T HAVE ALL-POWERFUL DEITIES THAT INTERVENE IN HUMAN AFFAIRS for their groups.

If you're going to claim there is an actual supernatural entity out there then you have to demand that that entity makes sure that your group doesn't have bad people. Nobody else has that kind of power regulating them, according to people like McGrath.

Or is it just me?

If there is no accountability to a real and active God for Christians (or whatever religion), then what is the difference between them and Atheists?

74. The Science behind the Large Hadron Collider

Comment #116736 by MorituriMax on January 27, 2008 at 9:51 am

Steve Zara wrote,
"It won't, and there is a good reason why. Nothing we do in the laboratory comes anywhere close to the energies that occur when cosmic rays hit the upper atmosphere, or the moon. If such energies were dangerous, the Earth and Moon would have disappeared billions of years ago."

Maybe that's why God has to keep re-creating the Universe every 6,000 to 7,000 years and supply a fake history that doesn't say how the collider works? Damn us persistent ape/human hybrids!

75. Three Little Pigs 'too offensive'

Comment #116062 by MorituriMax on January 25, 2008 at 12:39 pm

So soon no books with women in it that aren't wearing burkhas... OFFENSIVE!

76. A Letter From Hell

Comment #116060 by MorituriMax on January 25, 2008 at 12:36 pm

Yeah, the sulfur and brimstone thing is as redundant as the government commercial where they say what happens if you post a picture of yourself online, "click-it gets downloaded by a creepy guy for some alone time, ...when he is all by himself."

HELLO! "alone time" "when he is all by himself"

D'UH! It wouldn't be alone time if he WASN'T ALONE! ! !

Godtube... hilarious and desperate...

77. A Letter From Hell

Comment #116057 by MorituriMax on January 25, 2008 at 12:31 pm

All I can say is, "Friends don't let friends burn alone."

Heh heh.. man seriously hilarious.. all that was missing was Harvey the Giant Rabbit poking him in the ribs to cheer him up. I knew all along subtlety wasn't their strong point, but man, this thing is better than the little comic booklets you find scattered around.

One interesting fact, now Purgatory is a Holding Cell? I would think holding someone here for eternity would be more frightening than Hell itself, what was it Stephen Seagal said, "The expectation of death is worse than death itself."

78. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107825 by MorituriMax on January 5, 2008 at 12:41 pm

The most mysterious claim to me by anyone who claims the Bible is inspired (yeah I'll give him his wiggle room) by God, yet he wouldn't admit that it should be perfect in 100% of it's content.

If one assumes that everyone believes everything God says to the faithful is to be taken wholly on faith with no corrections, how then can we exclude any part of the good book? It's just the written version of what they hear in their heads.

But still they cherry pick what they want to accept today and what they don't. Strange how they are always complaining that God is being removed from the classroom or the public venue, but we don't see them on the steps of the courthouse stoning people to death for sinful actions.

79. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107459 by MorituriMax on January 4, 2008 at 2:47 pm

He (Wolpe) certainly has the Argument from Ignorance down pat. He uses it pretty consistently throughout and especially at the end of the debate.. oh we're so much less than God that we can't even conceive of him..

..although they are pretty quick to describe everything that happens due to God's will...

"Uh, I don't know why miracles happen, must be God."

Which is contrary to not knowing why they happen, when you then say you DO know it was God.

80. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107457 by MorituriMax on January 4, 2008 at 2:43 pm

Oh My God.. I opened my freezer and found these wonderful perfect cubes of frozen water... there were 33 of them, I see the light, Jesus is the light.. etc etc...

81. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107448 by MorituriMax on January 4, 2008 at 2:29 pm

Oh I see, God switched everyone from sacrificing people to animals to ...wean... them off all sacrifice..

So not eating pork, is that ...weaning... them off of eating anything?

82. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107439 by MorituriMax on January 4, 2008 at 2:09 pm

I laughed when he said the Teapot wasn't valid because it was PHYSICAL! by gosh...

So let me get this straight, as long as you tack the word "intangible" on to your statement, it's valid.. so let's say the teapot is intangible, it just chooses to have an actual teapot there so anyone who wants proof it exists can make the journey and prove their belief in the teapot is the one and only faith.

Hmmm, weird logic, we HAVE to make sure nobody can find evidence in anything we say or we aren't real.

After the questions, I think that they proved his religion wasn't right. If it was the one true path, then everyone would be in the same religion. Since they aren't, it disproves all religions.

83. Borders Tags Atheist Book with 'O Come All Ye Faithless' Cards

Comment #100724 by MorituriMax on December 19, 2007 at 8:03 am

John Travolta said it best,

"Eff 'em if they can't take a joke."

84. Borders Tags Atheist Book with 'O Come All Ye Faithless' Cards

Comment #100195 by MorituriMax on December 18, 2007 at 11:27 am

Holy Crap, it's not as if the Christians don't use anything these days to show how "they" are being "persecuted." NOW they even take the opportunity to moan and whine when the supposed "persecution" isn't even on/aimed at one of "their" books!

How much moxie does THAT take?

85. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #98123 by MorituriMax on December 13, 2007 at 5:26 am

I take your "Fuck 'em" and raise you a "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."

I pointed out to a morning radio show hostess that she seemed to be happiest if she was being attacked by non-christians.

86. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #92025 by MorituriMax on November 29, 2007 at 5:58 pm

82abhilash wrote "We are put on earth to rise above nature..."

... I don't think we are "put on earth" to do anything, we are born, we live, we die. That sounded too much like "put on earth.. by our creator" etc.

Chris Bell wrote "To be blunt, atheist groups in the past have often been vocally free-love and vocally pro-communist."

... I don't think we can lump atheists into some kind of mass group that does anything in lock step. Actually we as a "group" are less likely to do anything en-masse, maybe because we as a "group" are more free-thinking than solid religious drones, er.. faithful. Being an atheist isn't something you pick out of a hat because then you have the authority to do something which puts you at odds with others.

Being an atheist has more to do with you NOT doing something, in this case believing in supernatural entities that take care of you because of faith. It's not even really a lifestyle any more than lumping all people who hate lasagna into a group that is inclined to believe other things together as well. Are alasagnists more likely to vote republican or advocate the overthrow of drug laws? No, we just happen to be people who don't have faith in invisible fairies who grant us entry into Irish Heaven.

87. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #92001 by MorituriMax on November 29, 2007 at 5:10 pm

Perhaps marriage needs to be a one-year renewable contract? If the year rolls around and the two adults don't renew their vows, they're automatically considered single again?

88. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #91995 by MorituriMax on November 29, 2007 at 5:02 pm

Okay article, except for where he considers that someone who makes a decision based on bad information is lying. If you say something based on something you think is true, then I don't consider it to be a lie. If you say something based on what you KNOW is false, THAT is lying.

And considering that nobody on the planet has evidence proving that Bush, Putin, Blair, or anyone else KNEW that the information they acted on was wrong, Dawkins needs to provide the evidence to prove his implied claim that they did in fact lie. I guess we could make our President or Prime Minister or whoever it is actually travel to the region and gather the intelligence themselves, wouldn't that be hilariously ridiculous?

"Sorry Mr. President we don't accept what you are saying about Osama unless you get a gun and go to Pakistan to personally look for him."

Or is he saying he has a private line to God and thus doesn't need evidence like us other poor mortals?

Good article though. Too much entrapment in the world today.

89. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #78394 by MorituriMax on October 12, 2007 at 4:34 pm

Man, now I want to see the avatar everybody is talking about.. must have been removed since I didn't see anything but Rumsfeld.. and thinking of that with his picture in view... shudder..

90. Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years

Comment #65813 by MorituriMax on August 26, 2007 at 8:53 pm

Bizarro Dawkins said

"Who said anything about randomness? Evolution isn't random."

You did, in your first post..

As ridiculous as I feel pointing this out, DESIGNING an artificial cell does not lend a shred of credibility to the notion that life arose RANDOMLY.

91. CNN Debate on Koran in Toilet

Comment #60518 by MorituriMax on August 2, 2007 at 5:48 am

Does anyone but me find it strange that seemingly every building on muslim property is holy? That every book is holy? In fact, anything the muslim does has to be treated as holy?

92. Beyond Belief: Atheism (with AC Grayling)

Comment #56874 by MorituriMax on July 17, 2007 at 3:24 pm

I love how they keep trotting out the "If the dictatorship or government killed a bunch of people while not recognizing our God, it was Atheism at work. See how bad Atheism is compared to Religion?"

Also, we're all aggressively militant because we show the same passion for our non-belief that they show for their belief but of course they're just compassionately religious. Glad they got called on that one at least. I mean, the Christian Churchgoers in some places in the American South never blink an eye when a 5 year old kid is on a street corner preaching that his mother is a whore and we're all sinners going to hell. Repent Now!

93. An Atheist Responds

Comment #56546 by MorituriMax on July 16, 2007 at 8:49 am

Comment #56216 by serrano on July 14, 2007 at 2:07 pm
"...name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever."

Simple:
"I believe in God and I think murder is wrong," "I believe in God and I think stealing is wrong," etc. There list could go on and on!

I think this proves I am smarter than Christopher Hitchens.

Well here is one, using serranos logic, that ONLY believers can utter:
"I am a catholic priest and I love molesting children."

Course, I have since learned he was kidding, but I'll let it stand as a statement for those who aren't.

Have a good one..

94. Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Comment #52129 by MorituriMax on June 26, 2007 at 8:44 am

steve99 opined

But that is just how the video appears to be positioned. The first thing it mentions is Intelligent Design.

So? Should he have mentioned Flat Earthers? Perhaps you can do your own video and set us all straight as to how it should be done?

There are plenty of people here who get what he is trying to say. If you don't then make a video and set all straight. all straight. all straight.. sorry, got stuck flogging the dead horse..

heh heh.. I'm half kidding, have a good one.

95. Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Comment #51825 by MorituriMax on June 25, 2007 at 6:35 am

steve99 opined

If the argument about clocks and evolution was a straw man, then why is he simulating the evolution of clocks?

Because, some people out there buy into the theory that this IS how evolution works. The same way, the very same people, think that evolution is about how the universe formed from the Big Bang.

He is trying to show them that that IS NOT how Evolution works, and humor tends to be a good medium to use for that.

Just imagine the Kent Hovind faithful who also think that the Flintstones cartoon was a series of documentaries...

96. Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Comment #51699 by MorituriMax on June 24, 2007 at 7:15 am

steve99

Secondly, I think this gives a false impression of how evolution works. There are no long-term objectives in evolution, which is suggested by the selection only for clock-functionality. More realistic would be a period of selection for some other behaviour, which eventually resulted in structures which could also function as clocks.

That was his point, clocks are not alive, so the whole argument about clocks and evolution is a straw man.

97. Debate between Sam Harris and Chris Hedges

Comment #50729 by MorituriMax on June 19, 2007 at 5:57 pm

"...This individualism is the central doctrine and most important contribution of monotheism - we are enjoined after all to love our neighbour, not our tribe."

Hmmm, really... so the people in the Sunni tribe love their Shiite neighbors? The people in the Afghan Taliban tribes love their neighbors in non-Taliban tribes? etc.. etc..

Also, about Iraq being secular under Saddam and by removing him we have all these bad things going on since Iraq was secular.. ummmm.. does he think the SUNNIS and the SHIITES just magically appeared from nothing after he was deposed? Religion played no part in Iraq until then? Huh?????

98. Debate between Sam Harris and Chris Hedges

Comment #50650 by MorituriMax on June 19, 2007 at 8:02 am

Hedges is the penultimate poster child for "Ivory Tower Intellectual." Most of his lines opened with, "Well I was there for x months/years/etc so I know exactly what is going on there."

99. Man to die over insult

Comment #47040 by MorituriMax on June 2, 2007 at 11:11 pm

...and some tears are surely shed over here by hardline Christians who wish they had that kind of power under the law.

100. Beggars belief: Robin McKie on The God Delusion

Comment #47039 by MorituriMax on June 2, 2007 at 11:09 pm

In fact, disbelief is in our genes, adds Dawkins. 'I have found an amusing strategy,' he claims, 'when asked whether I am an atheist to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon-Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I just go one god further.'

What?! No reference to Sauron, Melkor, Ilúvatar, or Manwë? JRR Tolkien has better crafted Gods and Demi-Gods than any Bible I ever read..

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