951. Bankrolling Ali's Asylum

Comment #91075 by annabanana on November 27, 2007 at 6:45 am

First of all, I think it's important to note that most of the people who took some sort of issue with Sam's comment probably didn't take personal offense to the comment. I didn't. I'm quite sure there was a sly meaning behind the jibe and that Sam doesn't think that I or any other atheist is immoral/amoral.

Secondly, the fact that people were actually questioning the cause and where their money was going is GOOD, in my opinion. Isn't one of the main parts of being an atheist/freethinker/agnostic/etc. that you're able to think CRITICALLY about things and not just accept things blindly like the religious do? I don't agree that just because Sam Harris asked that we should just blindly give our money and trust him, that defeats the point of being what we ARE.

Thirdly, I agree with medjrich that some of us can't afford these types of comments, no matter what the true meaning behind them. I live in South Carolina where comments like this can and WILL be used against atheists. For those of you in the UK and other places in Europe, it is quite different...these comments won't affect you that much, but here, people will grab on to whatever they can to slander the atheists. I know that this kind of thing has been going on for quite some time and that many a word has been twisted, but to give them something that not even out of context can be construed as "one of our own" against us will be harmful to those of us in anti-atheist areas.

Once again, I'll state, I did not take personal offense to Sam's comment. It just scares me that those who already have a bunch of irrational ammunition against atheists will now have more.

952. Bankrolling Ali's Asylum

Comment #90857 by annabanana on November 26, 2007 at 2:08 pm

If we're going to get rid of the "atheists are amoralists" meme, we will do so through deed, not word, and certainly not through endless complaining.

Yes, Fanusi, but when Sam says something to the effect of "Christians are more moral than Atheists", no matter what clever meaning he intended, the same idiots who take the Bible at face value will take his comment at face value and use the "see, even one of their own says Christians are more moral" argument. We certainly don't need to add anymore fuel to their make-believe fire.

953. Bankrolling Ali's Asylum

Comment #90832 by annabanana on November 26, 2007 at 1:27 pm

"Rick," Harris jokes, "may yet convince me that Christians are more moral and socially engaged than atheists."

Hmm...I don't think that I care whether or not it was a joke...

Thanks for undermining all of the contributions that all of the atheists have made, Sam. WTF?

I'm in agreement with Jack Rawlinson and wednesdayguevara.

954. Rock of Ages, Ages of Rock

Comment #90726 by annabanana on November 26, 2007 at 8:03 am

They believe Genesis literally, so why are they not going around killing all of the non-believers? Remember this verse?

Luke 19:27(Jesus speaking in a parable)
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Phasmagigas,

I understand what you're saying, but there are plenty of groups to which one can belong that don't involve such ludicrousness. For example, I've recently started cycling (bicycling, that is) and there's a community of cyclists where I live. To be a part of this community, there is no need to profess something utterly insane. I think that they do have a need to be part of a community and being a part of the YECs certainly fulfills that particular need, but it has to be more complicated than that, otherwise they'd just go start cycling or maybe joining the other Ph.D.'s who actually know what they're talking about.

955. Man-sized sea scorpion claw found

Comment #89657 by annabanana on November 21, 2007 at 11:43 am

Oh yes Steve, I forgot about that, haha. :-)

956. Man-sized sea scorpion claw found

Comment #89653 by annabanana on November 21, 2007 at 11:38 am

I think that I may be glad that evolution directed these enormous creatures to extinction...I think it would be rather disconcerting to have giant scorpions walking about. Although, I'm sure that had they been here all along, humans would have been accustomed to them and not disconcerted by them.

957. Getting Overheated

Comment #89634 by annabanana on November 21, 2007 at 10:02 am

I'm a biologist, not an economist, so forgive me if you think I'm way off kilter, but I deal with power companies here on a daily basis. Their pockets are very very deep. For example, one of the said power companies is a state agency and all state agencies usually have the same pay scale. However, the pay scale of this particular power company is much higher than the pay scale for all of the other state agencies. The power companies have the money, right now, to implement existing technologies that would lower all kinds of emissions which are definitely harmful to the environment and *us whether you are a global warming nay-sayer or not, they just don't have any desire to do so because they can make more money in the here and now if they continue on the way they have been.

958. Are Scientists Playing God? It Depends on Your Religion

Comment #89585 by annabanana on November 21, 2007 at 7:12 am

But some people may desperately want a cloned child — perhaps to replace one who died or to provide lifesaving bone marrow for a sibling

Did no one notice this??!!! If the guy did any amount of research on this subject whatsoever, he would have noted 3 things:

1) It isn't necessary to clone an entire human to harvest the organs or tissue, you can just clone the individual organ.

2) One of the major reasons for wanting to clone the individual organs or tissues is so that the person doesn't have to take immunosuppressant drugs in order to prevent the body from rejecting said organ/tissue. You wouldn't clone a sibbling's DNA, you would clone your own.

3) Scientists have said that they are not into cloning for the sake of creating entire human beings, they are in it to help cure individual diseases which only requires growing individual organs or tissues, as mentioned before.

Really, I can't believe the articles that get published in some of the major publications of the day. No wonder people are so afraid of stem-cell research with morons like this writing these poorly-researched articles.

Edit- As with regards to my 3 points, this hasn't of course been accomplished yet, but is the goal of the research being done...

959. The Scientists Speak

Comment #89568 by annabanana on November 21, 2007 at 6:02 am

I can also tell you that in our state we have a continual increase in hydrocarbon emissions and oxides of nitrogen (in so much that we are about to have areas that will soon not meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards) which are compounds that contribute to the formation of ground level ozone (which is also a contributor to global warming).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11838578/

http://www.scdhec.com/environment/baq/scozone.aspx?Page=scozone

960. The Scientists Speak

Comment #89375 by annabanana on November 20, 2007 at 1:25 pm

Even if the nay-sayers are somehow convinced of global warming, they'll probably respond with something daft like, "It's the beginning of the apocalypse" while preparing themselves for rapture and continuing on their merry, carbon dioxide-emitting ways...

961. The Scientists Speak

Comment #89361 by annabanana on November 20, 2007 at 11:49 am

This problem disturbs me deeply. I work for a state government in the U.S. regulating industrial facilities air emissions and I know that no big changes will come about in this state unless the federal government forces the facilities to change because our state doesn't have the power or even the expertise really to do so. Hopefully the president will quit ignoring the problem once he realizes that significant changes could occur during his lifetime and actually impact his life.

962. New Ape Fossils Found in Africa

Comment #89016 by annabanana on November 19, 2007 at 1:49 pm

Darnit! BAEOZ, I Was just going to say...isn't it rather ironic that the writer's last name is gibbons, but you beat me! Oh well, I had a good laugh about it anyway.

963. Tropical fish can live for months out of water

Comment #88367 by annabanana on November 16, 2007 at 8:45 am

This is really awesome! I will be really interested to read the peer-reviewed article. Anyone need a research assistant?

I would say that I hope this finding makes a difference in the ongoing battle that we have with the creationists/IDers, but since we already have a plethora of evidence they continually ignore, I doubt this will make them stir, either.

964. Onward Science Soldiers

Comment #88028 by annabanana on November 14, 2007 at 7:32 am

The Bush administration has done a lot of damage to public policy and our poor "wall" is crumbling. I just have to hope the next president can fix it. January, 2009 cannot get here soon enough!

RAmen! liberalartist!

Although, I have often worried about the point that USA_Limey has brought up. I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to pull a stunt like that and make himself emperor of the world or something. Hopefully no one would stand for it the way they stood for him fudging the election in 2000.

There are already polls among historians that rate G.W. as the worst president in American history and he isn't even out of office yet. His only rivals for that is the guy who was in office when the civil war started (James Buchanan) and the guy who was in office during the Great Depression (Warren G. Harding). Now that's an accomplishment!

965. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87836 by annabanana on November 13, 2007 at 10:14 am

mejdrich,

I'm with you. I'm also in the US (in the Bible Belt, no less) and feeling the affects quite daily from the persecution we are under.

I hope that I won't have to move, but if it comes to that, I will.

966. When Congress Interferes With Science, Who You Gonna Call? (Hint: It's not Ghostbusters)

Comment #87549 by annabanana on November 12, 2007 at 12:44 pm

Bizarro,

The thing that bothers me the most about your opinion is that you are attempting to put it under the guise of rationality even though it is religiously motivated. While it may be true that we live in a truly over-indulgent society where people submit to this type of behavior on a number of levels, this is obviously not what has originally motivated you to come to these conclusions. I'm sure that you learned through your Christian upbringing/experience/etc. that sex is unacceptable until marriage and while you may have noted the state of our society on the way, you were not initially motivated by those thoughts which makes you a little bit dishonest, whether your dishonesty is intentional or not.

At any rate, I would agree with you that abstinence should be stressed, however, my reasoning is probably different from yours. I think that "kids" should wait to have sex, not because religion says so, but because most people in their teens are not fully equipped to deal with the emotional implications of having sex. However, as I think we can also agree, education is of the utmost importance and this includes sex education. You may be someone who believes in self-control and more power to you, but we have to be realistic and understand that there are those people who are not going to agree with you and who will have sex before marriage. They will have sex at a young age and at the very least we should equip them with the knowledge to protect themselves and others when they do decide to have sex.

You also fail to note that even though you and your friends may be able to control yourselves, this is not an accurate sampling of the population on the whole and so your personal experience does not qualify you to make sweeping statements.

Also, I was quite rushed when I wrote this, please forgive any errors or extremely long sentences.

967. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #86542 by annabanana on November 9, 2007 at 1:52 pm

I'm sorry to butt in everyone. I'll admit that I found it quite daunting a task to try and read this entire argument, so I didn't. I hope nothing I have to say is repetitive.

ADH,

I'm going to take your "act of rebellion" to mean loss of innocence, which means that I take issue with your assertion that evolution is not incompatible with Genesis. I believe, and I don't have time to look now, so correct me if I'm wrong, but certain species (elephants) have been shown not to be innocent and sometimes kill each other, so this loss of innocence did not evolve just in humans and therefore this "act of rebellion" couldn't be the story to which you refer. I mean, unless you think that elephants are subject to the Bible and Christianity as well.

I'm just curious, but how did you come to choose Christianity as your religion? I'm sorry if someone's already asked you this before.

steve99,
I do like your new avatar. The evolution of it was brilliant. I'm jealous that I didn't think of it first ;)!

968. When Congress Interferes With Science, Who You Gonna Call? (Hint: It's not Ghostbusters)

Comment #86441 by annabanana on November 9, 2007 at 8:25 am

Bizarro,

Such a prudish attitude towards sex does nothing to help the masses and as Silent.Bomber and cry4turtles have suggested, it is quite unhealthy on a personal level.

First of all, people are going to have sex no matter how many times you tell them that abstinence is the best practice. So why would you withhold valuable information about sex that could potentially save lives, prevent the spread of diseases (deadly and not), and prevent abortions? Nearly a quarter of all pregnancies end in abortion, maybe if people are taught how to prevent the pregnancies properly in the first place, that figure can be substantially lowered.

Second of all, a point I think is worth repeating, as BAEOZ suggested, we ARE "merely animals" and so what? We just happen to be a bit more evolved than other species, but there is no reason to feel smug about this. It's not like we evolved ourselves on purpose...it doesn't work that way. But since we have evolved and become excellent at using "tools" we should take full advantage of that by using the many birth control and disease prevention "tools" we have invented so as to exercise some sort of "control" over our "repugnant animal instincts" to have sex, whether for reproductive or pleasure purposes.

At any rate, whether or not you think it is degrading to you is not necessarily relative or applicable to society as a whole because while you may be able to suppress those horrible animal instincts you implicate, others will not, and this will be the majority of the population. So once again, please explain to me why you would want to withhold the information that could potentially save lives, prevent the spread of disease, and prevent abortions?

Incidentally, being that I am a product of the American public school system where I received sex education, I don't ever recall being "given condoms and told that, since they are merely animals with no control over their bodies, they may as well have sex safely" I think that the most you can assert is that those may be the implications of the sex education system.

Also, I wonder what you mean by this?

I imagine that being a college student I am probably exposed to a biased sample seeing as how many college students tend to identify with atheism (something that I hope to change—drastically—upon graduating;-).

What do you intend to drastically change upon your graduation?

969. When Congress Interferes With Science, Who You Gonna Call? (Hint: It's not Ghostbusters)

Comment #85865 by annabanana on November 7, 2007 at 11:09 am

I have made hundreds of lobby visits and met half of the United States Senators face-to-face. No member of Congress or Congressional staff member has ever treated me with anything other than respect. Whether they are with us on the issues or not, they understand that I am a professional representing a constituency which deserves as much representation as any other.

She must not have met Jim DeMint.

At any rate, I'm certainly glad that they prevented this earmark from moving forward as the teaching of creationism in public schools is one of the things I feel most afraid of and am passionately opposed to as an American.

I hope that more people will join so that this kind of lobbying can be more effective.

970. Rome playing politics

Comment #85402 by annabanana on November 5, 2007 at 6:21 pm

Thanks for your sympathy epeeist. Unfortunately, as I frequent this website while I'm at work, which is probably against our internet policy, I don't think I'd have a leg to stand on. Also, since I do live in the "Bible Belt", I'm pretty sure my complaints would fall on deaf ears and as much as I'd like to stand up to these people, I still have bills to pay.

971. Rome playing politics

Comment #85276 by annabanana on November 5, 2007 at 11:53 am

Veronique,

For a while, I felt the same as you. I felt like we were making progress, but in the last week or so, that thought has been vacated.

I think there was an article on here about the Golden Compass, but I don't have time to link it. I live in the "Bible Belt" in the U.S. and there is actually an e-mail going around the office of the state agency I work for. The e-mail tells everyone to boycott the books and the movies because they are "anti-Christian". This e-mail has continually been forwarded by people who I thought were very moderate/mild religious types.

Also, I was following the debate about the plight of ex-Muslims. Are they still on about it?

972. Why do we ignore the plight of ex-Muslims?

Comment #83593 by annabanana on October 30, 2007 at 1:59 pm

While I am not nearly as informed and researched about all of this as Fanusi and Brian seem to be, I am very interested in the debate and have been following it as much as possible.

I think that the appropriate stance on the matter lies somewhere in between what Fanusi and Brian think. On the one side of the spectrum Fanusi seems certain that world war is eminent if we don't act immediately and rather rashly while Brian is a little too confident that nothing will come of the Muslim fundamentalism and that we will be infringing on Muslims' rights if we do anything aimed at a particular culture.

One thing that I think needs to be taken into consideration and that I think Fanusi has said in not so many words is that if one's rights, for instance practicing orthodox Islam, infringe on another's rights like living as an apostate without fear of death, then those rights are no longer permissible.

Something that came to my mind in reading all of this is Elie Weisel's book Night in which he talks of his people being more or less seduced into believing that everything would be okay because things occurred more gradually rather than suddenly and before they knew it, they were being led off to the concentration camp. This is something to think about when thinking about both points of view. On the one hand, we don't want to be Hitler-esque in our treatment of people of the Islamic culture, but on the other hand we don't want to be so pacifistic that we are seduced into thinking that we are safe and end up being massacred.

Now for the love of the make-believe old man in the sky, Fanusi, can you please find another synonym for the words "blood libel". I think you have far surpassed the acceptable amount of times that you could use that phrase and I'm tired of reading it. :) I understand that you feel that you have been defamed and calumniated, but there are plenty of other words you could use that don't make you sound so sanguinary.

Now I'm sure I'll be strung up by my toes by someone that feels that I have grossly misrepresented or miscalculated their views.

973. American kids, dumber than dirt: Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history

Comment #82383 by annabanana on October 26, 2007 at 8:02 am

As an initial disclaimer, I'm at work, so I didn't have time to read all of the responses, so I'm sorry if anything I have to say is repetitious.

This article absolutely disgusts me. I'm 25 and I attended public school in a small town in the "Bible Belt" and I am intelligent, well-rounded, and well-spoken and I am not an anomaly. I played video games and watched tv as well as played outside, went to ballet, and all of the other normal things that kids do. My best friend, who is also all of the above, is from the same small town and is no anomaly either. My roommate is a 21 year old graduate student in her first year in a clinical psychology Ph.D. program and she is no anomaly either. I realize that I am speaking from personal experience and that this has no scientific or statistical merit, but I still think the article to be untrue. I find it extremely hard to believe that no one in this guy's class knew how to use a ruler unless he were teaching a remedial first grade class.

The intellectually elite certainly represent a small portion of the population, but they always have! I also think that such a pessimistic attitude does nothing to better the situation if there is such a situation. If we don't look forward and have some hope for people in the world, then why even bother to complain about it?

974. Patience, fairness and the human condition

Comment #79973 by annabanana on October 19, 2007 at 10:54 am

I think the experiment done on humans regarding patience is designed poorly, or at least as it is interpreted here. There could be a number of reasons why a person would choose to take the initial offering of food rather than waiting and getting more. Who were the participants? Were they overweight, or on a diet? They could have been worried about their caloric intake and not chosen to wait because of that or maybe they didn't want to be perceived as greedy by the person conducting the experiment...you get the point. Of course, this article is, as stated earlier, non-scientific so they may be leaving out essential details like this.

975. Ayaan Hirsi Ali: abandoned to fanatics

Comment #77516 by annabanana on October 9, 2007 at 1:24 pm

It is irrelevant whether or not she wants to pay for her own protection. If anyone in the Netherlands assured her that she would be protected there or otherwise that promise should be carried out. It is also irrelevant whether or not she has enough money to pay for her own protection. It would be a statement that we in the U.S. or those in the Netherlands are not Muslim extremist apologists and won't stand for violence against someone who is helping further society.

976. Polygamist Leader Convicted in Utah

Comment #73815 by annabanana on September 26, 2007 at 9:00 am

Yorker,

There is also evidence that people who have similar genetics are repelled by one another's pheremones. I would imagine that if there is that one such "built-in" mechanism that there are others as well, but this is the only one I've read about.

977. Pentagon Sued Over Mandatory Christianity

Comment #72117 by annabanana on September 20, 2007 at 11:36 am

Is the term "atheist beliefs" an oxymoron ?

I know this discussion has moved on from this, but i don't think atheist beliefs is an oxymoron. A belief doesn't have to be associated with religion. People have beliefs about many things that have nothing to do with religion. Therefore, saying that one holds the "belief" that there is no god or in other words holds "atheist beliefs" is a completely valid statement. Religions have just taken over the connotations of the word.

Anyway, on the subject of the article...I'm thoroughly disgusted and if the courts rule in favor of the pentagon I'm leaving the country.