151. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173989 by Don_Quix on May 1, 2008 at 12:09 pm

Now suppose I asked you for hard evidence on when the United States became an independent nation. Just what would you base your response on?

So we have moved on from refuting the age of the universe, to refuting the age of the United States. This just keeps getting more and more fascinating.

152. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173973 by Don_Quix on May 1, 2008 at 11:59 am

Grow-up.

Q.E.D.

*arms crossed colbert-style*

153. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173959 by Don_Quix on May 1, 2008 at 11:52 am

Your avatar is mesmerizing. Is she playing Dawkins in an upcoming bio-pic or something? You know like Cate Blanchett recently played Dylan?

This would be the best movie ever.

154. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173944 by Don_Quix on May 1, 2008 at 11:40 am

Just to be sure we are on the same page.

You're not only not on the same page with everyone else here, you're in a different book.

Speaking of books, you should try reading one sometime (No! Not the bible! Put that down! Damnit!), or perhaps even reading a few of the copious number of links to real data provided in this thread. After you have done that, you should compose an intelligent argument citing empirical data that supports your claims.

Until you do this, you're simply going to continue to get ridiculed and laughed at like all the other dim-witted creationist trolls we see here on a daily basis.

155. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173925 by Don_Quix on May 1, 2008 at 11:19 am

The SNR evidence gets washed away, like blood. Doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Careful. They'll turn that around on you and say Jesus' blood got washed away too. ;)

156. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173905 by Don_Quix on May 1, 2008 at 10:45 am

And with that... I'm going to lunch.

And there you are ladies and gentlemen, another incoherent non-sequitur spouting troll successfully wastes all of our time.

*Round of applause*

157. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173885 by Don_Quix on May 1, 2008 at 10:15 am

Only so much time in a day, my friend. Please understand this.
The link you provided is too long and reading things is hard. I'd rather just blather on pseudo-intellectually about things I know nothing about.

There. I fixed it for you.

158. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173873 by Don_Quix on May 1, 2008 at 10:08 am

I'm afraid you have given me nothing of substance to respond to.

Funny, that's how I feel about everything you have posted so far.

If this happens again and I do not respond, you will know why.

Oh, somehow I think your obsessive-compulsive urge to post every 5 minutes will combine with your complete lack of understanding regarding the things you are posting about in order to help you overcome this difficulty.

159. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173859 by Don_Quix on May 1, 2008 at 9:48 am

Both would be nice but I'll settle for SNR transitions since that's the topic at hand.

Or could the fossil reference been an implied position on my part

Sounds like your position is a little bit more than implied. Also, what is it like to go through life while contradicting yourself every other sentence?

160. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173844 by Don_Quix on May 1, 2008 at 9:36 am

So if we can not see the line [clearly] between phase two and phase three, why can we not see transitional evidence between the two? There should be thousands of SNR's in this transition phase of every flavor if the universe is billions of years old, no?

Oh no...now they not only want transitional forms of fossils, but they want transitional forms of stars too! I give up.

*head in hands*

161. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #173816 by Don_Quix on May 1, 2008 at 9:10 am

You can't honestly expect him to accept any of the astrophysical evidence you have posted. Astrophysics involves understanding math, and math is hard! If a person doesn't understand something, then that something can't possibly be true, right?

162. Museums teach society lacking in science literacy

Comment #172698 by Don_Quix on April 29, 2008 at 11:53 pm

This is one of the most beautiful and refreshing articles I have read on this site recently. It reminds me of how I felt when I was in primary school and visited the local science museum. Unlike most cretinists, I felt a sense of wonder and awe, even as a child, and I still do today...

And FYI, my local science museum wasn't particularly special at the time (although it did have a pretty rad mockup of one of the Gemini capsules that you could actually climb inside!!)

Speaking as an American: If American public schools were more like what is described in this article, we wouldn't be in the predicaments we are in now.

And Ben Stein...well...I don't know exactly what he would be doing.

My snarky remarks aside, this is a very positive article. I wish we saw more of these types of articles here.

When cretinists pull out the inevitable canard of: "ATHEISM HAS NO MORALS AND DOESN'T CARE ABOUT CHILDREN AND LEADS DIRECTLY TO THE DESTRUCTION/MORAL DECAY OF SOCIETY! SO WHAT WOULD AN ATHEIST SOCIETY LOOK LIKE!!!???"...

...It would be nice to be able to cite a number of these sorts of articles in response.

163. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #172693 by Don_Quix on April 29, 2008 at 11:19 pm

Although I don't often find myself in agreement with the ADL, I can think of only one word to describe this:

PWN3D

164. Ben Stein Vs. Sputtering Atheists

Comment #165834 by Don_Quix on April 22, 2008 at 12:47 pm

I don't suppose there's any chance of a documentary-style movie version of The God Delusion being produced and marketed, is there?

Maybe Penn Jillette could play the hapless narrator ala Michael Moore/Ben Stein.

165. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111862 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 10:18 pm

rtambree:

For the second time, you intentionally quote me out of context in order to try to invent a point to dispute which I didn't make. How utterly disingenuous and disreputable.

Forget my last post. Clearly, I was right the first time I responded to you. You have no interest in honest debate, and as far as I am concerned you have no credibility. I will not be responding to you anymore.

166. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111860 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 10:06 pm

rtambree:
It seems to me that you are posting reflexively without taking the time to truly read and understand my posts, or I am tired and your posts are making less and less sense because I am tired, or your posts just genuinely and objectively are making less and less sense. Regardless, I have to go to bed. I'll try and pick this up sometime tomorrow :)

167. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111857 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 10:00 pm

Radseq:
When I say "most" people have "earned" what they have, I'm referring to the VAST majority of people in the US who work for a living and make between $30,000 and $100,000 a year. Basically, the middle class. I'm not saying ALL people have EARNED what they have (although in many cases, even those who are uber-rich have).

I'm not defending rich people here (I'm not rich by any means), but I am defending everyone's RIGHT to be rich. But I am also not defending the right of the rich to hoard all the money/resources in the world and let everyone else starve to death. There must be a middle way.

I also think jealousy and class-envy has a lot to do with the near-religious pitch that these sorts of conversations end up reaching. I think that is what truly disgusts me...that is the sanctimonious tone the conversations often take on...moreso than the arguments themselves (many of which I often find myself in at least partial agreement with).

168. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111853 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 9:43 pm

It's not fair. IT'S NOT FAIR!
In other words, fuck 'em? Better luck next time, huh?

Why do you keep taking fragments of my expositions of your false analogies out of context in an apparent attempt to make it seem like you are making a new point? That's just kind of...amateur.

169. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111852 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 9:38 pm

Okay, let's say that humans only share 95% (or even 90%, which is way too low) of their genes - how can you account for some having billions and many having zilch. It surely can't be a fair allocation based on personal merit, so there must be other factors at play: environmental, luck, etc.

WTF does fair have to do with anything? What is fair? Fair is a purely subjective term, which is why I think these sorts of conversation get so heated. One person's version of extreme fairness is another person's intense oppression. There is no objective "fairness" in the universe.

This is not to say that needless human suffering should not be ameliorated as often and as soon as possible using all practical means at humanity's disposal. But this doesn't mean that everyone must forcibly give up, or feel obligated to give up, what they have earned in order to save people they have never met. And despite your cartoon-ish caricatures of western society, MOST people HAVE earned what they have.

170. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111845 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 9:27 pm

The brainwashing is remarkably pervasive for a non-totalitarian society. I hear this so often.

Even for a backhanded ad hominem, that was pretty lame. Try again at making a valid point.

171. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111843 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 9:23 pm

That's a different point to the one that not all species have the same DNA. Lions have different genes from zebras, but all humans share 99%+ of their genes.

You said all humans share 99.9% of their DNA (which is actually incorrect).

I never said all lifeforms share the same genes. I said all life on Earth share 100% of their DNA. This is true because virtually all modern living things have DNA. I wasn't referring to them sharing specific genes or the differences between their DNA, I was referring to the fact that all living things on Earth have DNA (which you then seemed to deny) in order to address your false analogy.

172. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111839 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 9:13 pm

Life on earth doesn't share the same DNA - your analogy is false.

Hah! What?

I'm really interested to learn which creatures on Earth have DNA that evolved on Earth and which don't. Please, elaborate.

173. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111837 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 9:07 pm

But he'd argue that it's his land, he paid for it, and he can goddamn do what he wants with it. It's not his fault that gravity forces water downhill. Why should he be penalized for gravity? It's the other person's fault for buying land downstream. And now he's getting what's coming to him for his error. That's the market. He should be thanking him for teaching him a lesson in tough love, rather than sueing him.

It doesn't work that way now, and it wouldn't work that way in any civil society. People are responsible for the harm they cause to other peoples' property. Your argument is ridiculous.

174. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111836 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 9:06 pm

It can't be both "significant numbers" and "moderately rare".

WRONG. There CAN be "significant numbers" of something, while those numbers still being "moderately rare" in comparison to the whole. You're splitting hairs and trying to justify your position through obscurantism.

But the vast majority of wealth has been accumulated through inheritance, marrying into it, corruption (e.g. Russian oligarchs), etc, and not through personal effort.

Are we talking about how things happen in this day and age, or how things happened in the Russian Tzarist Empire? I'm not sure how the latter relates to modern day society. In modern western countries, especially the US, anyone can achieve whatever they desire.

If all humans share 99.9% of their DNA, why should there be people worth tens of billions and millions of others worth zilch?

If all life on earth shares 100% of their DNA, why should a lion be able to hunt down and eat a poor defenseless zebra who is both young and injured? It's not fair. IT'S NOT FAIR! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Ridiculous.

175. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111833 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 8:59 pm

If all land becomes privately owned, and you can dictate what happens on it without government "interference", then you can pollute your own land all you want.
....but what happens when it floats downstream into the next guy's well?

I never get a good answer to that one either.

If you live in any modern western society with modern property-rights laws (such as most are and as a libertarian society would be), you could sue the pants off your upstream neighbor in civil court, win the case, bankrupt them for the cleanup costs, and then own their land.

If you lived in an anarchist society, you could kill them. The threat of swift death is a strong disincentive to shitting on your neighbors' land.

176. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111830 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 8:53 pm

What about the significant number of people who are born poor but who achieve extreme amounts of wealth or status through their efforts. I know this is a moderately rare case, but not unheard of. Do those people have favorable genes (as you call them) or privileged upbringings, or do they just under-attribute their environment to account for their circumstances?

177. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111820 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 8:36 pm

The only way for Randism to be perfectly consistent within itself is a world of letting the poor die in the streets, and having your kids have to be Batman to earn their inheritance.

Oh wait is this in reference to Ayn Rand's "Objectivism"? I was confused because I thought "Randism" referred to The Amazing James Randi...which made sense to me somehow in the context of this thread because he and Shermer are colleagues/friends. My mistake. heh.

Side Note: Batman was born of extreme financial privilege.

178. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111815 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 8:23 pm

These "insights" are not new, I'm not trying to tear down Shermer...he seems like a nice enough guy I suppose. However, this is the third or forth thread about his homo economicus theories.

I think there are a lot of threads and articles here recently mainly because he has a new book out. No offense to Shermer, he is a cool guy, but he regularly returns the favor for Dawkins and the rest of the "Anti-God-Squad" in Skeptic Magazine. heheh.

I'm not trying to say there is any sort of conspiracy going on, I'm just pointing out that there is a lot of (understandable) cross-pollination of ideas and marketing in the rationalist/atheist cause ;)

179. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111812 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 8:12 pm

Yep, the old inheritance paradox.
I never get a satisfactory answer to that one.

I'm not sure I understand this (or anything presented so far in this thread) as an either/or situation. What are we bickering about exactly?

180. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111810 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 8:04 pm

My personal assumption on the hypothetical posed by Shermer here is that it's not 'EVERYONE earns 25k and you earn 50k etc.' it could just mean 'AT the job you're working at now, you earn this much and that much. blah blah'

Screw that. I don't care where I am working or who is making what, I'd go for Shermer's alternative hypothetical scenario where I was making 100K and everyone else was making 250K. Granted, 100K is not a fortune, but it's not chump change.

BUT, I also would use my 100K to figure out how to make 500K ;)

181. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111807 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 7:53 pm

Hey welcome back Diacanu! :)

(I didn't even know you were away)

182. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111799 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 7:39 pm

That's always a nice stalling tactic to do nothing and perpetuate the injustice and suffering.

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were asking an honest question in order to have a polite and rational conversation. I see that is not the case.

You also may note, if you read my previous posts, that I wasn't (entirely) disagreeing with you. I also agree with some of the things you raised in your previous post. My only question was as to the methods to achieve those goals. But nevermind that.

*Goes back to oppressing the poor and taking advantage of various third-world countries*

183. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111794 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 7:23 pm

Rtambree
I'm not sure that I have a problem with the fundamental concept of the redistribution of wealth. I think the problem I have is with what amount of wealth redistribution is fair, and who decides what that amount is. Historically, at least in the US, it seems that it is often the case that most of the people who are most adamant about the need for others to submit to wealth redistribution are themselves quite well-off, or are immune to it.

In my experience, it always seems that the middle class are the ones who get to eat the brunt of this kind of economic theory. The middle class are not rich enough to be insulated from the punitive effects of wealth redistribution, and they are not poor enough to benefit from the benevolent effects of wealth redistribution. They just get stuck with the high tax bill.

The problem with wealth redistribution in modern societies in general is that it does not often seem to fairly address what "wealth" is (since the concept of wealth is entirely relative to each society). It also doesn't seem to ever take into account the positive influences the "greedy rich people/companies" have on those societies, such as creating new jobs and industries which in turn often lead to more opportunities for wealth-creation among the general populace (especially the middle class).

184. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111788 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 6:42 pm

BTW - Huckabee just announced he's going to win South Carolina - I think I just threw up in my mouth.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammo!

EDIT: Here's a nice and frightening article I read today in regard to Hickabee. It would be funny if he wasn't doing so well in the primaries.

From the article:
Asked by reporters later if he thinks only Christians will go to heaven, Huckabee refused to say. He often says that as a minister, he joked that he doesn't even believe all Baptists are going to heaven.

Well at least he's right on that! Hahahah.

185. The Moral Instinct

Comment #111783 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 6:19 pm

I think justice is an overarching, and foundational but also non-empirical reality

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your point, but where is the overarching justice in a star going supernova in some corner of a galaxy and obliterating dozens of other stars and planets around it (some of which may or may not have advanced lifeforms on them who are equally as concerned about their concept of "justice" as you are)?

Where is the overarching justice in a black hole getting a little too close to our solar system and disrupting the gravitational pull that our sun has on Earth just enough so that it eventually pulls us into an orbit that destroys our climate...or ejects us from the solar system entirely and turns Earth into dead ice cube?

I'm not trying to be a smart-ass, and I'm not saying I disagree with the concept of justice, but I think all concepts of "justice" are both human inventions, and only relative and meaningful to the situations those humans are applying it to. Saying there is an "overarching justice" built into the fabric of the universe is like saying there is an "overarching sense of humor" built into the fabric of the universe.

186. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #111770 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 5:47 pm

On the other hand if your hypothesis is wrong God is probably a huge fan of reality TV shows.

Yes. Very, very, very, very small reality tv shows. hahah.

187. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #111760 by Don_Quix on January 15, 2008 at 5:35 pm

@FitzRoy
That's an excellent way of putting it. It would be as if the world's largest stage were built solely for the purpose of observing the day-to-day lives of a microscopic colony of bacterium in a tiny drop of condensation on the floor somewhere near the back of stage-left. And even that analogy does not come close to accurately describing the differences of scale, nor the entirely lethal conditions outside of our "drop of condensation", that we actually find ourselves facing. Such an undertaking would be utterly illogical, a tremendous waste of time and effort, and not give a "designer" any real insight into what was actually happening ;)

188. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #111505 by Don_Quix on January 14, 2008 at 8:52 pm

RE: Comment #110693 by Steve Zara

I understand and agree with you that the universe as a whole may appear to be fine-tuned for the existence of complex lifeforms (we are here after all, aren't we?). I also understand that the anthropic principle (or argument, rather) has everything to do with the actual physical constants of the universe being the way they are, and little or nothing to do with the conditions of the universe in respect to the ability of lifeforms on Earth to naturally survive in those conditions.

However, my point was that I think it is worth stressing the idea that if we are "designed" as theists claim, then the "designer" did a piss-poor job of preparing us AND the rest of the universe for our arrival. I believe this is a particularly valid point because almost all life we know of is only capable of existing naturally in an incalculably small portion of the universe...that is, here on Earth (and not even in all places on Earth!).

For the record, I don't disagree with what I believe I have seen you post previously...that being that it is a valid scientific question to ask why the universe is the way it is, and why its "constants" are the way they are. I find this to be a very important and interesting question as well. I intended my post to more loosely address some of the biological and practical aspects of that type of argument, rather than the purely fundamental physics aspects of it.

I personally find the "argument from an inhospitable environment" to be a pretty damning case against a designer in light of the fact that human beings are supposedly the most important and special things that exist in the universe ;)

189. The Mind of the Market

Comment #110673 by Don_Quix on January 11, 2008 at 10:16 pm

I don't mean to be callous, but anyone who is a citizen of the United States who is starving to death either is too stupid to help themselves, or the people in charge of their welfare are negligent and should be criminally prosecuted.

There is absolutely no reason why anyone in the US should suffer or die from hunger. The federal government provides vouchers called Food Stamps to anyone below a specific income level which can be exchanged at almost any grocery store in the country for food. This is in addition to any food programs that individual states may also have (and if I am not mistaken, all of them do). Anyone who is unwilling to go through the simple process of applying for state or federal food aid can always go to the nearest soup kitchen or homeless shelter and get 3 meals a day, every day (there are dozens of such places in almost every city).

True hunger and poverty in underdeveloped countries is a lot different than the kind of poverty that exists in the United States, of course. But that kind of true poverty has a lot less to do with Western market capitalism and a lot more to do with the actions of specific greedy tin-pot despots, warlords, and (surprise!) religious zealots.

Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest.

That being said, while I agree that market capitalism may not be a "perfect" economic system, it is by far the most equitable and successful system that humans have yet devised to ensure an equal chance of prosperity for all parties involved. Coincidently, no one who rants against capitalism ever seems to be able to provide a better alternative. All they can say is "Capitalism BAD Capitalism BAD!!!!111".

OK, let's assume capitalism is fundamentally bad (which it isn't). What are some more equitable economic alternatives? Socialism? The barter system? Blood sacrifice? Wife swapping? Seriously.

190. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #110669 by Don_Quix on January 11, 2008 at 9:20 pm

what the heck is the rest of the universe FOR if it was created for the purpose of housing us humans

The stars are God's daisy chain, silly.

That is funny, but I think a lot of theists literally believe something along these lines and never even consider how incomprehensibly huge, inconceivably violent, and instantaneously lethal the universe actually is to almost all forms of Earth-based life .

Even if every star we could see in the night sky harbored at least one Earth-like planet that humans could survive on (which, so far, modern cosmology shows is certainly not the case), that still leaves 99.99999999999999999999999% of the rest of the universe where a human being (or just about any other modern Earth creature) would die a horrific and, thankfully, nearly-instant death.

The universe as a whole is truly about as far as it can get from being "fine-tuned" for any kind of complex life as we know it on Earth.

191. Won't anyone stand up for God?

Comment #110568 by Don_Quix on January 11, 2008 at 1:54 pm

Please, present it.

It says so right in the bible. Case closed.

;)

192. Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists

Comment #110555 by Don_Quix on January 11, 2008 at 1:25 pm

A third argument against the 'fine-tuning' of physical laws by God, aka the anthropomorphic argument, is that no matter how unlikely you estimate these conditions to be, all you have to do is allow enough time (or enough space) for diverse universes to occur naturally, and it becomes inevitable that this particular combination will come up sooner or later.

And a fourth argument could be that, since no one really knows what the Universe actually is, who is to say that it is even physically possible for the seemingly "fine-tuned" constants to have values different from what they are. It could be that the Universe is the way it is because it is impossible for it to be any other way, for reasons that we are as yet unable to objectively discern.

193. New attempt to end blasphemy law

Comment #109789 by Don_Quix on January 9, 2008 at 5:56 pm

Good luck getting this silly law abolished. I'm actually kind of surprised that such a thing still exists in the UK. It almost seems like everyone just kind of forgot about it until recently.

I don't think any kind of "blasphemy" law like this could ever pass legal muster in the US for the same reason that British-style libel laws would never fly in the US...the first amendment.

Of course, with the amount of power that has been grabbed by the federal government in the past 60+ years, there's always a chance some crazy president *coughuckabeecough* could declare a "national emergency" and try to impose his vision of a theocratic utopia. But I also suspect that this may be exactly why the amendment regarding the right to bear arms was placed immediately after the one about the freedom of speech in our constitutional bill of rights ;)

194. US 'doomed' if creationist president elected: scientists

Comment #108898 by Don_Quix on January 7, 2008 at 11:13 pm

Obama's campaign is looking up, but I'm not sure if it's because of him or because everyone is just tired of the Clintons and the status-quo ;)

I'm not a Democrat, and I don't know much about Obama, but if it came down to a choice between him and Huckabee (which I doubt will happen) I know exactly who I'd vote for:

RICHARD DAWKINS!

Just kidding... (but only because he can't legally be our president) ;)

America is at somewhat of a crossroads right now because this is the first time since the early 20th century when an incumbent president or vice-president was not campaigning for the next presidency. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

195. Researchers use neuroimaging to study ESP

Comment #108897 by Don_Quix on January 7, 2008 at 10:41 pm

I find this article interesting, and I'm somewhat surprised by some of the reactions here. I don't really think it's a "waste of time" to conduct such experiments. At the very least it helps to contribute to the effort of discrediting pseudoscientific ideas like ESP for the unwashed masses. That seems like a worthy endeavor to me ;)

And there is always the extremely unlikely possibility that through such experiments they may stumble across and be able to scientifically explain some new and as-yet unknown natural phenomena that people perceive or describe as ESP (again very unlikely, but possible).

Also, it IS very, very simple to prove a negative:

2 + 2 IS NOT EQUAL TO 5.

There, I proved it. Eat that D'Souza!

196. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107645 by Don_Quix on January 4, 2008 at 10:25 pm

As I said, it was just an analogy (and I thought it was a mildly amusing one). I don't think it has to be taken beyond that. But debating people about why their particular sports team is not greater than all other sports teams does strike me as similar to the GOD vs Other God(s), and God(s) vs No God(s) discussion. I think a lot of the same emotions and prejudices are present in most of those conversations, depending on how much of a "believer" you are. That's all I'm saying.

EDIT: You were a cheerleader in HS? That is HOT! Pix plz. ;)

197. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107641 by Don_Quix on January 4, 2008 at 10:03 pm

I just think that taking a rationalist approach towards team sports under the guise of atheism is carrying it on a bit too far. =) I'm not a huge sports fan, but I could see why some people might think that this is just plain ridiculous. =)

You've obviously never been to an NCAA Championship, the World Cup, the World Series, the Super Bowl, or especially any Chicago Cubs or Manchester United game. This is not even to mention high school football in the rural USA ;)

198. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107635 by Don_Quix on January 4, 2008 at 9:49 pm

Maybe it's just me, but rooting for a team at a game or whatever...that's just fun. Trying to break it down into what makes sense or doesn't makes sense on a rational basis is just plain stupid, in my opinion

I dunno. I thought the analogy that Teratornis presented was pretty good. It made sense to me. And I'm not even a Red Sox fan ;)

199. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107633 by Don_Quix on January 4, 2008 at 9:43 pm

Read the book of the Dalai Lama 'The Art of Happiness' it's not about Buddhist doctrine but about really positive thinking

As I mentioned a little bit earlier, I think even the Dalai Lama would technically be considered an "atheist" by most of the adherents of the Abrahamic religions (especially the Westernized versions).

I'm not saying that the Dalai Lama doesn't believe in some kind of magical supernatural force that exists beyond him and affects his life and all other lives directly (Karma/Dharma, etc), but he certainly doesn't believe in a singular "God" in the Christian/Jewish/Islamic sense.

Buddhism, although it is in no sense harmless, is demonstrably less harmful than most of the mainstream versions of the Abrahamic religions, IMHO.

200. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107626 by Don_Quix on January 4, 2008 at 9:12 pm

Thanks Rtambree. I will do that. :) I just recently read The Varieties of Scientific Experience, which was based on Carl Sagan's 1985 Gifford Lectures (edited by Ann Druyan and published posthumously). Although somewhat dated, it still seemed to carry the same forward-looking themes and ideas for which Carl Sagan was best known. I wish there were video of that lecture, because while reading Sagan is still great, listening to him and watching him is even better.