1. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #190849 by cyris8400 on June 9, 2008 at 5:59 pm

"illogical fallacy"

LOL, double negative. Atheism wins in first paragraph. :p

2. 'Framing Science' and The Dawkins Effect

Comment #180283 by cyris8400 on May 14, 2008 at 1:40 pm

I'm using Firefox. PDF links have never worked for me, btw. Always with the blank white page.

3. 'Framing Science' and The Dawkins Effect

Comment #180273 by cyris8400 on May 14, 2008 at 1:22 pm

The PDF links don't work for me, they only send me to a blank white page.

(First post)

4. Trouble ahead for science

Comment #177146 by cyris8400 on May 8, 2008 at 4:48 pm

Does anybody have an idea how well Expelled has been doing at the box office? Purely judging from commercials, I'd say mediocre, because when a movie does well they do new trailers (#1 movie in America, blah blah blah), and the only trailers I've been seeing are for "Iron Man" and "Narnia" and "What Happens in Vegas".

5. The History Channel might do something right

Comment #176139 by cyris8400 on May 6, 2008 at 4:56 pm

Y'know, a good amount of History Channel stuff is worth watching, like "Modern Marvels" and "The Universe", and they did a top-notch debunking special on the 9/11 Truthers. Not that that makes up totally for "UFO Hunters" and "Monster Quest".

If they aired Jonathan Miller's Brief History of Disbelief, then they'd definitely be on my good side.

6. Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says

Comment #168644 by cyris8400 on April 25, 2008 at 8:51 am

As the first commentator mentioned, I'm pretty sure that the super-volcanic eruption of Toba in Sumatra 70,000 years ago is the ultimate cause of this bottleneck in DNA studies. Drought would only have been the proximate cause which was probably itself caused by the supervolcano eruption. Strange that they wouldn't mention something that would enthrall readers more than drought. Probably just didn't research it enough.

7. The Secular Conscience

Comment #147147 by cyris8400 on March 20, 2008 at 12:21 am

ZOMG quoteworthy:

"Many secular liberals have convinced themselves that freedom of belief entails respect for all religions, and that respect means refraining from criticism. But that is not respect; it's just blanket acceptance, even disregard. Understood correctly, respect is not just compatible with criticismâ€"respect entails criticism. To respect someone we must take him seriously, and taking someone seriously sometimes means finding fault with him."

From the introduction (http://www.austindacey.com/writing.html) to Dacey's book.

Take that, fleas!

Reminds me of something similar Ann Druyan wrote in the introduction to "The Varieties of Scientific Experience", that Carl Sagan took God so seriously that that he could not bring himself to believe in him through faith.

8. The Secular Conscience

Comment #147143 by cyris8400 on March 19, 2008 at 11:45 pm

Hmm, that's a disturbing-sounding comment from Henri Bergson. What part of liberalism entails a slave morality? I could understand if you're talking about multiculturalism and postmodernism, but not if you also mean things like freedom of religion and choice.

If Onfray is a proponent of what it sounds like Mr. Bergson is advocating, then I may be sorry I bought his "Atheist Manifesto" (haven't read it yet).

9. Oklahoma: One Step from Doom

Comment #141056 by cyris8400 on March 9, 2008 at 10:41 pm

Son of a whore! I'm Oklahoman.

10. Hebrew University researcher: Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai

Comment #138489 by cyris8400 on March 4, 2008 at 12:39 pm

Bruno,

The guy's name was John Allegro. Although Shanon may be onto something, despite strong archaeological evidence that the Exodus never happened, and although Allegro was formerly a respected Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, Allegro's religious theories of hallucinogens are certifiably crackpot.

He concluded these theories in a manner not unlike how prophecy enthusiasts see predictions of Hitler, 9/11, and the supposed 2012 doomsday in the Bible, I Ching, the Popol Vuh, and the writings of Nostradamus. Allegro saw cryptic homages to phallic mushrooms and other hallucinogens in every religious text he examined.

His story is sort of tragic, because he gravitated toward quackery after a falling out with other biblical scholars, when we said in a radio interview that key events and figures of the New Testament may have been widespread motifs and character archetypes. Because this was shocking news to the average person at the time, and because most of his fellow Dead Sea Scroll scholars were believing Catholics, he was gradually estranged from them and from legitimate research. His daughter wrote a biography of him which you or anyone else can see for more detail.

11. Fleas on the Horizon: In Defense of God

Comment #138475 by cyris8400 on March 4, 2008 at 12:17 pm

I saw Chris Hedges's book "I Don't Believe in Atheists" at the bookstore a few days ago and read through the preface, and I can honestly say that whatever critical acumen he possessed when tackling the Religious Right in "American Fascists" must have been thrown to the wayside in order to criticize Hitchens and Harris (he says this book was formulated from his debates with Harris and Hitchens).

He tries to argue that we are utopian (that we believe we will bring about a golden godless age, which Hitchens would deny if you asked him and Harris would agree with in a non-strawman way), and that we are all imperialistic, all of us being pro-Iraq and anti-Muslim to a genocidal extent (Upside-Down Rush Limbaughs, I suppose).

All of these guys say the New Atheists are polemic and set up strawmen, but I have yet to see a single one of these dime-a-dozen backlash authors succeed in not portraying us how they complain of being falsely portrayed.

Sadly the only difference between an author like Chris Hedges or Alister McGrath and an author like Vox Day is that the former substitutes a defense of creationism for the Fallacy of the Golden Mean.

12. Shermer's 'Mind of the Market' Reviewed in L.A. Times

Comment #116169 by cyris8400 on January 25, 2008 at 5:13 pm

BTW, has anyone else noticed that Shermer's new book has a positive blurb from Dinesh D'Souza on the back cover?

Apparently, Shermer also gave a positive blurb for D'Souza's "What's So Great About Christianity".

13. The Mind of the Market

Comment #109653 by cyris8400 on January 9, 2008 at 12:13 pm

Anyone else notice that the book has a blurb from Dinesh D'Souza on the back cover?

"Written with his customary verve and flair, The Mind of the Market is Michael Shermer at his best. Roving over the entire sweep of history, and drawing on the best of modern science, Shermer attempts a grand synthesis of research from psychology and the neurosciences to demonstrate that markets are moral and that free trade meshes well with human nature. Shermer entertains as well as informs, and in the process he deepens the argument for economic, political and social freedom."—Dinesh D'Souza, author of What's So Great About America

See also http://endogenousretrovirus.blogspot.com/2008/01/michael-shermers-new-book.html

14. Mother Nature is Not Our Friend

Comment #105834 by cyris8400 on January 1, 2008 at 11:34 pm

I was sorta hoping he'd changed his mind about the "reality of psychic phenomena" and reincarnation. Oh wells.

15. Taking children for a ride

Comment #102894 by cyris8400 on December 23, 2007 at 8:30 pm

For a second I thought this was written by the author of "Atheist Universe", David Mills, but the pic of the guy is not him.

16. Survey finds most Americans believe Jesus born of virgin

Comment #102350 by cyris8400 on December 22, 2007 at 12:51 pm

I think the amount of atheists and agnostics who believe in the Virgin Birth can be ascribed to those who are either ignorant, disbelieving of religion but without interest in science and reason, or [ugh] "spiritual" types.

17. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #96252 by cyris8400 on December 10, 2007 at 8:35 am

While also being an interesting story about local atheism, is this not also evidence for the phenomenon of NILFs? (News I'd Like to F***)

18. Hello Again, Michael Behe!

Comment #86548 by cyris8400 on November 9, 2007 at 2:18 pm

Oh, and, for anyone here who doesn't understand her occasional genetics or virology terms, see her "Quick Translation for Laymen II":

http://endogenousretrovirus.blogspot.com/2007/11/quick-translation-for-laymen-ii.html

19. Hello Again, Michael Behe!

Comment #86537 by cyris8400 on November 9, 2007 at 1:38 pm

To everyone who's wondering, the Lohan thing comes from some grudgingly dismissive ad hominem remark Behe made about ERV (she had published a paper critical of his claims about AIDS on the Panda's Thumb site).

As she can be seen (as anyone critical of pseudoscience can be seen) as toothed in her criticisms, Behe called her a "mean girl". There's a catty and teenage-ish movie with Lindsay Lohan in it by the same title, thus, ERV uses that as a hilarious petty insult.

20. Response to Dinesh D'Souza op-ed

Comment #85415 by cyris8400 on November 5, 2007 at 7:20 pm

The author is listed as "Kelly O'Connor". Am I to understand that Kelly has relented in identifying her last name, then?

21. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!

Comment #84799 by cyris8400 on November 3, 2007 at 4:43 pm

A photo album of swastikas and crosses: http://nobeliefs.com/mementoes.htm
(Notice the sunny religious paintings by Hitler. Does a church-hating atheist produce such paintings?)

A photo album of Nazis and clergymen: http://nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm

22. The truth in religion

Comment #84174 by cyris8400 on November 1, 2007 at 11:23 am

Perhaps gushing reviewers of Cornwell's new book would hold their tongue on the "thank God Hitler was an atheist" thing if someone told him about one of Cornwell's old books, "Hitler's Pope".

23. A Face-Off Over Faith

Comment #75832 by cyris8400 on October 3, 2007 at 7:40 pm

Through no fault of his own, I think Dawkins came out of this looking worse than he is. It wasn't so much because the audience was in favor of Lennox, or because the whole shin-dig was hosted by a Christian radio station, but it was rigged in that Dawkins had to both answer Lennox's criticisms (none of which were original) and the moderator's request for elaborations on his "theses".

24. What do these atheists understand of religion?

Comment #67256 by cyris8400 on September 3, 2007 at 1:35 am

The Atheist Hitler myth needs a widespread and public debunking. It's pseudohistory and propaganda. Hitler's invocations of God in Mein Kampf and his collected speeches don't seem to convince these apologists (cognitive dissonance), and neither do the "Gott Mitt Uns" Nazi belt-buckles.

A picture says a thousand words. When confronted with the Atheist Hitler myth, deploy these photo albums of Nazis and religious figures, and Swastikas and Crosses:

http://nobeliefs.com/mementoes.htm
http://nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm

A number of the photos come from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.