1. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #180215 by Driver on May 14, 2008 at 11:33 am

Marc,

I share your admiration of Dr. Sagan. He is brilliant with his wording. I am reading Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors right now. I reached a part in the book where he (along with Druyan) explains how female mice will spontaneously abort if they smell the urine of another male (which is why the father urinates around the territory). Sagan calls the intruder's urine an "abortion-inducing aroma".

He really cracks me up sometimes.

2. Sci-fi guru Clarke to have secular funeral

Comment #146797 by Driver on March 19, 2008 at 12:17 pm

Not to take away from Arthur, but my biggest concern is not my funeral. It's what happens to me after my funeral.

I have requested to have my body donated to the local Health Sciences Center. My very religious mother refuses to do so. I tried to compromise by agreeing to a religious funeral.

Hopefully I will outlive my mother.

3. First 'Rule' Of Evolution Suggests That Life Is Destined To Become More Complex

Comment #146108 by Driver on March 18, 2008 at 4:04 pm

by Enlightened Blasphemy:

"'you see you see!' they clap their hands and jump up and down excitedly. 'this is God at work! See how it all gets more complex all the time. It's obvious that jesus died for our sins...'"

This won't contribute to the discussion on this article, but I just had to say that when I read that I laughed out loud. Then I had to come up with a story for my coworkers about the subject of my laughter. I couldn't admit to them that it was their faces I saw in my head as I read that comment.

4. 12 Year Old Girl Prodigy Paints Pictures of God

Comment #141957 by Driver on March 11, 2008 at 1:14 pm

countrygirl and wow21,

I tried to warn you. Do you see now that you are trying to go into combat with rocks and sticks while the other side has automatic weapons? For now, build up your military and artillery (that's knowledge by the way, in case you haven't caught on to the metaphor), and come back and see us. We'll be happy to do battle.

5. 12 Year Old Girl Prodigy Paints Pictures of God

Comment #141943 by Driver on March 11, 2008 at 12:43 pm

wow21,

I can't tell if you and countrygirl are the same person. If not, you both have the same disregard for punctuation, grammar, spelling, and logical statements in general. I will provide you with the same warning I did for countrygirl. While I take pity on you, there are others on this site that won't. Do yourself a favor and admire these paintings of Kenny Loggins to yourself.

By the way, you criticized the world for being full of criticism.

6. Earth's Final Sunset Predicted

Comment #135121 by Driver on February 28, 2008 at 2:49 pm

Don Koenig calculated the statistical probability of when Jesus would return. Quite fascinating and somewhat comical:

http://www.thepropheticyears.com/comments/countdown_to_second_coming.htm

His conclusion: Between 2028 AD and 2057 AD. So no need to worry about the end of the earth.

7. America: slouching towards the Enlightenment

Comment #135104 by Driver on February 28, 2008 at 2:25 pm

Lil_Xunzian,

Well said. I have a friend who is an atheist who actually recommended this site to me. As we were talking about it later, I mentioned how much I enjoyed reading about the evolutionary topics that people registered to the site discuss. He replied, "The what? Oh, yeah. It's great."

He is an atheist and he has no idea why. He just doesn't want to be a part of any organized religion...wants to be part of the minority.

8. 12 Year Old Girl Prodigy Paints Pictures of God

Comment #133755 by Driver on February 26, 2008 at 5:10 pm

countrygirl,

I was actually refering to the terrible joke I made about Kenny Loggins in my previous comment.

And don't take this the wrong way, but you should really find your way out of this website. You seem too sweet and innocent to be torn apart by the intellectuals that roam this site.

9. 12 Year Old Girl Prodigy Paints Pictures of God

Comment #133738 by Driver on February 26, 2008 at 4:13 pm

countrygirl,

Thanks for bringing this post back...I appreciate the opportunity to get that horribly timed joke in.

10. 12 Year Old Girl Prodigy Paints Pictures of God

Comment #133728 by Driver on February 26, 2008 at 3:52 pm

I knew a lot of people liked Kenny Loggins, but I didn't know that he was God.

11. Richard Dawkins on five of his favorite books

Comment #132897 by Driver on February 25, 2008 at 11:38 am

Five favorite comedies:

1. Bible
2. Book of Mormon
3. Koran
4. Billy Graham Answers Your Questions
5. Left Behind

12. The Lava Lizard's Tale

Comment #130938 by Driver on February 21, 2008 at 2:08 pm

I was talking to a relative of mine (human) about the significance of the Galapagos islands in Darwin's writings. She cut in with "Isn't that where Darwin saw something crawl out of the water, and then he came up with evolution?"

This is someone who adamantly denies evolution. I can't understand how someone could be so sure about something they know so little about.

13. Missing link found in Sydney Harbour

Comment #130847 by Driver on February 21, 2008 at 11:45 am

"I think that little by little the argument by religious people, "where are the missing links" will go away."

After that their argument will be "Well who do you think put the links together to form the chain?"

14. Does the Bible have a place in public schools?

Comment #130727 by Driver on February 21, 2008 at 7:49 am

"It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities."

I can see the literary qualities...but historic? Try explaining to children at what point after Noah's flood did all of the marsupials get together and decide to swim to Australia. "Not you placental mammals! Only we marsupials can make this voyage."

You can teach about the history of how the Bible came about, but to teach history from the Bible? Not the best text book in my opinion.

15. Holy missing link! Ancient bat flew without 'sonar'

Comment #129692 by Driver on February 19, 2008 at 1:17 pm

"...and carried on to joke about all those poor blind bats going about smacking into obstacles until they realized 'hey, we need to evolve echolocation!'. "

I have also heard a "joke" like this in a church meeting I was invited to. It goes a little something like this (get your belly laughs ready): "If humans came from monkeys why are there still monkeys?" The congregation then erupted in laughter. I sat there crying.

16. Fleabytes

Comment #129686 by Driver on February 19, 2008 at 1:07 pm

Do you think there will be responses to the review of the responses to TGD?

17. State Approves Evolution As 'Scientific Theory'

Comment #129655 by Driver on February 19, 2008 at 12:30 pm

"Adding the term 'scientific theory' before the term 'evolution' was a modified proposal at least one board member called a compromise"


To be consistent we should reach a compromise on nomenclature for other subjects. For example, "The scientific theory of the cell"

18. Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Comment #127599 by Driver on February 15, 2008 at 1:03 pm

One thing I have noticed amongst my fellow Americans is how common it is to always have the television on even when nobody is watching it. When I visit my parents' house I will occasionally walk by and turn it off when no one is in the room. One time I heard my mother yell from the kitchen, "Turn it back on I can hear myself think!"

19. Questions Delay Creationist Master's Degrees

Comment #112616 by Driver on January 17, 2008 at 2:46 pm

ianmkz:

"More than 80% of the US population accept creationism or divinely guided evolution. A puny 10-13% believe that a non-divinely guided process of evolution resulted in h. sapiens."

I live in Texas. I don't have the statistics, but I'd be willing to say that in Texas we are fewer than 10-13%. It's so lonely down here.

20. Adam and Eve in the Land of the Dinosaurs

Comment #44864 by Driver on May 25, 2007 at 12:20 pm

Being from the U.S., every comment concerning the demise of the country has stung a little bit, but has been well-deserved. Imagine living in an area (the "Bible Belt") where Sunday morning television consists of live broadcasts of local church services on five of six local channels. Imagine a place where a good number of family vacations this holiday weekend will be spent visiting this museum. I am embarrassed as an American citizen.