1. The Challenge of the New Creationism

Comment #191495 by sgr79 on June 11, 2008 at 4:35 am

Quicktime is a free format, you can download it for free at quicktime.com
itunes is also free, and both work on PCs.

non-apple related, adobe acrobat PDF reader is also free.

they all make life a little more enjoyable ;>

2. Fleabytes

Comment #129928 by sgr79 on February 19, 2008 at 7:15 pm

APPLAUSE for Paula!!!!!
Paula, when are you publishing on paper? I think the horsemen could benefit from a lady like yourself!

:'D

3. The Evangelical Rebellion

Comment #104700 by sgr79 on December 29, 2007 at 6:45 am

Fighting Falcon, you said:

This is where I disagree with many fellow Atheists. We in America have a proud traditional of Individualism and a belief that the government is the cause of - and NOT the solution to - our problems. The government should be our (e.g. the people) slave and never the other way around.

4. Jail for creationist row killer

Comment #98708 by sgr79 on December 14, 2007 at 5:21 am

Swedgin -- about Colorado -- I find it interesting that no news I've come across has pointed out that the killer, a person who was trying to find shelter, was turned away from the religious dorm, MUCH LIKE JOSEPH when he was looking for shelter with a pregnant Mary! Nevermind that it was cold with lots of snow outside... to me, that opens up the theory, ironic as it is, that the killer is a religious nut who is avenging the poor treatment of Joseph from back then to anyone who refuses him shelter...

Of course, it could always be possible that the killer is just such an obvious psycopath that no-one would let him in!

5. U.S. Congress Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith

Comment #98701 by sgr79 on December 14, 2007 at 4:54 am

Well, thankfully, it doesn't have the weight of law, as stated in the Q&A directly on the linked page:

"What is a House Simple Resolution (H.Res.)?
- A simple resolution is a legislative proposal that does not require the approval of the other chamber or the signature of the President and does not have the force of law. Simple resolutions are used only to change the internal rules of one of the chambers of Congress or to express the sentiments of one of the houses."

Also note that it's only the House of Rep's sentiment and that the Senate wasn't part of it (though I admit I didn't have time to do the research on whether they have passed any similar resolutions).

Gut-wise, still hate it. Reality-wise, harmless at this point...hopefully it won't snowball, and THAT's what I'm worried about.

6. Bad Faith Awards: Vote for the winner now

Comment #94622 by sgr79 on December 6, 2007 at 4:45 am

Archbishop Francisco Chimoio

And I second the posthumous lifetime award nomination of Jerry Falwell.

7. Fear Is Stronger Than Hope When It Comes To Fitness

Comment #92744 by sgr79 on December 1, 2007 at 11:39 am

So we're confirming that fear is a greater motivator... which can be applied to the evangelicals -- they believe because they are afraid of going to hell... which to me is much different to saying that you believe because you love God.

8. Papal encyclical attacks atheism, lauds hope

Comment #92741 by sgr79 on December 1, 2007 at 11:32 am

"Let us put it very simply: man needs God, otherwise he remains without hope."

9. Georgia gets rain, but it may not help

Comment #88639 by sgr79 on November 18, 2007 at 6:34 am

Hmmmm...

I think this one fits the definition of "mixed blessings."

Or are the people of Georgia going to say that this simply means the people of Tennessee didn't pray enough as compared to them, and the deity got miffed?

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

Comment #86085 by sgr79 on November 8, 2007 at 5:10 am

You DON'T have to be a U.S. Citizen to sign up -- they even bother to ask for your country -- so there's no excuse!!!!

Go sign up!

:')

11. The God of the Bible is No Delusion!

Comment #76388 by sgr79 on October 5, 2007 at 5:04 pm

Thank you :-)

12. The God of the Bible is No Delusion!

Comment #76223 by sgr79 on October 5, 2007 at 5:53 am

P.S. and by "text" I mean a published book, or even perhaps a website link (such as the one comparing OT vs NT).

:-D

13. The God of the Bible is No Delusion!

Comment #76214 by sgr79 on October 5, 2007 at 5:27 am

Does anyone know if there's a text comparing the Bible to the Qo'ran?

Though I do agree with Sam Harris that overall extremism is more inherent in the latter, I still find the similarities that I know of thus far striking!

Both in an old testament rules sense and in the sense that some groups, such as the Baptists, believe that it's not even the same God, even though the characters overlap...

14. Scientist Build a 'Brain' From Rat Cells

Comment #53128 by sgr79 on June 29, 2007 at 3:14 pm

I was going to the forward this, so I clicked on the link to the original, and it turns out the article is dated October 27, 2004.

I wonder what they've come up with in the past 3 years? (I'm at work so didn't have the time to research this myself!).

Cool stuff though!

15. Baptists Warned About Islam, Atheism

Comment #49649 by sgr79 on June 12, 2007 at 5:48 pm

"This is a virulent strain of atheism which seeks to destroy our belief system," Colson said.

"He instead pointed to the success of booming Third World Churches, which Colson said adhere to "pure orthodox truth."

16. Don't Know Much Biology

Comment #49366 by sgr79 on June 11, 2007 at 4:22 pm

Does anyone find that the second Brownback quote provides an excellent definition of fundamentalist religious views - "If it disagrees with what I believe, it is wrong."

17. Evolution: God as Genetic Engineer

Comment #49214 by sgr79 on June 11, 2007 at 3:41 am

I live in Allentown, PA, which is in the Lehigh Valley. 10 minutes to my left is Emmaus, and 20 minutes to my right is Bethlehem (there's also a Nazareth somewhere around here). So, I wouldn't have been surprised had this man's ideas found purchase in the community...I decided to check out Lehigh University's website, and was relieved to see the following on Michael Behe's university webpage:

Official Disclaimer
My ideas about irreducible complexity and intelligent design are entirely my own. They certainly are not in any sense endorsed by either Lehigh University in general or the Department of Biological Sciences in particular. In fact, most of my colleagues in the Department strongly disagree with them.

18. Don't Know Much Biology

Comment #49058 by sgr79 on June 10, 2007 at 6:20 am

1. APPLAUSE for Coyne!!!!!!!!

2. Re: post 16 by pewkatchoo as well as a couple of other posts, the Science article mentioned was published in 1998, so the Free Inquiry mention is more recent (though the surevy is still from 2001). Just something to keep in mind!

However, in the 1998 Science article, there is a great Isaac Asimov quote:

"Increasingly, our leaders must deal with dangers that threaten the entire world, where an understanding of those dangers and the possible solutions depends on a good grasp of science. The ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, acid rain, questions of diet and heredity--all require scientific literacy. Can Americans choose the proper leaders and support the proper programs if they [themselves] are scientifically illiterate?"

19. In U.S., faith is never far from politics

Comment #49050 by sgr79 on June 10, 2007 at 4:57 am

I like the article a lot, but it's a shame that it's in the Washington Post and not published in another, less democrat-all-the-time, newspaper... I can't use it as an unbiased source; if I tried using anything from the article, I would get a "well of course they say that, they're the Washington Post!" kind of response.

It's still a great article though, glad it was published!

20. Americans believe in both evolution, creationism: poll

Comment #49046 by sgr79 on June 10, 2007 at 4:47 am

In response to Pewkatchoo:
What's worse is they think they're right, and are incapable of taking a step back and thinking objectively.

At least, that's been my personal experience when dealing with similar people.

I think this is also reflected by the 15% that would be more likely to vote for a Presidential candidate who believes in creationism, as well as by the scary 53-54% who say it wouldn't make a difference. (See the results for question #25 in Salvatore's breakdown (Thanks for posting that!).)

---------
Added after edit:
To qualify what I mean about not being able to stand back and think objectively, here's an example relating to Iraqi insurgents:

Other: Those insurgents must learn to fight fairly, they deserve to all be killed for how they attack U.S. soldiers.
Me: Well, what would you do if Iraqi soldiers were to land in Canada and starting crossing the border to take over our country and tell us how to live?"
Other: Even if it were to happen, they would all deserve to die!
Me: Okay then, how is that scenario any different from what the U.S. is doing to Iraq?
Other: It's different because we're right and they're wrong.

Obviously, there are more complicated issues at hand, but as the conversation was continued, the other person could not remove the concept of right and wrong in order to look at the situation objectively.

I do happen to join in what I understand to be the world majority in believing that democracy is good, but I can still stand back and be able to analyze a situation objectively, because let's face it, everybody thinks their views are right.
------------------------------------------

21. 6 Billion Bits of Data About Me, Me, Me!

Comment #47823 by sgr79 on June 5, 2007 at 4:04 pm

Robert Heinlein also wrote a book where an old man who is about to die gets his brain transplanted in his sexy secretary's body, and it turns out that her body has some memory of her thoughts (spirit?) even though her brain is no longer there...sorry, can't remember the title :P

Anyhoo, another version of screwing with evolution!

22. The planet hunters

Comment #47822 by sgr79 on June 5, 2007 at 3:58 pm

Thanks for the background Philip -- interesting!

23. My Road to Atheism, What Took Me So Long and The Aftermath

Comment #47628 by sgr79 on June 5, 2007 at 5:12 am

Dr. Benway,

In early spring I once mentioned to my boyfriend's mother (his father is a Baptist preacher) that a nice little bird was singing outside my window, and her answer was that it was Jesus saying hello to me...

Oy! Why can't "they" take the wonders of nature at face-value? Argh.

24. The planet hunters

Comment #47624 by sgr79 on June 5, 2007 at 4:59 am

So I found where the impication of a flat earth comes from in the Bible, there is a line that refers to "the four corners of the earth," which taken literally would mean that the earth would be a flat, two-dimensional rhombus.

In that case, and if we were supposed to take that literally, why didn't it specify whether we were living on a square, rectangle, trapezoid, diamond, or parallelogram? Or are we living on a rhombus with sides of all diffent length with corners of all different angles?

Oh wait, that's right, we're living on a planet that is closest to being a sphere!!!! No literal corners...

25. 6 Billion Bits of Data About Me, Me, Me!

Comment #47616 by sgr79 on June 5, 2007 at 4:34 am

Kewl!

...Though it makes my head spin once the possibilities presented here are combined with advances in fertililty procedures and cloning...

Although I don't feel that designer babies are the way to go should that become a real choice in the future, I do agree that genetic analysis is a great diagnostic tool.

Quick question: if we do wind up going the route of designer babies, how does that impact concepts of evolution? Would we be self-evolving? Which also makes me wonder what category genetic engineering falls into?

Okay, morning here, time to pour my first cup of coffee and get to work!

26. The planet hunters

Comment #47429 by sgr79 on June 4, 2007 at 1:33 pm

magetoo, I agree :-)

Philip 1978: Does the Bible actually say the earth is flat? where? I am honestly curious -- Thanks!

27. My Road to Atheism, What Took Me So Long and The Aftermath

Comment #47394 by sgr79 on June 4, 2007 at 11:15 am

While the arguments of Dawkins and Harris were certainly useful in battling my seemingly never-ending stream of internal religious justification, their effect on me was not necessarily one of convincing, but one of encouragement.

28. What I Think About Evolution

Comment #46558 by sgr79 on May 31, 2007 at 4:19 pm

Everything I was going to say got covered already, especially by mnmnj and Quetzalcoatl in posts 10+11... awww, we humans absolutely HAVE to be SO special, and so we MUST be the center of all of what must be godly creation (what happened to humility there?)!

Thanks to CruciFiction for the great quotes (and also because your webname made me smile after a harsh day at work).

Cheers to all (except Brownback)!

:-)

29. I Believe In Evolution, Except For The Whole Triassic Period

Comment #46376 by sgr79 on May 31, 2007 at 4:14 am

CJ22:

I don't find the Onion that funny, but at least it's batting for the right team. And I honestly believe that ridicule is a powerful tool for deprogramming the flock.

30. Groundbreaking Research Has Scientists Talking With Apes

Comment #46372 by sgr79 on May 31, 2007 at 3:57 am

Veronique: regarding your first post, I read somewhere that cats have the mental capacity of a human two year-old...now imagine a human two-year-old who would need to be able to fend for itself and with the natural ability to hunt! As with other species though, some are smarter than others :P

So when is a scientist going to design a way to compensate for the lack of comparable vocal cords in these apes? Could some sort of voicebox work, or will we have to wait until we have more information on how brains work and measure brain activity instead? Any thoughts?

31. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #45946 by sgr79 on May 29, 2007 at 6:07 pm

It seems to me that the reason the author says that the fundamentalists on both sides love him [Dawkins] is that Dawkins, by supposedly polarizing the issue in black and white terms, forces the middle quasi-religious to choose which side they stand on as individuals, and the religious fundamentalists still believe they win that battle...

Regarding the comments about the "wishy-washy" people in the middle, though Dawkins has a point that okaying some faith opens a door that can lead to fundamentalism, I'd like to describe a co-worker of mine.

She descibes herself as a "cafeteria Catholic": she picks and chooses what she wants to believe, and can freely state that sometimes she feels silly because she can't quite explain why she believes, but at least she has THOUGHT about it and recognizes her situation. However, she has complete respect for me being an atheist, and it would never occur to her to pray for me so that I "may accept the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal saviour," as at least two others have told me they have.

Compare this to my boyfriend, who is the son of a Southern Baptist preacher, who I just found out does not believe in evolution at ALL, and believes the Bible literally but yet has no appearance to have ever truly THOUGHT about it. (He's been willing to stay with me though I don't believe in God, so it's only fair for me try to see past his not believing in evolution -- at least he is not against it being taught in schools.) I try to ask him questions that will make him think, but unfortunately he rarely answers (which leads me to think that he must be thinking about it now, since at least he's not handing me a canned answer).

So, my point is that to me it seems more important that people actually THINK, and then if they decide to still believe, then so be it. As long as they don't let themselves be brainwashed or follow leaders like sheep without thinking!

On a different tangent, about religious gatherings and their social/anthropological value -- I wonder how many, if instead of it being a religious gathering it was a weekly gathering to make the place a better world, would still attend on a weekly basis?

32. Two idiots get a forum

Comment #45634 by sgr79 on May 28, 2007 at 3:41 pm

Re: banana argument from the creationists... these are the same people who DON'T believe we evolved from apes???? Wonder how many lines an ape has on his hands...

33. Al Gore on Reason

Comment #44932 by sgr79 on May 25, 2007 at 3:41 pm

In response to MIND_REBEL:
Yeah, but at least they're giving evolution a chance and not denying it altogether :-)

34. Al Gore on Reason

Comment #44922 by sgr79 on May 25, 2007 at 3:25 pm

Well, in "An Inconvenient Truth" he does say that he does not believe that evolution and the Bible are incompatible. Perhaps it is pandering, but at least it's a diplomatic way of avoiding an issue essentially unrelated to his point about global warming (he was presenting a timeline about the increase of carbon in the atmosphere and was placing a tic on the timeline for "modern man, or Adam & Eve").

Also, in response to Rtambree, I would say to read George Stephanopoulus' autobiography, which covers much of what Clinton and Gore tried to do but did not succeed in doing... I do know that they wrote some basic books about the environment together that would be appropriate to use as teaching materials for elementary school...