1. Aliens need Christ's redemption, too

Comment #201473 by The Schuermannator on June 29, 2008 at 5:46 pm

First of all...

Who the fuck is "Bertram Russell"? *rolls eyes*

2. What Happens When a School Board of Religious Zealots Will 'Lie for Jesus'?

Comment #197224 by The Schuermannator on June 21, 2008 at 11:52 am

Intelligent design was designed by non-intellectuals.

3. The Mother, The Child, The School Board And The Psychic

Comment #196099 by The Schuermannator on June 19, 2008 at 9:49 am

leodavinci -

You're right. It would make a good court case. The defense would argue that the psychic should have already known he/she was in danger of being assaulted by an unknown individual who had it out for boolsheet.

4. Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech

Comment #192358 by The Schuermannator on June 12, 2008 at 9:03 pm

Opisthokont -

I think you are failing to recognize that outlawing guns in America will only leave guns in the hands of those who shouldn't have them in the first place. It saddens me to feel the need to resort back to such simple rhetoric as "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," but it's solid logic.

5. Loyal to Its Roots

Comment #191330 by The Schuermannator on June 10, 2008 at 3:23 pm

" ...But discoveries have continued to surprise scientists, because of what some describe as an entrenched disbelief that plants, without benefit of eyes, ears, nose, mouth or brain, can and do all they are seen to do."



Ahh-HA! This just goes to show how tarot card readers can accurately predict your future, or how water diviners find water, or how you can communicate telepathically through your pineal gland without a clearly defined mechanism. Three cheers for woo-woo! [/sarcasm]

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

Comment #190679 by The Schuermannator on June 9, 2008 at 11:20 am

Articles like these are great to give developing Philosophy students as it allows them to develop skills in obliterating sucky half-assed arguments. I wish I had more time to devour each paragraph, but I'd rather hug a galaxy being an Astronomy major.

7. Physicist Claims First Real Demonstration of Cold Fusion

Comment #187772 by The Schuermannator on June 2, 2008 at 3:38 pm

thewhitepearl -

A proper lady should always keep her phalanges crossed regardless of scientific progress!




(yes, I know what phalanges actually are)

8. Kenya mob reportedly burns 11 'witches'

Comment #183569 by The Schuermannator on May 22, 2008 at 9:34 am

Crazymalc-

The saddest part is, even if it were true that AIDs could be cured in such a manner, how unethical it is to kill a young child to make up for mistakes made in contracting an STD. Acting on some superstitions ought to be made illegal. Tell the guy... OK, your AIDs are cured, but now you get to spend the rest of your life in jail as a result of obtaining the cure.

9. Scientists discover 'frogamander' fossil

Comment #183562 by The Schuermannator on May 22, 2008 at 9:18 am

This does nothing to further support the theory of evolution. Doesn't everyone see the gaps this now creates? What about the frog-frogamander??? And the salamander-frogamander???

Ha, evolution is just a myth!

**smacks forehead**

10. God and Science Collide in Nation's Capital

Comment #181801 by The Schuermannator on May 18, 2008 at 9:31 am

Kauffman, director of the Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics at the University of Calgary, takes a slightly New Age tack, saying we must "heal" the schism between science and religion by "reinventing the sacred" and evolving from a supernatural God to a "new sense of a fully natural God as our chosen symbol for the ceaseless creativity in the natural universe."

In other words, he suggests that we can get around the divide between science and God if we come up with a new concept for God that focuses on the wonders of nature , among other things


Strong evidence to support the hypothesis that God is manmade.

11. Indian village proud after double 'honor killing'

Comment #181221 by The Schuermannator on May 16, 2008 at 4:50 pm

If I had been on that Reuters news team I'd have launched a stick through that fucker on the motorbike's spokes. It would be an "honor throwing" as the motorbike is advanced, Western technology. I don't think Yamaha/Suzuki/Honda would want it any other way. =)


~Matt

12. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #179092 by The Schuermannator on May 12, 2008 at 2:20 pm

And our soldiers are over there fighting to "free" that shithole of a society? I'm sorry, but I can hold nothing but anger and contempt after reading this. I'm not sure whether I want to punch a hole thru a wall or just cry. Let their fucking god carry out those punishments for their so-called "crimes."

13. Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong

Comment #179083 by The Schuermannator on May 12, 2008 at 1:52 pm

In a further defense of science I'll state that in both Space Shuttle accidents (Challenger, Columbia) engineers' concerns were overridden by NASA management. It's not fair to lay blame to engineers simply because something goes wrong. Engineers aren't the ones making the decisions for a government operated program.

During the Challenger accident engineers had warned launch officials that it was entirely too cold that day to launch the shuttle. I watched the tragedy unfold as a 4 year old from my backyard.

In re-entry of Columbia, engineers had suspected damage from ice-debris striking the external tank during liftoff. Investigations were limited to ground based testing which caused management to decide nothing could be done despite findings of damage.

14. Atheists are nice people who will roast in hell, says Cardinal

Comment #178056 by The Schuermannator on May 10, 2008 at 11:08 am

When it comes down to it I'd rather live with nice atheists who'll burn in hell than with bigoted, asshole Christians/Muslims/etc. who pass their moral responsibility on to someone else.

15. Evolution fray attracts top scientist

Comment #162792 by The Schuermannator on April 17, 2008 at 1:20 pm

This gets more and more embarrassing everyday. I am stuck working at Kennedy Space Center with all the nutters around here. Just last Friday a few of the engineers I work with were having a heated debate over the proper way to get into heaven... one of them is a pastor. Their discussion lasted a good 30mins. to an hour. I was astonished. And of course, chose to keep away from giving my input. Not ALL Floridians are IDiots but dammit. I'm going to start doing so much more to speak out against this foolishness invading my native classrooms.

16. Contribute to science directly by volunteering some of your computer's processing power!

Comment #140383 by The Schuermannator on March 7, 2008 at 8:25 am

SETI@home member since 31 Dec 2000
Total credit 16,220
Recent average credit 19.19
SETI@home classic workunits 241
SETI@home classic CPU time 3,384 hours

Another proud member here... In fact, I recently saw Dr. Seth Shostak of SETI speak a lil' lecture at Florida Tech concerning the possibilities of finding life elsewhere in the universe. If any of you have the chance to see him locally, DO IT! He's a memorable character.

17. State Approves Evolution As 'Scientific Theory'

Comment #129706 by The Schuermannator on February 19, 2008 at 1:37 pm

As a native to the Space Coast of Florida I can finally have (dare I say) faith that my future children have a quality public education to look forward to?

I just wish they'd stop building churches at every street corner around here... Why not a new library, or museum? =(

18. Exploding black holes could expose hidden dimensions

Comment #122617 by The Schuermannator on February 5, 2008 at 4:23 pm

These great scientists once again go to great lengths (or rather very short ones) to show us all that the universe is more queer than we could ever imagine.

19. Florida in the process of approving new science standards

Comment #114303 by The Schuermannator on January 21, 2008 at 8:34 pm

LorienRyan
Intelligent Design is just as valid a theory as Evolution is - although the evidence supports Evolution as the reasonable conclusion.

20. Florida in the process of approving new science standards

Comment #114292 by The Schuermannator on January 21, 2008 at 7:48 pm

And abnormal Floridians get to listen to me!

21. Florida in the process of approving new science standards

Comment #114274 by The Schuermannator on January 21, 2008 at 5:29 pm

Kentucky Seared Chicken to be exact... Sauteed was voted out due to most of Floridians not being able to pronounce nor spell the word.

22. Florida in the process of approving new science standards

Comment #114253 by The Schuermannator on January 21, 2008 at 4:14 pm

What floors me about this is our space program based here in Florida has done so much to expose our ancient past and contradict young-earth teachings along with creationism in general, yet these idiots are still so blind to all the information that is (locally) available to them.

Many of my fellow KSC co-workers are deeply religious, and reject the findings of these satellites that are what's giving them a paycheck! Absurd!

edit: I'm including this link which closely relates to this topic... Thanks for AfraidToDie for posting it in The New Theology thread.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-newvoices19a08jan19,0,5685754.story?coll=orl_news_opinion_util

23. What have you changed your mind about? Why?

Comment #105722 by The Schuermannator on January 1, 2008 at 4:51 pm

To BAEOZ:

I am embarrassed to say all I could muster last night to celebrate were two frosty pints of Stella Artois... but 20??? Holy-moly! I guess I can gloat that I drove 5 people home last night and spared them from pricey cab-fare and the possibility of a DUI.

Go me!!!

24. Carl Sagan's COSMOS begins airing on Jan 8th

Comment #104553 by The Schuermannator on December 28, 2007 at 6:34 pm

Well,

For everyone wanting an updated version of Cosmos, a good recommendation would be The Universe from The History Channel.

I was ecstatic a couple weeks ago when I saw that The Universe has a whole new season of shows. I thought they had pretty much covered everything in the first season, but I guess I was wrong! It's not Carl Sagan, but the show is a blend of lots of science with lots of explanation for those lesser scientifically inclined. In other words, both my parents watch it and both love the show. Occasionally they'll have guests like Neil deGrasse Tyson (wrote Death by Blackhole) and Seth Shostak (SETI dude) and both of them have some character to 'em.

25. Voyager 2 probe reaches solar system boundary

Comment #100334 by The Schuermannator on December 18, 2007 at 1:59 pm

quill said:
The space shuttles may be clumsy and unreliable, but decommissioning them to be replaced by the disposable, Apollo-esque Orion capsules still feels like a step backward. In my opinion, we should be designing better shuttles, not falling back on those antiquated machines.
-------------------------------------------------

Consider that those capsules used in the Apollo program took us to the moon whereas the shuttle was designed to simply orbit. Going back to using proven technology with big rockets isn't a step backward because the Constellation program will also be taking us (humans) to Mars.

Designing a better shuttle may one day be in the works, but it's intended for an entirely different reason than the old Saturn V's. The Shuttle's purpose was to have the ability to conduct experiments in zero G AND carry heavy payloads into orbit at the same time. Not to mention provide transit to and from future space stations.

26. Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty

Comment #97691 by The Schuermannator on December 12, 2007 at 2:18 pm

I found an even more beautiful rose here: @};--

All this talk about cleavage and boners and I'm gonna need a (_______((__________________() ~ ~ ~

27. Tropical fish can live for months out of water

Comment #88269 by The Schuermannator on November 15, 2007 at 4:33 pm

When their habitat dries up, they live on the land in logs, said Scott Taylor, a researcher at the Brevard County Environmentally Endangered Lands Program in central Florida.

Yay Brevard County baby! The world DOES know we exist! (outside of the space program)

So uhh, when do we start growing gills?

28. Malaysia firm's 'Muslim car' plan

Comment #87662 by The Schuermannator on November 12, 2007 at 6:20 pm

And I guess a car designed for atheists would mean we'd be walking where we wanted to go?


Matt

29. Evolution to be taught in SA schools

Comment #82988 by The Schuermannator on October 28, 2007 at 12:47 pm

Logicel:

It's hard to grasp the idea that anyone living in this country would think that's how the procedure is performed. I'm no medical major at all, and have very little knowledge of how an actual abortion is performed. But, at the same time as a fairly rational guy, I would never imagine abortion as a sword being pushed through my uterus.

Would it be fair to say that in this day and age anyone who'd have such a misconception of abortion would also be unfit for being a mother in the first place? Perhaps that would go along with trying to train religious teachers in SA to teach evolution. And, is it fair to say that miseducation is much worse than the lack of education?

30. Evolution to be taught in SA schools

Comment #82965 by The Schuermannator on October 28, 2007 at 11:18 am

Stupid Teacher says:

"I am disappointed about the fact that evolution attacks God's creation. It also mixes Genesis with idol worshippers of Babylon, which were never there when God created planet Earth."

Another Stupid Teacher says:

"I am disappointed about the fact that stellar evolution attacks God's creation. It also mixes Genesis with a heliocentric worldview, which is not how it was when God created planet Earth."

31. Report on Hindu god Ram withdrawn

Comment #78995 by The Schuermannator on October 15, 2007 at 6:16 pm

I just get a kick out of how some opponents claim it's simply impossible for it to be natural geological phenomenon...

...but having been built by a mythical god and an army of monkeys is a much more plausible explanation.

WOW.

32. Crisis of faith in first secular school

Comment #72869 by The Schuermannator on September 23, 2007 at 9:39 am

Spinoza -

Thank you for the clarification. I know practically no French at all. Had I been able to pick out the word "gravite" from the question myself my reasoning would conclude a word resembling gravity would better relate to revolution than rotation. Many celestial objects do not rotate and all of course exert gravity, but it takes gravity for something to be caught revolving (in orbit) around another celestial object.

33. Crisis of faith in first secular school

Comment #72860 by The Schuermannator on September 23, 2007 at 9:10 am

bluebird - Much thanks. I'm already a huge APOD enthusiast... They give us a direct link to their site on our work computers at KSC, so we can technically gaze at space pics on company time! =D

Thanks for the compliment too, as the original photograph I can claim credit for. In my short 2.5 years there I've got quite a collection of shuttle pics. Let me know if you'd be interested in seeing 'em.

~Matt

34. Crisis of faith in first secular school

Comment #72839 by The Schuermannator on September 23, 2007 at 7:10 am

Ok, I'm hijacking this post back to the stupid basic astronomy question from the show...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMFsuBlkoIQ&mode=related&search=

The question asks, "What rotates around the earth, the Moon, the Sun, Venus, or Mars?"

Now of course... the answer is the Moon. But the question itself is scientifically inaccurate. Technically, the moon does NOT rotate around the earth. It rotates around its own axis. However, it does REVOLVE around the earth. These facts I learned in 8th grade. So since we're talking about scientific literacy I just thought I'd point this out. Technically, the answer should be the earth rotates around the earth, not anything else.

Anyways, Neil deGrasse Tyson would have my back on this one. He can't stand inaccurate astronomy.

35. Scientists' Good News: Earth May Survive Sun's Demise in 5 Billion Years

Comment #70639 by The Schuermannator on September 16, 2007 at 12:20 pm

I've always imagined that a "scientific heaven" is possible if we can survive long enough to reach it. I feel that what we fear most as humans is the loss of consciousness...

Just imagine a highly "evolved" species able to encapsulate their conscience beyond something that of a machine. I like to imagine the ultimate existence as a beam of light zipping from star to star and galaxy to galaxy exploring, so long as I avoid getting nailed by a black hole!

36. Interview with Richard Dawkins and John Cornwell

Comment #68268 by The Schuermannator on September 6, 2007 at 3:10 pm

Too awesome - I hope they used "Cornwall" on purpose to mock the twit who posted last week about him.

37. Anger at Malaysia 'Jesus cartoon'

Comment #65977 by The Schuermannator on August 27, 2007 at 4:33 pm

Now, would Jesus be a Marlboro Man?


Or would he smoke... Camels???

At least I amuse myself. =)

38. Anger over 'blasphemous' balls

Comment #65966 by The Schuermannator on August 27, 2007 at 3:49 pm

Apparently, Allah is not a sports fan.

39. Hebrew Charter School Spurs Dispute in Florida

Comment #65964 by The Schuermannator on August 27, 2007 at 3:41 pm

kcjerith says "...letting the private sector take over would more than likely mean a massive improvement in test scores (and actual knowledge)..."

And what about the lower class families who can't afford to send their children to a private school? There's a reason why most kids I know that come from private schools are snippy and snotty. Their parents are rich and spoil their children to death. Remember, private sector is in it to make money. So the fate of the next generation's education would rest solely on whether or not their parents could afford sending them to private school. Furthermore, you're seriously going to make the judgment that the entire United States public education system sucks? Where's your evidence of that, dude?

40. A hole lot of nothing found by astronomers

Comment #65682 by The Schuermannator on August 25, 2007 at 2:29 pm

8. Comment #65509 by Kakashi_monkey on August 24, 2007 at 2:04 pm

That's really wierd, such a huge void! I can't imagine what could cause it. It definitely isn't a huge cluster of back holes, or there would be matter being pulled in and lots of x-rays would come from the edges of the void. It seems like one of those things we can accept as true, but can't possibly explain right now, like the beginnings of the universe with the big bang and "what came before?"



I'm not claiming to be a black hole expert, but I AM enrolling at UF in Jan as an astronomy major... I would like to argue that it's fairly possible that a huge cluster of blackholes that have existed long enough may have already pulled in all local matter. If I recall correctly, black holes' gravitational forces work relatively close range compared with other stellar bodies, otherwise wouldn't our solar system be quickly spiraling in towards the galactic core (super-massive black hole) of the Milky Way? Or perhaps we already are, and at an extremely slow rate.

Maybe the void is Heaven's septic tank, and they finally just came and emptied it for the first time since the Big Bang??

41. In Google Earth, a Service for Scanning the Heavens

Comment #65678 by The Schuermannator on August 25, 2007 at 2:06 pm

9. Comment #64920 by BAEOZ on August 22, 2007 at 11:34 am

Wow, if you look just south of the centaur there seems to be some cross structure in the stars....That proves it. God placed crux australis so that we would know he is the divine creator and jebus our saviour. Google is the way of salvation....And god must love us southerners more than you northerners...


Great comment! But just out of curiosity, how many of you guys have read Death by Black Hole? I prefer to call the Southern Cross the Southern Box. a cross in the sky kinda needs a 5th point for the two bars to intersect.

42. Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy's Couch

Comment #63769 by The Schuermannator on August 15, 2007 at 7:18 pm

Well guys and gals...

All I can say is that if we ARE existing as a computer simulation, let's just hope it's a Mac!

w00t w00t!

43. Genetic Engineers Who Don't Just Tinker

Comment #54717 by The Schuermannator on July 8, 2007 at 5:14 pm

Kakashi_monkey said:
Wow, that's wierd. Synthetically growing cells? Bioengineering sounds like nothing compared to that. But I don't think making petrol from cells is a good idea. We need to use greener fuels such as hydrogen fuel cells and solar power to save our Earth!

I say:

While it is very true that we need to find greener fuels for mass consumption, these guys' jobs isn't to find those solutions. Likewise, you can't expect a bioengineer to help find The Unified Theory of the universe... (or multiverse for all I know) I don't feel it's very fair to retard advances in one field of study to appease another...

44. Scientists Urge a Search for Life Not as We Know It

Comment #54531 by The Schuermannator on July 7, 2007 at 4:40 pm

Morro-

You are assuming the chances of the space industry's chances of finding life elsewhere is very small. I invite you to watch a few episodes of NOVA and The Universe, and other various shows featuring astrobiology segments. You may be surprised!

45. When is a bishop like a suicide bomber?

Comment #53974 by The Schuermannator on July 4, 2007 at 2:06 pm

PaulEmecz:

Surely if our creator was omnipotent/omniscient, it would have created the speed of light a little faster. From a cosmic universal (god-like) perspective, the speed of light is incredibly slow. An omniscient god knows that humans will eventually figure out that light travels through vacuum at approx. 186,000 mi/sec, or 300,000 km/sec. Since "God" KNEW what units of measurement humans would be using during the time of its discovery, if its purpose was to amaze us, surely "God" would have used a less arbitrary number for us to define light. A "light-year" sounds so contrived. If "God" really wanted to amaze us with it's omnipotence, it'd have made light with an infinite velocity with an initial velocity of infinity.

If "God" truly made this universe for us to marvel and wonder at, then why did it force us to create all kinds of machines and equipment to register what's really out there. For example, why not create humans with eyes that can sense at least the majority of the electromagnetic spectrum? It took thousands of years of intellectual development to create the telescope, and even longer to understand the nature of light which to this day is not fully understood. It doesn't seem very fair to earlier humans who lacked the technology to experience the universe as we do now.


So Paul, if you're trying to convey your belief of a non-omniscient/omnipotent god, then I must give your beliefs some merit.

I still stand to reason that while a non-omniscient/omnipotent god is more reasonable to believe than an all powerful and all knowing god, there is still yet no more reason to believe in one over the other. Just as there is no reason to believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn, or the Celestial Teapot (much luv, Shuggy!) or even the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

46. Giuliani To Regent University: 'The Amount Of Influence You Have Is Really, Really Terrific'

Comment #53243 by The Schuermannator on June 30, 2007 at 9:17 am

With a hungry polar bear.

47. Row over religion's role in US jails

Comment #52966 by The Schuermannator on June 28, 2007 at 7:38 pm

PaulEmecz writes:
Take this example. A scientist believes that one race makes a negative contribution to the evolution of the human species. Natural selection will take time. He decides to give nature a helping hand and attaches some genetic coding to a virus, killing off that race of people in one swift move. Could an atheist say he SHOULD NOT have done that? What possible grounds might an atheist have for such a statement?

Now clearly, an atheist can say that he or she would not have done that, or that doing so may have caused a great deal of distress, but have they any grounds for arguing that causing a great deal of distress is morally wrong?

The logical answer is no.



My response:
To say the scientist "believes" sounds quite wrong. While it is possible, it is quite improbable that any one race (genetically speaking) could be ultimately detrimental to the human species. But if it were true, the evidence would be overwhelming to confirm such a thing. Remember, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Any credibly scientist brilliant enough to make such a discovery would also be brilliant enough to understand eradicating an entire race is also not a positive contribution to our global gene pool: The scientist would probably kill himself first!

Not all atheists are created equally. There are many atheists who haven't the slightest clue on how to treat others morally. All atheists have in common is the non-belief in a god. Atheism is not a religion. I say that because it seems you really want to cluster all atheists into a bubble having their own set of moral beliefs. Another poster responded to you by stating that we are a work in progress, that we're still looking to make things better. Science shares the same goal. As an atheist I don't claim to have absolutes in regards to moral codes and ethics, but with integrity I claim that I do a pretty darn good job of treating people fairly.

The answer to your last question could possibly be no, but what is the logic you follow to reach such an abrupt conclusion? Are you concluding that in order to have moral grounds to stand on one MUST hold beliefs in the supernatural? If that is the case, you are not a logical thinker in the least.

48. Scientists Find Earliest Sign of Cultivated Crops in Americas

Comment #52956 by The Schuermannator on June 28, 2007 at 5:32 pm

Truly amazing MUST mean then that an all powerful Creator was involved.. haha, uhh.... NOT

49. Supreme Court nixes suit over faith-based plan

Comment #51934 by The Schuermannator on June 25, 2007 at 3:11 pm

I've always had this idea of a new US Civil War that'll take place in the years to come fought between scientists on one side and the religious right on the other. The more I read about issues like this article, the more I feel that it could one day be a reality.

50. Executive Actions to Promote Religion Ruled Beyond Court Scrutiny

Comment #51925 by The Schuermannator on June 25, 2007 at 2:54 pm

Reading this just made me extremely nauseous.