1. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #134145 by Zakie Chan on February 27, 2008 at 10:20 am

It works for me. Though, an mp3 would still be nice. Can someone change this RP into mp3?

This interviewer is terrible! Her little "yeeeeaaaaaah..." after Dawkins' says anything is really annoying, her questions are totally lame, and she doesn't seem interested at all.

2. Bart Ehrman, Questioning Religion on Why We Suffer

Comment #129899 by Zakie Chan on February 19, 2008 at 6:18 pm

Sweet! I loved Misquoting Jesus, and I just got his new book in the mail.

Double Bass- Are you serious that you dont think NT studies should be a subject? Its not theology, its just like any other historically based subject. Check out Misquoting Jesus to see how much rich and interesting history there is to it.

3. The argument from oranges

Comment #128324 by Zakie Chan on February 16, 2008 at 6:36 pm

"There are no statements worth arguing here... All you can do is underline them!"
--Christopher Hitchens

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.
--Voltaire

4. What is Evo-devo?

Comment #127900 by Zakie Chan on February 15, 2008 at 5:25 pm

Well 60 seconds or not... I knew basically nothing about evodevo, and now I know a little bit.

So I think a quick explanation is better than nothing.

5. Inventor Doesn't Dare Say 'Perpetual Motion Machine'

Comment #124035 by Zakie Chan on February 8, 2008 at 7:44 am

This is cool... but as we all know, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Best of luck to him though. It would be cool if it was for real... but I am not getting my hopes up.

6. The New Atheist Movement

Comment #123266 by Zakie Chan on February 6, 2008 at 6:41 pm

I find it odd that Zacharias claims that Harris lumps Christians together with radical Muslims... even though Harris has said time and time again, radical Islam is much more of a threat than Christianity.

7. Exploding black holes could expose hidden dimensions

Comment #122658 by Zakie Chan on February 5, 2008 at 6:36 pm

I agree with Steve Zara. As Richard Feynman said, "string theorists don't make predictions, they make excuses." (kind of like religious apologists haha)

8. God vs. Gridiron

Comment #120773 by Zakie Chan on February 2, 2008 at 1:31 pm

"'People don't want to do anything illegal in the name of Christ,' says Daniel Smith, pastor of Trinity Wesleyan Church in Southgate, Mich."

HA!

9. Are Darwin's Theories Fact or Faith Issues?

Comment #120529 by Zakie Chan on February 1, 2008 at 10:48 pm

I always enjoyed PZ's blog, but man alive, that was brutal. What a treat to listen to! PZ is definitely my new hero lol!

Good show old boy!

10. Richard Dawkins on The Big Debate

Comment #117916 by Zakie Chan on January 30, 2008 at 1:27 am

My favorite part of this was the girl at 34:00 (Kate Christopher). She is cute lol!

11. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #116601 by Zakie Chan on January 26, 2008 at 7:40 pm

Holy crap that was a hilarious interview! I actually laughed out loud at a couple of the questions that the callers asked AND at Dawkins' perfect replies.

VERY entertaining!

12. US scientists close to creating artificial life: study

Comment #115777 by Zakie Chan on January 24, 2008 at 6:52 pm

Pretty freaking sweet!

13. Life-Forming Chemicals Found in Distant Galaxy

Comment #114691 by Zakie Chan on January 22, 2008 at 3:02 pm

We should play a game. If life of some sort is ever found, what verse do you think Christians will pull from the Bible to say "the Bible said it all along!"

14. New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory: Evolution Not Random

Comment #113387 by Zakie Chan on January 19, 2008 at 1:25 pm

The obviousness of this article makes me feel like I am missing something.

Maybe its an attempt to get the majority of the American public to realize that contrary to what the creationists say, it not a random process... though, I doubt many of them will read Science Daily.

15. Gigantic fossil rodent discovered

Comment #112683 by Zakie Chan on January 17, 2008 at 7:57 pm

Eh, its pretty big... I guess.

I would like to see it battle a saber tooth tiger.

16. 'Letter to a Christian Nation' now available in paperback

Comment #111178 by Zakie Chan on January 13, 2008 at 10:25 pm

I agree with Andrew Stitch. Its apparently like 20% longer now haha.

17. The Evangelical Rebellion

Comment #103284 by Zakie Chan on December 25, 2007 at 12:35 am

Hey ksskidude,

I think the magic bullet was found 150 years ago. Evolution completely destroys Christianity. If the Genesis story of original sin is mythology, then the entire premise of Christianity (having God come down to die for our sins) is demolished.

18. Jesus ad angers church groups

Comment #100540 by Zakie Chan on December 18, 2007 at 9:18 pm

LOL!!! I thought that was hilarious. The Catholics are pissed? No surprise there.

""The gifts that the wise men were giving were appropriate for a king, so the notion that Jesus would reject them is absurd," Dr Davies said."

DUH!! Thats why its so funny. Honestly people. Honestly.

19. Jail for creationist row killer

Comment #98629 by Zakie Chan on December 14, 2007 at 12:36 am

Wait... Answers In Genesis told me that if I accepted evolution, I would have no problem killing people. Why was it that the creationist was the attacker?

Don't tell me AIG is wrong!!

20. Creation vs. Reality

Comment #98522 by Zakie Chan on December 13, 2007 at 8:35 pm

I thought that was freakin awesome! And its a little higher quality than just "film school claptrap" if you ask me (I went to film school).

21. Christopher Hitchens appears on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show

Comment #97371 by Zakie Chan on December 12, 2007 at 1:30 am

Thanks Zzx1170!

22. Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty

Comment #97315 by Zakie Chan on December 11, 2007 at 9:52 pm

Hey Prodigy-

Where did you hear that Harris was writing a book on free will? I am very interested!

23. Girl, 16, dies after hijab dispute with father

Comment #97309 by Zakie Chan on December 11, 2007 at 9:45 pm

To quote George Costanza, "I'm speechless. I am without speech. I have NO speech!"

24. 'Boycott Worked': Compass Flops - Opening Weekend $26 Million; Narnia $63 Million

Comment #96519 by Zakie Chan on December 10, 2007 at 5:00 pm

Hmmm... correlation does not equal causation. I would be willing to bet that if anything, the "boycot" just caused more people to go see it out of curiosity.

25. Beyond Belief 07: Enlightenment 2.0

Comment #93665 by Zakie Chan on December 3, 2007 at 9:23 pm

Eeeeeeexcellent!!

However, I am having problems with the video loading. It will load it for like 3 minutes, and then completely stops. Does anybody know how to fix this?

26. Fear of Barbara Forrest

Comment #92103 by Zakie Chan on November 29, 2007 at 9:52 pm

If I was a cdesign proponentsists, I would be scared of Forrest too.

27. Fear of Barbara Forrest

Comment #92102 by zakie chan on November 29, 2007 at 9:52 pm

If I was a cdesign proponentsists, I would be scared of Forrest too.

28. Fear of Barbara Forrest

Comment #92101 by zakie chan on November 29, 2007 at 9:51 pm

If I was and cdesign proponentsists, I would be scared of Forrest too.

29. Rock of Ages, Ages of Rock

Comment #90600 by zakie chan on November 25, 2007 at 6:06 pm

"The Flood did it" seems to be one of those magic sayings that Christians (at least the fundamentalists) think will solve any and all problems they run into.

How did this rock form? "The Flood."
Why does this canyon look like it does? "The Flood."
Why are dinosaurs extinct? "The Flood."

Its just another magic answer, like "God granted you free will..." or "God did _______" that doesnt actually explain anything.

30. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #87703 by Zakie Chan on November 12, 2007 at 10:59 pm

Peter K-

Was that argument that you posted (Comment #15) your own, or did you read it somewhere? I haven't heard it before. Its quite clever!

31. I Am, Therefore I Rationalize

Comment #87256 by Zakie Chan on November 11, 2007 at 3:26 pm

Comment #87140 by Rtambree:

I never thought of it like that before. Very good (and interesting) point!

Though, one might say that there is a difference in rational thinking, and rationalization. You used rational thinking to conclude that rationalizations arent rational lol.

32. Can we at least demand 'Secular Communion'?

Comment #86868 by Zakie Chan on November 10, 2007 at 10:52 am

"All it [religion] seems to excel at is driving people to make excuses for its failures."

Amen to that haha!

33. Church row evolves over fossil boy

Comment #86519 by Zakie Chan on November 9, 2007 at 12:58 pm

"Yet it's being taught in our schools to children - a theory being taught as fact."

Good one! Nice to see the creationists are starting to get new argument LOL!!

I agree with Leakey, how stupid can you get?

34. Washoe, the sign-language chimp dies

Comment #85604 by Zakie Chan on November 6, 2007 at 11:41 am

Hey article submitted by Zachary Kroger... thats me!

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to actually "meet" Washoe and some of the other chimps a few years ago. I attended CWU, and took a class with Dr. Fouts. It was by far one of the most interesting classes I have ever taken.

If you havent, I HIGHLY reccommend you read Next of Kin. Its one of the best books I have ever read. He deals a lot with Chomsky's claims that they werent using actual language. According to Fouts, Chomsky would just change the definition of language so that whatever the chimps did, didnt fit into his definition. Sort of like "that not my MY God you are talking about" changed into "thats not MY language they are using."

35. I didn't know the FLEA CIRCUS was back in town!

Comment #85004 by Zakie Chan on November 4, 2007 at 1:23 pm

Its interesting... Christians write TONS of books on God and his existence, and no one seems to care. However, when an atheist writes a book, the Christians go crazy, writing book after book after book to attempt to refute the atheist book.

In lines with Comment #84999, Methinks the theists doth protest too much.

36. Believe it or not, courtesy counts

Comment #83964 by Zakie Chan on October 31, 2007 at 11:21 pm

In my experience, people that I have convinced to change their minds about God has not come from passionate debate or intense arguing. It has ALWAYS been from just calmly discussing the issues.

As soon as someone gets defensive (in anything), they close up and wont consider anything you have said.

37. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #83936 by Zakie Chan on October 31, 2007 at 5:31 pm

QUALITY!! What an excellent article!

Jack Rawlinson (#83927), I couldnt have said it better myself. Pure pwnage!!

38. What's the evolutionary advantage of offering your place to an old woman on a bus?

Comment #83391 by Zakie Chan on October 29, 2007 at 10:24 pm

I don't see why there would have to necessarily be an evolutionary reason. Its just being nice-- empathy.

39. Science owes its origins to Christianity or Religion

Comment #83390 by Zakie Chan on October 29, 2007 at 10:21 pm

The argument that Christianity is responsible for science, therefore Christianity is good (and true?) is a genetic fallacy.

40. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #81675 by Zakie Chan on October 25, 2007 at 2:58 am

You can also just take any extremely crazy story from the bible (like God sending bears to kill 40 children for making fun of a bald guy, in 2 Kings), and ask the Christian if he believes that that was reasonable/rational response from God. They might make up some crazy excuse, but just persist that YOU think its irrational. And if you think its irrational, your reasoning abilities couldn't have come from God... since God obviously thought it was a reasonable thing to do.

You can use the same tactic for "God gives us morality." If there is any moral action or statement that God has done or made, and we disagree with it, then we know our morality didnt come from God. For if it did, we would agree with everything God allegedly has done.

Oh yeah, and the TAG also completely begs the question.

41. The God Delusion and Alister E McGrath

Comment #81616 by Zakie Chan on October 25, 2007 at 1:14 am

LOL at 5. Comment. Brilliance!

I would love to read/hear a quick response to this from Dawkins.

42. American kids, dumber than dirt: Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history

Comment #81610 by Zakie Chan on October 25, 2007 at 1:01 am

I like to think I am reasonably well educated. I have a college degree and read a lot of books. However, I lived in Canada for a year (Vancouver), and I was continually blown away by how smart my Canadian friends were. I was there for film school, and a lot of my friends didn't have college degrees, but you would have never known.

I hate to say it, but in my experience they were way more knowledgeable that a lot of Americans I know. Especially with science!

Mind blowingly enough (to me), most of them had never even heard of creationism. When I explained what it was, a few said that they had heard about it on American TV and thought it was a joke. They were right in more ways than they could have known lol!

43. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #81344 by Zakie Chan on October 24, 2007 at 3:51 pm

Hey Paul-

My bad my bad. I thought you were just asking. I see your point.

44. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #81317 by Zakie Chan on October 24, 2007 at 3:24 pm

Paul-

Stating that God exists because we are rational simply begs the question about God. You are also assuming that God would be rational.

But assuming that God does exist, if we can find anything that he does, that is irrational, we have to then conclude that we didnt get our rationality from God. So... in 2 Kings, God sends bears to maul 40 children for making fun of a bald guy. This is irrational. So where did my view that that is irrational come from? Because it cant be from God.

And why should we assume that reason cannot come from laws of nature? Complexity can come from non-complexity, so why not reason? All we need to be rational is an information processing brain. Thanks to evolution, we have one.

But we arent born with reason, its not something thats planted in our heads from day one. We become rational by information processing, by learning, and by experience.

Check out the books "The Problem of the Soul" by Owen Flanagan and "How The Mind Works" by Steven Pinker for way more details on all of that stuff.

Regards

45. Eugenie Scott on Intelligent Design and Young Earth Creationism

Comment #81282 by Zakie Chan on October 24, 2007 at 2:30 pm

Eugenie Scott is great! Though, as Massimo Pigliucci points out, her view on the clash of religion and science smacks of political correctness.

Regardless, I still think shes awesome.

46. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #81269 by Zakie Chan on October 24, 2007 at 2:17 pm

Tanglewood-

If you think D'Souza is the most intellectually dishonest apologist you have ever seen... you need to get more into Christian apologetics :)

Try anything by the Way of the Master folks for starters. Then check out the book "I Dont Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist", the move into "Case for a Creator."

47. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #81265 by Zakie Chan on October 24, 2007 at 2:08 pm

Science is almost totally incompatible with religion. I say "almost," but I do not wish that weasel word to be construed as weakness. The only point of compatibility is that there are well-meaning, honest people on both sides who are genuinely and deeply concerned with discovering the truth about this wonderful world. That having been said, there is no actual compatibility between science and religion. --Peter Atkins

I am always curious to see how failed prayer studies are better explained by theism, than atheism. Or how this is explained by theism... http://youtube.com/watch?v=_DCSJdhy3-0

And somehow, magic just never seemed like a very good explanation for anything.

48. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #81199 by Zakie Chan on October 24, 2007 at 11:56 am

D'souza doesnt seem to understand methodological naturalism at all.

And correct me if I am wrong, but isnt the whole "Christianity is compatible with science, because early scientists were Christians" a genetic fallacy?

But in the end, I really dont think Hitchens did too bad at all. D'souza had to rely on the same old cop out answers that apologists have been using forever, such as "hell is locked from the inside." I mean seriously, I dont see how anyone can actually view the idea of "love me or burn" as a nice idea.

Never forget that Hitler burned Anne Frank to death because she was Jewish. We call Hitler evil. God burned Anne Frank for eternity because she was Jewish. Christians call God loving.

Also, lets try and not stoop to just insulting D'Sousa and using ad hominems.

49. War in Heaven: Hitchens Meets D'Souza on Home Turf

Comment #81041 by Zakie Chan on October 24, 2007 at 12:17 am

Ok... D'souza says that only 2000 people died from the Inquisition. I am no expert on that stuff, but does anyone know where he got that number from, and if it is accurate? I did a quick google search and found numbers ranging from 40,000-100,000. So what gives?

Also I think that as long as Christians keep saying that atheism is responsible for people killed by communists, we should go ahead and say that things like the people who died from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the results of Christianity. Because hey, Harry Truman was a Baptist.

Of course, such an argument is completely stupid, but in my experience, it has worked quite well in demonstrating just that-- the argument is stupid, and correlation doesn't imply causation.

Listening to these people, hearing them say that Stalin and Kim Jong Il and whatnot are perfect examples of atheism... I cant help but but think that they arent actually listening, or reading anything that anyone says (Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, etc).

Christians are fond of saying things like "I dont have enough faith to be an atheist", and all I can think is "I dont have enough intellectual dishonesty to be a theist."

"Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby." --David Eller

50. Eddie Tabash at AAI 07

Comment #80955 by Zakie Chan on October 23, 2007 at 4:53 pm

I always have enjoyed watching Tabash in debates and lectures. Never disappointing!