1. Porn pastor's wife vows to stand by him

Comment #237418 by JFHalsey on August 26, 2008 at 12:53 pm

Curious--if he didn't have cancer, why was he vomiting/losing hair/going to the doctor/etc? What kind of wierd, 2-year long sickness did he have, or was it all psychosomatic?

Allow me to take a little cynical bend here and say that it's too bad he didn't come out of religion before this confession. I've often, in my most cyinical, bitter-at-what-religious-brainwashing-made-me-do moments thought how easy it would be to make money "faking it". I know all the right buzzwords, know what qualities the sheep look for in a shephard... he could have continued milking this for a while and then been HEALED! and start charging people for healings a la Benny Hinn.
But, I understand the mindset that did him in. I can't recall how many tearful confessions of all my "sins" I gave that got me into far more trouble than the sins themselves did (which never hurt anybody else, unlike the lying and fleecing I'm describing above).

2. Imagine No Religion' signs to go up around town

Comment #237193 by JFHalsey on August 26, 2008 at 7:16 am

Wow, this thread is 4 pages off the rails, so I don't even know if they'll see this, but... allow me to push it more off the rails!

Edamus, SciTeacher-- I'm in the Triad region, myself. You're a teacher in Raleigh? My in-laws are both teachers there... of course, they're not really the nicest people, so maybe it's better if I don't ask if you know them...

3. Kamikaze bacteria illustrate evolution of co-operation

Comment #234935 by JFHalsey on August 22, 2008 at 9:16 am

Question--is there a way for them to cause all the bacteria to express the TTSS-1 gene, and therefor all kill themselves off? Or can genes only be switched on/off at "birth"?

4. Supernatural science: Why we want to believe

Comment #234905 by JFHalsey on August 22, 2008 at 7:08 am

I know you're joking, but some of the contradictions on the skeptics bible page are plain dumb and say very little in the way of highlighting actual inconsistencies.

There are so many real problems in scripture. There is no need for atheist to pretend to be ignorant of the complexities of language in order to fabricate even more inconsistencies. We are not unable to grasp that a change in meaning of the phrase "son of God" between the traditions of Genesis and the writings attributed to Luke is likely to have occured.

5. Charlie Brooker's screen burn

Comment #224210 by JFHalsey on August 4, 2008 at 9:59 am

That article made me actually lol (as opposed to implied lol) more than any article I've read in a long damn time. "If the Bible had contained a passage that claimed gravity is caused by God pulling objects toward the ground with magic invisible threads, we'd still be debating Newton with idiots too."
Genius. Pure genius.

6. A cast-iron case for a secular society

Comment #224203 by JFHalsey on August 4, 2008 at 9:51 am

"I owe my success to discovering that faith makes you feel like you know something without knowing anything at all. Once I realized this, I could let go of the delusion and focus on all the wonders of the world that are true for everyone no matter what they believe!"

7. The Trolls Among Us

Comment #223911 by JFHalsey on August 3, 2008 at 5:10 pm

Was I the only one who couldn't stop thinking about Fight Club while reading this?
Of course, Luthien's suggestion that the whole thing was a put-on seems a lot more likely, now that he mentions it...

8. Pop Goes Christianity

Comment #182139 by JFHalsey on May 19, 2008 at 9:11 am

I was brought up in that horrible faux-pop culture. I would never listen to Christian radio, though, because I knew all the songs were absolute crap--worse than crap, they were synthetically, purposefully engineered crap. I thought I was doing better by only listening to the "underground" Christian rock, but then I was always confused what made them Christian when they never sang about God? (Case in point--Chevelle's first album was actually sold in Christian bookstores)
I eventually migrated to mainstream bands that I thought were secretly Christian--you know, the ones where, if you ignore certain lines in a song, the rest of it could pass for Christian... U2, Live, and, of course, the not-so-subtle Creed.

If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend watching the Southpark episode "Hard Christian Rock" (or something like that). It's the most hilarious parody of the Christian faux-culture I've ever seen, and it gave my little heathen heart great pleasure to see Cartman say "F@ck Jesus!" in front of a giant crowd of fundies ^_^. ("My ears are bleeding!")

9. Regulating Evolution: How Gene Switches Make Life

Comment #175945 by JFHalsey on May 6, 2008 at 9:09 am

A while back, there was an excellent article about the difference between genes and switches and proteins and all that lingo that means a whole lot of nothing to an amateur like me... does anyone remember what it was called? I searched through the archives but I wasn't even sure what to be looking for.
I remember it compared some parts of the DNA to LEGOs or something like that... does anyone know what I'm talking about?

10. Faith healing church parents charged over toddler's death

Comment #153368 by JFHalsey on April 1, 2008 at 12:25 pm

This story is chilling, to me. It could have been myself and my wife in this article, if circumstances had been different during our fundamentalism. And our daughter's name is Eva, too :( !
Sad.

11. Atheists An Increasingly Outspoken Minority

Comment #129528 by JFHalsey on February 19, 2008 at 9:04 am

Very well said, RainDear! At that illustration of those entities existing in the memeosphere and being "invaders of the mind" is certainly one I will carry with me. Thank you for that!

12. 10 cc of atheism

Comment #126337 by JFHalsey on February 13, 2008 at 2:58 am

So what did happen in that episode? Did anybody see it? I stopped watching House before the end of last season... now I'm wishing I hadn't.

13. What would Darwin have made of the Human Genome Project?

Comment #125293 by JFHalsey on February 11, 2008 at 7:49 am

"But our genome tells another, more human-centred story. If we look for genes under selection exclusively in the human lineage, top of the list is the gene HAR1, involved in making our unusually big brains. There are two changes in the gene's 118 DNA letters between chickens and chimps, but 18 changes between chimps and us"

14. Stop revisionist Christian nation House Resolution 888

Comment #125285 by JFHalsey on February 11, 2008 at 7:32 am

I got a letter back from my Rep., Brad Miller, too.

"Dear Mr. Halsey:



Thank you for contacting me about H.Res. 888, recognizing America's Religious Heritage. I appreciate hearing from you.



Representative Randy Forbes has introduced H.Res. 888, a resolution recognizing America's Religious Heritage and designating the first week in May as American Religious History Week. It also rejects any efforts to remove or omit this history from public buildings and educational resources.



This legislation has been referred to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on which I do not serve. Should this legislation come before the House for a vote, I will keep your views in mind.



Please contact me about other issues important to you. Thank you. "


I wonder what it means that it's gone before the "House Oversight and Government Reform Committee"? Does this mean they got enough complaints that they felt the need to look it over more closely? I sure hope so.

15. God vs. Gridiron

Comment #121903 by JFHalsey on February 4, 2008 at 10:11 am

The church I went to before my deconversion used to have huge super bowl parties, but they were so fundiMENTAL that they couldn't stomach the beer and sexy commercials, so they actually home-video'd their own "christian" commercials to dub in the breaks. I bet the NFL would have shit over that.

Come to think of it, they haven't had any super bowl parties in a while... I wonder if they got one of those letters?

16. The Science behind the Large Hadron Collider

Comment #116427 by JFHalsey on January 26, 2008 at 1:12 pm

I'm so excited about this! This is, without a doubt, the most exciting scientific news of our time. We may be /this/ close to discovering the Theory of Everything! I'm extremely excited to see what we find.

17. US scientists close to creating artificial life: study

Comment #115982 by JFHalsey on January 25, 2008 at 7:44 am

What will we have next PETOBASCO

Petobasco....I thought that was a holiday resort in northern Spain.

18. Mixing Mammals

Comment #115438 by JFHalsey on January 24, 2008 at 7:44 am

I'm with Azven. What, exactly, is the purpose of this experiment? I'm all for splicing the ol' genes, but... a 6% increase? What does that tell us, really?

19. Three Little Pigs 'too offensive'

Comment #115421 by JFHalsey on January 24, 2008 at 7:15 am

Why does no one care about offending the vegetarians? :'(

*Sings "World Police" version of "I'm so lonely..."*

20. Interview with Ian McEwan

Comment #114460 by JFHalsey on January 22, 2008 at 8:47 am

It seems to be part of all cultures...

21. Ben Stein Bribing Schools to See His Anti-Evolution Movie 'Expelled'

Comment #112962 by JFHalsey on January 18, 2008 at 10:41 am

Shouldnt you be working if your at work... I never comment when im at work

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

Comment #111258 by JFHalsey on January 14, 2008 at 7:00 am

Three months later I asked for it back and he was only about 1/3 the way through it, but he "could see where it was going".

23. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #109064 by JFHalsey on January 8, 2008 at 8:50 am

Ah, I suppose you refer to the recent experiements with light where effect precedes cause? Yes, it's definately an interesting line of thought, I get you there...

24. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #108646 by JFHalsey on January 7, 2008 at 11:34 am

rainbow, I don't understand where you're coming from. You do understand what the problem of infinite regress is, don't you? You say you're not endorsing Intelligent Design, with God being the original designer... but you think the odds are too high for life to have arisen on earth from any of the multitude of means laid out by Steve and others, so it needs a sapient designer explanation? Where did this designer come from? If it was designed, who designed its designer, and who designed the designer's designer, etc. etc., ad infinitum. Ultimately, life had to arise by abiogenesis. Even if it didn't happen on earth, it had to happen somewhere. So what point are you trying to make?

25. The battle of the butterflies and the ants

Comment #108174 by JFHalsey on January 6, 2008 at 7:07 am

It's like an episode of star trek with an encounter with the borg, where they both need a rapidly fluctuating shield frequency and phaserbeam frequency so as to stay on top of the adaptation rate of the borg. amazing!

26. Stop House Resolution 888

Comment #108107 by JFHalsey on January 6, 2008 at 3:34 am

Thanks for the link, Clouds. I read that Resolution, and it scares the hell out of me. Seriously, I don't get how this could be a document in my government; it sounds like a church wrote it. I'll write my congressman... but I don't have any hope it'll do any good.

27. Stop House Resolution 888

Comment #107828 by JFHalsey on January 5, 2008 at 12:52 pm

Are we sure this is for real? I don't know much about the Daily Kos, but this reads to me like an email forward. Does anybody know where we can find this resolution on the gov's actual website? And if those pronouncements are complete lies, what are they based on?

28. 'Gospel of wealth' facing scrutiny

Comment #104243 by JFHalsey on December 28, 2007 at 7:46 am

I'm with liddlefeesh on this one. My wife and I also bought into the 'Gospel of Prosperity" at a time when our finances were very precarious, and it ended up putting us in even worse sorts. We heard the same things, 'just keep persevering,' 'keep praying,' 'look for unconfessed sins in your life,' etc.
At no time during my religious life was I ever "stupid," though. I have always been described by other people as intelligent, and consider my rationality one of my greatest assets. When things didn't add up with my religion, I would become convinced that I just hadn't read enough scripture for all the pieces of the puzzle to fit together yet. Or that things weren't working out because I looked at that supermodel on the billboard as I drove by and it tainted me in the eyes of God. Yes, these are stupid thoughts! But I wasn't stupid for thinking them, I was trapped. What choice did I have but to think that way, when I was consistently, painfully brainwashed my entire life? I'm talking in church at least 4 times a week, homeschooled, very little TV or "secular" media, etc.

Of course, I did eventually come out of it. It was an extremely painful process as the cognitive dissonance between what I had been taught and what I was experiencing just became too great. I guess you could say that that only proves that I'm not in the "fool" category, and that the woman is, since I came out of it and she didn't. But nothing in my intelligence has changed--I'm still as smart and as inquisitive as I've ever been (just nowm things actually make sense! ^_^). But I think that perfectly intelligent people can believe perfectly stupid ideas if nothing in their circumstances ever pushes them to confront their own cognitive dissonance.

29. How to refute Creationist with only a bucket of feces

Comment #103883 by JFHalsey on December 27, 2007 at 7:35 am

Those comics are all pure gold and made my morning. Thanks for sharing! ^_^

30. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #101861 by JFHalsey on December 21, 2007 at 3:24 am

...I'm not sure what you find disturbing? You seem to be under the impression that life started once, ever, in a single lightning bolt-like flash, and that it's never happened again?

If life started on earth (as opposed to the panspermia theory), then early earth probably had ideal conditions for life to start. If so, it might have started more than once, but natural selection ended up weeding out all but one. Not so disturbing; it happens.

31. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #101697 by JFHalsey on December 20, 2007 at 7:10 pm

Perhaps not Darwinian natural selection as it's defined in textbooks, but in essence it's the same thing; like I said before-- that which persists, persists, that which doesn't, doesn't. (I give Steve Grand full props for that little piece of obviousness)
Stars exist because they're stable, helium and hydrogen and the other lighter elements are stable and so are prolific in the universe where they from into stars and planets, whereas things like Bismuth or Plutonium are not very stable (in terms of atoms joining together into those molecules and then staying that way), so you don't find them very often in nature.

Likewise, when natural forces work to combine all sorts of stable elements in all sorts of configurations, those configurations that can naturally duplicate themselves (like crystals, for instance) will be more stable in terms of longevity--not because of their endurance, like planets, but because it is constantly making copies of itself.

32. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #101230 by JFHalsey on December 20, 2007 at 6:05 am

The problem I have is that it requires a great deal of Faith to believe that the first replicator could've arisen by pure chance.

That is also not a great fill-in answer.

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

Comment #98191 by JFHalsey on December 13, 2007 at 8:28 am

Wow great. Can I use this in my letter to my congress person?

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

Comment #98165 by JFHalsey on December 13, 2007 at 7:05 am

Here's the message I just sent my congressman:


To my elected representative, Mr. Miller,

I am a conscientious member of your constituency who voted for you in the last election. I receive monthly emails of every vote taken in the House and Senate notifying me of your voting record. Normally, I am greatly pleased to see your votes; in this age when the general populace is so disappointed in our leadership and feeling very neglected, it is so satisfying to see that my representative still upholds the principles I hold dear.

However, your recent vote on H. Res. 847 has left me nothing short of shocked and appalled. While issues such as Global Warming, continued unrest in the Middle East, Stem Cell research and more are ignored, threatening the future my children will inherit, the fact that the Congress we elected to represent the Constitution would take valuable time to pass such a vacuous, self-congratulatory bill outrages me. Not only is this bill offensive to the millions of American citizens who do not consider themselves Christian, it is a clear slap in the face to the Establishment Clause, which states clear as ink on paper that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." It is hard to see how H. Res. 847 is anything other than an announcement of partiality on behalf of a religion.

Although many of the statements made in HR 847 are historical facts, many of the assertations and resolutions are pure matters of opinion that belong in churches or around the watercooler and not in our nation's seat of government. Furthermore, in light of the pressing issues mentioned above, what business does the House of Representatives have wasting time announcing their acknowledgement of historical fact?

Sometimes the things done in Congress confuses me, sometimes Bills anger me. But when elected officials begin treading on First Amendment rights... it scares me.

Your constituent,
John F. Halsey

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

Comment #98148 by JFHalsey on December 13, 2007 at 6:25 am

I truly, honestly thought this was a prank. Until I saw the url it came from.

I really can't believe this.

It reminds me of how we always laugh about the evangelical image of a God who will help you through traffic to get to work on time or help you get the mustard out of your shirt, but won't lift a finger to help starving children in Africa. Well, here we have our elected representatives too busy patting their intrest groups on the back to take care of global warming or increasing turmoil in the Middle East. What a FUCKING JOKE!

36. World History

Comment #98142 by JFHalsey on December 13, 2007 at 6:18 am

Gods, I know that cartoon is depicting some of the most heinous atrocities our world has ever seen... so am I a horrible person that I can't stop laughing at it? The image of the crusader with a "Darwin fish," especially, makes me want to giggle.

37. The empty myths peddled by evangelists of unbelief

Comment #97051 by JFHalsey on December 11, 2007 at 10:44 am

I can't even read articles like this any more.

It's like when I try to tell my 2-yr old daughter, "No, you can't wear a skirt outside, it's too cold," and she just shakes her head vigorously and says, "No it isn't!" over and over again. I give up!

38. Agnes on Faith

Comment #95026 by JFHalsey on December 7, 2007 at 7:30 am

Brilliant! This was actually in a newspaper? Perhaps there is hope after all...

39. Poll finds more Americans believe in devil than Darwin

Comment #92388 by JFHalsey on November 30, 2007 at 12:06 pm

I like this line:

It is the latest survey to highlight America's deep level of religiosity, a cultural trait that sets it apart from much of the developed world.

40. Papal encyclical attacks atheism, lauds hope

Comment #92386 by JFHalsey on November 30, 2007 at 11:57 am

I'd listen to Michael Jackson give advice on child care* or OJ give marriage counseling before I'd listen to anyone in the RC church talk about "the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice."

BTW, hungarian, your new avatar made me laugh out loud!


(* I almost said "child rearing". Whoops!)

41. Sunday School for Atheists

Comment #90754 by JFHalsey on November 26, 2007 at 9:14 am

As a parent of two little ones living in the Bible Belt, I think this sounds like a wonderful idea. I wish there was one in our area (yeah right, it'd probably get burned down).

Both my children currently attend a daycare run by a church, because that's the only place we can take them. I worry constantly about the indoctrination they will face growing up, from their grandparents and daycare as well as the majority of their peers; it'd be great if there was a place they could get together and see that they're parents aren't the only athiests in town.

Also, as a parent, I can definately empathize with the quoted Willey when she said that we need more social groups for support and fellowship. I've been strongly tempted lately to start attending a church just for that reason, indoctrination be damned.

42. Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

Comment #89269 by JFHalsey on November 20, 2007 at 6:11 am

olegus-- Thanks for that link. I look forward to watching it!

43. Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

Comment #88561 by JFHalsey on November 17, 2007 at 7:22 pm

BTW, in Chapter 6 (I think), they talk about how gorilla's, chimps, and orangutans all have 24 chromosomes, whereas we have 23. Ken Miller said that if we didn't find evidence where two chromosomes had merged to form one, explaining where that missing chromosome went, then the evolutionary theory of the common descent of man would be wrong.

I don't understand how that works. Can a species not just lose a chromosome? Or might our common ancestor not have only had 23, and only the other three primates developed the 24th one? I don't know enough about chromosomes to understand the issue. Can someone help me out?

44. Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

Comment #88527 by JFHalsey on November 17, 2007 at 11:45 am

Finally watched it; great program. The "missing link" fossil between creationists and design proponents was so funny I actually laughed out loud.

There's not much I can add that hasn't already been said about this topic, but I would like to offer some bit of hope: I was raised as a YEC; indeed, I volunteered with our local creationist chapter to put on a creationist TV show on our local cable. But when I finally got so fed up with evolution and wondered "just how can these people still believe this in the face of all the evidence?!", I actually went to read what the real scientists were saying about evolution and realized that I'd been lied to my entire life (I was homeschooled and so missed even a high school-level biology education).

Logical evidence and reasoning can triumph over indoctrination and bias.

45. Georgia gets rain, but it may not help

Comment #88487 by JFHalsey on November 17, 2007 at 3:37 am

Excuse me for a moment while I pray for a new Porsche...

46. For the glory of God

Comment #88486 by JFHalsey on November 17, 2007 at 3:33 am

An excellent article, and very true. Only three years ago I was one of those religious nutcases who believed the world was less than 10,000 years old and that every word in the bible came from ol'Yahweh's mouth. It's an oppressive, stifling worldview in which no dissent or logical reasoning or shadow of a doubt is allowed. And though my beliefs would not have led me to murder or to strap bombs to my chest, christianity taken 100% literally is still mortally dangerous. I shudder to think what might have happened to my children had they contracted a serious illness when I was still taking the New Testament's word on Faith Healing seriously.

47. Religious scholars mull Flying Spaghetti Monster

Comment #88394 by JFHalsey on November 16, 2007 at 1:00 pm

A pretty good article until those last two paragraphs.

So, a tongue-in-cheek "prayer" to the FSM by a militant* athiest serves as proof that we all have a "deep human need to feel like there's something bigger than oneself out there"? Stunning journalism, that.

*Don't underestimate those pro-Darwin bumper stickers! Next time they might have a pro-Newton or pro-Einstein sticker, then what are you going to do?

48. Response to Theodore Dalrymple

Comment #85810 by JFHalsey on November 7, 2007 at 8:48 am

steve99, could you explain this to me:

Discussions of the origin of the universe that involve a beginning of time or an eternal universe that has always existed as the only alternatives are out of date. There is no 'first cause' problem if causality as we understand it was not involved in the origin of the universe.

49. Washoe, the sign-language chimp dies

Comment #85594 by JFHalsey on November 6, 2007 at 10:34 am

I admit that I don't know anything about Washoe, but I've watched documentaries on Koko, the gorilla who learned sign language, and I assure you she understood what she was signing. She even learned to make up new words to describe things she was unfamiliar with ("Finger-bracelet" for a ring, for instance).

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

Comment #85030 by JFHalsey on November 4, 2007 at 3:16 pm

"The illustrator misheard 'Dawkins has a chip on his shoulder.' "

LOL! Absolutely classic.