1. Common New Atheist Fallacies

Comment #200465 by Hypoluxa on June 27, 2008 at 5:12 pm

This guy is truly oblivious to the points Hitchens and Dawkins have made...

2. Common New Atheist Fallacies

Comment #200453 by Hypoluxa on June 27, 2008 at 5:00 pm

This guy is about as fallacious as what he is lecturing... having watched the 4 vids, he would be destroyed if he were to argue against Hitches, who he shows clips of ...and tries to explain to his audience about how Hitches is arguing the reason against religion..and is making fallacies. Simple cherry picking of points, and then trying to convince his audience that they don't apply to the core argument... therefor God exists!
This guy just doesnt get it.. lol Or he doesn't understand rational scientific thinking.

3. The Flea Delusion

Comment #197694 by Hypoluxa on June 22, 2008 at 2:00 pm

Decius

Thanks for the link. Lots to look over!

4. The Flea Delusion

Comment #197672 by Hypoluxa on June 22, 2008 at 1:20 pm

Id be curious as to what arguments these fleas tend to use to refute Dawkins and the others, as to justify the writing of the their book to begin with.

I mean their arguments from what I have read so far here and elsewhere have been beaten down pretty well time and time again.

5. Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

Comment #192654 by Hypoluxa on June 13, 2008 at 8:30 pm

Makes perfect sense to me, I can think of a few poor & fairly uneducated nations who rely on religion heavily to rationalize everything. Not everyone in the particular nations are uneducated mind you, just a large percentage...

6. My Response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #177181 by Hypoluxa on May 8, 2008 at 5:44 pm

Well put Richard. Or maybe I should say well said....without the need for shrieking..

7. Gene map proves platypus is part bird, mammal and reptile

Comment #176964 by Hypoluxa on May 8, 2008 at 11:56 am

Very interesting story indeed. Such an odd animal. Proof of Evolution is ripe in this creature.

8. Museums teach society lacking in science literacy

Comment #173792 by Hypoluxa on May 1, 2008 at 8:48 am

I went to the Body Works showing a few months ago at OMSI here in Portland. Great show, its really wild to see the human form skinless and posed. I agree that OMSI is a little to much targeted for faily young kids, it should have a lillte more for older kids. COSI, in Columbus Ohio is a really good science & industry musuem. I went there a number of times growing up back in Ohio.

9. Science leads to killing people

Comment #171741 by Hypoluxa on April 28, 2008 at 6:39 pm

Im still shocked that this guy has so much education and is yet so stupid.

10. Soldier Sues Army, Saying His Atheism Led to Threats

Comment #169602 by Hypoluxa on April 26, 2008 at 11:46 am

Comment #169596 by Liquid on April 26, 2008 at 11:37 am
Feel bad for him, he's getting shot at by religious fanatics and he's getting pounded on from his own camp by religious fanatics.

11. Soldier Sues Army, Saying His Atheism Led to Threats

Comment #169592 by Hypoluxa on April 26, 2008 at 11:27 am

As a fellow Army Vet, I served in Bosnia and I had a few religious comrades, but luckily never had any pressure from them. But then I didn't consider myself an atheist at that point in my life, just an agnostic from what I can remember...

At any rate you get people of all kinds of backgrounds when your in the military, from Kool-Aid drinkers (like the soldiers this guy served with), to free thinkers, but not many of the latter. Its good this guy finally made a complaint, military life is already stressful enough, no need to get harassed and more stressed over something that is unprovable and highly improbable...

12. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #166742 by Hypoluxa on April 23, 2008 at 12:04 pm

Comment #166692 by non_plussed-This is the main pleasure to be found in watching the BBC's Sunday morning religious debate program 'The Big Question'. The pattern generally is for the religious speakers to mutually agree that religion is 'A Good Thing' for society when talked about in general terms and then bicker once they get to actual details. Of course, the programme flits from one assertion to the next, treating all as equally valid and then moves on without reaching a conclusion.

Richard Dawkins appeared on it recently and got into trouble for having the temerity to suggest that we don't need to respect people's opinions that contradict evidence. He was criticising an evangelical who called homosexuality a lifestyle choice.

That programme started with the religious welcoming the influx of 'traditional values' (read intolerance) being brought by religious immigrants and ended in dispute over exorcism and the devil. Richard seemed genuinely bemused at the spectacle of adults debating the finer details of their imaginary worlds.

The multi-woo format highlights the arbitrary nature of religious claims, but this never seems to register with their proponents. Somehow, the presence of contradictory beliefs justifies the believer's right to hold a personal version of reality, rather than telling them they need a more reliable means to assess evidence. Just shows how well defended these memes are.

13. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166017 by Hypoluxa on April 22, 2008 at 5:03 pm

The common response to "we don't know yet" is "god-did-it".

The life of a scientist is to discover what we don't yet know and each time we learn something new, we also find new things we don't yet know.

Under the "god-did-it" philosophy, we scientists would have stopped long ago searching for answers:

- Computers and the internet would not exist

- Travel would still be with horses and sailboats

- Diseases would still kill millions/billions of people

- IDiots would not be able to create a movie full of lies in which they expelled any form of intelligence.

- Scientists would no longer say that they don't have an answer yet

- Everyone would be pious, pray and praise their favorite undefinable supernatural creator

- All would be well, at least if you define never ending religious wars of our history as "well".

I prefer the alternative: science in search of answers annoying the crap out of the "god-did-it" folks who are all too happy to use the results of science (electronics, transportation, healthcare, entertainment, ...).

14. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #164954 by Hypoluxa on April 20, 2008 at 10:15 pm

Well said Richard. I hope this person can realize that they have been duped.

15. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #157218 by Hypoluxa on April 8, 2008 at 5:53 pm

Oh this was just too nuts. Richard was great, he really should have gotten to say more, but the simple minded folk got most of the airtime...

I loved his 'ASTONISHING' remark. I really hope the IQ's of some of the audience members went up when he got a chance to speak..he really was too polite. Hitchens on the other hand...

16. Hitchens and Boteach Debate on God

Comment #125641 by Hypoluxa on February 11, 2008 at 6:55 pm

The Rabbi's statements on evolution proves he does not understand it at all. Some mutations do end up being beneficial if the creature is able to reproduce! If not, nature has its way with it...

17. Belief in Belief

Comment #117463 by Hypoluxa on January 28, 2008 at 10:22 pm

Hitchens NEVER never fails to impress. :)

18. This Week's Flea

Comment #103218 by Hypoluxa on December 24, 2007 at 2:00 pm

Regarding an earlier post...I recall thinking about that exact same argument a number of years ago ie: If God is all powerful, good, etc and according to the Bible he created Satan ( a fallen angel) why didnt he just smite him after he turned against him?

Seems to make sense to me to smite him, since he was going to cause all these problems for us humans later on. And since he (God ) didn't smite him, that doesn't make all that good or smart! Right? He should have seen Lucifers rebellion coming! This was the best anti-thiest argument I thought of on my own a few years ago... before I discovered RD and others of his ilk :)
I have yet to argue it to a door-door fundie.

19. This Week's Flea

Comment #100995 by Hypoluxa on December 19, 2007 at 6:14 pm

Just by the marketing ploy that these "flea" books have used by aping the design, typography and color from the original critique books, just shows how unoriginal in thought of design and probably argument as well, that these books are. It seems anyone can write one these days. Heck, its even crossed my mind.

20. World History

Comment #98208 by Hypoluxa on December 13, 2007 at 9:09 am

Has anybody here, or in the forums posted a once and for all a response (w/ refs etc) to this never ending pro-religious argument "that athieists have done the worst atrocities in the world, in the name of atheism", and why that argument is faulty. I mean, damn, they keep using this argument all the friggin time!!! Why can't they realize that most people do not/would not commit crimes in regards to non-belief in x,y or z.

21. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins

Comment #96727 by Hypoluxa on December 10, 2007 at 9:25 pm

Comment #96623

You made the BEST rebuttal on here I think. I hope you emailed it to him!

22. Holy Nonsense

Comment #95223 by Hypoluxa on December 7, 2007 at 3:52 pm

Hitchens sums it up again quite nicely... This Ken doll ward cleaver clone needs to get with reality.

23. 'Muhammad' teddy teacher arrested

Comment #91426 by hypoluxa on November 28, 2007 at 9:24 am

This is yet another notch in Hitchens' belt against the idiocity of religious belief..

24. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #82518 by Hypoluxa on October 26, 2007 at 2:33 pm

Sam makes a good point. I have a suggeston on what to classify ones self. If asked you could say, "A human,... that has the ability to think and reason logically" , and not humanist, or how about Earthling?

Just throwing those out to see what others think. Or maybe they've been said before.

25. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79231 by Hypoluxa on October 16, 2007 at 2:34 pm

Ok...McGrath seems like a very nice and cordial individual, however his whish washy arguments never really answer Hitchens questions point blank, or from what I remeber in his Dawkins video debate, he (McGrath) does the same.

He seems to like to ponder the "why" aspects of evil and violence, while Hitchens and Dakins flat out state is because we are primates, animals! Thats why! We are gentically predispositioned to do so! It is just a matter of the individual to overcome those natural urges and or thought patterns.

26. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79166 by Hypoluxa on October 16, 2007 at 11:11 am

"Comment #79154 by Smythe on October 16, 2007 at 10:32 am
If McGrath starts every sentence with 'what I would like to say is' or 'what I would want to say to that is' like he did in the debate with Prof. Dawkins, I'm going to lose it."

LOL indeed, yes he does tend to use that opening a lot!

27. The Problem with Atheism

Comment #75523 by Hypoluxa on October 2, 2007 at 11:31 pm

I think I understand what Harris has said and agree. The label of atheist has for in its entirety to the unbeknownst has been predominately negative. His example of just being "responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them", makes sense to me. That way we remove ourselves of this negative connotation, and are just somebody who makes a valid reasonable argument and thought to a bad idea/illogical belief etc.

While having experimented with meditation and LSD in the past I personally did not have any life changing thoughts or experiences, that I considered profound. I found it more relaxing than anything in my personal opinion. I still revert back to rational thought and reality.

So, again what to call ourselves instead of "atheists" etc? I do not know, even though like a poster mentioned before me, that humans like to feel and be a part of a group dynamic, as it is in our nature to do so, we should just continue to think freely, rationally, and of course question everything.

28. New Rules: A Religious Test

Comment #75369 by Hypoluxa on October 2, 2007 at 12:07 pm

I love Bill Maher. He is so damn sharp.

29. Logical Path from Religious Beliefs to Evil Deeds

Comment #75360 by Hypoluxa on October 2, 2007 at 11:55 am

33. Comment #75349 by DuckPhup on October 2, 2007 at 11:33 am
I have often pointed out to Christians...

I am aware of tens of millions of people having been tortured and/or killed in the name of Jesus/Christianity.

I am not aware of even a single person ever having been tortured and/or killed in the name of rational skepticism."

Well said. :)