Comments by TAG

Comment #201471 by TAG on June 29, 2008 at 5:43 pm

Here's a short science fiction story where a minister on an alien world is trying to teach the gospel to an alien fungus:
http://www.booksfromscotland.com/Books/Nova-Scotia-9781841830865/A-Case-of-Consilience

2. Texas Megachurch Minister Busted in Internet Sex Sting

Comment #181578 by TAG on May 17, 2008 at 2:43 pm

But was Chris Hansen involved?

(If you don't know him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Catch_a_Predator

(If you do, my spoof:
http://thatatheistguysblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/to-catch-atheist.html

3. Truly Bizarre : Indians Throw Babies 50ft From Roof To Thank God.

Comment #175052 by TAG on May 4, 2008 at 9:34 am

No more ignorant/insane/superstitious than infant circumcision. Yet many folks in the West think that practice is perfectly reasonable. "...first cast out the beam out of thine own eye..."

4. Bill Moyers interviews Jonathan Miller

Comment #87503 by TAG on November 12, 2007 at 10:13 am

I don't recall exactly, but when this series was broadcast in the US a few months back I think only a handful of local PBS stations aired it. I have a feeling that most areas of the country that needed to see it most didn't get the chance.

5. Sam Harris at AAI 07

Comment #82435 by TAG on October 26, 2007 at 10:25 am

I usually call myself an atheist, but the word is tricky because it means different things to different people. (Just like the word "god".) Even saying "agnostic" can lead to misunderstandings. I wrote a short blog post outlining the major definitions out there:

http://thatatheistguysblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/semantic-taxonomy-of-non-theism.html

I like steve99's idea about using the label "seeker". There were a lot of interesting comments in this thread! Maybe one day the theists will be in the minority and debate about whether they should use the label "anaturalist".

Oh, my one pet peeve with the word "atheist" is when people capitalize it. Doesn't that seem odd? If I was a believer, I would not say I was a "Theist" with a capital T!

6. Atheism is a religion and you're as bad as the fundamentalists

Comment #81443 by TAG on October 24, 2007 at 6:14 pm

My (imperfect) litmus test for religion is that a candidate must have two elements. 1. A belief in some kind of supernatural phenomenon, and 2. some ritualistic behavior.

If atheism is a religion, so is baseball!

7. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #81201 by TAG on October 24, 2007 at 12:04 pm

I went to this debate here in NYC. I wrote about it on my blog. Here's part of what I said:

Last night I went to the debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinseh S'Souza. Hitchens wasn't in top form, and D'Souza probably won the debate in terms of audience support. But the audience was stacked against Hitchens with 80 to 90% being Christian in my estimate.

D'Souza threw out numerous mischaracterizations of atheists, and statements such as atheism and belief in scientific laws requiring a leap of faith just like Christianity, which Hitchens never properly attacked.The final audience question period favored D'Souza as well, since most questions went to Hitchens, D'Souza got the last word in almost every time. Hitchens often made arguments that seemed to go over the heads of the audience. Once he made the point that the so-called designer didn't do a very good job since most of the solar system and universe is uninhabitable. However he made this argument with too much literary flair since I saw the young Christians sitting in front of me shaking their heads in confusion, not because they disagreed, but because they plainly did not understand what Hitchens was saying.

When Dinesh mentioned Hitchens book on Mother Theresa "The Missionary Position" the young Christians in front of me freaked out. Their eyes were bugging out and their jaws were hitting the floor! After all the things Hitchens had said so far, I couldn't believe that book title getting the biggest reaction.

The rest is at:
http://thatatheistguysblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/hitchens-vs-dsouza-debate.html

I also linked to the Hitchens Watch blog which has a more thorough report.