Comments by 43alley

Comment #293957 by 43alley on November 30, 2008 at 12:18 pm

My favorite scene is where Harris swings into that burning orphanage and saves those poor children from those ninjas. But I also like the scene where Hitchens catches that bullet with his teeth while Dennett and Dawkins fight that cyborg grizzly bear on top of the erupting volcano.

Or maybe that was a dream I had the other night. I don't know. But it was really fun to watch.

2. Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over

Comment #261727 by 43alley on October 7, 2008 at 9:15 am

Here's an article in direct contradiction:

Humans Evolving More Rapidly Than Ever, Say Scientists

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/humans-evolving.html

3. The rival to the Bible

Comment #261715 by 43alley on October 7, 2008 at 8:57 am

BBC 4 has a radio program on this. It's in Real, does anyone know how to convert it to mp3 or if they have a link?

Here's the radio program:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/theoldestbible/pip/9vwi1/

Thanks.

(EDIT)
I just saw: Comment #261529 by fergusg

He has an mp3. Can someone host it?

4. World's oldest rocks discovered in Canada

Comment #254831 by 43alley on September 26, 2008 at 9:33 am

Reminds me of when I was in seventh grade (age 12 or 13) in a southern United States elementary school. Our science teacher had some rocks he wanted to show the class, but before he did, he asked me to take some of the rocks home to my dad (who was a geologist for a coal company) and find out what a certain pattern was on the side of the rock.

My dad put together a little index card of information explaining that the "stuff" on the rock was calcite formations and that both the rocks were over 1.2 billion years old.

My teacher didn't show the rocks after that for some reason. I found out a few months later that the "some reason" was that he was a Jehovah's Witness.

Ah, such was life in the American south!

5. More atheists are sharing their views

Comment #254312 by 43alley on September 25, 2008 at 2:35 pm

I think most of you are missing the best part of this article ... it's from Kentucky! That's a very good sign. A very good one.

Now only if these groups would spring up out in the rural parts of the state ...

6. Why albino monks won't conduct stem cell research

Comment #252475 by 43alley on September 23, 2008 at 6:19 am

My favorite part is how Opus Dei is attempting to shake off its "self-flagellating albino monk image" from The DiVinci Code but New Scientist says by way of the article's title, "Yeah, whatever, you're all a bunch of albino monks, deal with it."

7. Participating In Religion May Make Adolescents From Certain Races More Depressed

Comment #242944 by 43alley on September 4, 2008 at 7:55 pm

It seems there is a new study on religion every couple weeks, and each time they take the opposite stance ... religion improves your health! .... religion makes you depressed .... religion makes you jump higher! ..... religion makes you impotent.

Next to eggs (They're healthy! No, they're bad for you!), religion has the most contradicting studies.

8. Central Texas Man's Death Sentence Upheld Despite Bible In Jury Room

Comment #233779 by 43alley on August 20, 2008 at 12:00 pm

nathanthn (Comment #233741)

A vast majority of jury decisions probably are influenced by religious beliefs.

A funny aside, people always ask me how to get out of jury duty. I tell them that if asking the judge beforehand doesn't work, just show up to court the day of jury selection wearing an obnoxious Church T-shirt. Neither the prosecution nor defense wants that person because it's too much of a risk. Will the person be an Old Testament juror ("an eye for an eye"), or will they be a New Testament juror ("forgive your enemies").

Either way, neither side will be comfortable with you on the jury.

9. Central Texas Man's Death Sentence Upheld Despite Bible In Jury Room

Comment #233730 by 43alley on August 20, 2008 at 10:54 am

Before anyone jumps to conclusions, from this article it sounds like the Appeals Court did not actually rule on the merits of having/using a Bible. They only said that there was insufficient evidence presented to even get to that point. This is common in American federal appellate court rulings.

Federal judges (all life-time appointments by the current president), usually don't overturn convictions. Here, I'm guessing, there wasn't sufficient proof that all this Bible business occurred, or at least to the point that the appealing defendant claimed.

If they consulted Scripture, there's no doubt that it's a violation of this man's constitutional right, but the Court did not even consider that. As someone who practices in front of many federal courts, based just on this article (and perhaps I should look into the facts a little more), this isn't a surprising ruling to me.

EDIT:

I saw this quote from another article:

"Unless there's a suggestion (the jurors) used religious law as opposed to the Code of Criminal Procedure and the instructions the judge gave them, but that wasn't an issue in this case."

And then this:

"Defense lawyers interviewing jurors after Oliver's capital murder trial discovered jurors had Bibles with them during deliberations.

At a state district court hearing two months after the trial, four jurors testified about the presence of Bibles in the jury room and gave varying accounts, ranging from one Bible to several being present. One juror testified he and fellow jurors carried the books with them because they would go to Bible study in the evenings following the day's court proceedings,

Another juror testified any reading from the books came after they had reached a decision. A third said the reading of Scripture was intended to make people feel better about their decision."

Of course this is all ridiculous, but it really comes down to whether they followed the jury instructions (and only the jury instructions) from the judge or not. There was no evidence presented otherwise.

10. Poll: Should the motto 'In God We Trust' be removed from U.S. currency?

Comment #230142 by 43alley on August 14, 2008 at 11:05 am

"NO" is winning 91% to 9%.

11. The God Delusion

Comment #229340 by 43alley on August 13, 2008 at 11:42 am

Stephen Cave has reviewed the cover, Anthony Flew the Table of Contents.

I think I'm going to review the spine.

Here's an excerpt:

"The mind-blowing spine to Richard Dawkin's book, THE GOD DELUSION, is so mind-blowing that it will blow your mind all over your face. "

12. Antony Flew reviews the Index of The God Delusion

Comment #214525 by 43alley on July 20, 2008 at 3:11 pm

Dawkins addressed Flew's deconversion in the question-and-answer session when he spoke at Randolph-Macon's Women's College near Liberty University (surely everyone remembers the creationists from Falwell's "compound" lining up to stump Professor Dawkins -- and he mows each one down in turn).

Here is the part where he addresses Flew:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEPUn__hYso

13. Probe lands on Mars, NASA says

Comment #184582 by 43alley on May 25, 2008 at 7:11 pm

OK, CNN is now finally showing them, but the anchorman starts off by saying that it costs millions of tax-payers dollars.

Wow, that sounds like something I would hear from Fox News.

If it's 10:10 pm (20:10), I guess it's around four in the morning in England. I hope you guys stayed up for this (with better coverage I hope)!

14. Probe lands on Mars, NASA says

Comment #184576 by 43alley on May 25, 2008 at 7:00 pm

I'm sitting here waiting for CNN to get to the images (which they said would be out around 9:43pm Eastern Standard Time). But it seems there are more important news items for CNN to cover right now as I watch at 9:58pm ... the American Idol contestants are going through a large cheeseball interview. Sigh.

Sad thing is ... I bet if CNN goes straight to the Mars photos at 10pm in a few minutes, the ratings will drop through the floor because everyone will have flipped to another station to see what other reality show they can watch.

15. Belief in Belief

Comment #117437 by 43alley on January 28, 2008 at 7:50 pm

Hey all ... it was a pleasure to see you guys complimenting the Hitchens videos I did. I'm a lurker here, and read all the articles and follow all the discussions in the comments. Imagine my surprise in seeing links to my videos. Though they originated on YouTube, I see they're making their way to other sites (Google, milk&cookies, and even one person's MySpace blog). Maybe I should have put my name on them somewhere, maybe as a watermark or something.

I didn't at first because it wasn't an ego thing, I just really could visualize what Hitchens was saying and thought that maybe, just maybe, a religious person would stumble upon it and watch just enough of it to pry loose one of those square pegs in the round hole in his or her brain.

These videos really aren't difficult to put together, so if anyone has any ideas or suggestions for other specific speeches, etc, please let me know.

A fun one I'm thinking about doing is one of Eddie Izzard's routines ripping on the Bible. That should be fun.

16. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #83924 by 43alley on October 31, 2007 at 4:53 pm

If anyone is interested, I took the brilliant opening Hitchens did here and overlaid visuals to compliment his arguments.

part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYaQpRZJl18

part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkHuvErbpd0