1. James Cameron finds grave of Jesus & Son

Comment #23168 by kmccardle on February 26, 2007 at 3:26 pm

As much fun as this will be, immediately it is noticable that there's almost no way to prove this is in fact the tomb of THE Jesus. It can be speculated, it can be likely to be his tomb, but the religious nuts can just say "That can't be Jesus the Christ's Tomb, there were many Jesuses back then, this is simply a coincedence. Our Jesus was burried somewhere else and rose from the dead." It is still enjoyable to see them sputter over claims like this.

2. Ancient boy's skeleton sparks evolution debate

Comment #21099 by kmccardle on February 7, 2007 at 2:55 pm

Upset that the evidence contradicts the Bible? I'd be upset too if there was proof I was delusional.

3. Do stop behaving as if you are God, Professor Dawkins

Comment #20910 by kmccardle on February 7, 2007 at 2:22 am

It is true you can't disprove the existence of god, but this tired argument is still easily met by the answer "You can't disprove fairies." The standard scientific stance is skepticism, one cannot solidly claim something exists until it can be shown to exist. Quarks are a perfect example of this. While they were theorized to exist, they were not accepted until solid evidence was found. If theologians want to theorize god exists, fine, but until they can submit proof of existence everyone else should be skeptical.

4. The Chronicles of Kearnya, or, Principles of Evolution Observed in the Field at Kearny High School

Comment #20535 by kmccardle on February 3, 2007 at 10:01 pm

It's a good thing that the school board doesn't set the laws. Students can still record their teachers if they feel their rights are being violated and there's nothing the school board can do about it if the teacher turns out to have done something illegal/wrong/etc. I'm not even sure if the school board really has the authority to ban tape recordings anyways, but on that I'm not sure.

5. The Ego and the ID

Comment #20116 by kmccardle on January 31, 2007 at 1:22 pm

Chesirecat, anyone would be hard pressed to come up with an academic paper about any of this because there hasn't been one yet. But that's not to say there won't be one in the future, or that the point isn't valid. But in this world that is still heavily religiously led it will be hard for someone to get funding to test something like this. Can you imagine anyone asking the religiously-right American governemt for funding to look for the negative effects of religious upbringing on children? But again, just because no one has done the solid research yet doesn't mean that the effects aren't there.

6. Intelligent design to feature in school RE lessons

Comment #18788 by kmccardle on January 23, 2007 at 2:28 am

I'm not exactly happy that anyone accepts ID or creationism as science, but if they want to teach it in RE classes I guess that's the best place for it. It should certainly NOT be called science though no matter what else they say about it.

7. Atheist Outreach: Group Coaxes Unbelievers Into the Open

Comment #17824 by kmccardle on January 16, 2007 at 7:40 pm

HappyPrimate makes a good point, we are social creatures. Which is why I'm always surprised when people are shocked that I 'belong' to an atheist group. It's really just a dinner gathering of like minded people, but when I tell people that it's all atheists they're completely flabbergasted that atheists would want to get together. Most of my friends who are atheist, or agnostic, don't like the idea of organized religion, and neither do I. But at the same time I do enjoy being able to get together and have a good talk over dinner with some other people and just get ideas rolling around.

Most people just don't seem to understand that an "organized atheist group" is most likely just a group of people who enjoy each other's company or at most are the beginnings of a political party, and very few are out to create a new 'religion' or really even 'convert' anyone who doesn't already agree with them on some level.

8. 10 Questions for Heather Mac Donald

Comment #17454 by kmccardle on January 13, 2007 at 10:20 pm

This article very much reminded of something I read recently, the afterword of Orson Scott Card's latest book "Empire." I wholly suggest reading it to anyone even remotely interested in historical fiction or fans of OSC's other books, but for everyone else do your best to at least find the afterword somewhere(I dunno if it's posted anywhere online or not, but at the least go to your nearest bookstore and spend the 5 minutes it takes to read it). I'll leave it to you all to read it and form your own opinions :)

9. Open Letter to Rev. John Auer

Comment #16823 by kmccardle on January 9, 2007 at 2:31 am

My thoughts go out to Mr. Murphy and his family. It is horrible to think of the atrocities committed by so called community leaders and role models. This just goes to show that religion by no means provides a good sense of morality.

10. Consciousness Without Faith

Comment #16580 by kmccardle on January 7, 2007 at 1:23 pm

To go along with what Stephen was saying about staring off into space, there's also those rare times when you realize that you aren't sure what you were just doing but that some task has been completed. This tends to happen most often, or is at least most recognizable, while driving. Almost everyone at one time or another will arrive at their destination and think to themselves "I don't remember having driven here." I don't have a specific point to make about this, it's just food for thought.

11. Questionable Mission

Comment #16579 by kmccardle on January 7, 2007 at 1:11 pm

The American Theocracy seems to moving ever closer. I fear for the future of this country whenever I read an article like this.

12. Without God, Gall Is Permitted

Comment #16263 by kmccardle on January 5, 2007 at 6:40 pm

First, atheists don't need new arguments because the 'old' arguments are still valid and unanswered. Just because "There is no evidence for God" was first put forward many years ago doesn't mean that it doesn't apply today.

Second, I'm just curious as to how many of you reply to these articles at their original postings as well? A lot of you make very valid points, and it would be greatly beneficial to post them with the original article as well (if you haven't already).

13. Pat Robertson: God told me of 'mass killing' in 2007

Comment #15922 by kmccardle on January 3, 2007 at 9:29 pm

I would like to point out that usually when someone claims god has been talking to them we classify them as insane and send them to therapy. And yet a regular recipient of god's personal messages is currently running this country and now another one is making even more headline news. It really saddens me that people who say things like "God spoke to me and told me to help the poor" are thought of as insane and the ones who say "God spoke to me of terrible things to come!" or "God told me to kill the unbelievers!" are allowed to have positions of power.

14. If they preach the cause of the poor, they're my people

Comment #15868 by kmccardle on January 3, 2007 at 12:06 pm

This is just one more person saying "how can we be moral without religion?" Plain and simple. As we have reiterated time and time again, just because we don't believe in any gods or religion doesn't make us un-moral. I would go so far to say, as RD and Harris have, that it makes us more moral as we do the right thing for good reasons.

15. William Crawley, BBC Belfast, names Richard Dawkins as Person of the Year 2006

Comment #15581 by kmccardle on January 1, 2007 at 12:20 pm

Congrats To R.D.!

As to him coming off as rude, that's precisely the sort of thing he is helping to raise consciousness about. Often his comments seem rude because of the respect and deference shown to religion without reason. When you question someone's religious beliefs you're automatically labeled as rude even if the same/similar question in any other context wouldn't be.

16. Not Yet The Majority But No Longer Silent

Comment #15444 by kmccardle on December 31, 2006 at 11:31 am

Usually when I post here I tend to agree with or expand upon most of the other posts, this time is different! I think the term Bright is a decent choice to describe the 'movement.' We(I guess it's we) need a term that does have some emotional weight to it, something that people don't just dismiss. But at the same time we need something that isn't just "Atheist" that brings along so many years of negativity and what not.

For me Bright doesn't mean that I think I'm smarter than someone who has religious faith, or that I think I'm better than them just because of their faith. For me it's saying that even though I don't have faith I still have a cheerful outlook on life and can find meaning in all the natural wonders of the universe. The religious always seem to argue that without god there would be no point to life, and Bright is at least my way of saying that isn't true.

Do I follow everything the Bright movement adheres to? No. Do I still call myself an Atheist as well? Yes. But as I said before, Atheist has a stigma attached that might never go away, so why not use an uplifting term that people will remember?

17. Now we know how to make the IDists dance in their petticoats: blaspheme.

Comment #14087 by kmccardle on December 21, 2006 at 4:42 am

Meyers does raise a good point, Dembski would most likely have little problem posting his own video denying Mohammed. This is simply one more example of the danger of religion where they are comfortable 'blaspheming' against someone else's beliefs but beyond aghast when someone 'blasphemes' their beliefs.

On the other hand, why not include Moslems? Quite sadly because that could be quite dangerous. For a religion that didn't handle a few Dutch cartoons too well imagine the backlash against hundreds or thousands of people publicly deny their beliefs. I shudder to think about it. At least the Xians just get pouty and whiney about it.

18. Talk in Class Turns to God, Setting Off Public Debate on Rights

Comment #13626 by kmccardle on December 18, 2006 at 10:35 pm

I went and checked out the Kearny forum to see what the posters actually thought, and I must say I died a little inside. The number of people who were posting against Matt, and not just against but honestly hateful of him for doing what he did just broke my heart.

I'm ashamed that the message the town is sending is that if you stand up for your rights you will be punished and harassed. That teacher was persecuting those who didn't agree with his faith and the one boy who stood up to him is being ostracized. His intolerance is grounds for dismissal even if crossing the church/state line isn't. It just sickens me that he is all but getting away with this.