1. Group finds Starbucks logo too hot to handle

Comment #181020 by CurtC on May 16, 2008 at 9:56 am

Note that "The Resistance" is not really a group - it's one crazy guy who videos himself confronting people about 9/11 conspiracies and handing out DVDs. Mark Dice is the pseudonym of John Conner, one of the multitudes of insane people with web sites.

2. New Rules: A Religious Test

Comment #73155 by CurtC on September 24, 2007 at 9:43 am

NJS wrote:
I know Federal is different to Governmental as I understand it in the US but I've read sites which quote federal laws in places like Texas and Arkansas which require chrisianity.

I'm from Texas so I'll try to answer this. The Texas Constitution does have the phrase that the governor must profess a belief in a Supreme Being, but that is completely unenforceable because it blatantly contradicts the US Constitution.

There are lots of laws on the books that are unenforceable, such as laws against homosexuality or birth control. No one bothers to remove the laws, they just stay on the books and will never be enforced.

3. A Matter of Faith

Comment #65489 by CurtC on August 24, 2007 at 1:09 pm

Johnny O wrote:
Do everyday Americans know how irreligious Europe is? Or that most of the civilized, educated world does believe in evolution? And that they are seen as a bit of a laughing stock, with their backwards beliefs?

No, most Americans are ignorant about the religious views of Europe. A woman friend was over at our house recently, explaining that she financially sponsors a missionary couple assigned to Italy. She said something like "I didn't know this, but apparently people in Europe have mostly lost their faith."

On the other hand, here in the US we have no hospitals dedicated to homeopathy, and it's a small fringe aberration. I guess all societies have their own set of irrational beliefs.

4. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46457 by CurtC on May 31, 2007 at 10:04 am

Any chance someone could post an MP3 file? I never have time to listen to something like this when I'm sitting at the computer.

5. Christians and Atheists to Debate Existence of God in First-Ever 'NIGHTLINE FACE OFF'

Comment #37368 by CurtC on May 4, 2007 at 8:23 am

I hope that ABC will have a telephone poll at the end of the debate so that the question of God's existence will be settled once and for all.

Someone mentioned earlier that a good strategy would be to let the Banana Twins talk a lot, and I agree, as long as the RRS got to point out to the audience to listen for the fallacies that we know they'll spout forth.

--
Curt Cameron (no relation to Kirk)

6. Believe in God Spray

Comment #36297 by CurtC on April 30, 2007 at 9:12 pm

the spray worked great... until someone slipped me a 'Supostasy' brand suppository.

I hate it when that happens!

7. Atheist says he's victim of religious hate crime

Comment #29421 by CurtC on April 2, 2007 at 10:20 pm

About the question of why "hate crime" is a separate category - we take a criminal's motives into account when deciding the sentence all the time. For example, was the assailant getting retribution for being cuckolded? Was he trying to rob the victim to get money to feed his family? Was it just a random act against a stranger? Was it motivated simply because of the victim's race?

A jury could take these things into account after someone is found guilty, but a jury still has to sentence within guidelines provided by the state (I'm in the US).

Some motivations are considered so heinous that we give a separate category so that the criminal can receive a stiffer sentence than a simple assault otherwise would.

8. Panel discussion on atheism where no atheists are included

Comment #21300 by CurtC on February 8, 2007 at 3:16 pm

Jean Rice wrote:

The panel was appearantly chosen for the primary story if the show, Superbowl story, about the two black coaches, not the other segments in the show. I'm not sure Zahn or others had any clue how one-sided her panel would be...

I was wondering whether the panel even saw the preceding segment about the atheists who were harrassed and basically forced to move to a different place. Maybe they were simply chatting offline while that part ran, and then from their perspective Paula showed up and asked them their opinion on why atheists "inspire such hatred"? Both of the lady panelists seemed to be unaware of even the concept that discrimination can happen against atheists.

9. Benny Hinn examined

Comment #20230 by CurtC on February 1, 2007 at 7:08 am

You may have already seen this, but in December, Benny sent out a special plea for 6000 of his followers to send him $1000 each, to provide the downpayment on a new Gulfstream 4:

http://www.bennyhinn.org/external/pdf/dove_one_brochure.pdf
(warning: 3.6 MB PDF)

Why does he need this? So he can more easily get to far-away nations (such as in Africa) and bilk the truly needy:
http://www.csicop.org/sb/2006-09/hinn.html

10. The Best Science Show on Television?

Comment #16173 by CurtC on January 5, 2007 at 7:58 am

In that Skepticality podcast, David Federlein asked Jamie Hyneman: "What brought you to the skeptical movement here?"

Jamie: "I actually before this didn't really know that much about the skeptics society, and I guess Adam and our producer were a lot more up on it and were more enthusiastic about it, but once I got into it, I became aware that unknowingly, I mean, I'm actually pretty adamant about the whole God thing. And it seems that skeptics are by and large atheists or something approaching that, which I strongly identify with, and so it turned out to be a good thing and I've become enthusiastically a part of it."