1. Don't Know Much Biology

Comment #48900 by lt_zippy2 on June 9, 2007 at 12:09 pm

With regards to "atheistic theology" just type the word "atheology" into any good search engine and you'll find the subject does indeed exist, as a branch of philosophy.

Wouldn't mind doing a course in that.

2. A Look at Regent University

Comment #46233 by lt_zippy2 on May 30, 2007 at 4:14 pm

Just out of interest are there any schools ANYWHERE that do courses in atheology?

3. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #45912 by lt_zippy2 on May 29, 2007 at 3:34 pm

It's funny, I mean the article says fundamentalists on both sides love him, and I remember watching the Q&A vid from Lynchberg where the Liberty Uni student got up and stated that after listening to Dawkins stated it convinced him that there was a god. I'm still scratching my head about that.

Then recently I was speaking to a friend who is on the one hand a VERY devout Catholic, yet rejects the idea of creationism and fully accepts evolution, who then proceeded to refer to Prof. Dawkins as that "awful little man;" then praised his work in the field of Biology. I happened to mention the chapter in A Devil's Chaplain where he entered the discussion with SJ Gould about not even debating with creationist and why and he also agreed with that too.

Schizophrenic (sp?) or what?

4. I'm Sure God is Scared

Comment #44791 by lt_zippy2 on May 25, 2007 at 9:43 am

"This week Ann Coulter praises Jerry Falwell and scolds his detractors. Funny how she forgot to mention Hitchens. Probably an oversight. He only appeared on every cable news channel. It would have been easy for her to miss."

Personally I'd like Hitchens and Coulter to go head to head. Tin hats on folks!

5. Another Christian Science Fair embarrasses itself

Comment #44783 by lt_zippy2 on May 25, 2007 at 9:29 am

Why, oh why, oh why, oh why can't we do something about this travesty?

It's not just a travesty of science, it's a travesty of simple intelligence, it's a travesty of common sense, it is an abuse of position...and on behalf of the teachers who gave this award it is lies. LIES.

Don't you wish christians had a commandment from their precious scriptures about that...

..OH WAIT THEY DO!
(please note only one exclaimation mark)

6. Lightning damages Jesus statue

Comment #44338 by lt_zippy2 on May 24, 2007 at 11:36 am

I think Thor the bringer of Thunder is becoming more plausible!!!!!

7. Pick of the Week: The God Delusion

Comment #44337 by lt_zippy2 on May 24, 2007 at 11:34 am

I have to say it was a book I enjoyed. I hhave been an atheist all my adult life and I had a rudimentary knowldge of science.

This book cleared a lot of things up for me and for those sections that were not quite as good (e.g. the rebuttal of the Anthropic Fine Tuning argument, which even Dawkins says is one of the theists "better" arguments) has encourged me to read around the subject. And even I thought Evolution was random chance (and still a better explanation than god), I got put right there!

I now have a large bookshelf devoted to atheistic and scientific works which I never would have bought or read without reading Delusion.

PS I think "Unweaving the Rainbow" is actually a better book than "Delusion"

8. Lightning damages Jesus statue

Comment #44333 by lt_zippy2 on May 24, 2007 at 11:20 am

TIKI AL - You took the words right out of my mouth...
....and stole my thunder 'arf 'arf

But as usual it shows the conincidence and hypocrasy that those of us that are rational see all the time from the theists, but when we point that out to them all you get are their fingers in their ears

9. Does God Exist? The Nightline Face-Off (more info)

Comment #40889 by lt_zippy2 on May 15, 2007 at 6:57 am

I watched the debate online and I have to admit that it was a bit on the cringeworth side. I think the RRS have got potential but they need to build up confidence.

A couple of points of observation though...

"as a former atheist myself -- an evolutionist -- I want to pull back the curtain and show that the number one reason that people don't believe in God is not a lack in evidence, but because of a theory that many scientists today believe to be a fairytale for grownups."

What exactily is Cameron's definition of "many scientists?" Not a single, respectable biologist I know has said that evolution (by natural selection) is a fairytale. There are still a few unanswered points but these are being reserached.

And I have to say the moment the God Squad held up their pictures of the "transitional animals" the faces on the RRS's faces were priceless. I think my face did the same thing.

Kirk and Ray showed themselves up as either woefully dishonest about what evolution is or how it works and attempted to spread the confusion deliberately, or are woefully ignorant and uninformed about the subject. Either way they were roundly seen off.

10. Hitchens vs. Hannity on Religion and God

Comment #40879 by lt_zippy2 on May 15, 2007 at 6:44 am

*yawn* the atheist position is based on faith.

Not again, I'm getting a little tired of this contuniual misrepresentation.

Hannity stated that he had read off the argumnents debunking this assertion as Hitchens pointed out. If he has then he certainly hasn't understood them.

11. One side can be wrong

Comment #40876 by lt_zippy2 on May 15, 2007 at 6:35 am

Two points really,

1. The origin of life has not been fully discovred yet, bur as science has sytematcially chipped away and dismissed previous religious explanations is seems almost inevitable that this is another that is destined to be trumped by science, especially when you bear in mind we have a number of workable hypotheses that we just need to work out how to test.

2. What do we do with all of the "moderate" believers who accept evolution (by natural selection) as god's way of achieving his creation?

12. Atheism's Big Night In Little Rock

Comment #35892 by lt_zippy2 on April 29, 2007 at 7:59 am

Comment #35742 by h2g2bob on April 28, 2007 at 6:12 pm said...

- From the article: "In Britain, the state has an official religion, the Church of England, and children are required to be exposed to it." This is not true - school teaching on religion places emphasis on teaching multiple faiths. The CoE is the largest religion in the UK, but the only person who must be CoE is the Queen.

To a point but schools are still required by law to "provide a daily act of worship of a broadly Christian nature." Usually during school assemblies but sometimes in the classroom. Plus we still have the insult of Voluntary Aided State schools, ie state schools (in the US - public schools) that are part funded by religious institutions, most commonly the Anglican and RC churches. In those schools the Religious Education curriculum is set by the churches and I remember when I was teaching in an RC primary school (six years ago)following the approved Catholic RE curriclum which although did mention other faiths it did so as throw away comments at the end of each topic.

Even in non VA schools they recieve visits from the local vicar/preist/minister who leads school assemblies and prayers. Mind you it was from these visits, singing hymns and prayer in school for such a long period of time when I was a child I realised how much nonsense it really was!

13. A Brief History of Disbelief

Comment #35890 by lt_zippy2 on April 29, 2007 at 7:46 am

I remember seeing this on TV as well. It was quite a gentle show. Easy to understand and enjoy.

It dosen't so much make a case for atheism but a history of it.

By the way brilliant actor Bernard Hill pops up a few times with some very well chosen quotes by atheists, deists, agnostics and theists throughout history.

I thought one of most eye opening its was where Miller found a old act of parliament which was only a couple of hundered years old which still made Atheism a capital crime!

Personally I'm waiting for the BBC to release it on DVD

14. Pundit Christopher Hitchens picks a fight in book, 'God is Not Great'

Comment #35884 by lt_zippy2 on April 29, 2007 at 7:36 am

"But what is the point of writing such a book?"

Firstly I have just had a branch of one of the UK larges bookstores open less than 5 minutes walk from my home "heaven" (in a non spiritual, real world gounded sense!). The section on religion is huge with every major faith (and a few really off the wall ones) represented. They don't apparently have an athesim section. Most of the books that we are mostly familiar with ie Dawkins et al. are placed either in the popular science section or the, philosophy (if you can find it!)section mixed in with such wide ranging subjects you'll be lucky to find what you are looking for. There must be a crtical mass of these books where we will break into a mindset amongst the general public who will begin to accept that maybe there may be something in this.

Secondly as mentioned before it will be an additional reseouce for atheists. The more we are armed the more we can counter arguments that theists throw at us when we might not have the answer at the front of our brains. The more we keep pushing the explainations as to why theists are wrong/mistaken/dangerous etc. and get these reasons (or is that get reason) out in the open the more it will soak into the psyche of ordinary people that sometimes these resons don't reach.

I'm looking forward to reading this tome even though I don't agree with everything Hitchens says, but then I probably don't agree with everything other commentators say either, but I have to open mind to listen.

15. Bill O'Remix

Comment #35397 by lt_zippy2 on April 27, 2007 at 4:00 am

"Science dosen't have all the answers - reply!"

"We are working on it!"

Let's just for a moment take a snapshot of the reglious v scenetific arguments through history...

1. Religious - The Earth is Flat (sorry to bring it up here but it is implied in the Bible)

Scientific response - Due to observations and experience etc. The Earth is round.

2. Religious - The Earth is the centre of the universe

Scientific response (after religious authorities burnt scientists at the stake for pointing this out) The Sun is at the centre of the Solar System and we go around it, oh and by the way we are in no way the "centre" of the universe.

3. Religious - The Earth was created in 4004 BC along with the rest of the universe (Admittedly this is now only the view of the fundies, but not always so)

Scientist - from observable, repeated observations and experimentation in dozens of different disciplines of science the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and the universe 14 billion (approximately)

4. Religious - "God has to make the tides go in and out"

Scientific - "The Moon's gravity makes the tides go in and out"

5. Religious - "Complex life had to be created by God"

Scientific - Evolution by natural selection developed complex life without any interference necessary from supernatural agencies.

6. Religous - "life had to be initailly created by God"

Scientist - "The origin of life was a chemical event (but we are still working on exactly how it was done, but we have a couple of ideas)"

Religious - "aha! you can't tell me exactly how so there cannot be a scientific explanation therefore God did it"

(Me - "But HOW did a god do it?")

I think the message here is that science chips away at our ignorance bit by bit. Religion just makes these wild claims as a default, but explains nothing. Science has overturned every religious pronoucement on how the universe works slowly bit by bit. The few remaining issues I'm sure will be explained scientifically, eventually.

"Beware the man who claims to know everyting - he is a liar"

lt_zippy2 - throwin' it in with the rationalists

PS apparently we have to faith to believe in science, nah, I believe in repeated experimentation and observation in realty.

16. Gay hate church to picket VT gun rampage funerals

Comment #33464 by lt_zippy2 on April 20, 2007 at 8:38 am

Mind you if someone did crash their demo and killed several of them they would then twist it around as vindication of what they were doing.

Mind you what I find most disturbing is what is happening to those poor kids. Brainwashing isn't half the problem. What if one of them grew up and actually discovered that they were gay? (mind you the way that they "protest too much" suggests that actually some of them already are!)

The thing that got me about the whole incident at the college though was after it happened Bush got on the wire and said that American have the right to bear arms AND everyone was praying for the victims and their families...as if that is going to do any good! 2p in the box.

17. Richard Dawkins: Author of the Year!

Comment #28856 by lt_zippy2 on March 31, 2007 at 9:32 am

What I find incredibly encouraging about the award is that firstly it is mainstream, secindly it was for a non-fiction anti-religion polemic.

There's hope yet!

(obviously that is hope based on rational evidence, not pie in the sky hope based on the presence of an unknowable, logically impossible sky fairy!)

18. Dawkins says religion is 'like sucking a dummy'

Comment #28854 by lt_zippy2 on March 31, 2007 at 9:23 am

Mind you it was interesting looking at the figures. With the number of don't knows that must have been converted to those for the motion, it seems to me that this is exactly where those of us that are anti-theist (probably most viewers of this site) need to target their arguments.

How to find them and do it though....

19. General Synod's Life of Christ

Comment #16505 by lt_zippy2 on January 7, 2007 at 2:24 am

Does anyone have the video of the original discussion group that this parodies? If I recall it was John Cleese, Michael Palin on the one side and Malcolm Muggeridge (a born again Christian) and the then Bishop of Southwark (whose name escapes me for the moment) and guess who were shown up to be the intolerant ones?

20. ACTION ITEM: Religion and Education

Comment #8447 by lt_zippy2 on November 21, 2006 at 9:05 am

This reminds me of a time when I was a supply teacher in a Catholic Primary School. Despite my own lack of beliefs some of the children seem to be very very serious about thiers. Indeed I remember two young girls who were in my class (aged 7) come up to me and, as a matter of the upmost concern, asked me about the best way to genuflect when entering church and completing a prayer.

Despite this being an overtly RC school the curriculum was no different to any other state school, and I thought to myself that being asked this question by ANYONE as a serious enquiry let alone a child was obscene, and also goes to show how the teachers can also be culpapble.

My only answer was that it was for them to decide.

It got worse one lunchtime when I saw the reception children (4 years old) genuflecting before lunch!