1. CBC News: Sunday - Richard Dawkins

Comment #101766 by EndlessForms on December 20, 2007 at 11:49 pm

the interviewer was a complete imbecile...

2. Charles Brooker's screen burn

Comment #62817 by EndlessForms on August 11, 2007 at 5:04 pm

"Darwin2,
since punching yourself in the throat would do us little good, perhaps it would be better to break all of your fingers instead."

LOL

3. Found: the giant lion-eating chimps of the magic forest

Comment #56261 by EndlessForms on July 14, 2007 at 4:33 pm

Here's a site with some pictures:
http://www.karlammann.com/bili.php

One apparently from a camrea trap (http://www.karlammann.com/bili12.php), and another which looks like a dead one, being held up by some locals (http://www.karlammann.com/bili13.php).

4. American Taliban on the warpath against evolution

Comment #56259 by EndlessForms on July 14, 2007 at 4:28 pm

bluebird - here's the site
http://postrapturepost.com/

here's the article
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1007,Atheist-offers-to-send-letters-post-Rapture,Katherine-Boyle-Religion-News-Service-USA-Today

5. An Atheist Responds

Comment #56253 by EndlessForms on July 14, 2007 at 4:04 pm

Well, if you've ever visited the forums, you would be surprised! :)

6. An Atheist Responds

Comment #56251 by EndlessForms on July 14, 2007 at 4:00 pm

You should know sarcasm is lost in print! Hence emoticons. ;)

7. An Atheist Responds

Comment #56249 by EndlessForms on July 14, 2007 at 3:56 pm

"...name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever."

Simple:
"I [don't] believe in God and I think murder is wrong," "I [don't] believe in God and I think stealing is wrong," etc. There[sic] list could go on and on!

8. Dawkins at the Hay Festival

Comment #46175 by EndlessForms on May 30, 2007 at 1:01 pm

I agree, seems chad is grasping at straws. Dawkins surely means in the strict definition of delusion, not the lay persons idea of deluded (ie insane) as an insult, which is only the definition to a knee-jerk reaction to the word, being ignorant of a bloody dictionary.

9. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46174 by EndlessForms on May 30, 2007 at 12:51 pm

Ugh, ugh.... I just finished it (barely), is Prager considered moderate? Discusting. What a shamful human. Blubbering and arrogant. I'm seriously troubled by America these days...

10. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46167 by EndlessForms on May 30, 2007 at 12:35 pm

Another idiot on the radio. He sounded like such an ass "the universities produce the most idiots and the churches the smartest people", what the hell? Is he on crack?

American radio and television is disturbing. We may have to build a wall up here, sorry.

11. Hitchens on Falwell, Part 2

Comment #43519 by EndlessForms on May 21, 2007 at 10:03 pm

HOLY SHIT, thank goodness fox "news" isn't taken seriously anywhere else in the world. Seriously, I have never seen so much bullshit spewing out at such volume! It's like watching a news program try to make hitler come off as a saint after he died, bunch of charlatans!

Makes me sick; I thought O'reilly was the worst, but every shmuck on that network is nausiating.

I'm glad Hitchens fought that set-up, good show!

12. Atheism in America

Comment #40784 by EndlessForms on May 15, 2007 at 1:27 am

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

- Steven Weinberg, Freethought Today, April, 2000
(from a speech in Washington in 1999)

13. Richard Dawkins on Canada AM

Comment #38358 by EndlessForms on May 7, 2007 at 9:45 pm

I liked the interview posted above by atheist peace:

Richard Dawkins on CBC's The Hour:

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1563

Much better! He seems to have read the book too!

14. Richard Dawkins on Canada AM

Comment #38356 by EndlessForms on May 7, 2007 at 9:29 pm

I'm tired of interviews by people who clearly haven't read the book! "The theme throughout the book is the evils of religion...but alot of evil occured without religion" Sheesh.

I bet she got notes from her secretary who looked up synopses online. And I don't know about anyone else, but news reporters get on my nerves, being so sterile and robotic, this was a really boring interview...

15. The Video: Bill O'Reilly Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #34512 by EndlessForms on April 24, 2007 at 10:07 am

I've never actually seen O'Reilly's show before. The Fox network isn't seen as a place to go for the facts in places outside of America. I have to say that O'Reilly came across as the biggest blubbering asshole I've ever seen! People actually watch this show? Discusting.

16. Are You Right Eyed Or Left Eyed?

Comment #28083 by EndlessForms on March 27, 2007 at 9:42 pm

TCC: don't use the monitor. It's too close and has a big chance of not working. Use an object on the other side of the room - or farther even. When you're looking at object within arm's reach, your eyes converge, and can mess up the test.

Use BOTH hands, and make a hole like the picture I linked above. Make sure the hole is small. Make sure the object in your line of sight is small.

Don't move your head - just close one eye, then close the other.

It does work (as far as I know) universally.

17. Are You Right Eyed Or Left Eyed?

Comment #28048 by EndlessForms on March 27, 2007 at 5:32 pm

Thanks Martin, I was going to post the same thing myself. I have to do that test all the time on patients, to determine which eye is dominant. Mainly for contact lenses that help those who need reading glasses, there is a method called 'monovision', where one eye is given correction for distance vision, and the other is given correction for near (reading) vision. The distance correction should go in the dominant eye, to avoid any discomfort.

For those who can't get the test to work, make sure you hold your hands far from your body, and make the hole small. Try to find an object that is small as well, and at least a few feet away, to see the dissapearing act.

make your hands like this:
http://www.archeryweb.com/archery/images/eyedom.gif

This article has a couple of other tests that may work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_dominance

18. The Salem Hypothesis

Comment #27029 by EndlessForms on March 22, 2007 at 11:42 pm

There's an old study(s) that seems to get into this a bit, but unfortunatley all I can read is the abstract and the fist page.

Religiosity and Secularization in the Academic Professions
Fred Thalheimer
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-7732(196812)47%3A2%3C171%3AADAPOF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O

Academic Discipline As Predictive of Faculty Religiosity
Edward C. Lehman, Jr., Donald W. Shriver, Jr.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0037-7732(196812)47%3A2%3C171%3AADAPOF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O

Also, I think I recall hearing something about this in a video I saw, maybe Beyond Belief '06?

Anyway, more anecdotal than anything...right?

19. The Salem Hypothesis

Comment #27028 by EndlessForms on March 22, 2007 at 11:27 pm

You know, I would have waved off that correlation until something very odd came up in my memory. I have an uncle who is an engineer for one of the big car companies, and I never considered him or that family to be particularly religious, but two thanksgivings ago we were all talking about books we've recently read, and I decided to strike a conversation with him. I said "I just finished this great book _________, it was so interesting becuase of __________. Have you read anything interesting recently?" He answered "yes, THE BIBLE".

True story.

(after further discussion, he was not joking as I first surmised, but very serious, going into increadably boring detail...)

20. Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right

Comment #26957 by EndlessForms on March 22, 2007 at 3:49 pm

padster: does this work for you at all?

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm
it's an alternative to downloading that awefully invasive realplayer program
I don't know if it works cross-platform though.

also, in case you don't want the quicktime softwarem but want to play apple stuff:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm

I use both of these, they work great!

21. Brain Injury Said to Affect Moral Choices

Comment #26937 by EndlessForms on March 22, 2007 at 12:26 pm

Correction, you only have the morals of a human! ;)

22. Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right

Comment #26847 by EndlessForms on March 22, 2007 at 12:51 am

[quote]Endless Forms, if you don't want to talk about the blurb at the top, then don't talk about it. Sheesh. We're talking about it because it was interesting.[/quote]

Sorry. Guess I've been a little quick on the trigger from having long and useless discussions with people who were offended and went into deep discussion about "The God Delusion", but in the end they never bothered reading it, but were just bothered by the title. You could say I was projecting my frustration here. Apologies.

23. Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right

Comment #26839 by EndlessForms on March 21, 2007 at 10:53 pm

Everyone is getting oddly bothered by the insignificant blurb at the top. Makes me wonder if anyone bothered to watch the video! He (Prof. Jones) talks about alot of interesting ideas and evidence, and goes on to make the point that evolution is 'fact'.

I don't think he even mentioned anything about the blurb at the top! Seems everyone is oddly buggered about some nuanced word-play, and feel discussing that is more interesting than watching the video.

24. Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right

Comment #26832 by EndlessForms on March 21, 2007 at 9:44 pm

You guys should watch the video instead of commenting on the blurb (hyperbole?) at the top of the page.

It's quite good! The slides he references are posted beside the video, on the website, instead of on the recording (on the Royal Society site anyway) - a very good presentation.

25. Ricky Gervais on Atheism

Comment #26565 by EndlessForms on March 20, 2007 at 1:30 pm

Thanks Milton!

26. Ricky Gervais on Atheism

Comment #26342 by EndlessForms on March 18, 2007 at 6:58 pm

I love Eddie Izzard! I haven't seen the Policemans Ball reggie is talking about :( But 'Glorius' was fantastic!

note to mods/admin:
oops, my internet was jittery and I notified my own post as 'offensive' :)

27. Carl Sagan's Cosmos for Rednecks

Comment #25829 by EndlessForms on March 15, 2007 at 10:59 am

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAWD! LOL

28. Houses of the Holy

Comment #24097 by EndlessForms on March 4, 2007 at 7:16 pm

Sick.

29. 'Friends of God' Documentary

Comment #19868 by EndlessForms on January 30, 2007 at 11:26 am

I think I'm going to be sick...

edit:

Ok, so I will grant the mother one thing: It is probably a bit easier to teach children creationism. You don't have to use your mind to think it out, you simply accept it. Like Santa and other fantasy ideas. But please, give the children a little credit; not only do I think they could understand science and appreciate it's beauty, but I've seen people simultaneously believe in God at the same time! What a feat of mental prowess! I think what they're afraid of, is science getting rid of all the easy reasons to believe in a god. And maybe that the hard reasons will, if they think hard enough, turn out to be vacuous. Hmm, ok so science may be a little destructive to religion (thank goodness!).

I'm still all choked up at watching all those kids... all the beautiful discoveries they're missing out on...

30. The Mystery of Consciousness

Comment #18590 by EndlessForms on January 21, 2007 at 9:53 pm

"No one knows what to do with the Hard Problem. Some people may see it as an opening to sneak the soul back in, but this just relabels the mystery of "consciousness" as the mystery of "the soul"--a word game that provides no insight."

That's exactly how I feel about ID.

"Today the question is more pointed: Hath not a Jew--or an Arab, or an African, or a baby, or a dog--a cerebral cortex and a thalamus? The undeniable fact that we are all made of the same neural flesh makes it impossible to deny our common capacity to suffer."

This is why science is so great, it's one of the only subjects that unite all thinking humans together, regardless of apparent differences.

31. Some stars and planets in scale

Comment #18564 by EndlessForms on January 21, 2007 at 5:32 pm

Amazing!

Made me think of Carl Sagan's 'Pale Blue Dot'.

32. Atheist Richard Dawkins on 'The God Delusion'

Comment #18416 by EndlessForms on January 20, 2007 at 4:51 pm

MelM:
Thanks for the reply! I see what you mean. I remember hearing a seminar by Michael Shermer about that metaphysics/physics difference, what he said about it was something like: physicists sometimes throw out words like 'dark energy' as placeholders (or Einstein's 'God' perhaps?) until they have the knowledge to fill in that gap, where as religion (ID a good example) fills that unknown with God. The big difference between the two (ultimately between metaphysics/physics) is that the scientific placeholders are the beginning of discovery until more data comes in, but the ID/God placeholder is the end of the argument. I think that's why real scientists don't like the ID idea very much, too much of a 'head in the sand' feeling.

zoro:
Sorry for the misunderstanding, what I meant when I said "beside the point", I didn't mean in physics or anything, but only in the context of what I thought RD meant in his brief comment. I do think it is very important in physics in general.

33. Atheist Richard Dawkins on 'The God Delusion'

Comment #18326 by EndlessForms on January 19, 2007 at 6:33 pm

MelM:
Clever semantics, but unfortunately winning with words doesn't make your statement necessarily true. RD is not posing the question "How did this something come from nothing", he's asking WHY there is anything at all. Why is the world full of stuff, when there could have just as easily been nothing? He's not saying that there was nothing, then something (a question for physicists, not biologists) but why there is anything at all? (whether or not there has always been something, or that something came out of nothing, that being besides the point here)

Anyway, regardless of semantics (mine or yours) I get the idea that RD gets more enjoyment from having different hypothesis from other scientists (in physics) to play with, rather than not havning THE answer (which there isn't a definite answer anyway, at this point).

If the 'audience' (which isn't as dumb as you suppose) would turn to theism simply on the grounds of that one question, I don't think they... think... through many things anyway.

(did that make any sense?)

34. Wash. school board restricts Gore's global-warming film

Comment #17734 by EndlessForms on January 15, 2007 at 8:29 pm

*DrShell* - You have read my mind! A constant argument I get in with friends and family, is that perhaps I'm too aggressive/angry/rude towards religion.

First off, I think stories like this show exactly why we should be angry.

Second, as soon as they enforce their delusions on OUR children, the only way to push them back is to be aggressive.

And third, the only reason Dawkins et al appear rude, is simply the fact that religious individuals aren't used to criticism, they're used to the unwarranted respect they've received for the last millennia. I bet if I'd told a mental patient who'd thought he was Napoleon, that all scientific evidence said that he WASN'T Napoleon, he'd think I was pretty rude!