Comments by upsidedawn

Comment #243168 by upsidedawn on September 5, 2008 at 8:25 am

Well truthfully, Hellene, I meant that it was probably nothing to anyone about my personal experience.

Sorry for the confusing wording--I know the Apollo program was hugely popular!

2. Opening minds

Comment #243130 by upsidedawn on September 5, 2008 at 7:07 am

I know it's nothing to anyone else, but mention of the Apollo program brings back vivid memories for me.

I grew up 40 miles from the cape, and as a kid, watched all of the Apollo rockets ascending into the heavens from my own back yard.

I'm not rich or famous or brilliant, but I do have that wonderful memory.

3. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #241931 by upsidedawn on September 3, 2008 at 8:24 am

Al-rawandi, comment 241925:

to even be considered for President you have to be a Christian

To even be considered for President, you have to pretend to be a Christian.

Don't know if people think that's any better, but I wanted to add the distinction.

4. Better Know a Lobby - Atheism

Comment #240921 by upsidedawn on September 1, 2008 at 9:44 am

I do think I agree with Dr. Dawkins' concern about overusing the term "hilarious," although that's not to denigrate anyone's use of it here. At least some of us Americans can tend to use such superlatives a bit too effusively. It's a little like throwing around the word "love" for something we enjoy.

Of course, many Brits seem to favor using the superlative "brilliant" to describe things they appreciate. I don't mean that as a criticism. I personally love you for it.

5. Better Know a Lobby - Atheism

Comment #240629 by upsidedawn on August 31, 2008 at 5:48 pm

I was mystified that some people were identifying Colbert as an atheist when I had long heard that he is quite religious. Glad to see that MPhil pointed that out.

The Colbert bit I enjoyed most was his brilliant routine at the 2006 White House Correspondant's Dinner, where he lampooned Bush and the White House Press Corps. In spite of the fact that nobody there was laughing much at the routine, he stayed right in character the whole way through. It was wonderful. I watched it, by the way, alone, at my computer, so my laughter was quite sincere, I assure you.

6. MythBuster Adam Savage: 3 Ways to Fix U.S. Science Education

Comment #240286 by upsidedawn on August 31, 2008 at 9:26 am

Reading the Adam Savage article on Wikipedia, I noticed that Adam wanted to devote a Mythbusters show to proving natural selection over creationism:

"Let's do natural selection. I'm sick of fifty percent of this country thinking creationism is reasonable. It's appalling."

The Skepticality podcast/mp3 with this quotation is here.Great show, Mythbusters. If only they would listen to him and take this on.

7. Sincerity no substitute for evidence

Comment #233768 by upsidedawn on August 20, 2008 at 11:48 am

I agree with CFL--I don't think that the enjoyment of mystery is confined to theists. I think most scientists appreciate it.

8. Sincerity no substitute for evidence

Comment #233694 by upsidedawn on August 20, 2008 at 9:30 am

Those psychiatric experiments are fascinating.

I would love to hear some evaluations of biofeedback from the participants here, since I think it's considered alternative medicine.

9. Write to UCF

Comment #220318 by upsidedawn on July 28, 2008 at 9:54 am

Wow, I miss reading the site for a couple of days, and this turns up! And I read that someone here (The Schuermannator) actually lives in Central Florida. My sympathies, The Schuermannator. Maybe others contributed who also live there, but I haven't had a chance to read all the posts.

UCF is my alma mater--yikes! Of course, way back then, it was named Florida Technological University. And I lived less than a mile away. So I'm thinking that it would probably be doubly useful for me to send a message to the university president, being an alumna and all.

10. The brain in love

Comment #215129 by upsidedawn on July 21, 2008 at 10:56 am

My goal is to not have a suitable mate nor reproduce. I understand what you are trying to say and in the overall picture for the majority of humans makes sense. However the concept does not apply to me.

I can understand this partly. I remember when I was twenty and would mention to someone that I didn't want children, I would often hear that this feeling would change once I "met the right guy."

Well, I did meet the guy and we've been together for almost three decades, but I still never felt the least desire to have children.

Not that there's anything wrong with having children. Just not my thing.

11. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170011 by upsidedawn on April 27, 2008 at 9:08 am

I see it more like calling a pet a family member.

I beg your pardon...our dog is a family member. ;-)

12. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170005 by upsidedawn on April 27, 2008 at 8:54 am

We have different ideas of what constitutes a friend.

True, friendship means different things for different people.

So I do consider lover and friends to be vary different relationships.

Maybe having a sexual partner and friend in the same person is kind of like multi tasking.

13. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170001 by upsidedawn on April 27, 2008 at 8:48 am

Steve, I think that's one of the reasons we women hold our relationships with gay men so dear. We both have a lot of the same experiences with men.

14. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169996 by upsidedawn on April 27, 2008 at 8:35 am

Mine's lasted 29 years so far.

15. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169991 by upsidedawn on April 27, 2008 at 8:27 am

the girls I am attracted to I am not interested in being friends with

Amazingly enough, you can actually have a sexual relationship with a woman and also have her as a friend.

16. Beware the Believers

Comment #154782 by upsidedawn on April 3, 2008 at 5:44 pm

Oh. Thanks for the link, Goldy. Good grief--and here I thought it was going to be something unique, but instead it reads like the Miss Manners of blow job etiquette.

17. Beware the Believers

Comment #154747 by upsidedawn on April 3, 2008 at 4:45 pm

annabanana:
"Pretty Lady" and her Christian blow jobs

annabanana or someone else, now I'm dead curious: what does this refer to? What's the difference between a Christian blow job and, say, an atheist blow job?

18. Who wants to kill the elderly?

Comment #153324 by upsidedawn on April 1, 2008 at 11:44 am

Well, I'm certainly no genius, but "I think you are wrong," would definitely just be my opinion, and not in any way a condemnation of you.

19. Who wants to kill the elderly?

Comment #153309 by upsidedawn on April 1, 2008 at 11:21 am

One might be offended by someone's opinion. Yet that still doesn't make the opinion a condemnation.

20. Beware the Believers

Comment #152757 by upsidedawn on March 31, 2008 at 1:16 pm

agg, it was posted on the front page originally, however for some reason, it isn't there now.

21. Fleabytes

Comment #140951 by upsidedawn on March 9, 2008 at 7:15 am

Steve Zara: Does anyone have any ideas about the motivations of so many of the theists who post here?

I wouldn't presume to attribute this motivation to all theists who come here to post, but more than one acknowledged ex-theist on other forums has disclosed that engaging in fervent debates with atheists and agnostics was a way of attempting to bolster waning faith.

22. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117190 by upsidedawn on January 28, 2008 at 11:50 am

Would it be fair to call a guy who follows dogma a son of a bitch?

23. Loneliness Breeds Belief in Supernatural

Comment #116142 by upsidedawn on January 25, 2008 at 3:47 pm

Well, I will say for myself, I do believe in dog.

24. Heath Ledger Death: Baptist Group To Protest At Memorial

Comment #115767 by upsidedawn on January 24, 2008 at 4:58 pm

Another good reason to keep the toilet seat and lid down is if you have a dog.

I think that the Mythbusters guys showed that the toothbrush became contaminated no matter what was done to protect it. Including the control toothbrush that they kept in the kitchen.

25. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108266 by upsidedawn on January 6, 2008 at 11:08 am

for heaven's sake, don't let anybody here catch you seeming to actually believe in the eternal soul or the subconscious, demon possession or repressed homosexuality.
Or verily, the Rational Thinkers will shit upon you from a great height. And there will be weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth in UpsidesawnLand, yea even unto the seventy-seventh randomly mutated generation.

Thanks Richard. I may be safe, then, unless something I say is misunderstood, which, of course, is possible. And I don't expect to be answered readily here, as I'm only an occasional poster, so not familiar to people.

I like that you and others are revealing yourselves, names, pictures and all. If I had lots of brilliant things to say, I'd go ahead and do so myself. I enjoyed how Steve Zara seemed to be doing a slow strip tease over the months in revealing his face. The first time I saw his most recent picture, I had a brief thought that maybe Dan Dennett's son was posting.

26. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108173 by upsidedawn on January 6, 2008 at 7:05 am

It's as if you were in agony with a dental abscess and I had some strong pain relief I could give you, but instead I chose to tell you that I had a dental abscess once too, so I know what you're going through. Very helpful.

One of my daughters has heavy period pains

You just know a Christian would tell you that God is doing you a bigger favor by making you stronger in enduring the pain. (vomit)

27. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108166 by upsidedawn on January 6, 2008 at 6:48 am

Is it unacceptable on this site to use "Freudian" as an adjective, such as in the above article ("Freudian sense of the term") or in another way I myself have employed it (Freudian slip)?

Even if Freud was a ridiculous old poop, people know exactly what you mean when you use those kinds of expressions.

However, I'm eager to be educated on why I should avoid them, in order to satisfy the wishes of the language police.

28. Changing my Mind

Comment #106751 by upsidedawn on January 3, 2008 at 11:53 am

Oops. My Freudian slip is showing.

29. Changing my Mind

Comment #106736 by upsidedawn on January 3, 2008 at 11:29 am

...it does irk me that people assume a petard is a noose of some kind rather than an explosive

I apologize for the digression, but upon looking up "petard," I became fascinated by the entymology on Merriam-Webster online:

"Middle French, from peter to break wind, from pet expulsion of intestinal gas..." etc.

Wow--that gives whole new meaning to "hoist on his own petard." Thanks GrumpyMax!

(Of course, I posted this before reading other comments beyond that.)

30. Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan

Comment #104825 by upsidedawn on December 29, 2007 at 2:50 pm

Anecdotal example #2088: I have a close friend with a young adult family member who is a diagnosed schizophrenic. It had been an ongoing battle to get this family member to keep regular doctor visits and take prescribed meds for the condition. They are regular church goers in an evangelical religion, and were acquainted with a pastor who proposed casting out demons. So my friend actually went along with the pastor's suggestion to have an exorcism for this family member.

As it happens, it did have a placebo effect, and for a time returned this person to normal behavior. But it didn't last, and my friend went back to treatment by traditional medicine.

31. CBC News: Sunday - Richard Dawkins

Comment #100183 by upsidedawn on December 18, 2007 at 11:04 am

I don't feel the antipathy that some here have expressed for the interviewer. To me, his demeanor and questions actually made for an interesting interview, and allowed the professor to make his case quite well, and with passion. In that respect, it was a good match of interviewer and interviewee for appealing to the common viewer.

32. Let us kill all the teddy bears

Comment #95113 by upsidedawn on December 7, 2007 at 11:19 am

Mark Morford's column today is highly entertaining:

God commands you to read this

33. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #95016 by upsidedawn on December 7, 2007 at 7:13 am

If I were the parent, I would add a question: "And why are you telling me this?"

34. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #92483 by upsidedawn on November 30, 2007 at 3:43 pm

Clear or not, and whether or not it was a good thing for the atheist movement, this article certainly has provided us all with a fabulous debate topic here. It's been a great discussion! (Not that it's over yet).

35. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #92479 by upsidedawn on November 30, 2007 at 3:31 pm

Yes, that may have been one of his points, but he didn't make it very clearly.

36. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #92427 by upsidedawn on November 30, 2007 at 1:20 pm

birthmachinebaby--

How about:
c) honestly addressing your change of heart with your marriage partner?

It's not easy, and it's still painful, but it is another--and better--option.

37. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #92419 by upsidedawn on November 30, 2007 at 1:05 pm

I was actually trying to explain my initial reaction to the article--I, an atheist. If I would have that kind of emotional reaction, I can only imagine how theists would react. We don't want to scare them away, we want them to listen--at least those who are beginning to try.

Even though my husband and I are monogomous, both of us are intelligent and aware enough to know full well already that it's human nature to be sexually attracted to others. We don't need someone to help us realize that.

38. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #92368 by upsidedawn on November 30, 2007 at 10:58 am

I'll admit that when I first read the article, I felt dismayed to sense from it that the professor was suggesting that, if we were logical and right-thinking, we would welcome open marriages with no qualms. I had an immediate visceral reaction that I didn't want my own marriage to be like that, so therefore I must be a failure as an atheist or rationalist. A couple of comments posted have suggested that those of us who enjoyed and supported monogamy for ourselves (nobody posting here has said they expect it of others) have been influenced by religion to feel the way we do, with the implication that our reaction is therefore flawed.

I was glad to read in the professor's subsequent post that he himself occasionally struggles with his own feelings of jealousy—that he admits to experiencing that emotion himself. I believe it was Beth who mentioned that so many of us were responding to the article emotionally, but in fact, Dr. Dawkins himself seemed to have written the article as an emotional reaction to his distaste for "Tarrant's horrible wife," and the way society seemed to side with her. I don't know this story—perhaps Mrs. Tarrant is thoroughly unpleasant, and perhaps the extremes of her revenge are distasteful. But the use of "horrible" to describe her seemed to me a clear emotional reaction. The professor has a right to an emotional reaction, and it humanizes him. I just wanted to point out that we were not the only ones responding emotionally to something. We are in good company with Dr. Dawkins.

39. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #91927 by upsidedawn on November 29, 2007 at 3:02 pm

Ah, so this article is him bragging then.
;)

Ha! Well you know, Diacanu, I laughed aloud when I read the second post from L D Miller, "Is RD trying to tell us something here???" because that's exactly what I had wondered.

40. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #91916 by upsidedawn on November 29, 2007 at 2:49 pm

I'd be lucky to get the first chick, as if I'm gonna be on the hunt for more.

But I'm absolutely certain that the professor would not have a problem in the world finding other opportunities, without even trying.

Including some of us here, who are otherwise monogamous...

41. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #91890 by upsidedawn on November 29, 2007 at 2:08 pm

He screwed around ON THE JOB and IN THE OFFICE.

He should have been fired no question.

Well, he was found out to have done so. That was his problem, right?

Because for sure there've been lots of people who have screwed around on the job and not found out. There will have been rumors about it, too, but no pursuit of it, so the people involved won't suffer any consequences.

Honestly, I understand why companies have rules about it, but personally I don't care if someone else does it at work.

42. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #91881 by upsidedawn on November 29, 2007 at 1:52 pm

Just to cast my "vote," I agree with dgr8test97, Lana, and ubermensch. I am uncomfortable with the article for the reasons they have indicated.

43. Mitt the Mormon

Comment #91222 by upsidedawn on November 27, 2007 at 5:01 pm

When I visit my mormon relatives in Utah...I am always creeped out. The whole state has this creepy-conforming-cultish feel to it. I wouldn't want to live there.

I get that same vibe when I'm in Utah. But then, these days, I get the same feeling when I visit my hometown in the Bible Belt.

Interesting that Utah is The Beehive State. That always makes me think of "hive mind."

44. Golden Compass author hits back

Comment #91138 by upsidedawn on November 27, 2007 at 11:50 am

Well, as they say, there's no such thing as bad publicity. There'll be lots of people who will see the movie and read the books just to see what all the fuss is about.

45. Sunday School for Atheists

Comment #90720 by upsidedawn on November 26, 2007 at 7:58 am

I'm all for it as long as the kids enjoy participating and want to go. But all I can think about is the drudgery of having to give up my free weekend time attending Sunday School every week as a child. It didn't matter that I bought into the religious crap as a kid. I still hated having to get dressed up and go to Sunday School and church.

46. Romney's Mormonism is fair game

Comment #90148 by upsidedawn on November 23, 2007 at 7:07 am

Is that where the expression "Talking out of my ass" comes from?

47. The Turning of an Atheist

Comment #85174 by upsidedawn on November 5, 2007 at 8:29 am

Imagine having parents who operated a Christian bookstore for many years. Out of a sense of familial duty more than anything else, I tried to read the boxes of material they sent me. The effect it had on me was to cause me to shake my head and wonder if the writers' intent was to exclude anyone with an IQ above, say, 130 from religious faith, what with page after page jammed with fallacies and unsupported assertions as numerous as they were glaring.

I sincerely appreciate your comments, Teratornis, but I just wanted to insert a little of my own frustration here with the idea that we have to be above a certain IQ number to understand the fallacies of religious belief, and to reasonably choose atheism for ourselves. Speaking only for myself—although based on averages, there must be lurkers who agree—I don't know my IQ score, nor have a desire to learn what it is, but I have always assumed that mine is smack dab in the middle of average, based on my ability or lack thereof of grasping scientific and mathematical concepts. I struggle with much of it, and eventually come to understand some things, even as others still elude me and would require a great deal more study. Yes, atheists on the whole may represent the higher end of the IQ scale, and I'm relieved to have those with such sharp minds fighting the good fight in the public arena, but we average Joe and Jane Atheists can grasp and appreciate all the arguments detailed in, say, Richard Dawkins' books, as well as mourn the shameful manipulation of Anthony Flew.

(As another anecdote, a close relative of mine, who, to my great sorrow, became a fundamentalist Christian in adulthood, proudly reports an IQ score in the 140s from one of those on-line IQ tests.)

48. The New Atheists on Organized Freethought

Comment #83053 by upsidedawn on October 28, 2007 at 6:05 pm

Yes, drbreakfast--a definition similar to what you devised was completely what I was expecting when I looked it up out of curiousity a couple of days ago. So when I read the actual definition, I was ready to fire off a message to them. Wonder how they would respond. Wonder if it's worth the trouble... Eh, maybe. If I decide to, and the response is interesting enough, I'll post it here.

49. The New Atheists on Organized Freethought

Comment #82567 by upsidedawn on October 26, 2007 at 6:37 pm

I apologize for the sort-of-off-topicness, but I just wanted to thank ridelo and cebolla for providing still other annoying definitions of "atheist." Does anyone have access to the OED? I'd love to know the OED definition.

50. The New Atheists on Organized Freethought

Comment #81944 by upsidedawn on October 25, 2007 at 12:32 pm

It really annoys me that the Merriam-Webster On-line dictionary defines "atheist" as "One who believes there is no diety." Grrrr.

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