51. Dawkins warns of human extinction

Comment #155592 by lievemebe on April 5, 2008 at 2:59 am

Diogenes2008, If you spent less time hoping and praying you might appreciate how atheists are seriously offended by the self righteous behaviour of theists. At least atheists are not inclined to have an adolescent punch-up to express their point of view.

52. Dawkins warns of human extinction

Comment #155585 by lievemebe on April 5, 2008 at 2:23 am

"Mr Dawkins is the devil's speaker" I can believe. Where else does he get all that hell-fire energy from? Certainly not from 6000 year old fossil fuel.

53. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #152112 by lievemebe on March 30, 2008 at 6:37 am

proposed debating point:

All human cultural groups or societies have a god. Therefore there is a god by global democratic vote.

54. Beware the Believers

Comment #151963 by lievemebe on March 29, 2008 at 7:04 pm

It's similar to the Christian Bible:

It is interpreted in many ways: literal,
satirical, burlesque, prophetic.

Observers cherry-pick to bolster their
interpretation.

It engenders strong opinions.

It is mostly nonsense.

It is set to music.

There is a supreme being, like a monster.

The main characters are prophets.

The identity of the creator is disputed.

I sincerely hope that it will not be
rampaging in several thousand years time.

55. Beware the Believers

Comment #151601 by lievemebe on March 29, 2008 at 3:38 am

I could not separate irony from misconception from pro-science in this clip. I am utterly confused about its intent. Perhaps it is Part I.

56. I always aim to misbehave

Comment #151564 by lievemebe on March 29, 2008 at 1:55 am

Comment #151561 by Philip1978

Everybody should know that PZ did nothing wrong in any of this and that the Expelled crew over-reacted, but it is obvious, at least to me, that they are now lying so that atheists are seen in a bad light in the Christian community.

57. Iowa county board gives initial OK for ghost hunters to investigate asylum

Comment #151501 by lievemebe on March 28, 2008 at 9:30 pm

The remaining wing was built in 1855 and housed mentally ill patients who were deemed insane.

58. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #150467 by lievemebe on March 27, 2008 at 12:53 am

Happy birthday, Richard.
Please write another book for my next birthday.

59. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148809 by lievemebe on March 24, 2008 at 1:37 am

reply to Comment #148805 by epeeist

If the film is as bad as many suspect, it could self-nominate as a classic, used henceforth by rationalists to educate young minds on the nature of the ridiculous. Ben Stein will be a star of the worst kind, perhaps as dense as a neutron star. I don't normally go in for personal attacks but some people do ask for it.

60. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148801 by lievemebe on March 24, 2008 at 12:45 am

Richard Dawkins writes:

Not just incompetent at public relations, incompetent in his chosen profession of film-making, for the film itself, as I discovered when I saw it on Friday (and this genuinely surprised me) is dull, artless, amateurish, too long, poorly constructed and utterly devoid of any style, wit or subtlety. It bears all the hallmarks of a film-maker who knows nothing about the craft of making films.>

61. The death-of-god debate

Comment #148469 by lievemebe on March 23, 2008 at 6:41 am

Most religions are smart enough to use spring as a metaphor for reincarnation. Birds sing, eggs hatch, buds burst into life and, if you like, God is love. Only a misanthrope would deny the stirring of springtime juices and not dream of resurrection.

I cannot argue with a man who "believes" the Earth to be flat.

62. It looks like Man crucified

Comment #148453 by lievemebe on March 23, 2008 at 5:53 am

The author should try the intellectual satisfaction and material benefits of science. It's a heady double dose.

63. Discussion on PZ Myers being expelled from Expelled

Comment #148056 by lievemebe on March 21, 2008 at 10:42 pm

This is an excerpt from the creationist site http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5626/

"Walt Ruloff, Co-Executive Producer, says, 'The incredible thing about Expelled is that we don't resort to manipulating our interviews for the purpose of achieving the "shock effect," something that has become common in documentary film these days."


Lies, Lies, Lies, from the creationist camp. What is their ultimate game? Please tell me that human nature has hidden knowledge, unknown to present day Darwinists, but known to creationists. But why are they keeping it to themselves? Sorry for my rhetorical questions, I am utterly baffled by their rantings.

64. EXPELLED!

Comment #147544 by lievemebe on March 20, 2008 at 9:42 pm

Will they allow PZ to buy the video?

65. Jesus saves

Comment #147176 by lievemebe on March 20, 2008 at 1:47 am

Jesus saved science and reason 'til last.

66. They prayed to cast Satan from my body

Comment #146216 by lievemebe on March 18, 2008 at 7:21 pm

The reply I received from Dianne Baise Guest Relations Officer Gloria Jean's Coffees was the same as given to theantitheist.

Our corporate donations amount to approximately $150,000 �quot; $170,000 per annum plus the donations made by the public through the money boxes in stores.

We have no relationship with the Hillsong Church. Gloria Jean's Coffees is an Australian-owned private company and there are no financial or legal ties between Gloria Jean's Coffees and Hillsong Church. This remains unchanged.



The religious affiliation of our management, staff, Franchise Partners, charity partners has absolutely no relevance to how we operate our company. Our responsibility is to our Franchise Partners, our guests and the quality of our coffee.

67. They prayed to cast Satan from my body

Comment #145741 by lievemebe on March 18, 2008 at 4:27 am

Beware Australia. I have heard the prime minister of Australia say on radio that he favours religious groups having a bigger voice in parliament by way of moral advice.

I have also sent an email expressing concerns to Gloria Jeans coffee shop. I will be alerting my friends about this.

Thanks people, for alerting me.

68. New Atheists Are Not Great

Comment #145681 by lievemebe on March 18, 2008 at 1:53 am

No new arguements here, just the same old circular ones, for example: "Christianity, in contrast, offers the divine "I Am"â€"God".
He writes as though he has never met a real live atheist.

69. In Britain, creationist theory is evolving

Comment #144947 by lievemebe on March 17, 2008 at 4:45 am

School students should be taught that there is a price to pay for believing in a creator. All that garbage and no gain. But then I am biased. I know children who deliberately were not exposed to religion and they grew up with a sensible openness of mind that I would have envied at their age.

70. Selling science to the masses

Comment #144367 by lievemebe on March 15, 2008 at 6:23 pm

I am with you, AmericanGodless. Too often I have seen science sold like the latest clothing fashion, dumbed-down with gross repetition,and "brilliant scientist working at xx famous institute". Religions have been extremely successful because they have captured the big questions: Why am I different from kangaroos, where did I come from, what made the world? Science needs to capture this universal context and make reason and evidence the starting point of discourse.

71. The business of natural selection

Comment #144364 by lievemebe on March 15, 2008 at 6:01 pm

Like others I am skeptical. Does the algorithm include random mutation of business elements? Also, If the algorithm is successful, every business will use it and it's back to square one.

72. Deadly Sins 101

Comment #144063 by lievemebe on March 15, 2008 at 2:10 am

I found a website listing 70 major Islamic sins.
http://www.themodernreligion.com/misc/hh/major_sins.htm

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

73. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #144057 by lievemebe on March 15, 2008 at 1:51 am

Comment #144048 by robotaholic
In a search I found the following occurrences of "fundamentalist":
Fundamentalist 4
Christian fundamentalist 8
Secular fundamentalist 2
Religious fuindamentalist 2
Fundamentalist Islam 1

Christian fundamentalist wins.

74. The atheist delusion

Comment #144042 by lievemebe on March 15, 2008 at 1:01 am

But might there not be a connection between the attempt to eradicate religion and the loss of freedom?

Knowledge grows, but human beings remain much the same.

rarely inquiring where these freedoms have come from, and never allowing that religion may have had a part in creating them.

In today's anxiety about religion, it has been forgotten that most of the faith-based violence of the past century was secular in nature

These secular terrorists believed they were expediting a historical process from which will come a world better than any that has ever existed.

Islamism is nowhere near a danger of the magnitude of those that were faced down in the 20th century.

Religion has not gone away. Repressing it is like repressing sex, a self-defeating enterprise.

75. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #144024 by lievemebe on March 14, 2008 at 10:23 pm

Styrer, I may have missed a couple, but yes these are his lables from the above interview.

76. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #144019 by lievemebe on March 14, 2008 at 10:15 pm

Chris Hedges seems to use labels as entities that are discrete forces in the political world wheras they are made up of people who are complex and evolving. We all occasionaly use these phrases as general descriptives, but the number of labels he uses are perplexing:

New atheists
secular left
radical christian right
secular fundamentalist
religious fundamentalist
american fascist
religious right
radical religious right
fundamentalist
christian right
Jacobin
irrational religious hordes
western society
american society
cultural relativist
christian, hindu, jewish and islamic fundamentalist
religious communities

His profligate use of labels may explain his rash title:
"I do not believe in Atheists". Then who are we, supernatural hobgoblins?

77. The ethics of mixing science and religion

Comment #142638 by lievemebe on March 12, 2008 at 11:20 pm

According to the Templeton Foundation:
The Templeton Prize is awarded annually on the decision of a panel of judges from the major religions of the world today.

An atheist would have to be engaged in covert atheism to win the Templeton prize. It is more likely that a prize would be awarded accidently to an atheist. With so much egg on its face Templeton would have to accede to the winners agenda.

78. The ethics of mixing science and religion

Comment #142621 by lievemebe on March 12, 2008 at 9:54 pm

Comment #142620 by Ed-words

This would knock the shoes of Templeton. Cheekily, there could be some truth in this. Heller stated that he was using the money to set up an institute for science and religion at Cracow. Why does he not simply donate it back to Templeton?

79. The ethics of mixing science and religion

Comment #142619 by lievemebe on March 12, 2008 at 9:45 pm

Comment #142618 by LorienRyan

Maybe some scientists just like the way the idea of religion makes them feel, but don't actually believe it's true?

80. The ethics of mixing science and religion

Comment #142615 by lievemebe on March 12, 2008 at 9:31 pm

Further to Comment #142581 by AtheistAspy

Michael Heller wrote in the Templeton prize press conference, and reiterated in an Australian national radio interview that I heard this morning: "Science gives us Knowledge, and religion gives us Meaning".

The statement is mindless garbage. Alternatively, it is the mark of misplaced intelligence to ascribe absolute meanings to words. He may as well make the simple faith statement: "God exists".

81. The ethics of mixing science and religion

Comment #142554 by lievemebe on March 12, 2008 at 6:00 pm

Heller grew up in a family environment in which intellectualism and religion were deeply intertwined

82. Seven new deadly sins: are you guilty?

Comment #141695 by lievemebe on March 11, 2008 at 5:18 am

MPhil,
I am quite OK with the triune God. In the christian story, we sinned (yes, all of us amazingly through Adam and Eve) God (No.1) sent his humanly manifestation (No.2) to save us, but since he shot through (yes I am Australian) to heaven there needed to be No.3 to be in us provided we have not sinned. What amazes me is that the crazy story continues unabated. I only recently read the Pope's website, including the unabridged version of the catechism. I was shocked to the core with the madness of Ratzinger. In future I will recommend the catholic website to every catholic in the hope that they will comprehend its stupidity.

83. Should Galileo's tomb be opened for DNA tests?

Comment #141676 by lievemebe on March 11, 2008 at 4:35 am

Galileo has been resurrected to the pinnacle of science. Let the church have the body.

84. Seven new deadly sins: are you guilty?

Comment #141672 by lievemebe on March 11, 2008 at 4:25 am

Comment #141671 by MPhil
MPhil. I suppose ignorance of church law is no excuse. I can feel myself getting hotter by the minute.

85. Seven new deadly sins: are you guilty?

Comment #141665 by lievemebe on March 11, 2008 at 3:47 am

The catholic web gets wider with seven new deadly sins that have a "social resonance". Wait for the next instalment of sins:
1. Trashing space with junk.
2. Not being kind to intergalactic aliens.
3. Supporting the latest scientific evidence for a Godless universe.
4. Property speculation on Mars.
5. Terraforming planets.
6. Travelling a worm, emulating the Tower of Babel.
7. Evolving humans into something better.

86. Out of the Blue

Comment #140859 by lievemebe on March 8, 2008 at 11:06 pm

reply to Comment #140854 by Teratornis

Now you can appreciate how slippery consciousness is. No.3 is not a question because it was not intended to be one.

87. Out of the Blue

Comment #140842 by lievemebe on March 8, 2008 at 7:06 pm

Comment #140835 by Teratornis in reply to alexlg

I imagine if an AI does start praising God, the followers of that particular God will conclude they were right all along, while everybody else will conclude the opposite.

88. When blasphemy bit the dust

Comment #140575 by lievemebe on March 7, 2008 at 10:48 pm

Comment #140572 by Steve Zara

whereas independent churches have to sell themselves all the time to get people in and make money from them.

89. Darwin's dangerous idea

Comment #137407 by lievemebe on March 2, 2008 at 8:03 pm

"As to why Darwins ideas are so scary, i have said it before , but i think it comes down to hating the idea that we evolved form apes and are therefore apes ourselves. Many if not most people are really uncomfortable with where that line of thinking leads."

jo5ef, that line of thinking leads to a universe with no purpose. Most people are very uncomfortable with this and feel the need to invent magical answers. Worse, evolution, which has no pre-ordained direction, could take us back to the apes. Science is all we have to overcome the shocking statistics in the US and elsewhere.

90. Berlin gallery in Islam art row

Comment #137238 by lievemebe on March 2, 2008 at 2:49 pm

How can a stone be stupid? Is this some new kind of superstition? Perhaps the stone will reply stupidly to the stupid people praying to it.

91. Berlin gallery in Islam art row

Comment #136841 by lievemebe on March 1, 2008 at 8:42 pm

I doubt that the stone is stupid, but the people praying to it certainly are.

92. Why Darwin matters

Comment #124243 by lievemebe on February 8, 2008 at 11:04 pm

RD says: "Here may lie the answer to a nagging puzzle in the history of ideas. After Newton's brilliant synthesis of physics, why did it take nearly 200 years for Darwin to arrive on the scene? Newton's achievement seems so much harder! Maybe the answer is that Darwin's eventual solution to the riddle of life is so apparently facile."

Has anyone investigated the idea that Newton's work may have forestalled natural selection theory? Following Newton, the notion that the Universe is mechanistic, unchanging, certainly not evolving, was popular. This may have reinforced biblical creation theory, in much the same way that religious doctrine today puts a break on many scientific activities such as stem cell research.

93. Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'

Comment #123991 by lievemebe on February 8, 2008 at 5:21 am

I also agree with Noodly and others. Maybe the atheist onslaught is driving religious leaders to desperation.

94. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #112384 by lievemebe on January 17, 2008 at 2:44 am

Dear Mr. Scales,
Wishing you all the best for the future. I can speak freely because of people like you.
Have a quick recovery.