201. Man to die over insult

Comment #47065 by Zaphod on June 3, 2007 at 12:28 am

What a nice friendly forward thinking progressive country.

I could write for the Onion.

202. What I Think About Evolution

Comment #46630 by Zaphod on May 31, 2007 at 10:53 pm

"While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man's origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.

Without hesitation, I am happy to raise my hand to that."


It is impressive this he can say this without embarrassment. I am embarrassed for him.

"Atheist theology" - funny shit. Look up the 2 words douchebag.

203. Christopher Hitchens at Politics and Prose

Comment #46243 by Zaphod on May 30, 2007 at 4:36 pm

" 25. Comment #45965 by coretemprising on May 29, 2007 at 8:41 pm
popes: "maladjusted elderly virgins"
Priceless!"

I thought that was hilarious also.

204. Christopher Hitchens at Politics and Prose

Comment #46241 by Zaphod on May 30, 2007 at 4:33 pm

Hitchens said Steven Weinberg was a biologist when he is in fact a physicist. He most likely knows this and it was just a slip up.

Hitchens pulls no punches. Good stuff.

205. A Look at Regent University

Comment #46221 by Zaphod on May 30, 2007 at 3:37 pm

Horrible and disgusting.

The fact that Pat Robertson and his university have an agenda other than learning offends me greatly.

A university is supposed to educate people but also get them to think for themselves. It is not meant to produce Pat Robertson clones and Christian sheep.

Pat Robertson wants history re-wrote. Laws changed. All based on his illogical faith nonsense.

206. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #45874 by Zaphod on May 29, 2007 at 12:39 pm

Another article with the title "The Dawkins Delusion". The world is drenched in unoriginal pseudo-literary bastards.

207. Christopher Hitchens at Politics and Prose

Comment #45867 by Zaphod on May 29, 2007 at 12:31 pm

This is what happens on a book tour. Any tour. Bands play the same songs, comedians have the same routine. At the end of Richards tour I felt I could have given his answers for him. The questions he received where the so mundane and similar.

208. Tales of Hay-on-Wye

Comment #45846 by Zaphod on May 29, 2007 at 11:43 am

Agreed also.

209. Aiming for knockout blow in god wars

Comment #45400 by Zaphod on May 27, 2007 at 2:59 pm

Professor Somerville disagrees. "These atheists are so passionate, dogmatic, they have created their own secular religion."

Idiotic comment.

210. God help us all - The No. 2 book on Amazon right now is a

Comment #44955 by Zaphod on May 25, 2007 at 4:31 pm

Sounds like a ludicrous book by a ridiculous author.

211. Hitchens on Falwell, Part 2

Comment #43552 by Zaphod on May 22, 2007 at 1:44 am

"If you gave Falwell an enema, he could be buried in a matchbox." - Hitchens

Hilarious.

212. Goodness without Godliness

Comment #42837 by Zaphod on May 20, 2007 at 12:43 am

Mother Teresa was an utter bitch to all accounts (had to get that off my chest).

I think a few people if any truly get their morality from god/religion. The majority who say they do are just cherry picking based on the morality they already have.

I am seriously thinking about writing a 2-3 page statement on my view of morality (not my morals but where it comes from) so I can just cut and paste. It seriously is becoming the most awful sanctimonious platitude theists use.

I have to correct the article writer on one thing. Atheists don't assert their is no god. We just don't believe that one exists. Their is a difference. Agnosticism doesn't negate theism or atheism. It isn't an alternative. You can be an agnostic atheist.

213. The Paradoxical Hatred of Christopher Hitchens

Comment #42835 by Zaphod on May 20, 2007 at 12:34 am

"But after watching him on "Hannity and Colmes" about the departed Falwell, I realized his anti-Christian and anti-theistic worldview is, for now at least, an insuperable barrier to any ideological transformation."

This is how a lot of atheists feel regarding theists and faith. An insuperable barrier to any ideological transformation.

"I think it's fair to infer he is talking about Falwell's belief in Christian doctrine, not just Falwell's occasional objectionable outburst."

Objectionable outburst. Would anyone really say something so ludicrously stupid if they didn't believe it. It would be beyond satire.

OH MY FSM. I get to the end of the article and notice that the author has written "Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party."

He is also the brother of a junkie sexist bigot Rush Limbaugh.

214. Television evangelist Falwell dies at 73

Comment #41135 by Zaphod on May 15, 2007 at 2:32 pm

Moral Majority founder. He says stuff like

"I really believe that the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians, ... the ACLU, People For the American Way - all of them who have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this [terrorist attack: 9/11] happen."
- Jerry Falwell, 700 Club, Sept 13, 2001

Sounds like a nasty piece of work full of hypocrisy, hate and bigotry.

215. Christopher Hitchens Explains It All for You: Move over, Sam Harris; another atheist wants the pulpit

Comment #41080 by Zaphod on May 15, 2007 at 1:25 pm

A terrible article.

216. Richard Dawkins' lecture at the State House Convention Center

Comment #40728 by Zaphod on May 14, 2007 at 7:53 pm

Love is Lust, Attraction, Attachement. You can get a basic level of hormones/physiology of it here "http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/love/".

Human beings tend to put a supernatural façade of importance over love because we seem to value it so much. We tend to think love is so important, so powerful, so amazing that it must be more than just hormones and neurons.

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

Comment #40725 by Zaphod on May 14, 2007 at 7:43 pm

The RRS won this debate totally. The theists broke the debate rules that where stipulated and where countered on every point they made. It was a ridiculously one sided affair. The RRS will admit that Ray and Kirk at not at the high brow end of apologetic Christian debaters. Kirk Cameron's stuff on evolution was hilarious and scary depending on how you look at it. If you seen the full debate you can't reasonably disagree.

LDmiller - I would like to see what you are doing to combat the irrational beliefs in world. Where is your "Rational grown up squad".

218. Pale Blue Dot

Comment #40724 by Zaphod on May 14, 2007 at 7:39 pm

I have known of this video for some time. Carl Sagan was and still is great. Such passion for science and discovery.

219. Why Christopher Hitchens is not Great

Comment #40723 by Zaphod on May 14, 2007 at 7:35 pm

I was expecting the "Hitchens is not great" articles a lot sooner. Hitchens doesn't claim to be great. People do claim god is.

220. Does God Exist? The Nightline Face-Off

Comment #39895 by Zaphod on May 12, 2007 at 8:00 am

The God Squad didn't bring anything but irrationality, idiocy and lies to the table.

221. Kirk Cameron Proves That God Exists

Comment #39890 by Zaphod on May 12, 2007 at 7:25 am

Troy Patterson from Slate I am sick of telling people this but I will tell you "Agnosticism is not an alternative to atheism". You can be an agnostic atheist. No atheist I know says he/she can prove 100% that god doesn't exist. That said I am as agnostic about god as I am agnostic about the FSM or The fabled pink unicorn. Agnosticism just means without knowledge. I don't know Quantum Mechanics as well as Richard Feynman did but with the evidence I have seen for it and my limited understand of it I believe it to be true or more correctly said I have no real choice but to think of it as true because I am convinced by reason, logic, rational thought and evidence.

222. Anderson Cooper interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #39420 by Zaphod on May 10, 2007 at 2:59 pm

An interviewer who actually allows his guest to speak. Unlike Bill O'Reilly who just wants to shout and spit all over most of his guests.

223. Hitchens, Sharpton and Faith

Comment #39047 by Zaphod on May 9, 2007 at 9:18 pm

Mr. Sharpton seemed to be somewhere from a deist to a personal god who created the universe and morality.

There exists theories of morality in evolutionary psychology and philosophy perhaps. Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins and others all have theories on morality.

Overall Mr. Sharptons arguments for gods existence are morality and design. Nothing new.

I disagree with Hitchens on some things but I think he won this debate. Hitchens was attacking the Abrahamic god and Mr Sharpton seemed to be defending his own personal version of god which is ambiguous and vague.

224. God Exists. A Formula Proves it.

Comment #37805 by Zaphod on May 5, 2007 at 7:07 pm

No one in the physics community respects this guy really. He is known to be out there.

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

Comment #37259 by Zaphod on May 3, 2007 at 10:47 pm

I know (know maybe a strong word) Brian and Kelly from listening to the rational response squad show and speaking to them in the RRS chatroom. They will do atheists proud.

Brian and Kelly seem like geniuses compared to Cameron and Comfort. Cameron and Comfort are serious nutbags.

226. Your favorite book in the last 25 years?

Comment #37258 by Zaphod on May 3, 2007 at 10:23 pm

I'll try to name books people haven't named yet.

Simon Singh - Big Bang
The Language of gene - Steve Jones


Once I have read all of Dennett's and Pinker's books a couple of them maybe on the list.

227. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #36457 by Zaphod on May 1, 2007 at 7:33 am

He gets his views across better here http://www.booktv.org/ram/feature/0407/btv042907_4b.ram

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

Comment #35913 by Zaphod on April 29, 2007 at 9:32 am

To the first comment "Gurnet". Not all books are written with the hope that they will change someone's mind. They can be entertaining, enlightening, thought provoking and more. They need not be all 3 together either. Perhaps Christopher Hitchens has written his books to make us atheists laugh, to make us cry, or just to give us an example of one more person who just doesn't stand for nonsense dogma.

229. Boxmind E-Lectures

Comment #35772 by Zaphod on April 28, 2007 at 8:07 pm

eh www.boxmind.com brings up a list of gay porn sites :-S

230. Boxmind E-Lectures

Comment #35771 by Zaphod on April 28, 2007 at 8:06 pm

Yea this is very old link. What happened to it?

231. Two idiots get a forum

Comment #35662 by Zaphod on April 28, 2007 at 6:38 am

It is scary that someone can seriously think they are making a good argument. This isn't satire. He actually believes it.

232. Bill Maher - APATHEIST

Comment #35280 by Zaphod on April 26, 2007 at 6:57 pm

I think Maher is funny and he attacks religion. More celebrities should.

233. Vote for the Time 100 - Are They Worthy?

Comment #34641 by Zaphod on April 24, 2007 at 6:43 pm

People love the satire. Colbert has this sewn up.

234. One Hell of a Religious Read

Comment #34322 by Zaphod on April 23, 2007 at 7:47 pm

This book sounds fun. Can't wait to read it.

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

Comment #34308 by Zaphod on April 23, 2007 at 7:09 pm

Poor amateurish arguments from O'Reilly.

236. Atheists split on how to not believe

Comment #34068 by Zaphod on April 23, 2007 at 6:08 am

Writing a book, talking on TV and having speaking engagements makes you fundamentalist or militant nowadays?

237. Flea Circus!

Comment #32925 by Zaphod on April 18, 2007 at 6:06 pm

Obligate parasites the lot of them.

238. The Coulter Hoax: How Ann Coulter Exposed the Intelligent Design Movement

Comment #31269 by Zaphod on April 11, 2007 at 8:03 pm

Great article.

239. Militant atheists: too clever for their own good

Comment #30195 by Zaphod on April 7, 2007 at 7:50 am

He thinks atheists miss that point. We do not. We have our own point and we don't miss it at all. He clearly misses that. His article seems to want to celebrate mediocrity, tolerance of crazyness and allowance of unreason.

It is about what is true.

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the existence of a god is true. Atheists by their nature don't believe in things without evidence. I have found (although it may not be like this for everyone) that atheists rarely believe in anything without evidence. This included psychics, ghosts, GOD, werewolves, vampires, fairies, boogey men and darth vader.

I am an Atheist and also an afaithist.

AFAITHISM.

240. Growing Up in the Universe: 2-Disc DVD Set

Comment #29199 by Zaphod on April 2, 2007 at 3:52 am

The quote from the theist lol. Great.

241. The God Debate

Comment #29066 by Zaphod on April 1, 2007 at 1:17 pm

Rick Warren is an idiot. He doesn't believe in evolution. He thinks he has a responsibility to get rid of small pox "which has been eradicated" and he used Pascal's Wager at the end.

"I'm betting my life that Jesus was not a liar. When we die, if he's right, I've lost nothing. If I'm right, he's lost everything. I'm not willing to make that gamble"

What a douche.

242. Richard Dawkins at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival

Comment #28315 by Zaphod on March 28, 2007 at 5:55 pm

Dawkins wins this hands down.

243. Hell is real and eternal: Pope

Comment #28038 by Zaphod on March 27, 2007 at 4:48 pm

The pope is retarded.

244. Debate between Alister McGrath and Peter Atkins

Comment #27300 by Zaphod on March 23, 2007 at 7:54 pm

McGrath just annoyed me when he kept saying and inferring atheism requires faith. He says he was an atheist. I am sorry but Mr McGrath doesn't know what the word means. How can you have faith in the lack of a belief, that is madness. His atheism is certainly not mine or the atheism of anyone I know. I have a lack of a belief in many things. Santa, Fairies, Zeus, Apollo, Allah, Yahweh, Bigfoot, zombies, ghosts etc. Does the lack of belief in these things require faith. State what faith in your opinion means Mr McGrath.

Mr McGrath talks about meaning, good, evil, purpose, why? I am sorry but the universe doesn't owe you anything. It exists, it is here, and it is humans alone on this planet at least, that see things through purpose coloured spectacles. Just because we make things for a purpose doesn't mean life the universe and everything also has a purpose.

The fact that all life on this plant has a genetic origin in the primordials soup and even farther than that all matter in the solar system more or less was once at the heart of a star, this I think is an amazingly and fantastically mesmerising view. It is splendid in the extreme.

And on a final thought. The universe and the world don't revolve around you, the universe existed 10 billion years before the earth even arose and another 4.5998 billion years went by on earth without humanity. The universe and the earth and most of life that we know of doesn't need humanity. We are the first species to understand our surroundings at least on this planet. This is an amazing thing.

The fact that people don't see this as enough baffles me. You and I are lucky to be alive. Be grateful that you have the ability to understand the world at all.

245. Orr vs. Dennett/Dawkins

Comment #27031 by Zaphod on March 23, 2007 at 12:05 am

That is all well and interesting hightrekker but what does it have to do with this article?

246. Orr vs. Dennett/Dawkins

Comment #27010 by Zaphod on March 22, 2007 at 8:23 pm

MIND_REBEL - I love Richards books. His latest book the god delusion I also enjoyed. This isn't science though. Science is the body of knowledge we have the in disciplines and the method we use to obtain and interpret this knowledge. You could perhaps call it loosely popularising science but its more about theology, philosophy and atheism. Still a dam good book and great read.

247. Orr vs. Dennett/Dawkins

Comment #27009 by Zaphod on March 22, 2007 at 8:17 pm

I agree with Dennett and PZ. All I get from Dawkins Ultimate 747 argument is this "Saying god did it proves nothing and doesn't further science and discovery". You can postulate the 747 argument for god. If god must have created the earth, universe or whatever then what created him. He must be at least as complex as a human being if he created the universe. You would think he or she (sorry) would more be even more complex given the wonders of the cosmos and planet earth that he created.

This is where evolutionary theory comes in and raises our conciousness as Dawkins says. It shows us how the simple can become complex. Evolution does the "designing", but it is a trial and error bottom down-up design with no concious direction.

A lot of religious and even not so religious have a problem with this because they think that makes us look small. My answer to this is the same as Richards. TUFF.

Grow up and accept the world and universe the way it really is and move away from child like ego and geocentric views of reality.

Read some of Richards other books. Watch Cosmos by Carl sagan. You will find that a naturalistic and realistic view of reality can be an even more wonderful realisation than a superstitious fictional view ever could.

We are all made of star stuff. The universe isn't just out in space, it is in you.

248. Biology teacher fired for referring to Bible

Comment #26774 by Zaphod on March 21, 2007 at 3:29 pm

So annoying. Teach SCIENCE in the science class and religion in RELIGIOUS STUDIES CLASS. Creationism is not a science, it doesn't follow the scientific method and to be frank is magnificently ludicrous. It is a biblical interpretation of how the world was created. It has no place in science.

249. Carl Sagan's Cosmos for Rednecks

Comment #25720 by Zaphod on March 14, 2007 at 7:52 pm

I seen this when the episode came out. Hilarious. Carl Sagan is awesome. I am in the middle of watching Cosmos at the moment. Fantastic.

250. Did You Know? Shift Happens - Globalization, Information Age

Comment #25702 by Zaphod on March 14, 2007 at 6:57 pm

Fantastic post.