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Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron get owned at UCLA [Nov. 29th, 2009|04:26 pm]
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Pop-apologist Ray Comfort and his lap dog Kirk Cameron attempted to pass out their vandalized edition of Origin Of Species a day earlier than they said they would (to avoid protest groups, apparently) and ended up getting owned for their efforts. And fortunately for us, a good deal of it was captured on video.

In this first video, Comfort goes into full apologist mode by accosting someone for believing in evolution and then shifting the debate to religion, because he really just wants to proselytize. Later, he starts throwing a hissy fit because other people are interjecting, because Comfort is a pussy. He doesn't like having to debate with more than one person, because he's not interested in debating the facts. Instead, he wants to debate the worldview of his mark, which is a typical apologist tactic. He even says that atheists believe that nothing created everything. Um, no we don't, Ray, and the fact that you have to keep dragging that bullshit out everywhere you go just proves that you're a fucking pussy and you don't want to listen.

In a later video, Kirk Cameron makes himself look like a moron as another student quizzes him on why he accepts every field of science except one. Amusingly enough, Cameron has to ask which one, proving yet again that creationists don't have any fucking idea what they're talking about. As evidenced by several volumes of the Way Of The Master series, neither Ray nor Kirk have any idea what evolution is, what cosmology is, or even what science is.

In fact, I think I have to disagree with the student in one regard, because once you go over the facts, you soon realize that Kirk and Ray are, in fact, opposed to EVERY field of science. They think the universe is 6000 years old. That tells me that they reject all of modern physics, including the theory of gravity. We also know that creationists don't believe in radiometric dating... in fact, it's perfectly apparent that there isn't a creationist alive who even knows what substance is even being dated. Most of them will tell you that it's the fossils and/or the rocks. WRONG!

What I do like, however, is that after Kirk Cameron stupidly says that he believes in macro-evolution but doesn't believe that we can extrapolate it to full speciation, the student very clearly articulates to him that, yes, we can. In fact, it's patently absurd for him to assume that we can't. And the only reason he doesn't concede, in my estimation, is that he doesn't want to give up his day job of shilling for God.

Seriously, look at how much merch Way Of The Master sells, and you will soon realize how Ray and Kirk can be owned so frequently and yet never learn anything from their experiences. This IS their income, and it's predicated on them pushing a failed worldview. This is especially true of Cameron, who couldn't act his way out of a paper sack. In fact, I'm pretty sure that he's acted his way INTO one. This IS Kirk Cameron's career.

And so, without further ado, here's Ray and Kirk making asses of themselves at UCLA...

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Ray Comfort defaces Origin Of Species [Sep. 23rd, 2009|10:30 pm]
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Just a quick note. Earlier today I made a post about a recent Glenn Beck episode. It was up less than an hour. I was ripping on both Beck and his guest as they were talking about "The Story Of Stuff", since neither one of them seemed capable to representing critical thinking, even when it was in their best interest to do so. After posting this, however, I realized that Beck's guest DID release material in which he hit all of the major points that I had raised, so my criticism doesn't really apply to him anymore, except to say that his appearance on Beck's show was rather poor. On the other hand, Glenn seemed totally lost, and my jokes at his expense were actually very funny, so I'll be sure to post a revision at some point in the future.

Now then, I heard that 100,000 editions of Origin Of Species will be printed by that apologetic butt weasle Ray Comfort and his man servent Mike Seaver...er, I mean...Kirk Camoron. This new edition contains an extra section written by Comfort himself in which he attempts to describe the folly of "atheistic evolution", whatever that is.

From this, we can infer that Ray Comfort still doesn't know what the function of a scientific model is, or how it is applied. He also doesn't seem to understand how silly he looks explaining why it's impossible when the model does actually work. He implicitly endorses it whenever he gets a flu shot (unless he's an anti-vaccine nut, too). The chances of evolution happening are 1 in 1. That's a pretty far cry from "impossible", Ray.

Saying "atheistic evolution" is kind of like saying "atheistic gravity". Although, if you read between the lines of what Ray says, you'd eventually come away with the conclusion that Ray doesn't believe in gravity either. I'm sure he THINKS he does, but he doesn't accept any of the implications.

It's this simple, Ray. Look up at the night sky. Those stars are millions to billions of lightyears away. We know this, because we can triangulate their position from the relative position of the earth in the solar system. There's no getting around this fact, unless Ray also wants to deny math. So how can we see stars that are millions and billions of lightyears away? Well we can see them, because the light has been traveling for millions and billions of years. ...that is, unless you reject GRAVITY.

So what's it gonna be, Ray? Either you believe that the universe is less than 10,000 years old, in which case you deny all of physics, or you can accept Einstein's premise and come to the conclusion that in order for stars to be visible, the universe must be several billion years old. You can't have it both ways.

I've drawn this line for creationists time and time again, and they never want to address it. They don't have the courage to admit that they deny Einstein. Funny that, because Einstein's ideas were more dangerous to a creationist's ideology, for the reasons described above, than Darwin's ever was.

Of course, Ray's concept of cosmology is warped anyway. He still tries to say that that not only does evolution encompass all of cosmology, but he's still describing it as if the big bang refers to the universe as coming into existence, ex nihilo. I know that Ray has been corrected on this numerous times, so he's just being dishonest here. He can't raise an objection without using a straw man, so I think the only appropriate response to Ray Comfort anymore is public ridicule, since he obviously doesn't have the balls to correct himself and admit that he's wrong.

And of course, since Ray Comfort wants to expand the definition of evolution to encompass anything that contradicts the Bible (which is EVERYTHING), we can take this as meaning that Ray Comfort just has a problem with science in general, even though he'd never admit that.

Anyhoo, there are no jokes about this that the Amazing Atheist hasn't already made, so I might as well just post his take on it. Without further ado...

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"According to your people..." [Sep. 22nd, 2009|03:10 pm]
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Oh boy! A full-on religion post! Haven't done one of these in a while.

I don't like getting into personal one-on-one debates. I'd rather just rant here and be done with it. Carry on my life like a normal person. Because, believe it or not, I don't debate with my friends over whether or not the Zelda franchise has a harmonious narrative. We have far more intellectual conversations, such as which Iron Maiden drummer is superior, Clive Burr or Nicko McBrain. I happen to be in the Clive Burr camp.

Anyhoo, I struck up a casual conversation with an acquaintance, shall we say, about my feeling that Ben Stein is an idiot for saying that science leads to killing people. His "documentary" Expelled is one of the slimiest pieces of work to ever be committed to film. Even slimier than Michael Moore, and when you can out-slime Michael Moore, that's pretty impressive.

And yes, it's not necessarily what he said in the documentary, but what he said in an interview that bugs me. So anyone looking for that exact quote in the movie will not, in fact, find it there. I believe he said it on a TBN interview.

That being the case, it was brought to my attention that Mr. Stein had some "compelling" arguments within the documentary, and I was just "smearing his name" over one thing he said externally in order to "get a cheap victory."

I thought for sure I was going to have to explain to this person that the thesis of the film is wrong. The thesis, by the way, is that academic institutions are *unfairly* discluding alternative views in favor of the core dogma of "Darwinism", whatever that is. The reason that this argument is wrong is simply that science is not a democracy. Reputable institutions don't base the curriculum on what is agreed upon, but rather upon what is evident.

Fortunately, the conversation didn't go that way. This is good, because then it would start dipping into post-modernism, and I can't tell you how much I fucking hate post-modernism. I hate these people who are like, "You have your worldview and I have mine. You believe in science, whereas I believe..." blah blah blah... And at the same time, this person is looking up the weather forecast on their iPhone, checking their blood sugar, or something else ironic like that.

I'd like to go into why post-modernism is not compatible with science at any level, but that's another rant altogether.

But no, we barely get into the opening sequence in the movie, where Ben Stein does the whole "lightning in a mud puddle" argument. Now, it's been explained before by countless other bloggers that, at best, this is just someone's sloppy hyperbole, and that nobody seriously believes that lightning striking a mud puddle is what kicked off life. In fact, Talk Origin is this great graphic illustrating the difference between the apologetic caricature of abiogenesis and the actual hypothesis of abiogenesis. And even on the side that presents the accurate depiction, there is a caution that the model is simplified.

So, I explained all this, and then we got into this stupid argument that was like, "Well some people on your side say it was lightning in a mud puddle!". Really? Who? Some blogger somewhere? An atheist author? It is possible for these people to be wrong. I don't accept just anybody as an authority, and I'm not going to defend someone just because that person also happens to be an atheist. And then the name that was eventually tossed at me was Dawkins, but I never got an exact reference.

Still, even if it was, so what? I don't even see why I should waste my time arguing over context here, although I'm sure I'd find a contextual error, anyway. Instead, I just whipped out my "scientists are not prophets" meme. I explained to the person that just because a religious apologist has a belief system that is authority-based does not mean that he is entitled to project this authority-based belief onto the realm of science. In science, you're only as credible as your work.

Besides which, Dawkins is a biologist and a political activist. Neither of these have anything to do with biochemistry. So in that respect, who cares what Dawkins has to say about this? He might have something insightful or entertaining to say about it, and people like me may take notice, but ultimately it's the people in that particular field whose statements would matter, and even then, they are only as credible as the work they publish.

No reputable biochemist would tell you that lightning striking a mud puddle would produce life. When an apologist tries to argue against this "model" of organic development, they are, in fact, arguing against a point of view that could only exist within the pages of a comic book.

Ironic, if you think about it.
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US Government Wins the Hovind Challenge and Collects [Aug. 7th, 2009|12:00 pm]
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http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=106244

What's funny is that World Net Daily is a staunch conservative news source, and even they aren't trying to spin this in their favor.

So, for the last three years, it's not been entirely clear as to whether or not Dinosaur Adventure Land was even still open to the public. The website kept up the appearance that it was, but otherwise, internetland had basically given the impression that the place was deserted.

Well, wonder no more. A judge has ordered the property seized to satisfy the $430,000 owed to the federal government. The property, which is spread across nine lots, will be sold off piece-by-piece. Florida's monument to stupidity is no more.

It's a shame that it had to go down like this. There are a lot of ways I would have rather seen Hovind lose his shirt in a way that didn't involve the government bringing him down. Still, he did try to evade taxes in ways that would have gotten more than just himself into a lot of trouble. I mean, using a bank to launder money and then expecting them not to report suspicious activity, which they're required to do by law, is pretty shitty. If you want to protest taxes, do so in a way that your aren't employing unwilling participants.

On the up side, if the lots are all sold separately, then it's a sure thing that the entire park will be torn down. Someone should get some video of that and put it on YouTube. Are there any atheists or agnostic in Florida willing to snap a lot of footage of this? I want to see the house with the T-rex coming out of it get demolished.



Actually, no, I take that back. Whoever buys that lot should keep the building up and put an actual science exhibit in there. And they should open it with an attraction called "Why The Flood Geological Model Is Super Retarded", followed by "Dinosaurs Are Not Lizards! Look At Their Feet!".

C'mon, somebody's gotta buy this place! Maybe some of you smarties out there can pool some money together. PZ Myers? Sean Carroll? Mark Norell? Bob Bakker? Surely some of you guys could let your wallets combine and erect an anti-creationist museum.
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John Travolta losing his religion [Aug. 6th, 2009|08:35 pm]
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Allegedly.

http://tinyurl.com/npkjuo

Still, it seems as though there's are pretty good odds that it's true, and if it is, then I really feel sorry for John Travolta right now. Scientology comes loaded with all sorts extremely wacky medical beliefs, and if what the article says is true, then John might be blaming himself for the death of his son, who suffered from frequent seizures. That alone has got to suck, and I can't imagine what kind of guilt he must be feeling.

But on top of that, it's also very difficult to leave Scientology. You ever see those XenuTV videos where Scientology members try to scare their critics by attacking their privacy. "What are you hiding?!" Well, it's worse when you're actually a member, because they actually DO know a lot about you, and they can use it against you if you try to leave. It's basically extortion.

John Travolta may be trapped. Poor guy.
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People actually believe... IN THE DEVIL! [Jul. 28th, 2009|05:20 pm]
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You know that one AC/DC song. The one with all the sexual innuendos?

Oh wait, that would be ALL OF THEM.

My last post was really inane, I realize. Every now and then, I prove just how much of a loser I am by going off on tangents about crap that nobody else cares about. Sometimes I think I'd make a good Seinfeld character, because I argue about crap like that.

Anyhoo, here's something else that doesn't matter.

So, I live in Wheaton, Illinois. Well, technically. Anyhoo, if you're familiar with the area, then you know that it allegedly has more churches per capita than any other town in the country. I don't know if that's actually true, but I've been told that a number times. What this means is that I can't have a conversation with anyone in this town without it turning into a confrontation.

WHAT?! Don't look at me like that. I don't start shit, honest! All I have to do is say something like, "I still haven't heard the new AC/DC album," and it just starts. Almost on cue, there's the ass hat who goes, "Oh, you mean Anti-Christs and Devil Children?"

Isn't that cute? I love when the conversations turn in this direction. There's nothing I like more than Bible thumpers making up acronyms for the bands I like and then pretending as though that's actually what their names stand for. Nevermind that the band had a lightning bolt in its logo, and three of the albums are named High Voltage, Powerage, and Flick Of The Switch. Clearly, this is all window dressing to the band's ulterior motive, which is to spread the word of Satan.

Okay, so there's actually a lot of this and that about Satan, but you'd have to be stupid to think that they're being serious. Oh wait, we're talking about fundamentalist Christians. That's right.

So, the conversation just derails, because I can't let it go.

Me: "So wait. You believe... IN THE DEVIL?! A red man in long pajamas, with a pitchfork and horns on his head? You think this being actually exists and isn't just some mythological acid trip?"
Idiot: "The greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince people that he doesn't exist."
Me: "That's cute. So what you're saying is that the absurdity of the devil is the work of the devil. Amazing. The only thing the devil had to do in order to convince me that he doesn't exist is to defy logic. He must really be evil if he can do that."
Idiot: "You don't have to get condescending."
Me: "Need I remind you that this whole derailment started when you became condescending?"
Idiot: "I can see that this conversation isn't going anywhere."
Me: "Fuck you."

Oh, and you have no idea how many times I've heard the one about KISS being the "Knights In Satan's Service". Good one, Gene. Thanks to your little joke, I've had to hear that one on nearly a monthly basis. And I don't even fucking like KISS.

It's also so weird looking at the CD collection of someone who reads the Bible like it's a history book. You ever do this? You flip through their CDs, and they have all of those Christian rock collections you see on TV. And they all have the same songs, too, like "I Can Only Imagine", "God Of Wonder", and "Open The Eyes Of My Heart". And the bands are always the same, too. You got Jars Of Clay, Mercy Me, and Amy Grant. What the fuck! Amy Grant? Who listens to that shit? When was the last time she was relevant, 1991?!

Seriously, though! It's like looking through the CD collection of someone who lives on another planet.

And what it is with Christian album covers? How come they all take the same monochrome picture, usually tinted to Lord Of The Rings brown, of the guy smiling while looking away from the camera? What's up with that? Look at the god damn camera, ya pussy!

God damn, Christian music sucks. Well, most of it. I'll give them credit if they write a song that has a good hook, but it can be brutal if the lyrics are too obnoxious.

I mean, take this, for example...



Now come on! That's not real! ...is it? I know that Bluefish TV is legit, but I can't find anything that suggests that this is a hoax. The video is actually hosted on a Christian website, which I don't understand at all. It's too ridiculous not to be fake, though, because it's like a parody of everything that's wrong with Christian music. They play the same sucky songs and try to gussy them up with a new style of music.

If that's real, then that's pretty sad. And if it's not, my hat goes off to whoever made that, because I was roaring with laughter through the whole thing.

EDIT: No, no, no! I just watched it a second time. That has GOT to be fake. That's just too over-the-top. When he starts going "Raaghraaghraaghraagh" through Silent Night, that just tops it. There's no way this isn't a spoof. No fucking way.
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Endearing myself to Catholics yet again... [Jul. 12th, 2009|02:00 am]
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Jesus H. Christ! IT'S A CRACKER!!! A CRACKER!!!!

I, for one, hope he took the wafer home and then masturbated onto it.

Wow, I think that may be one of the most offensive things I've ever said on this blog.

...as I'm clicking the "post" button.
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Ten things the Republican Party Needs To Know For Next Election [May. 17th, 2009|07:54 pm]
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10. Presidents have science advisers for a reason. Listen to them.

9. You don't like liberal politics. Fine. Calling it communism and other forms of hyperbole won't make liberals listen to you.

8. The US was NOT founded on Christian values, and even if it was, that is not a justifiable argument to endorse one religion above all others in our culturally-diverse society.

7. Habeas corpus. It's a good thing.

6. Evolution has a lot of support. Deal with it.

5. You believe in the free market. Wonderful! Then don't fence-off the Mexican border.

4. And while you're at it, legalize prostitution and end the war on drugs.

3. You believe in less government. Great! Then don't write special legislation for zygotes and brain-dead women.

2. Next time you invade another country, have evidence.

1. Homosexuality is not a disease. Mind your own fucking business.


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And to be fair, there ought to be one of these for the Democrats as well, but I'll wait until Barack really screws up before I do that.

Note: My original #1 was a blatant endorsement of Bob Barr, who is actually a member of the Libertarian Party and not a Republican anymore. Barr did a lot of nutty things as a Republican, including trying to ban Wicca in the military. It's true, though, that he has changed his stances on gay marriage and the drug war, making him one of the best things to come out of the Republican Party. Still, he's probably a little too kooky for my tastes.

Besides, I had to fit homosexuality in there somewhere.
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Nah-Nah-Nah-Nah! Hey! Hey! Hey! You SUCK! [May. 7th, 2009|05:40 pm]
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Gone for good in three days. What, no resurrection?!


Every so often, there comes an event that is so awesome, that you must stand in awe of how awesome it is. That time is now. Ladies and Gentlemen, the VenomFangX internet ministry has closed its doors for good. MommyFangX and DaddyFangX pulled the plug. The site is going offline "for good".

Wait, does that REALLY mean "for good"? Can't someone else just buy the domain or something? Someone like, say, PZ Myers. Or maybe someone can buy it and then direct it to Talk Origins or the Panda's Thumb.

Gee, poor widdle Shawn will have to go crawling back to the Video Mart and ask for his job back.

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Beating A Dead Horse, Don'tcha Know [Jan. 13th, 2009|08:25 pm]
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I don't believe I ever commented on the infamous Sarah Palin fruit fly comment, but since Shane Killian brought it up in his latest video, I might as well take the opportunity to run through this.

Oh, that wacky Sarah! Dissing fruit fly research. Nothing fruitful (pardon the pun) ever comes from that! Oh, except that it does.

And it's not as though Sarah Palin has an excuse. She has staff. I don't even have staff, and I know more about this shit than she does. She had someone who could have looked this up for her. Instead, she walks out, without a care in the world as to what this research could possibly be about, and she makes a smarmy face as she cracks wise about one of the most beneficial forms of research for the public good. Oopsy doopsy, Sarah!

Okay, okay... This was months ago, and the election's over. I'm just sullying her name. (There's that word again: sully. I like that word.)

Onto the real meat, though. Shane's latest video is the first of a six-part series in which he debunks Creation On The Web's attempt to discredit evolution via the National Science Education standards, and Shane intends to show how each of their points fail. And, as you have suspected, he's already off to a roaring start!

Oh, and beat in mind that, although Shane rips on Palin and McCain, he's not a liberal. He's not a conservative, either. I'm only pointing this out so that nobody tries to jump to any assumptions of political bias.

Shane is as straight a shooter as they come. If you're on YouTube, you should subscribe to his channel.
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Christine Maggiore: Stupid Bitch [Jan. 12th, 2009|08:00 am]
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[mood | angry]

Who is Christine Maggiore? Well, if she doesn't have Darwin Award Of The Year, she should. Basically, she was a pseudoscience advocate and AIDS-denialist. Oh, and she was also HIV-positive.

Here's YouTube user H8UALL66 to explain it better than I can...


Okay, so she killed herself with stupidity. Why sully her name any more? Jeez, Neil! Let it go!

Nay, I say! NAY! Sully shall be thy name!

See, that's not where the story actually ends. See, some time after Maggiore had contracted HIV and chose to ignore such silly things as clinical case studies and evidence, she had a daughter. And I'm sure that you can already see where this is going.

Maggiore had a daughter and elected not to take anti-retroviral drugs to counteract the disease during her pregnancy. She also chose to breastfeed, which is also a good way to transmit HIV, assuming that, by some miracle,the child managed to be delivered without infection. So basically, this kid had no chance.

Naturally, the kid fell ill and was never taken to a hospital. Instead, she was taken to an herbal healer, who treated her for "a mild ear infection", after which, the child promptly died. The autopsy performed demonstrated no such thing, but rather showed that the child had contracted pneumonia, caused by a fungal pathogen which, you guessed it, just happens to be the common cause of pneumonia in people who have AIDS and the leading cause of death in childhood AIDS cases.

Maggiore, dissident in her opposition to the truth, sought a second opinion from a kook, who promptly assured her that the daughter had actually died from an allergic reaction to the kooky medicine she had been taking. Of course, this person was not in any way a doctor, and thus he did not have a chance to look at the body for himself, so it's easy to understand how he could have missed the acute fungal infection to the lungs, you stupid holistic-healing asshole! ...but I digress.

Appropriately enough, Maggiore died of the very same affliction just this past month. Hmm...I wonder if Kevin Trudeau and Tom Cruise sang a Scientologist hymn at her funeral. Maybe they shared some chants about the evil drug corporations and how they're all trying to keep us alive longer just so they can make more money off of us. GRRR!!! That's so EVIL!!! We should be allowed to die young and in our thirties and forties! It's natural, dammit! Stop making us live longer, so you can take advantage of our frail bodies as they begin to whither and become more dependent on medical attention and antibiotics. We're not your ATM machines!

But if I can be serious again, for a moment, this woman...this STUPID person...basically killed her kid, due to stupidity, and we should look at as a lesson of what happens when we choose nonsense over actual science. And I'm not even appealing the medical establishment as an authority. All you need to do is use your base senses and see for yourself that holistic medicine doesn't work and that medicine that you get at the pharmacy is your best bet at overcoming illness.

You know, I have no problem with people contributing to their own demise, especially if they do it in funny ways. Stupidity is funny, except when it hurts other people. The fact that some poor child had to die to her own mother's complete incompetence makes me very not happy. On the day her daughter died, this woman should have been locked up...or punched in the face. One of the two.
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People are fucking stupid [Dec. 7th, 2008|11:15 pm]
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On the most recent episode of the 1Up Podcast, one of the hosts (I don't recall which one) was talking about the "controversy" of resale games and said, "I can see both sides of the argument." Oh really? Because I don't.

I can understand up the point where a game publisher may not want his product sold in a store that offers resold games. It's their choice not to do business with these places. But do I think they're entitled to stop gamers from reselling their old games or accuse said gamers of being pirates? Absolutely not! I don't care how hard you worked on a game. Once you've sold a physical copy, the buyer of that copy is entitled to resell that item any time he wants.

If I'm an architect, am I entitled to compensation if the original buyers sell the house to another buyer? Are they house pirates, selling the product of which they contributed very little labor? Of course not!

Video game publishers have been fighting resale for years, and even though, music, video, and books all have their own resale markets that existed long before the video game market took hold, video game publishers still think that resale is this emergent evil that must be shackled. Fuck them!

You know why I don't have any of the new consoles yet? Because I don't like where the video game industry is heading, where the companies are trying to control the degree to which you own a product. Digital rights management is bullshit. DLC is bullshit. Nickle-and-dime marketing is bullshit.

Granted, there is some merit to download services, as fans of sports games can attest. Getting new content for your games, months after you purchased it is a pretty groovy idea. The problem, though, is that game companies have gotten this idea of developing a game and then breaking it apart so that stuff that was intended to be in the game from the start is now downloadable content. And sometimes, it's even already on the disc! Fuck you! That's like buying the game twice!

I can't wait until the day comes that people get tired of buying a game at the store and then having to buy the second half of the game online. That needs to stop, and it's the gamers who need to stop downloading this shit. Stop downloading skins for your stupid gun or new levels that come out one at a time. Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!

Especially from Nintendo, the company that wants to give you as limited a storage space as possible. I hate Nintendo's storage system, and I won't buy a Wii until they fucking fix it. And I predicted earlier this year that Nintendo's "solution" was going to be online storage, which I know sounds retarded, seeing as they already have customers re-downloading content every time players rearrange "the refrigerator" (You suck, Reggie.), but since they seem to be bound and determined to fight what is essentially the industry norm (i.e., having a hard drive), I can't see what else they could possibly come up with. Besides, it's the solution that would give you the least amount of ownership of the content, so that when the day comes that they shut down the Wii servers, you'll only walk away with, at best, 500 MB of content, so that when Wii 2 comes along, they can charge you for all that shit again.


And speaking of their download shit, where the fuck is Earthbound? Why is it that Nintendo is so wishy washy about re-releasing this game? Every time there's a list compiled by fans of the games they most want to see released, Earthbound is always at the top. So what does Nintendo do? They give us every iteration of Fire Emblem, like anyone wants to play that. Gee thanks, Nintendo. Talk about a niche fucking game.

I mean, we just got a re-release of Chrono Trigger, a game which, like Earthbound, was an underground favorite at the time of its release, which has since gained overwhelming popularity. If we can re-release Chrono Trigger, now for the third time, why not Earthbound?

How come Square can completely redesign Final Fantasy IV from the ground up and put it on DS, but Nintendo can't even be bothered to copy the ROM of Earthbound and put it on a DS card.


Cecil and Rosa prepare to knock boots, in their own angsty way.

And here's another thing I heard. Gen Con recently attempted to give $17,000 to Christian Childrens Fund, in honor of the late Gary Gigax, who, astonishingly enough, was a devout Christian. CCF refused the money, because they felt that other donors to their organization might assume that CCF was being associated with or sponsoring the Dungeons & Dragons products, which we all know is the work of the devil!

You know, I know that it's the Christian Children's Fund, but I still find myself aghast whenever someone cites the devil as a reason to turn down charity. THE DEVIL! A man in red pajamas, with a pitchfork and horns, who has a pointy goatee, who sits on your shoulder and tells you to do bad things to people!

Fortunately, another less-snooty charity was chosen, but still, someone deserves to be punched in the dick over this.

Although, in CCF's defense, they don't proselytize to the children they help, which is good. There are a number of "watchdog" groups that feel that CCF should "help" these children with the gospel. I think these groups should go suck a dick.
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This is such a beautiful story... [Nov. 18th, 2008|12:00 am]
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Penn Jillette tells a heart-warming tale about a Jewish man's first bacon.

I believe he's right. From this day forward, the bacon cheeseburger should be the official sandwich of atheism.

Or at least the official sandwich of, "GOD DAMN, THIS IS A GOOD FUCKING SANDWICH!".




Damn it, now I'm hungry.
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Theistic Evolutionism [Nov. 6th, 2008|03:30 pm]
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Boy this is a term that annoys the piss out of me.

Just to set the record straight, I'm not slamming believers who have solid understanding of biology. While I have no reservations about employing arguments against fundamentalism that may simultaneously be unsavory to more liberal theists, I find the average scientifically-literate Christian to be fairly benign.

No, what I mean by "theistic evolutionism" is this way of turning evolution into a form of creationism. It's a Christian apologetic, basically. The basis for this apologetic is the same any anti-evolution apologetic, which is that life is too complex to change on its own, therefore God must be involved. The only difference is that they include evolution as part of God's divine plan. So, it's kind of the watchmaker argument turned on its side.

First of all, evolution is not a theological or even philosophical position. Second, you don't get your own version of evolution just because you're a theist. Again, most theists who understand science already know this, but it seems that some people need this explained to them veeery sloooowly. Whether you believe in a god or not is irrelevant. The theory of evolution is exactly the same either way. If you don't like the idea that the force that guides evolution is not an intelligent one, then you've got a problem, because that's exactly what the theory of evolution says. The external pressure of evolution is not intelligence; it's THE ENVIRONMENT. That's exactly what it says.

Third, I'm sick and fucking tired of evolution being such a focal point for modern theology in the first place. It's no more special than the theory of gravity, but you don't hear anyone going around calling themselves theistic gravityists, do you? Why is this such a subject of paranoia for some people that they have to arbitrarily pull aside this one theory and make sure God is involved? You don't see people falling over themselves to insert God into General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics. And that's kind of funny, considering the cosmological implications of those two. No, for some reason, it's always about evolution.

Besides, isn't there a redundancy here? If you believe in a transcendent God, then is it even necessary to single out evolution as a force that requires God's guidance? Wouldn't that be true of EVERY natural process, if you believe in such a benevolent being? Why don't you just say that God controls the universe? Seems a lot simpler to me.

The point is, evolution doesn't need an apologetic. It's a natural process on which a theoretical model is based. How many other models are you aware of that employ God in some way? Oh, I know. NONE OF THEM! That's because adding God to a model doesn't add to our understanding of how it works and is therefore asinine. IT'S JUST NATURE!

Schmucks!
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Fun with the Church Sign Generator! [Nov. 2nd, 2008|08:45 pm]
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I haven't played with this site for a while, so after showing this to my sister, I felt like pumping a few of these out...

Get on your knees and please God every day!
Of course, I start with the one that's sure to get me into the most trouble.


Kneel down ye sinners for streetwise religion.  Greed's been crowned the new king.
I'd call this METAL CHURCH, but that's a completely different band.


Is your faith slipping?  Talk to Deacon Verter!
Not the most original, but a good laugh nonetheless.



http://www.churchsigngenerator.com/
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Corrected: Shane Killian Gives Ben Stein A Science Wedgie [Oct. 27th, 2008|02:30 pm]
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Shane Killian might as well be the internet's equivalent to Mr. Wizard.  In fact, he's Mr. Wizard and Bill Nye: The Science Guy rolled into one, with just a pinch of Richard Dawkins thrown in for good measure. The guy is fucking awesome.  I love people who have such reverence for science. (...unlike Ben Stein)

Speaking of that washed-up celebrity and his crappy movie, you may find it interesting that there's a realtime rebuttal to "Expelled" available on the internet, produced by Shane Killian himself, to be played while you watch it.  In fact, it's something I'd never heard of before.  He made an independant subtitle track for the movie.  Now, I've heard of independent comentary tracks that you download as MP3 files, but a subtitle track?!  How's that work?!

Well, I haven't read up on it, but apparently, it's straight foward.  You download it from the following website and somehow use a media application on your computer to synch the track with "Expelled".  Of course, if you're like me, you probably wouldn't be caught dead owning the movie, but if you have any creationists friends, invite them over and annoy them with it.  Say, "Hey, wanna see a trick?  Put that in my computer."

http://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=27.msg216

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Bail Out Infidel Guy [Oct. 26th, 2008|11:20 pm]
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So, I got an email from Reggie Finley, that, if you've ever been a subscriber, I'm sure some of you received as well. Basically, IG.com is in dire straits and, barring some major bail-out in the way of donations, the site may disappear forever, and he'll be forced to rejoin the army.

Here's the thing. We're all feeling the hurt right now. I wish I could help IG out, but I can't. I have my own website I pay for every year (okay, so it's just the domain name), in addition to all the other bills that each of us have to pay every month. I'm lucky enough if I have the flexibility to buy stuff that I want, and it's going to be like that for a while. I presume a lot of people are in this position right now.

Unfortunately, I don't think Reggie's ever going to get that site to be what he wants it to be, which would be a regular source of income. There are way too many free podcasts out there, and, while they're not of the same caliber, they do offer comparable content that doesn't cost listeners a dime. Heck, YouTube is ripe with skeptic programming, from people like Thunderf00t and Shanedk. It seems that being a web celebrity amounts to little more than a hobby, and those who accept this plight are the ones who last.

My suggestion to Reggie is to get his own affairs in order first. If he needs income, he should just join the Army. He'll probably have to do it anyway, so just go ahead and do it. Second, reserve yourself with the fact that InfidelGuy.com is only ever going to be a hobby. Buy off your domain name for however many years you enlist, and park it. Take all your content down, and either leave a blank page or redirect it to Talkorigins.org. Then, when you come back, relaunch the site with a new focus. Content yourself with the fact that this is only ever going to be a hobby. Don't over spend yourself, and don't rely on your fans as a reliable source of income, or you're just going to find yourself back in the same situation you're in right now. Consider paid sponsorship instead of site membership, and use free hosting from sites such as YouTube, Podango, Talkshoe or other free media content providers.

And no, you won't be able to afford getting high-profile names to come on your show anymore, but if you're smart and are able to rebrand yourself, you may find yourself able to bounce back and be as big, if not bigger, than what you were before.

Just don't expect to make any money.
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YouTube Drama: VenomFangX bites off more than he can chew [Sep. 14th, 2008|02:00 pm]
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So, VenomFangX decided to join the annals of pro-censorship apologists, such as Jason Gastrich and Kent Hovind, by file fraudulent DMCA claims against anyone on YouTube using his videos to criticize or even mirror his content. Channels that mirror allows criticism from moderates and non-believers who disagree with Shawn's idiotic creationist view of the world, as Shawn will simply delete such criticism should it appear on his own channel. It also allows people to see videos produced by Shawn that he no longer wishes anyone to see, because they're understandably embarrassing to him. (Quick remedy for that: Stop being a creationist.)

This is a long one, folks! )
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Bumbling Internet "Ministry" Uses Porno Music [Sep. 9th, 2008|03:50 pm]
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Aaaaahahahhahaha!!!! VenomFangX, known by many as "the NEW Jason Gastrich", has done it again. Apparently, when shopping around for royalty-free theme music for his YouTube channel, Shawn happened upon a theme that, to many, would sound like stereotypical porno music. And in fact, IT IS! Oopsy doopsy, Shawn!

In Shawn's defense, he almost certainly couldn't have known that he picked stereotypical porno music. The guy has probably never owned a porno video in his life and therefore would have no idea what porno music sounds like. To us evil atheists, however, we know exactly what porno music sounds like. And Shawn... ...buddy... ...that's porno music.

In fact, the "composition" in question was used in a "movie" entitled, "Truly Nice Tits #7: Super Sized". And here to demonstrate this is Coughlan666...

Does this mean that Shawn secretly has a porn stash? Certainly not. I doubt he'd be stupid enough (underestimating his stupidity, I know) to use porno music, as I'm sure he'd expect many of his atheist opponents to be avid porn fans. (And of this assumption, he would be most correct!) Thus, he knows that he'd get busted immediately.

I think we can attribute this to a rather amusing coincidence that will have Shawn's critics giggling for months to come.

Oh, and one last thing. Here's a pretty good parody of Shawn's new intro. Enjoy.

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Thunderfoot: The soothing voice of outrage/...And something exciting in my neighborhood! [Sep. 5th, 2008|07:30 pm]
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I love how this man can be so gosh darn soft spoken about being indignant.
And he's right, of course. Creationists do little else but attack the very system of knowledge to which we can rightfully attribute the stability of our way of living. This alone makes creationists nothing but a bunch of anti-social, self-destructive motherfuckers, and the more we can rub this in their faces, the better.

*huff!* *huff!* *huff!*


...And in other news, those of you who live near or around Chicago may have heard a news story this evening about something that happened withing spitting distance of my house! Some guy held up a bank about a mile away from here with a gun that he ganked off of a police officer. When I say "held up", I mean he held the people inside hostage. They didn't say if he was actually robbing the place.

Oh, and he's also dead now. He shot himself in the head after being cornered by the flurry of police officers that immediately swarmed in from the police station, also literally within blocks of the site of the hold-up. Guess he didn't think that one through. Dumb ass.

I don't think anyone else was hurt.
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Funny Shit: Ricky Gervais [Aug. 28th, 2008|04:35 pm]
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I love deadpan humor...
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More About Solipsism [Aug. 26th, 2008|12:00 pm]
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In my last rant, I complained by the appeals to solipsism by philosophical moron, Dr. William Lane Craig. Basically, Dr. Craig is a big fan of the "brain in the jar" argument, stating that naturalism cannot refute the notion that reality might not be real, whereas Christians have divine revelation from God. I then suggested that divine revelation may also be subject to solipsism.

To simplify my point, let's ignore the lunacy of someone who believes to have a personal relationship with the invisible Magic Sky King and consider for a moment that the world may be only five minutes old. (This is another favorite of Dr. Craig, which makes it all the more beautiful.)

Suppose the world is only five minutes old. Everything you think you remember is actually just planted into your brain. Every memory, every fossil, every allegedly man-made object was all just poofed into the existence instantaneously by Magic Sky King. You can't prove that this isn't the case. Any appeal to your natural senses is undermined by the fact that it may just be an elaborately orchestrated illusion.

Now, what about Dr. Craig and his divine revelation? How does he know that what he supposedly experiences from God is real? The universe is only five minutes old. The day he converted and was saved, every time he's prayed, every time he's had that warm fuzzy feeling of God's presence, and so on are all the product of the implanted memories of the five-minute-old universe, courtesy of Magic Sky King.

And it doesn't even have to be Magic Sky King or anything ethereal. It could be a mad scientist lab implanting these divine experiences into a brain in a jar, marked Abby Normal (aka "Dr. Craig") It would be question-begging for Dr. Craig to insist otherwise. People mistake the natural for the divine all the time, and Dr. Craig cannot demonstrate that he is immune to this phenomenon. He would have to concede that he doesn't know that what he believes is absolutely real, either. Thus, Dr. Craig's own argument against atheism implodes in on itself.

Of course, as I said before, I totally reject solipsism, simply because the possibilities of things that we don't know are infinite, and thus there's no point in speculating the universally unknown. But I think the problem with most internet atheists is that they spend so much time arguing from a purely naturalistic point-of-view, that they're afraid to be silly. I'm a cartoonist, so I'm not afraid to be silly.

Besides, if you learn to argue silly things (i.e., argue like a theist), then you can force the theists to refute their own arguments.
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Solipsism Sucks or There Is No Spork [Aug. 25th, 2008|03:00 pm]
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I hate solipsism.

The notion of solipsism is that that which you perceive as reality may not be true. You could be a brain in a jar or plugged into the Matrix, for all you know. Ultimately, you can't even prove that reality is real. Regardless, 6.7 billion people (or at least those of us who aren't afraid of other minds) accept it every day without even thinking about it.

The problem that I've always had with solipsism is that, while we may not necessarily be able to prove that our reality exists, the possibilities of other realities are too infinite to even warrant serious consideration. In other words, you could be a brain in a jar or plugged in the Matrix, but why even consider these? Why not consider any a thousand other things that the human mind can construct? Solipsism falls apart when one realizes that there's absolutely no reason to consider a reality outside our own, and, no matter what, we are stuck assuming that the reality that we perceive is real.

Enter the Christian apologist (William Lane Craig, e.g.), who will insist that since we cannot even demonstrate that our base assumptions are provable, we must therefore take them on faith, as if unchosen acceptance of one's reality is in any way analogous to the totally and arbitrarily selected faith of the theist. That is to say, whether you are a theist or atheist, you cannot choose as to whether or not you believe that the world exists or that other minds exist, but you can choose faith in a God.

Now where is the Christian going with this? Surely, the Christian isn't justifying all faith, otherwise his argument would be pointless rhetoric that would justify the belief in pixies and imaginary friends. Somehow, it has to appeal directly to Christianity, or his point is moot.

And of course, the Christian is trying to appeal to the one ace-in-the-hole that separates Christian theology from all other forms of mental delusion: Divine Revelation. That old canard. Somehow, at the shallow end of the philosophical pool, Christians have convinced themselves that divine revelation solves everything! Don't know how you know things? God revealed it to you. (Sounds like the "Goddidit" argument, but that's for another time.) This is how the Christian separates Christian faith from blind faith.

As John Dill pointed out in his lecture on InfidelGuy.com a number of years back (yes, it's old, but it's still one of my favorite lectures), the Christian is simply trying to show that he has a philosophical point of reference that the atheist does not, and therefore the Christian employing this tactic will simply cry foul when an atheist tries to construct an argument upon that which is perceived to have a shaky foundation (i.e., philosophical naturalism).

But how does the Christian know that divine revelation is genuine? Why should the Christian's alleged relationship with his Lord and Savior be any less subject to the question of solipsism? Why is the Christian's one-on-one relationship with God given a get-out-of-jail-free card whenever slung into the arena of philosophical foundationalism? How does the Christian know that his perceived relationship with God isn't the product of hallucination, imagination, or even cybernetic nano-machine implantation? Suddenly, the foundation upon which Christianity attempted to justify itself collapses, and the Christian is left trying to justify belief in the tooth fairy to even get to his presumption of divine revelation.

Note that I am not seriously arguing that we should actually consider such solipsist possibilities as The Matrix; I am simply pointing out that the Christian cannot demonstrate that divine revelation actually comes from God, except, maybe, to appeal to other minds, which would be stepping naked into naturalist territory.

The point being that the solipsist argument can be thrown right back in the face of any Christian rhetorician, to the delight of us who've had to endure this annoying argument from the Christian himself. Let the Christian try to desperately swim out of the filthy philosophical murk that he laid out for us. And, for the love of humanity, don't throw him any branches! Let him sink.

Solipsism may be fun for movie fans, but in the real world, it's kind of dumb.
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The Amazing Atheist versus Li'l Sophia [Aug. 20th, 2008|06:00 pm]
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HAHAHAHAHA!!!! This is awesome...
Update: Apparently the video was taken down. A tragedy, as it was truly a comedic masterpiece.

Oh well, here's a consolation prize. It's my new favorite condescending atheist on YouTube, Mr. Pat Condell!
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Creationists: BAM! EAT IT! [Aug. 20th, 2008|06:45 am]
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Okay, another content-free post with just a video attached. Sorry, but Youtube makes it easy. I really have nothing more to contribute, so you don't really see me writing long-winded essays anymore. There are people who do this much better than I ever could.

AronRa is one such person. His videos are usually just prepared speeches that he rattles off to various stills and silent clips, but that's cool. He has a very relaxing voice, not unlike Thunderfoot.

This is his most recent video, and it's quite good.

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Dumbest Person on the Internet [Aug. 12th, 2008|09:15 pm]
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I would just like to state in advance that I am well aware that the following individual does not represent the voice of Christianity. He is, simply enough, an idiot with an impenetrable force field made of concentrated stupid. Naturally, that makes him VenomFangX's biggest fan.

This is Tony48219, or as he's going by today, THE PRODIGY Tony48219. He's had a few aliases on YouTube, but we'll get to that in a few minutes. First, watch this video. If you have any kids, though, you might want them to leave the room. This guy fucking swears like a mother fuck. Jesus be praised!
You know, if there's anything that brings atheists to the sort of RAGE that this moron is carrying on about, it's the fact that people like him even exist. Notice how he projects his own hatred onto other people and that he apparently has a problem with homosexuals, as every other word out of his mouth is "faggot".

And this isn't even the worst one. Check out his channel, and you'll find all sorts of examples of misogyny, homophobia, and racism. He actually has a videos about how you shouldn't date a career woman and how women should stay in the kitchen. In one where he attacks black women (yeah, I don't get that either), he actually complains about women who wear pants. Um... the sixties have come and gone, pally. Get over it.

But if you're going to check out his YouTube channel, I suggest you do it really fast. See, he's had some trouble keeping his YouTube channels open. Something about suspensions and promoting hate speech. I don't know. My finger might have slipped and accidentally hit the "flag" button. Oops.

More comedy from Tony. My favorite part is where he says that Jesus "died on the fuckin' cross". Way to speak the mother fuckin' word of God, Tony.
Why do people laugh at creationists? Only creationists don't understand why.

Oh, speaking of which, here's a Thunderfoot video. Excuse me if I've posted this before. I lose track sometimes.
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YouTube Pop Apologist Dumber Than Hovind [Aug. 11th, 2008|01:20 pm]
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Oh, Youtube. So ripe with comedy.

If there was three-headed monster with the heads of Kirk Cameron, Kent Hovind, and Ray Comfort, it would still probably be more intelligent than infamous Youtube parrot VenomFangX. I like to be personal, so I'm going to call him Shawn.

Shawn apparently has all of Kent Hovind's "science" seminars on VHS, because he uses them for reference material when making his own videos. Shawn doesn't merely repeat Hovind's nonsense; he repeats it verbatim, even going so far as to mimic Hovind's inflections.

After purging nearly his entire archive following alleged "death threats" (i.e., Operation: Get Rid Of All My Embarrassing Videos), Shawn is back with a vengeance. His latest video series is entitled "Evolution Wants To Make A Monkey Out Of You". And yes, he's simply repeating all the same crap he said in prior videos, such as "Satan Invented Evolution". Kind of defeats the purpose of deleting all his videos, doesn't it?

One thing you won't find in this new series, however, (not YET, anyway) is Shawn's revised view of the formation of the galaxy. In past videos, Shawn has gone on record as stating that the Earth revolves in a "perfectly spherical orbit" around the sun. Well, apparently, Shawn has seen the light and no longer believes in the spherical orbit. Oh, good. That must mean that he's going to join the rest of us and admit that the Earth's orbit is actually ELLIPTICAL.

Wait...no. He's not going to do that. That would mean that Shawn would embrace science, and we all know he can't do that. So he's going to dig deep into his bag of dogmatic idiocy and pull out... yes, you guessed it... GEOCENTRISM!
Yes, VenomFangX has stated that geocentrism is "very likely" and that scientists have been hiding the facts for centuries. Sound familiar, ladies and gentlemen?

Here's a snippet from the full conversation, which you'll find here:

Kabane52: If you applied your interpretation of that passage consistently, flat earthism and geocentrism would be true
Kabane52: Because very few scientists support those theories. And narrow is the way
Kabane52: So I think the salvation interpretation works better
Kabane52: What about ERVs?
VenomFangX: I happen to think geocentricity is very likely
VenomFangX: ERV's are explained a few ways
Kabane52: You might just be typing an explanation, but if you aren't, which ways? And by geocentricity do you mean that the Earth Solar System is the central solar system or that the sun revolves around the Earth
VenomFangX: the earth
VenomFangX: I happen to think geocentricity is very likely
VenomFangX: I think its possible
VenomFangX: http://stationaryearth.org/?page_id=7
VenomFangX: that video convinced me
Kabane52: I recommend that you take a look at mainstream science rather than one video.
VenomFangX: that video shows you 4 scientific experiments that have been censored from the public
Kabane52: Yeah, I'm extremely skeptical of such findings.

The color choices were mine, of course.

I now wait ever so patiently for the fall-out from this. I anticipate Shawn to either backpedal or (more likely) fully embrace this lunacy to the public at large and explain to his followers that the book of Genesis is pretty clear that the Earth came first and that the sun and moon were put into the sky afterward.

Of course, this also means that Shawn can no longer accept the theories of gravity and general relativity (not that creationism was EVER compatible with those things), so I guess Shawn's list of scientists with whom he is at odds would now include Darwin, Einstein, Newton, Hawking, Galileo, and Copernicus.

Well as Ken Ham would say, God was there before the scientists. Who are you going to believe, God or the scientists? GOD!

...numbnuts.
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The Christian Comfort Zone [Aug. 10th, 2008|01:45 am]
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Fundamentalist Christian apologist and creationist moron Ray Comfort has a blog called Atheist Central. Prominently on the front page, you will find a Letterman-style top ten list of supposedly poor atheist responses called "The Atheist Starter Kit". It's basically Comfort whining about all of the counter-arguments that atheists have confronted with, and ironically, the list commits nearly all of the fallacies it gripes about.

I've constructed my own little rebuttal, which I'm going to dub, "The Christian Comfort Zone". These are things that fundamentalist Christians are allowed to do to feel safe and secure in their little belief system. Whatever makes them feel good. In small text is Comfort's original nonsense. Here goes...


1. Whenever you are presented with credible evidence for God's existence, call it a "straw man argument," or "circular reasoning." If something is quoted from somewhere, label it "quote mining."

Christian Comfort Zone #1:
Pretend that all of your arguments are reasonable. Merely saying that you have a sound argument is argument enough. Ignore all that stuff about fallacies. Fallacies schmallacies! If you quote something from somewhere, don't bother making sure you understand the context.


2. When a Christian says that creation proves that there is a Creator, dismiss such common sense by saying "That's just the old watchmaker argument."

Christian Comfort Zone #2:
Don't bother constructing an argument that actually supports design. Poorly constructed analogies between living and non-living things will do. And if design argument deconstructions persist, just throw a hissy fit. That always works.


3. When you hear that you have everything to gain and nothing to lose (the pleasures of Heaven, and the endurance of Hell) by obeying the Gospel, say "That's just the old 'Pascal wager.'"

Christian Comfort Zone #3:
On Judgment Day, be sure to tell Jesus that you believed in him because he was the safe bet. I'm sure that's exactly the sort of faith that the Lord and Savior of humanity wants from his people. In fact, just ignore that betting is a sin, altogether. Put all your chips on Jesus and scream, "Hit me!" Don't duck.


4. You can also deal with the "whoever looks on a woman to lust for her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart," by saying that there is no evidence that Jesus existed. None.

Christian Comfort Zone #4:
Be sure to put the confidence you have in your faith into ludicrous speed overdrive. Anticipate the most vapid response an atheist could make and assure yourself, "There's no WAY he could make a better counter-argument than THAT!". You've got it made in the shade. Relax. Atheists are dumb.


5. Believe that the Bible is full of mistakes, and actually says things like the world is flat. Do not read it for yourself. That is a big mistake. Instead, read, believe, and imitate Richard Dawkins. Learn and practice the use of big words. "Megalo-maniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully" is a good phrase to learn.

Christian Comfort Zone #5:
Pretend that the plain text of the Bible doesn't actually say what it appears to be saying. When God appears to be commanding genocide, there are easy interpretive ways of pretending that it doesn't. And pretending is as good as believing. God is so good!


6. Say that you were once a genuine Christian, and that you found it to be false. (The cool thing about being an atheist is that you can lie through your teeth, because you believe that are no moral absolutes.) Additionally, if a Christian points out that this is impossible (simply due to the very definition of Christianity as one who knows the Lord), just reply "That's the 'no true Scotsman fallacy.'" PLEASE NOTE: It cannot be overly emphasized how learning and using these little phrases can help you feel secure in dismissing common sense.

Christian Comfort Zone #6:
Be sure to point out the fallacy that you're using immediately after using it. If you can beat the atheist to the punch, then what can he possibly say?! Nothing!


7. Believe that nothing is 100% certain, except the theory of Darwinian evolution. Do not question it. Believe with all of your heart that there is credible scientific evidence for species-to-species transitional forms. When you make any argument, pat yourself on the back by concluding with "Man, are you busted!" That will make you feel good about yourself.

Christian Comfort Zone #7:
Be sure to throw out a red herring that has nothing to do with atheism. Surely, there can't be any Christian that accept evolution as a scientifically valid phenomenon. Absolutely none!


8. Deal with the threat of eternal punishment by saying that you don't believe in the existence of Hell. Then convince yourself that because you don't believe in something, it therefore doesn't exist. Don't follow that logic onto a railway line and an oncoming train.

Christian Comfort Zone #8:
Your imagined threat is the real one. Ignore the fact that you have no way of knowing that you won't be punished by any other imagined being and immediately dismiss any that are presented to you. You don't need to explain why. Ignore the irony of immediately dismissing other empty threats out of hand. You're a Christian, and "Christian" is a synonym for "right".


9. Blame Christianity for the atrocities of the Roman Catholic church--when it tortured Christians through the Spanish Inquisition, imprisoned Galileo for his beliefs, or when it murdered Moslems in the Crusades.

Christian Comfort Zone #9:
Ignore other sects of Christianity that were merely following scripture to the letter. Pretend that the scripture doesn't supports such lunacy as geocentrism for which Galileo was imprisoned. Ignore the wholesale endorsement for cruelty that's in the Bible. In fact, just bluff your way through the entire argument. It's not like atheists can read a old Hebrew. God has blessed all lexicons so that only TrueChristiansâ„¢ can use them.


10. Finally, keep in fellowship with other like-minded atheists who believe as you believe, and encourage each other in your beliefs. Build up your faith. Never doubt for a moment. Remember, the key to atheism is to be unreasonable. Fall back on that when you feel threatened. Think shallow, and keep telling yourself that you are intelligent. Remember, an atheist is someone who pretends there is no God.

Christian Comfort Zone #10:
Don't be afraid of being ironic.
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My cousin's wedding [Aug. 9th, 2008|02:45 pm]
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Yesterday, I went to my cousin Brett's wedding. Normally I hate weddings, but this one wasn't too bad. Usually, you sit around a bunch of people you don't even know or like while wearing uncomfortable clothing that you only wear once a year at best. And it's not like you need to dress up nice for your own family. They know who you are! Who am I trying to impress here?

I am so opposed to formal wear that I rebelled against the tie today. As of today, I have set a precedent that will carry on from this day forward. I will never wear another tie. If there is a place which requires that I wear a tie, then it's some place I don't need to be. I'm tired of going to wedding and funerals feeling like I'm overdressed. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm going to rebel against the suit jacket as well. I'm tired of seeing other people dress comfortably and wishing I was them.

Assuming that it would be in bad taste to bring my Classic NES GBA into the church, I opted instead to admire the architecture of the building, as well as the fucking kick-ass speaker system. I'm serious, if people ever get tired of going to church (sigh...), this place would convert awesomely into a private theater. They'd just need to get rid of all those gaudy crosses everywhere. Of course, I was so lost in thought that I almost failed to notice that the priest had stopped reading from the Bible. I almost missed the exchanging of the vows! I'm pretty sure I got caught on camera at least six or seven times staring at crossbeams and speakers. (Do people actually watch their own wedding videos?)

Of course, the real party is the reception, where everyone forgets about all that Jesus that we had to hear about for the first hour and get down to some good ol' fashion hoof-stompin'. Fortunately, newlyweds had the foresight to request... nay... DEMAND that the chicken dance not be played. Unfortunately however, Shout, Love Train, and The Electric Slide still found their way into the set. Those sneaky DJs.

And following the tradition, I get bombarded with people asking me when I'm going to get married. Yeah... When I find a girl willing to put up with my quirks and shenanigans, I'll let you know. I'm not going to hold my breath. And in case you think that there's even a remote possibility that there's a girl out there who probably thinks I wouldn't be that hard to deal with, consider that I would never subject my family to something as traditional as the typical American wedding ceremony. "What?! No fancy wedding?!" Nope. Come on, ladies! I'm an available bachelor! Did I also mention that I'm sometimes very reclusive?

Yes, I really have no desire to spend money on a wedding or reception. If anything, I would throw a small party and tell my friends to come as they are. And the reason I have confidence in my friends that I don't need to demand that they dress a certain way is twofold. One, they don't need to impress me, and two, I don't hang out with people who dress like bums.

Anyway, at my cousin Brett's reception, I sat at a table with my brother-in-law, my cousin Josh, and a few distant relatives. (Well, they're relatives in the loosest possible sense, being the step-children of a long-deceased great uncle of mine, but that's neither here nor there.) The table soon descended into wackiness as Josh, who was very much the life of the party, started talking about pot. And while it was silly enough that the two of us sat there giggling like school children, it got even weirder when the other adults at the table joined in on the conversation and shared some of their own drug stories.

In fact, I kind of felt like the weird one, because I've never taking a drug in my life. ...That's no joke, actually. However, it was no less amusing, as I have no moral objection to marijuana.

Anyhoo, we got on the topic of pot brownies. Now, I never thought about this before, but pot brownies have the potential of getting you really fucked up, and if you've ever had pot brownies, I think you know why. See, pot gives you the munchies, and what's better for the munchies than a plate full of brownies?! So you keep eating and getting more fucked up.

It was at that moment I had an epiphany. They really need to legalize pot, because when they do, I'm going to open up a store and call it Hash Brownies! I'm going to sell nothing but pot brownies. Imagine the repeat business I'd get from that! I'd have the same people staggering in every five fuckin' minutes saying, "Got any more?". And I'd be like, "Sure, that'll be $15!"

And with the money I'd make with my pot brownie store, I could buy myself an old church and convert it into a stylish private theater. ...After I get rid of all those gaudy crosses everywhere, that is.
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Kentucky Man Pisses in the Fountain of Knowledge [Aug. 1st, 2008|07:30 pm]
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This makes me mad. And yes, I know this is old news, but still...
You know what I find most distressing about this? This is not a fringe thing. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people who live in this country who don't understand why the rest of the world laughs at the United States.

If you don't agree with the theory of evolution, then you don't believe in hospitals, aggriculture, or science. Sorry. That's the way it is.
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VenomFangX: Lying Turd [Jul. 25th, 2008|08:15 am]
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Everyone's favorite creationist Youtube moron, VenomFangX, called it quits a little over a week ago, following alleged "death threats". If you don't remember who this little buttweasle is, here's a refresher. It's VenomFangX (aka Shawn) getting owned by Youtube user, Thunderfoot.


Now, death threats are about the lowest form of douchebaggery there is. I mean, of all the people who've received death threats on the internet, I'm willing to bet that the number that are actually carried out are surprisingly low.

And I could speculate on who, if anyone, actually sent him these death threats, but it'd be pointless. It's rather curious that he doesn't come out and say that it was an atheist who authored these threats. He's never been one to waste time in slurring atheism, so the silence here is rather conspicuous. Perhaps it was another person of faith. (And given Shawn's knack for pissing off people of other faiths, I don't think we have to speculate too long as to which Abrahamic faith would condone death threats against a Christian.) ...But like I said, this speculation is totally pointless, because nobody bought Shawn's sob story in the first place.

And I mean NOBODY bought it! The following video is by a guy calling himself Clutchology. (Here's his blog.) In this video, Clutch basically states exactly what the rest of us suspected, that this is all a drama queen attempt to get attention and that Shawn would return in a very short period of time.


That's amazing, because within days of this video's posting, Shawn did exactly as Clutch predicted. He returned amidst of a blaze of glory! And he did so by collecting as many videos as possible of his detractors and supporters mentioning his name. Wow, how much time did that take to collect all those videos and edit them all together, Shawn? I bet you started the moment you announced your retirement.

(By the way, Shawn's comeback video is here, but I caution you, advance at your own discretion. It's about ten minutes of self-glorifying crap!)

Another interesting tidbit about Shawn's short-lived departure was that he rather selectively erased about 95% of his archive. Why not all of it, Shawn? If you and your family were in such danger that there was a risk in keeping your videos active, why were you so selective in which ones you left up? I couldn't help but notice that the only ones left on your channel are the ones in which you make yourself look like an ass THE LEAST. All of those videos in which you simply repeated the nonsense of Kent Hovind: GONE! Hours of humiliating video footage have been erased! All that's left is philosophical garbage. The products of Shawn's mental masturbation, basically. (And I apologize if that leaves an unpleasant vision in anyone's head.)

Fret not, though, because Shawn's videos are archived on an alternate account, known as VenomFongX, and they're not going anywhere for a while!

You know what Shawn? All the people you accused of hating you and pushing you out of YouTube; they don't hate you, and they never wanted you to leave. No, we internet atheists want you to stay around for a very, VERY long time. Because the more you talk, and the more you engage intelligent thinkers on YouTube, the more of a disservice you're going to do to fundamentalist religious faith.

So please, start posting new videos as soon as possible. We could all use the laugh! The world needs more moderate theists and atheists.
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Putting Creationist Arguments Into Perspective, Plus: Send Another Hovind To Jail! [Jun. 25th, 2008|07:35 pm]
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I don't really post about creationism anymore. Unless there's something that's really gotten my pissed off, I find the topic entirely boring. The thing is, if I find that there is nothing more to learn about a particular topic, I usually walk away from it. I still periodically run into people who are creationists, but as soon as they say "life cannot arise by chance", I'm already disinterested. Since that easily defeated premise seems to be present no matter who you talk to, I see no point in continuing.

This is also why it's not necessary to sit though a certain 90-minute movie about creationism, when in the first five minutes, the host proclaims that life, by chance, must have arisen from lightning hitting a mud puddle. I just had to get that dig in there for the idiots.

But every now and then, I see a video on Youtube, and I just gotta post it. DonExodus2 always posts these awesome videos, and I think this will help a lot of you out there more easily slap around your creationist friends, since it kind of delves into the psychology of creationism a bit.



I also thought it would be a good means of spreading around some rage over the recent suspension of yet another YouTube channel for daring to make critical and copyright-infringing videos of Kent Hovind's copyright-free ministry. I guess if your last name happens to be Hovind, you must have a real desperate wish for prison time.

You know, Erik. Just because you and your stupid father didn't have the foresight ten years ago to predict the power YouTube would grant to your critics, that doesn't mean that you get to reverse all of those non-copyright claims of your father's seminars. But don't worry. If you really want to join your father in prison, I know a few hundred of my closest friends and peers who would be glad to help you out.

Yes, that means you, boys and girls. You should be furious and angry about the way the Hovind crime family continues to abuse YouTube copyright policies, and you should definitely join all of us in a letter-writing campaign to Youtube to get ExtantDodo unbanned.
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Discovery Institute's List of Two... Yes, TWO... Biologists Who Reject Evolution [Jun. 18th, 2008|07:10 pm]
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DonExodus2 does it again. Watch as he tears apart this classic icon of Intelligent Design.

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Special Announcement [Jun. 11th, 2008|07:00 pm]
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Soon-to-be movie star Bill Maher. Man of the Year.
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Debating: To Self-Censor or Not Self-Sensor [May. 22nd, 2008|03:30 pm]
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I have to admit, YouTube has kind of spoiled me. It's easier to watch a video than it is to read something at Talk.Origins. And while I should be personally cautious of falling into that rut, YouTube has been a rather invaluable resource for rubbing things in the faces of Young Earth Creationists from a format that is not as easy to disect and misrepresent as a book or research paper.

Now, there is also a lot of unconstructive bickering on YouTube, and the Amazing Atheist sort of rides the line a bit. For the most part, he does a good job slapping around other YouTube users, such as Jezuzfreek and the infamaous VenomFangX, with varying degrees of grace. He's not nearly as kind and considerate as Dan Barker, but that's actually the least of his offenses, especially when dealing with someone as blatantly dishonest as VenomFangX.

But he's not always right, either. He does have a habit of hastily generalizing (a recent post about video games comes to mind), and I've noticed that he'll try to wing things that he doesn't completely entirely understand, just for the sake of having a response. For example, in his six part series "VenomFangX Is A Stupid Creationist" (yes, it's actually called that), he counters Shawn's (that's VFX's actual name) claim of a fossilized cowboy boot (with the foot still inside!), by conceding that fossilization need not take millions of years. TAA is actually wrong about that, because fossilization DOES require extended millions of years to occur, but that's no problem, because the example that Shawn had produced was not a fossil anyway. It was a boot filled with rocky sedement, and the bone protruding from the boot was still clearly bone, as indicative by its pearly white color. He also made a similar error when countering Shawn's argument about stalactites under the Washington Monument. (Here's a hint: The stalactites under the Washington Monument are NOT made of limestone, and are thus not analogous to regular cave-formed stalactites that still require millions of years to form.)

Nevertheless, (now that I've aired some of my objections to TJ), he's actually not too bad, and he's more than a match for Shawn's idiocy. In fact, if this were duel to the death, Shawn's analogous weapon of choice would be that of a toothpick, whereas TJ would be weilding a semi-automatic. ...And they both would be standing in an EXTREMELY narrow hallway. That is to say, even if TJ doesn't hit him with every bullet, Shawn would still be doomed.

But why haven't they debated yet? Well, the gauntlet had been thrown down months ago, and the whole thing was going to take place on Youtube. In fact, both of them have posted recent videos on the very subject. Here's TJ's...



Unfortunately, they had reached an initial impass, because TJ wanted to be able to casually cuss, as he often does, and Shawn would have none of that. See, Shawn's tender ears cannot bear to hear such fowl language, so TJ was expected to speak all gosh-golly gee-whiz nice.

At first (and for a while), I thought TJ was just being an ass. I mean, it would be easy to simply not swear, because you can still completely humiliate Shawn without doing so, but then as I thought about it more, it slowly dawned on me that if Shawn can be so objectionable to the mere utterance of a word, which he views as an offense to God, then what's to stop him from being indignant to actual sound arguments that he also views as a direct afront to his faith? Is that not the whole point of creationism anyway, that evolution is viewed as an atheistic afront to God? Is it not the very reason that Shawn frequently censors the responses on his own channel? Actually, yes it is, because Shawn thinks that being offended counts as an argument.

And I actually ran into this very problem myself on Youtube about six months ago. I was commenting on another video, and I had described the belief in God as being no more valid as a belief in the Big Bad Wolf. To someone who sees the Bible as a collection of fairy tales, the comparison is pretty sound, but to someone who actually thinks that the Bible God character is real, they naturally object, and I got one guy in particular who got his panties in a wad over my comparison. To him, it was a blatant "diss", but the only reason he saw it as such was because HE thinks that God is real. But it wasn't a diss, because the point of my statement was that God is merely a character in a book. Basically, he was offended because I dared to accuse God of being a fictional character made up by men. God forbid!

The principle here is that if we're going to argue with theists, creationists and fundamentalists in particular, then we need to stand firm on not allowing them to object merely for indignant reasons. The truth is the truth, regardless of whether or not it hurts anyone's feelings. So, although it still seems rather petty, I actually believe I understand TJ's principle for wanting to not self-sensor himself. If you let the creationists whine about everything they don't want to hear, then you've already enabled them the ability to ignore anything they want.

And really, that's the entire reason creationists don't accept evolution, because it's offensive to them. And as far as I'm concerned, that's just too fucking bad.
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Smart Girls Are So Sexy [May. 22nd, 2008|02:45 am]
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Sorry, I don't mean to marginalize you gals like that. But it's kinda true. I love really intelligent women. If you make me learn, I will probably fall in love with you. In fact, talk about dinosaurs, and I'll never leave your side!

Okay, so I found a new cool channel on YouTube that all you boys and girls should check out. Her name is Biogirl. She's both witty and funny, but she's not British like Thunderf00t. We won't hold that against her.

Here's a small collection of her videos in which she slays creationism, and there's even a related Desertphile video thrown in there, just for fun! Enjoy.

Oh, and I strongly recommend summoning the Colbert Genie. You'll understand...

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Wow... [May. 6th, 2008|11:00 pm]
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The most amazing thing happened today.

But before I even get to that, let me backtrack a bit and tell you about my family. My sister and I were never brought up with any sort of religious values. It was completely absent. We were told that there was a God, that he loved us, and, if we're good, there's some magical place we go when we die. Now, that may sound like religion to you, but there was no practice beyond that. We never went to church. We were never taught about Jesus. We didn't even have a Bible in the house. It was basically a universalist upbringing.

Of course, it didn't take me very long to look around at all my friends and realise that there were other flavors of theism. Of course, I wanted to know why we believed one thing and other people believed another, and there was never an answer. After a while, I started asking even more interesting questions, such as the strange preference for monotheism over polytheism. Honestly, what's so implausible about the latter if we already believe the former? Again, no real answer.

So, obviously, I came to the conclusion that this belief that we had was tacked-on and completely unnecessary. And from that point on, it was kind of strange approaching the subject with my family, because it felt like I had walked away from something that everyone else seemed to value intensely, even though our brand of theism was as innocent as it was (universalism is about as secular as theism gets, next to deism).

So, today, my mother has the whole family over tonight, and we're talking over dinner. Now, my family knows that I'm an atheist, but nobody's ever really cornered me on it. ...until tonight, that is! And it wasn't at all what I expected. I expected a lecture. Since I have a tendency to speak out against believers, I expected to hear, "You shouldn't be disrespectful of people for having different beliefs.". ...but that didn't happen. Instead, my family totally came out to me. My mother, my sister, and my uncle all basically told me that they are totally agnostic.

Now, normally, I would groan at the term "agnostic", because of several run-ins I've had with certain internet agnostics. You know the types. The ones who think that it's arrogant for atheists to outright reject the alleged existence of whatever arbitrary supernatural being (in this case, a god) they think we ought not to dismiss. And yet, the same argument could be applied to other supernatural things, such as pixies, but nobody's agnostic of pixies. The notion of pixies is dismissed outright, as it should. Atheists simply argue that gods are in the same realm of unverfied claims as pixies.

Rather, the agnosticism that I encountered tonight wasn't that kind of agnosticism. Rather, it was a refreshing sense of indifference. In other words, to the subject of God's existence... eh... they could really give a damn. But there is a definite preference for people who choose to think about morality rather than fishing it out of an archaic book written by ancient sheep hearders. Better to be thoughtful than mindlessly obedient.

It was just so strange to hear this, because I never knew that unbelief was a progressive force sweeping through my family. For all I knew, they were still the same bunch of God-Lite believers that they were when I was a kid. I just assumed that I was the black sheep and they were just letting me have my little space and they politely disagreed. Absolutely not! Somehow.... somewhere... my family finally kicked away the final vestige of theism.

...of course, considering that we started out universalist, it wasn't exactly a tough shackle to shake free.

And then the conversation turned into this really funny topic about how characters from the Bible, assuming they even existed, would be in jail today. We speculated as to whether or not Jesus would be locked up, but we concluded unanimously that Moses and Abraham would definitely be in jail if they existed in today's society.

My mom even went on to state that Abraham, who is the founding figure of all three of the major religions, was clearly delusional or perhaps even eating shrooms on the day that he decided to sacrifice Issac. But thank goodness he had that second hallucination in which God told him to stop!

It was just a laugh-a-minute table conversation over dinner. It was good and therapeutic.

And best of all, the weirdness isn't there anymore.

Well, I'm gonna sign off for now. I'mma go watch TV. There's a special about the disappearance of Madalyn Murray O'Hair on Investigation Discovery starting... RIGHT NOW!
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Pat Condell: Cynicism With A Smile [Apr. 28th, 2008|07:00 pm]
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There are a lot of great atheist YouTube channels out there, but this guy's channel is one of the best. Pat Condell is a great man whose channel you should subcribe to, because you won't regret it. Every time he updates, I squeal with delight.
Wasn't that great?! I love how he maintains a rather jovial and pleasant demeanor as he justifiably bashes George Bush and Tony Blair. Oh, those wacky British and their subtle humor! I love them so much.

Peace!
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Why Atheists Always Win Debates [Apr. 28th, 2008|12:00 am]
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If you've ever been on YouTube and looked up science/creation or atheism/theism arguments, you may notice a pattern in the names people select for themselves. The following video speculates that perhaps the way people name themselves is a subconscious reflection of whether the person is on the side of truth and justice or has aligned himself with the forces of EEEEVIL!

Behold...

And although the video doesn't mention him, the phenomenon also applies to the heroic Thunderfoot.

EXCELSIOR!
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Possibly the most offensive thing I'll ever post... [Apr. 24th, 2008|04:30 pm]
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...although I don't know WHY! Christians went to go see this movie in droves. Clearly, they were happy to watch Jesus getting beaten, so why not make a Wii game out of it? One such YouTuber asked that very question...


You know, if they actually made a Passion video game, they should give it a combo system, hidden/unlockable weapons, finishing moves, humiliation movies (i.e., an end zone dance), a time-attack mode, and an instant replay mode.

See? I told you it would be offensive.
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Ben Stein Crushed Under THUNDERFOOT! [Apr. 22nd, 2008|07:00 am]
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Okay, yes, I still have a monsterous bug up my ass about this movie, even though it did absolutely nothing over the weekend. Watch as our old pal Thunderfoot lays to waste any doubt that Ben Stein, co-writer of Expelled, has absolutely zero understanding of the subject matter.


How is it, that in 2008, we STILL have people in this discussion that don't know the fundamental differences between biology, cosmology, and chemistry? You'd think it would be very easy. The etymology alone should reveal the obvious blunders in Ben Stein's amazing stupidity. Biology=life. Cosmology=the cosmos. Chemistry=chemicals. Ben Stein=idiot. See? A third-grader could figure this out.

Now, while Thunderfoot does make a valid argument about the slimey way in which Ben Stein and Mark Mathis went about getting interviews (essentially to gather sufficient footage from which to quote-mine), he failed to produce the single biggest trump card against Ben Stein's claim, which is simply that they had decided upon the name Expelled long before the interviews began. This can be proven by simply going to Who Is and typing in expelledthemovie.com. What you'll see is that the site was registered on March 1, 2007. Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Eugenie Scott, and Michael Shermer were all interviewed later that same year.

Changed the name of the movie, eh? Bullshit. You had the title before you even interviewed any of the major biologists featured in the film. The only thing that keeps changing is the story that Mathis and Stein give to the media regarding this issue. To throw your own question back at you, Ben, what are you so afraid of that you have to hide something?


Anyone? Anyone?

Why do people get angry at creationists? Only creationists don't understand why.
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Like a fart in church... [Apr. 20th, 2008|05:50 pm]
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A visual metaphor of Expelled's weekend performance.

Far from the projected $23 million that the executive producer forcasted, Expelled, the movie that teachers a new generation of creationists that ad hominem arguments are acceptable discourse, barely broke even at a measley 3.4 mil. To answer the belligerant question, "What are you (Darwinists) so afraid of?", the answer is, obviously, not Expelled, although I'm still worried about America continuing to wallow in the intellectual stupor that even allows such a movie to break even.

Don't worry, Michael Moore, your record is in absolutely no danger. Not that you were worried about it, as you're probably just rolling out of bed right now.

Actually, the movie didn't do too terribly bad, considering its budget. I mean, even for such a poor showing, the movie may actually yet thrive on the same principle of minor success that keeps food on Uwe Boll's table. That is to say, low budgets means that even low grossing movies can profit. Still, once all the money is divvied up, nobody's going to get rich off of this thing.

Better start praying to the DVD fairy, Mathis.


Actual attendance shown of a weekend screening of Expelled

Okay, so it was in the top ten movies this month. But when you consider that it beat out the new Owen Wilson movie, that's not saying much. This is the dead season for movies. If this had been July, Expelled would have been eaten alive. If the movie even tops $5 million, that would be shocking, as the movie will inevitably begin its rapid slalom down the playbill.

I give it another week before it's naturally selected out of the theaters and rendered extinct.

Hey, Ben! America says...
YOUR MOVIE SUCKS!
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Expelled flunks in reviews [Apr. 18th, 2008|02:25 pm]
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Ah, there's nothing like the sweet, sweet sound of intelligence coming from movie reviewers across the nation:

The New York Times: Resentment Over Darwin Evolves Into a Documentary
Chicago Tribune: Ben Stein Monkeys With Evolution
Chicago Sun-Times: Stein's Case Bad Beyond Belief
E! Review: "Anyone? Anyone?"
Salt Lake Tribune: Stein Shuns Intelligent Debate in Dishonest "Expelled"
Star Tribune: Propoganda piece "Expelled" Flunks
Baltimore Sun: "Expelled" Failing To Make An Argument
The Flick Filosopher: Nazis! It’s all about Nazis!


The single best commentary on the film comes from Maryann Johanson from the Flick Filosopher:
"In a parallel universe even crazier than our own, Ben Stein is making a documentary about how the Nazis utilized the controversial theory of gravity to make bombs that fall from the sky to the earth, and so the theory of gravity must be wrong."

Exactly.

Of course, the opinions of various movie reviewers are largely irrelevent, especially when the movie already has a built in "teh media is ebil" clause. There are better resources for knocking down Ben Stein's wall of lies, damned lies, utter stupidity, and jaw-dropping ignorance. But it does feel good to look through the reviews and see that America is not so easily duped by nonsense.

The scientists are doing a pretty good job of fighting back, but there is one thing that's kinda pissing me off about the way the scientists are handling this movie. They're all pussy-footing around the notion that someone could get fired over intelligent design. Damn it! You don't have to apologize for that! Any scientist who tries to publish a paper that says, "This system is too complex, therefore it was designed by a supernatural being", SHOULD BE FIRED! Any university professor who shows gross incompetence and/or outright lies to his/her students about the nature of a scientific theory SHOULD BE FIRED! Anyone who circumvents the review protocols of a publication for the sake of publishing something that is not appropriate for the theme of that publication SHOULD BE FIRED! We're talking about people who are paid to contribute to the education of tomorrow's thinkers and the improvement of society in general, and we're worried about whether or not they were fired for clearly not doing their jobs. Damn it! You don't need to pay someone to say "God did it". There are people who do that for free on SUNDAY!

FIRED!!!!

But I'm not going to let that spoil my feel-good buzz, because now I hear that the film makers have also drawn the wrath of Yoko Ono, seeing as they chose to use the John Lennon song Imagine without permission. Get 'em, Yoko! Sing at them! Make them beg for mercy.

Unfortunately, I'm still sure that this movie is going to blow the doors off the movie theaters this weekend, but at least we can rest easy knowing when they're putting together the design for the DVD jacket, they'll have to stick to review quotes from religious organizations. There won't be any regular media quotes to put on the jacket. That is, unless they quotemine the reviewers the way they quotemine the scientists.

"This ... is ... a ... movie."
-Chicago Tribune
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Ben Stein Running Scared: Part Three of the Trilogy [Apr. 15th, 2008|01:20 pm]
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Ben Stein: "And what I kept wondering as I was making this documentary was, if they're so sure they're right, what are they afraid of?"

Ironic, considering that the producers of Expelled has done everything possible to suppress critical analysis of their film, such as not blocking early viewings by the media and ejecting well-known scientists from a perfectly legal early viewing of the film. As much as the negative publicity for the film made by people like me is likely to send people to see the film anyway, they behavior of those involved with the film is a PR disaster, and the message of the film is so wildly assertive in its portrayal of evolution as a form of Nazi-ism that even FOX NEWS gave it a ho-hum review in the past week.

Indeed, Ben. If people have to suppress their opponents, then what could they possibly be so afraid of?

Is it the fact that your martyr Richard Sternberg was singled out for his gross incompetence and not his theological position? Is it the fact that so-called "social darwinism" has nothing at all to do with and is actually antithetical to the theory of evolution? Is it the fact that your movie doesn't even take the moment to clearly define either side of the "debate", so there's no explanation anywhere as to what evolution and intelligent design even are? Is it the fact you don't even have a theory to provide and therefore there's nothing to even suppress? Is it the fact that, despite your wealth of political knowledge and respectable level of intelligence, that you got caught with your pants down making an ignorant documentary based on a theory that you clearly don't understand?

Even someone as emotionally manipulative as Michael Moore has the courage to thrust his tripe into the arena of criticism, and to his credit, he has no qualms about facing those people with whom he strongly disagrees. Ben Stein, and the producers of Expelled, however, have attempted to ensure that no intelligence is allowed in early screenings of this picture. I never thought I'd find myself in a position where I'd be praising Michael Moore, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

But why should I continue on with my assessment of Ben Stein's inability to rationally approach the subject matter when people more educated and qualified than even myself have done a fairly good job already. Let's go back to our old friend Mr. Thunderf00t and see what he has for us today, shall we?



Now, is it just me, or is Thunderf00t's voice strangely relaxing? By the way, Thunderf00t, I appreciate you using my joke of "Einsteinism", whether or not it was intentional. It makes me feel good when something I say gets echoed in actual academics. After I finish this delightful little post, I'm going to go fist-pump and then pat myself on the back for several hours.

It amazes me how Ben Stein spends so much time talking about Darwin when, by today's research, Darwin's original work is largely superfluous. I'm not denying that it's foundation to modern biology, but I'm merely pointing out that if Darwin hadn't discovered evolution, someone else would have. Indeed, observing the resident birds of a string of islands is largely pointless in contrast to observing endogenous retroviruses and comparative genetics. Today's science of biology is not "Darwinism", Mr. Stein, so if you please, kindly ditch your childish misnomer.



Additionally, the lack of any formal theory of the origin of life in no way constitutes as an argument against a theory that describes the dynamics of a biological system, for much the same reason that Thunderf00t described. You can no more fault Darwin for having no theory of origins than Newton for having no theory of atoms. Do not confuse the function of a natural phenomenon with its origin. In science, such arguments are completely irrelevent, and beligerence will no more make your case than when you presented your argument the first time. Phony arguments repeated ad nauseum will only register a resounding "ugh" from your opponents.



Indeed, all Ben Stein has done is make an argument that appeals to ignorance. What he is doing is no different than accusing modern science of lacking the omniscience to know more than what the limits of current knowledge would allow. In other words, he's being asinine.

Now, I fully encourage people to go see this movie. Unlike Ben Stein, I want as many people to see it as possible. Why? Because I have confidence that most Americans (or in the world, for that matter) will see the film as an insult to their intelligence. This is why, in my first volley posted on MySpace, I chose to make the theme of my presentation be Kent Hovind, so that you can appreciate the shock and awe of someone who is not suppressing the full implications of his cartoon worldview. Indeed, this is the subject matter with which people like Ben Stein want to replace modern biology.

To close this out, I present for one last series of videos by Thunderf00t. In this series, he takes on the Discovery Institute directly and reveals them to be the raving band of absurdists that they really. Much of the video you see in this expose is taken from Icons of Evolution, Discovery Institute's propaganda film prior to Expelled. In the second video, you will actually hear people from the Discovery Institute using an argument that is identical to one used by evangelical absurdist Kent Hovind. And then the argument gets evicerated. Enjoy.


A number of my peers have expressed that this film is due to bomb. I sharply disagree, mainly because it is a propaganda piece, and propaganda sells. It's particularly essential to understand that an alarming number of Americans actually agree with Stein's point of view, which I would think would be enough to get people in to see the movie. Additionally, the promotional campaign is being handled by those who were also on duty for The Passion of the Christ, and we all know how well that did. And if nothing else, the movie falls well within the dog-shit-on-white-carpetting range of things that can't help but draw attention to themselves, despite being utterly repugnant.

But what if my peers are right? I can only imagine the further damage such a box office disaster would do to the already irrelevent Ben Stein, who is only now topical due to this movie. We're talking about the guy who is best known for being the monotone teacher in the movie that was filmed over twenty years ago and for being the speech writer of Nixon, whose only quotable words, "I am not a crook", is one thing that Stein himself surely did not write. What would such a failure do to the career of Ben Stein?


Well, I guess there will always be eye-drop commercials.


By the way, feel free to pass that image around, if you like.
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The Deity Protection Program: Keeping your favorite deities safely anonymous! [Apr. 12th, 2008|07:00 am]
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Okay, boys and girls. It's science rant time! But we're going to do things a little differently today.

Now, I make no secret that I'm an atheist and disagree with literally every form of supernatural belief on a fundamental level. But I get so caught up in my angry tirades, that sometimes I wonder if I generalize too much. After all, I have Christian friends, and I know they're embarrassed by intellectual lag that exists in the Bible Belt. So I'm going to do something nice and show those of you Christians how there how you can deconstruct intelligent design and expose the creationism from within.

But first, here's a video...


About half way through this irritating video, you'll find a CBN (that would be the CHRISTIAN Broadcast Network) interview between Pat Robertson (that would be the CHRISTIAN Pat Robertson) and the latest outted anti-science moron, Ben Stein, talking about evolution, intelligent design, social darwinism, and God (that would be the CHRISTIAN God).

Okay, for Ben Stein, obviously it's the Jewish God, but still it's Yahwey. It's the same guy. But listen carefully as you hear Ben Stein reveal his reason for doubting "Darwinism" (whatever Darwinism is). He starts talking about how it leads to something called "social darwinism", which is the belief in higher races among humanity, and is therefore the seed of racism, sexism, and genocide.

I can only assume that, when talking about social darwinism, ol' Benny is referring to that old "survival of the fittest"/"law of the jungle" nonsense. Yeah, if Ben Stein really thinks evolution is the survival of the fittest, then he needs to go back to high school biology. In real biology, the opposite is true. Modern biology teaches us that diversity is key to survival. But we can't expect Ben Stein to check his facts now, can we? That would require effort. ...like going to the library.

It's just Ben Stein, attempting to pick up where fellow biggot Jerry Falwell left off, trying to irresponsibly smear intellectual progress, because he can't stand seeing his warped theology losing to modernization and a sturdy knowledge base of things that makes have to think twice about the rigid faith he takes for granted.

What's staggering (but not at all unexpected) is that Ben Stein goes right into the same creationist rhetoric that we've heard from morons like Kent Hovind and Duane Gish a million times before. That is that if evolution is true, then Christianity is false, and therefore there is no higher power to answer to and therefore no moral standard. Yadda yadda yadda. So he's obviously talking about religion, and he's talking specifically about a monotheistic deity who wrote ten rules on couple of stone tablets at the top of a mountain and revealed himself in holy scripture. Clearly, he's talking about Yahwey.

But wait! His new documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed clearly makes it a point that the intelligent designer is not necessarily the Christian deity. So then if the problem with evolution is that there's no higher power to answer to, then how does intelligent design solve this? Surely, Ben Stein isn't assuming that intelligent design speaks of a loving designer who created us, gives us moral laws to follow, and punishes us if we do evil things, right? ...Because that would be assuming that the intelligent designer is Yahwey, and intelligent design doesn't make any such claim.

No, the intelligent designer is an anonymous deity. We don't know who he is! *wink!* He's the ethyreal equivelant of John Doe. Or perhaps that would be John DIO. Ah, I've been waiting a long time to use THAT one!

An anonymous deity could be any kind of deity. He could be an evil deity who finds great joy in creating intelligent life only to watch us destroy each other in wars over oil, land, and contradictory dogmas. What a benevolent bastard! On the other hand, the designer could be apathetic. Perhaps he made us because he was bored and moved on. Maybe he doesn't listen to our prayers. These are alternatives that intelligent design must accept if its proponents are to be consistant in their claims.

That means that Ben Stein cannot project moral authority upon this being, unless he's willing to admit that this intelligent designer is one who sits on a big throne in the sky, wearing a crown and has a white beard. But Ben Stein dare not concede to that point. Better to concede that the intelligent designer could, in theory, be a magic sky king douche bag. ...because that's so much better.

And therein lies the irony. It's actually intelligent design in which God is silenced, hidden, and pretty much banned from discussion. There is no God allowed in intelligent design! They dare not speak his name, because it would expose their creationist ruse. Rather, they have to spirit him away (pun fully intended) and put him in the Deity Protection Program, supposedly so that the critics of pseudo-science can't find him. They've robbed God of his very identity. That's no way to treat your personal lord and savior!

And in another ironic twist, if we were to actually take intelligent design at face value, and if we can pretend for a moment that the intelligent designer is not Yahwey, then there's no particular reason to suppose that intelligent design is antithetical to evolution. After all, the so-called "theory" of intelligent design makes no claim as to who the designer is, so for all they know, the intelligent designer could be one who made a universe in which biological systems maintain balance via the process of evolution. If ID proponents deny this, then their ruse is exposed.

In fact, Dr. Kenneth Miller believes in just such a deity, and he has no shame in calling that being God. Amusingly enough, evolutionary biologists are at full liberty to express their theological beliefs! There's nothing about evolutionary theory that prevents one from being a theist, contrary to what lies Ben Stein is putting forth.

It is not evolution that is hostile toward faith. It is the faith... this particular scriptural literalist faith... that is hostile toward modern biology. THEY are the ones who build the false dichotomy between evolution and theistic belief. THEY are the ones who claim that if there's evolution, then there is no God. Evolution, on the other hand, does not say this.

What Ben Stein can't seem to separate in his mind is the difference between personal belief and scientific theories. One is not at liberty to submit faith in a science journal, as one the subjects in his movie tried to do.

See, while Ben Stein tries to pretend as though the interviewees in his film were silenced and/or fired based on their theological beliefs, the truth is that they were singled out for being grossly incompetent. One such interviewee succeeded in abusing his editorial powers to publish an intelligent design article in a science journal by circumventing the standard review process. Guess what, if you work for a publication and ignore standard proceedure, you get fired. ...of course, this jerk didn't have to worry about that, since he was on his way out anyway.

Another sob story in the movie is about a university professor who told her class that evolution is false, because no one has ever observed a dog turn into a cat. Here we have A TEACHER OF STUDENTS who grossly misrepresents a valid theory of science just so she could attack it. Anyone who actually believes that evolutionary theory somehow entails that dogs magically change into cats has no business being a teacher. The faculty of that university acted correctly in the best interests of their student body. After all, if you're paying for education, you have the right not to be tought by an idiot.

These are facts conveniently left out of Ben Stein moronic morality play about suppression, fascism, and biggotry. How ironic that a guy starring in a movie that denounces intellectual suppression actually supports a political agenda called intelligent design that imposes a suppression of its own upon the very character it attempts to liberate from academia.

There is no God allowed in Intelligent Design. But if you're a Christian evolutionary biologist or a Christian who is at least scientifically literate, take comfort in that you don't have to live with the burden of cognative dissonance. You are the ones who don't have to pretend that the designer could be anyone other than God.

And here's a bonus video. This half-hour video pretty much refutes everything Ben Stein's been blathering about on TV lately, and therefore it will probably trounce that stupid movie of his, too...

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Why "Choosing Hell" Doesn't Help the Fundie Cause [Apr. 6th, 2008|02:45 pm]
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Arguing with fundamentalist Christians is both an amusing and frustrating activity. Amusing because of how frequently they dodge arguments and avoid obvious conclusions, and frustrating because... um... of how frequently they dodge arguments and avoid obvious conclusions.

One of the easiest ways to trip them up is to examine their faith carefully and bring to light anything that makes God look bad, and then completely abuse their apologetic response. For example, if you point out that a loving God wouldn't send souls to Hell for the sins of their ancestors, you can pretty much sit back and enjoy your fundy friend's ability to completely miss the point. They'll usually respond with such irrelevencies as, "God doesn't send sinners to Hell. Those who sin CHOOSE Hell by separating themselves from God.". ...and of course, God being an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving being, is completely powerless to stop this from happening. So completely devoted to your autonomy is he that he won't even stop you from leaping into a lake of fire like a lemming into the sea.

But there are far more amusing implications to this response than that. Let's cross-reference this argument with the typical fundy way of assuming that Christianity has a total monopoly on morality. Since the Christians is basically laying out a moral system in which appeals to adverse consequence. Either you give yourself to Jesus, or you're going to be in a world of hurt in the here after. Oh, well I guess that since it's in MY BEST INTEREST, I better CHOOSE the right path for me! I should get down on my knees right now and give myself to Jes... Hey, WAIT A MINUTE!

Here we have a typical and common fundy rendition of morality, and hidden within itself is the very foundation of secular morality: self interest. Now, most hardened fundamentalists would chortle at this response, because as far as they're concerned, there is only an inate reason to look out for yourself but not others. Therefore, they presume that you need an arbitor from beyond space and time to offer salvation from this necessary threat of damnation in order to complete the moral system. But again, here within lies implicitly the very basis for secular morality.

The fact that there is an adverse consequence to you is all the reason in the world to behave yourself in society. Naturally, atheists don't believe in eternal torment, but there are consequences to anti-social behavior. A common fundy argument is to ask why atheists don't just go on a shooting rampage if there's no God. Well, because there are other people, obviously.

It amazes me how fundamentalist Christians so easily forget that a society is based upon a group of people living together, and if one rogue decides to cause a ruckus, the others will naturally stop them. See, since those of us who are mentally healthy have this thing called EMPATHY, we understand that the same inate drive for self preservation exists in ALL people, and thus if I were to go on a homocidal rampage, other people would try to stop me out of their own self interest. And since it's in my self interest to not want to be a fugitive for the rest of my life, I'd better not do things like that. ...not that I'd ever want to, anyway.

And by now, a few people are wrinkling their noses thinking, "But Neil, are you saying that the only reason you don't kill people is because you're dependent upon society?" Well, not entirely. Obviously, I have an emotional bond with my closest friends, and thus I wouldn't have to stop to think about coming to their rescue in times of danger. But the morality that I'm talking about isn't just a way of saying, "This is why I don't kill". It's actual an identification of the very principle for human preservation. It's not just a reason for avoiding doing that which is wrong. It's a foundation for doing that which is right.

For example, let's say another Hitler-esque despot were to attempt taking control of Europe. Fundies often use this as an example to show that atheists have no basis for going to Europe and saving millions of people from someone like Hitler. Gee, why should we save people half a world away from an evil homicidal despot on the loose? Oh, I don't know... Probably because THERE'S AN EVIL HOMICIDAL DESPOT ON THE LOOSE! I don't know about you, but I think it's in my best interest to keep evil genocidal maniacs from coming into power and building unstoppable empires.

Besides, history already provides us with the perfect rebuttal to this argument. What did apathy get us in WWII? Pearl Harbor.

And how quickly fundies seem to forget that Europe is an ally to those of us living in North America, and thus saving them is actually a pretty good idea. After all, I'd kind of like them to be around should such a despot decide to turn his attention over here. Confronting evil in an effort to preserve alliances ultimately boils down to self-preservation. You want your friends and alliances to be there if the same danger finds its way to you. It's only natural.

Of course, many people don't like thinking of morality in this way, because it sounds vaguely robotic. We prefer our emotions, and that's entirely understandable. Believe me, I am no stranger to the power of emotional bonds among friends and family. But what I'd like to point out here is that this basis for my morality founded in self-interest is really fundamentally no different than what the fundamentalist Christian has, except that mine actually appeals to empathy, which is to say that I acknowledge that there are other people in the world who are looking out for themselves the same way I do. The fundy, on the other hand, doesn't seem to understand how this empathy stuff works, and thus they can't seem to figure out a good reason to act decently in society unless they're threatened with eternal torment. Empathy is unavailable to them.

This only adds to my growing suspicion that fundamentalist Christians are sociopaths. Gee, no wonder Reggie Finley doesn't want these people to deconvert! They'd be dangerous!

And this whole thing kind of reminds me of a good joke I once heard. A university professor is talking about the philosophical basis for morality, when a young gentleman raises his hand. The young man asks, "But professor, if there's no God, what's to stop me from taking a gun to class and shooting everyone?". The girl sitting next to the boy raises her hand and says, "Excuse me, but can I get a new seat?".

----------------
Abbreviated Notation: Whenever I type out these long, ranting diatribes, I usually find a way to simplify them later. Indeed, a lot of what I say is redundant, and I'm aware that I ramble. Nevertheless, let's go on to the simplification.

Let's say a fundamentalist asks you, "Why should we stop murderers from killing people?".

The answer is simple: "I'm a person."
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More Input on "Expelled" [Mar. 22nd, 2008|08:30 am]
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Here's a pretty good rundown of what Expelled is about...

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_movies_blog/2008/02/is-ben-stein-th.html

To entice, the review even includes a clip of the actual movie.

As expected, it's an unconvincing emotional dreck.  Ben Stein interviews scientists who have either lost their jobs or have been shunned for publishing articles that talk about or support intelligent design.  And that EVIL Richard Dawkins... grrr... He's so HOSTILE toward those who try to inject nonsense into scientific literature.  (Note my previous point that science is SUPPOSED to be hostile, but whatever...)

As with any other career, in science, you are expected to do your job properly.  That means that publishing nonsense is not okay.  While Ben Stein tries to jerk a tear out of his audience, those who understand these circumstances will be unmoved.

I would expect people writing arbitrary nonsense in science journals to lose their jobs.  Wouldn't you?  What if they just wrote about whatever they wanted?  What if the article was about astrology or alchemy?  What if it was about new age medicine? These people would be outted as quacks and removed, and rightfully so!  You don't assert nonsense in science without expecting your peers to come down on you.

The fact that Ben Stein actually faults scientists for doing so shows that he doesn't understand how science works.  In science, you don't just say whatever you want.  It's not like public free speech.  You are expected to back up your claims.

What Ben Stein isn't telling the audience is that evolution isn't just some arbitrary scientific orthodoxy.  Rather, it is the well-established backbone of modern biology.  It is an observed fact of biology.  ...and if you think otherwise, I kindly advise you to visit a hospital and ask the staff was MRSA is.  Or next time you get a flu shot, ask them how they prepare the vaccine.  Or if you run into an ornithologist, ask him (or her) what a ring species is.  Or if you meet a anthropologist, ask her (or him) was a endogynous retrovirus is.

Of course, you're not going to find anything about those things in this film, because Ben Stein hasn't kept up on his science in the last fifty years.

The theory of evolution is not merely the assertion that evolution happens; it is a described process.  Evolution is the nonrandom survival of randomly varying replicators.  Thus all of Stein's "chance" arguments are bogus.  Beware of creationists doing math!

Scientific theories are models to describe phenomena.  In that sense, the theory of gravity is a description of the phenomenon in which things fall to the ground.  It is a theory of force attraction between objects of mass.  And interestingly enough, it's changed over the years.  Newton's theory of gravity gave way to Einstein's.  (Note: To creationist literature, this would be grounds for overthrowing the entire theory.  God forbid science revise itself every now and then!)

To replace evolution with intelligent design would be no different than replacing gravity with intelligent falling.  In a sense, it would be saying, "God did it.", which is not a scientifically valid statement.  That is to say, it doesn't tell us anything about the world.

And to a scientist who believes in God, it would be a redundant statement.  Just ask evolutionary biologist and devoted Catholic, Dr. Kenneth Miller.

...And if you are EVER so lucky as to run into Dr. Miller, be sure to ask him about human chromosome #2. Oh nevermind. Just watch this clip.



As a bonus, here's a delightful little clip of Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers talking about the film.

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The Easter Bunny changes his name [Mar. 21st, 2008|12:50 pm]
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This is patently absurd!

I'm as fierce a proponent for the separation of church and state as anyone, but COME ON! A few years ago, Walnut Creek, California decided that Easter eggs shall now be called SPRING eggs, and that the Easter Bunny is now the SPRING Bunny.

Come on, people! Stop giving all the holidays to the Christians!

The practice of coloring and hiding eggs quite clearly has NOTHING to do with Jesus. Along with baby chicks and bright pastel colors, the celebration of Easter, as it is depicted by PAAS, is quite obviously a secular celebration of the Spring Equinox. Heck, the name Easter itself has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity. And even if it did, it wouldn't justify changing the name.

It's like Christmas break now being called HOLIDAY break. Look, we all know that the schools let out for two weeks because of Christmas. Changing the name of it doesn't hide this fact. And it's okay, because Christmas is so engrained into western culture that non-believers get into the good will spirit, too. I have a tree every year, and I exchange gifts. And yes, I call it Christmas. Are we really so paranoid that there's a religious connotation to the name? Are we going to decree that to call it Yule Day from here on? I don't think that's necessary.

Regardless of where Easter came from, the traditions we all partake in are, in all modern aspects, a secular practice. You can hide Easter Eggs without believing in Jesus. I do it every year. If it was truly a wholy religious holiday, then Easter sunday would be just another day for atheists, agnostics, and non-religious theists to sleep in. The meaning of Easter in western civilation is clearly much broader than that. Changing the name of the holiday is just splitting hairs.

Besides, there are far more pressing religious issues in this country than the name of a holiday.
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PZ Myers gets "Expelled" from Intelligent Design movie [Mar. 21st, 2008|09:30 am]
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Ah, what incredible irony. Weeks before its official release, a scientist gets kicked out of an intelligent design movie meant to expose those who allegedly silence their critics.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/expelled.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/a_late_night_quick_one.php
http://amused-muse.blogspot.com/2008/03/expelled-from-expelled.html

PZ Myers was there with his family when he was spotted by the producer of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, who promptly had security show the scientist the door. Truly, the film lives up to its name. PZ Myers, you're expelled! No intelligence allowed!

Humorously enough, PZ was also there with RICHARD DAWKINS, but amazingly nobody recognized the famous biologist, nor others from his foundation who were in attendance. Apparently, PZ was playing Smokey and the Bandit while Dawkins played the role of "The Snowman". Gee, maybe they could have gotten Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Michael Shermer in with them, at this rate!


Richard Dawkins "sneaking in" to see Expelled.


In the past, I've pointed out that the biggest flaw in this movie is its stated premise, which is that "Big Science is holding back new ideas", which is sort of like saying that the problem with gravity is that it won't let us drift off into the vaccuum of space.

Science is SUPPOSED to attack new ideas! That's the whole point! That's how ideas gain credibility, by surviving the rigors of criticism. This movie is nothing more than a hyperbole meant to press the notion that believing in nonsense is all the reason in the world to have it tought in a classroom.

And, much like the Discovery Institute's prior video abomination, Icons Of Evolution, it attempts to present a false dichotomy between accepting well established scientific theories (sorry, evolution isn't going anywhere) and the belief in a diety. This has been thrown back in their face again and again. Sorry, but having the courage to embrace ignorance and stupidity does not make it any less so.

And making a movie about it to garner sympathy from a layman audience is pretty low, especially when you cut between shots of modern biologists and archive footage of Adolf Hitler. FUCK! YOU!

I always loved it when Kent Hovind used to quote Hitler as saying, "if you say something loud enough and often enough, people will believe it.". That seems to be the implicit motto of the Discovery Institute. Keep lying and making a lot of noise so that people will believe you.
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Evicerating idiots [Mar. 11th, 2008|01:30 am]
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I haven't posted a good anti-fundy post in a long time. I don't know if this one's going to be an actual "good" one, but it's just some stuff that I've had on my mind, so you may enjoy these little anecdotes.

1. Presuppositionalists Don't Care About Science
God damn, Christian presuppositionalism sucks. Presuppositionalism went from being what I believed to be the most competent defense of religion to being one of the most basically stupid, and I think even some of the theists I know would agree. See, the average Christian in this country would not find it very palletable, which is why you tend not to find presuppositionalism as prevelant as, say, intelligent design.

A presuppositionalist apologetic is designed exclusively to defend an extreme Biblical literalist point-of-view. That means that if you're a moderate, you're getting thrown under the bus and being classed an atheist. Yeah, it's that nutty. But, don't worry, because the entire premise is based on a false dichotomy between two worldviews, the atheist and the Christian, and the atheist one is a strawman, anyway. Believe me. I'm an atheist, and I know when someone's just making shit up about my worldview.

The jist of the argument is that the fundamentalist, Bible-literal Christian worldview is internally consistant and objective while the "materialist atheist" one is purely arbitrary. He then tries to suggest that the use of cognative faculties, such as logic, reason, and science, can only follow from the internally consistant worldview. Since the presupper has (incorrectly) assumed that the atheist worldview is arbitrary, he objects to any appeal to science or reason.

The error is that the presuppositionalist assumes that worldviews are based on authority, so he tries to make it a head-to-head contest between the mind of God and the mind of man. Of course, most sane people don't appeal to authority when using logic and reason. They appeal to the real world. He also makes the same basic blunder as the creationist by assuming that you somehow have to know the origin of the universe and all its constances in order to infer things logically, but there's absolutely no reason to assume this. After all, the whole point of employing logic and science is to find out what we don't know. It's like the presuppositionalist is blaming the non-believers and moderates for not having omniscience enough to have a complete understanding of how his world works.

And that is basically why presuppositionalism is wrong.

So now that I've given you a refresher, I had a thought that kind of amused me. See, the argument of the presuppositionalist is basically a way to monopolize the ability to appeal to logic, reason, and science. He'll insist that he can do it with his worldview, but the rest of us can't. So I started to think, why doesn't he do that, then?

Seriously, if the fundamentalist Bible-thumping presupper really has such a monopoly on science and reason, then he should be able to apply it within the context of his worldview and demonstrate how the fundy worldview actually works when using evidence to reach a conclusion. For example, there ought be a really simple way to explain why the fossil record is really just rubbish. In fact, he should have no trouble at all, aside from funding and man power (i.e., lame excuses! When has religion ever had a problem with funding?!), to go out to Montana and show that dinosaurs and mastadons can, in fact, be found in the same rock beds together. If the stratification of geography actually happened in the flood, then he should be able to embrace the so-called "sciences" of creationism or intelligent design and demonstrate their validity without much effort.

...But he doesn't do that. Despite claiming to have a worldview from which science and reason follow, I've never seen a presupper actually apply reason and science in any demonstratable way. And yes, I'm making a materialistic demand, but goddammit, he ought to be able to do it! What a coo that would be to actually demonstrate the alleged interal consistency of the fundy Christian worldview.

But not only do they not do it, they go well out of their way to avoid doing so. And you know why? It's because they know they're full of shit, and they know that their pitifully archaic fundamentalist beliefs won't reaffirm themselves in scientific experiments. They attempt to monopolize science and reason so that they can put it in a cookie jar and store it up on a high shelf where they think nobody else can reach. As long as they assume that they have the rest of us at an epistemological checkmate, they won't worry about whether or not science actually works in a fundamentalist Christian worldview.

...because they know they're wrong, but they don't care.


2. New Sins! ...says the Vatican!
Did you hear about this? Apparently, the Vatican has decided that the Bible actually can be dated, which I find hilarious. So much for the Bible being a cutting edge science book that's supposedly always been years ahead of human progress. The Vatican seems to believe that they need to add some new 21-century sins to the traditional ten. Where'd these extra commandments come from? I don't know. Did God send Pope Eggs Benedict a memo that there are some new mortal sins he wanted to try out?

Or maybe these "new" ones are every bit as eternal, but they were lost somehow. Maybe this is what happened to them...


Anyway, pollution is one of the new ones. Rather appropriate, because just like all the other sins, it's absolutely impossible to avoid doing it. I mean, unless you live somewhere that doesn't use electricity or natural gas, you're pretty much doing this 24/7.

Even if we overlook that, could imagine the influx of confessions at Catholic churches? "Forgive me father for I have sinned. I drove my SUV to work this week, and nobody was car pooling with me." "That'll be twenty hail Maries and ride your bike from now on, ya jerk!"

Another new sin is genetic manipulation. Fuck! There goes our aggriculture!

And naturally, drugs are in there, too. I'm sure they'll be happy to arbitrarily differentiate which drugs they're talking about. They're only talking about those mind-altering ones that you buy in the street, and not those prescription ones that you take for your depression. ...oh wait. Of course, I'm sure you'll still be allowed to drink your wine with your wafer, so don't worry about that one, either.

I'm noticing that this list is particularly leaning toward the left, which is refreshing in a way, but still kind of annoying. I'm surprised there isn't a gun control sin.

Oh well, at least evolution wasn't in there, for once.

Here's a rather amusing article about it: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/79254/


3. Making Intelligent Design People Cry
So, you know that the "Expelled" movie is being released soon. Of course, I've had to smack around these idiots who are like, "You can't say anything bad about this movie until you actually see it!". What a stupid thing to say. Of course I can say bad stuff about it. For one thing, if the premise of the movie wrong, then I'm certainly allowed to sweep the rug right out from underneith it without so much as having to see a minute of actual film.

The premise of the film is that "Big Science" is being intollerant and suppressive of new ideas. Obviously rubbish, because we live in a society where anyone can pretty much publish anything these days. The advent of the blog has made it quite simple for people of all ilk to share new ideas. There's nothing a scientist or a group of scientists could do to stop this information exchange.

The problem is that intelligent design is not science, and ID people don't like hearing that. Ben Stein complains in this new movie that the scientific establishment is not being accepting of intelligent design, as if being critical and skeptical are such bad things. If you've seen the poster for the movie, then you've seen Ben Stein decked out in school garb, ala Angus Young, with the tag line that innovations in science are lead by rebels.

If you encounter anyone who attempts to use this reasoning on you, simply point out to them that the rebels Ben Stein is referring to (Einstein, e.g.) didn't have to cheat by making a political demonstration out of the whole issue. In fact, politely remind this person that visciously attacking new ideas is what science is supposed to do. If intelligent design was given a free pass of acceptance, then it would be tremendously UNfair to every other theory of science, including those that intelligent design advocates allegedly support.

Basically, the entire premise of Ben Stein's new movie is that science is being a great big bully by not granting credence to naked assertions. Ben Stein believes that naked assertions should be given credibility. Ben Stein is wrong.
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