Good Old Neon

Organized religion has played, and has continued to play the role of aggressor and bully since its inception – so I take issue with your attempt to equate atheists such as Dawkins and Hitchens with fanatics and dogmatists on the religious side of the fence. Dawkins is, by trade, a biologist, of the ten books he has written, one, The God Delusion, deals primarily with religion and religious belief. The other nine deal largely with evolution, and yes, some touch upon religion, but that is because, when discussing evolution, one must also make mention of its opponents and deniers. Until relativel

When I was a kid, I thought I was praying to, or maybe it was just for, Apollo Creed.

Good luck, keep your wits about you, and you'll probably make it halfway through the second chapter. Godspeed, man.

You have a beautiful singing voice.

I'd be willing to bet that half of them are thinking about doing it, and the half that are not, are sleeping.

I base that assumption on a total lack of evidence, whereas a believer is more likely to view a lack of evidence as a precursor to faith. If strong empirical evidence pointing to the existence of god were to arise, I’d weigh it and rethink my position – but as it stands, given we don’t have any, an anti-theist positions strikes me as the most logical. We cannot say for sure that the universe is not perched precariously atop a turtles back, but until I see some pretty strong evidence, I’ll remain an atheist in that regard as well. I attribute about as much respect to invisible, mute, really shy

Well said Mr. Rumsfeld.

True, but they’re using science, not scripture.

As I’ve stated on numerous occasions, I don’t particularly care what someone chooses to believe, provided they don’t attempt to legislate or use violence to express their beliefs. Which is where we find ourselves today, with more than half the country obstructing civil rights on religious grounds, based primarily on a few hand picked quotes from the bible. I won’t apologize for finding that insane and entirely unacceptable. Nor will I apologize for feeling the same way with regards to using religion to obstruct stem cell research, among a host of other issues. With that said, I’m not sugg

Happy belated Matt - I hope it was great!!!

Responding to these sorts of posts is a no win situation, as any honest response on my part will come across as rude and disrespectful, and since you’ve replied thoughtfully, honestly, I don’t want to be disrespectful. With that said, for now, I will just say this: Pretty much everything that was once accepted as biblical fact has been proven false – man was not created, he evolved (the same goes for the earth’s geology) the age of the earth, billions of years, rather than thousands, the sun does not revolve around the earth, it is quite the other way around, germ theory, prayer heals, when

The report's conclusion (I apologize for the length): XI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS Our analysis leads to the following conclusions and final thoughts. 1. World Oil Peaking is Going to Happen World production of conventional oil will reach a maximum and decline thereafter. That maximum is called the peak. A number of competent forecasters project peaking within a decade; others contend it will occur later. Prediction of the peaking is extremely difficult because of geological complexities, measurement problems, pricing variations, demand elasticity, and political influences. Peaki

Our entire civilization, everything we do, rests upon access to affordable energy – primarily, fossil fuels. Civilization’s entire infrastructure is built and predicated upon the continued availability of cheap oil – and as the gas prices of the last few years have reflected, gas as low as $4 a gallon can throw our economy into turmoil. At some point, gas will price itself out of the market, possibly within 10 to 20 years. And as gas prices itself out of the market, food will soon follow. Presently, there are 6 billion people living on this planet – it has been estimated that the carrying c

Unfortunately, if peak oil proponents are correct, and we've reached peak within this decade, we don't have hundreds of years.

What would be shocking to me, is, if after burning through half of the earth’s “easily” accessible fossil fuel in roughly 100 years, over 1 trillion + (trillion?) barrels, not including coal, and pumping millions of years worth of stored co2 into the atmosphere in such short period of time, well, it would be shocking if we didn’t experience some negative repercussions. I’m about three quarters of the way through James Kunstler’s The Long Emergency, and unless we come up with some sort of miracle energy source to replace petroleum, like, yesterday, our civilization is pretty well fucked.

I’m not suggesting that all Christians view god as a super nice Santa Clause type. The truth is, neither of us knows what Sarah meant when she said “I have seen His work in others lives, and most remarkably my own. It would be easy to write a lot of things off as "fate" or "circumstance", but that's where faith comes in, right?” – I’m guessing it relates, at least in part, to both of our interpretations. More specifically, I was referring to situations in which, say, a person claims that god interceded and cured their cancer – an unambiguous statement that leaves little, if anything, to int

I would agree if not for the use of “fate” and “circumstance”, which, to me, suggests that god stepped in to make a bad situation better, or in someway changed the outcome of something or other.

I was referring to this:

If God is not responsible for man’s acts against man, and it’s all freewill, why does he intercede on some occasions, usually in rather mundane affairs, but not others, say, in Serbia, where infants were tossed in the air to be caught upon bayonets? And what of natural disasters that regularly wipe out scores and scores of individuals – if he is responsible for the earth and all its beauty, is he also responsible for its unstable plates, weather, etc? Do you believe God has a plan for us – and if so, is that not a form of determinism, and if everything is predetermined, where does that l

I desperately wanted to see it this weekend, but we were staying in North Conway, NH, and unfortunately, the closest theater showing it is in Boston - which, wtf – I thought it received a wide release? There’s one of those gianormous, small town-sized theaters up the road a bit, in Newington, NH – but they’re not showing it either. Noooooooooo - read the book first.

Congrats - you're all growns up.

The problem isn’t so much the followers, it’s the ideology. The bible - among other tracts - is desperately outdated, and followers who take their cues from these texts are basically subscribing to a 2000 + year old book (or books) that maybe doesn’t work so well in dealing with contemporary issues like same sex marriage, abortion, stem cell research, etc. If one is to take the teachings of the bible literally, as was the case throughout most of our history, (and still is in some parts) who can be blamed for taking a dim view of same sex marriage, abortion, stem cell research, other, “false” r

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You know there was a time, not too long ago, when it was considered patriotic to make personal sacrifices in a time of war, both in terms of lives and treasure - we generally consider that generation, when we consider them at all, the greatest generation. Now, we just whine like little bitches when we’re asked make even the slightest sacrifice - and some of the biggest whiners are the asshats responsible for getting us into this mess. The moneyed classes were given trillions of dollars in tax payer “bonuses” this year, not because they performed spectacularly, but because they brought our e

I ain't scayud, I was making a pizza with my daughter, so I thank the ever-loving universe for that.