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Shit, worship some God, that way you have a 1/ chance of choosing the right one... Or there may be no God, and your screwed anyways, upon which you won't know anything, but you won't be any better or worse off then if you HAD worried about it.

And a lot of the people saying "only god can reproduce the spirit" will use that as an excuse for treating clones as subhuman... Just like various "christian" factions (acting in a not-very-christian manner) have in the past for the status of "test-tube" babies.

Personally, as an atheist, and not subscribing to odd notions about "souls" or "spirits" or anything else that's not a falsifiable explanation of our perceived reality, I'll regard clones as human - except of course, that clones may have shorter lifespans if the telomere problem isn't sorted out...

Apparently (according to some documentary or other on the Discovery channel UK tonight, which I didn't really take in, being too busy with other stuff), the moon is slowly receding from us. In a few million years we'll lose it. This is due to gravitational friction, caused by the effect the moon's gravity has on earth's oceans.

There's some more on the receding moon here Be warned that the site that URL points to is an anti-creationist site. Not that you'd find me sharing any daft ideas with creationists, but its probably blocked if you live in certain less than enlightened states of the USA.

One way of fixing this is to dam the worlds oceans. That's one heck of a barrier..

An alternative would be to steal a moon off another planet. Scientists have pointed at Europa as a 'suitable' satellite.

Personally I don't plan on being about when they try and insert Europa into Earth orbit; if they miss, the results could be, err, sorta messy.

• How does one frame the argument that privacy is worth more than child abuse (to be provocative, for a moment) in a concincing manner to the supporters of RIP, who blather on about 'the children' at every opportunity?

• How does one frame the argument that privacy is worth more than child abuse (to be provocative, for a moment) in a concincing manner to the supporters of RIP, who blather on about 'the children' at every opportunity?

Notice that you ignored definitions 1-3:

1. a.Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b.A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2.The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3.A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.

This is one of those semantic games that you can play with lots of words that have very general sub-meanings. The Internet Infidels have a thorough well thought out response to the: Isn't atheism a religion? question.

Basically, they argue quite well, that given your definition of "religion", many things are religions, like: science, politics, and watching TV.

Notice that you ignored definitions 1-3:

1. a.Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
b.A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2.The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3.A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.

This is one of those semantic games that you can play with lots of words that have very general sub-meanings. The Internet Infidels have a thorough well thought out response to the: Isn't atheism a religion? question.

Basically, they argue quite well, that given your definition of "religion", many things are religions, like: science, politics, and watching TV.

Well, this would be a nice time to remind the crowd that the EFF is not the only foundation out there who needs a lot of help to finance lawyers to make good laws instead of only bad ones.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is out there to battle cases of separation of Church and State, Religious Freedom for Atheists, discrimination on faith (or lack thereof) and publishes a nice monthly paper (Freethought Today), which will be mailed to you once you become a member.

Go on! Don't hesitate! Join now!

For additional information, see also the Secular Web at http://www.infidels.org/

I'll go back to lurking now...

--
If you want to live in a country ruled by religion, move to Iran.

The Bush/Gore thing makes me sad too. I see reports on TV and in magazines like The Economist about their antics and shudder in horror at the things they come out with. Having said that, with a cooler head it must be said that this is a two horse race, and that a certain amount of politicking is inevitable when the voting audience is so apathetic (just as it is here, btw) and so huge.

Unfortunately, the realities of the modern political democratic process require a certain amount of what can be described at best as pragmatic game playing, and at worst as outright lying in order to get the player/liar in to power. They may not do all they say, although in fairness it's virtually impossible to say.

Infidels.org&l t;/a> has a well written peice on this, quite worth a read.

As I got older, there was too many things that could't be explained properly any other way except through a mystical/religious element.

If you don't have empirical evidence, then what do you have? What constitutes "proper explanation" if not sensory (== empirical) evidence, hypothesization, prediction, and test? I have never seen anything that could not be explained by current science or modest extensions thereof.

Thus my subject; if it has an effect on the natural world, it can be measured in the natural world, and thus it is not supernatural. Anything that is supernatural either has an effect on the natural world, or it doesn't. The first means that it's no longer supernatural, the second means that you never see or feel it. As such, how can it be said to exist?

These things were all touchy/feely kinds of issues that you can't gather imperical evidence on.

Oh, but you can. Any action you take is controlled by nerves, which are in turn controlled by various parts of your brain. We don't understand the brain as a whole, but we have a pretty good idea of how it works. Any action you take physically has a basis in electro-chemical interactions in your head. Your memories, who you are, is nothing but structure inside your brain.

Bertrand Russell, from a collection of his essays entitled Why I am not a Christian:

Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.

I defer further discussion on this topic to The Secular Web,

1. Yes, Genesis is to be read allegorically. That is the hard part about exegeses. Learning what to read literally, and allegorically.
Scroll down to "The Bible Refutes Creationism" to see the problems if Genesis is to be read literally.
http: //www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/def ense_of_evolution.html

2. The re-creation theory has been around for a while. I thought it was pretty strange argument at first, but it fits the data (Namely the earth is a few billion years old, Genesis has NO mention of ANY dinosaurs, the fight between Michael and Satan with Satan being cast down to earth, etc) and language supports that theory (buy a Hebrew-English Interlinear Bible.)

http:// www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.olivebranch.org. nz/recreation.html

A religion is based on faith; where faith is belief in an absolute truth without justification. In science, there is NO TRUTH. There are only theorems to be disproved. The scientific method is to continously adapt the "truth of the moment" by experimiental verification. Religious doctrine tends to be *the exact opposite* - faith without proof, trust in a power higher than our own. Why else is innocence venerated? Why was doubting Thomas scorned?

Please see www.infidels.org for some though-provoking essays.

I find it rather ironic that you deride the argument constructing abilities of others by posting web pages , when according to that very same link, your argument suffers from the Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle. Granted, Kodak is NOT responsible for the pictures taken with their film, Sony is NOT responsible for what people record with their VCRs (or walkmen for that matter). Nor should they have to be. It is a very convincing argument that service/media providers should not be held responsible for the content of their users, but you fail to establish that Napster should be considered in the same category as these other providers. Napster is different because it not only made its user base aware of the fact that they were committing illegal acts of software piracy, it ENCOURAGED them to do so while it profited from it. This would be like Kodak advertising special, enhanced "Kiddie Porn friendly film" or Sony releasing a dual-tape deck VCR under the advertising "This will really piss off Blockbuster!" 1 month before they went into court. Service/media providers should not be held responsible for the use of their products, but on the same token, they cannot be allowed toencourage the illegal use of their products to boost use or sales. THAT is what seperates Napster from the rest, and inevitably it will be what gets it shut down.

Again, please construct an argument. Napster is a filesystem over which users share files containing sound. It turns out that, given a filesystem, users will share copyrighted sounds. Really not Napster's problem any more than it's Kodak's problem that child pornographers use their film. I am strongly in the camp that says that the use of a medium where monitoring activity is possible should not lead to a mandate to monitor activity. Digital camaras should not be required to transmit their images to the FBI, phone switches should not have pre-installed taps and Napster should not have to monitor it's users file sharing transactions in order to prevent copyright infringement. These are all, as far as I can tell, the same issue: should the medium provider (profit-making or not) be required to sanitize and/or monitor it's usage?

But you cannot shut down all pizza parlors because they can be used for money laundering.

Perhaps you meant to construct an argument instead of introducing a logical fallacy.

SNIP

They start by arguing that since its said to be thought up by some mystery guy who dictated it, we just bring in to question his existance. Many are tricked by this.

Their thoughts follow: "Well, if he didn't exist, and I don't think he did, than all this preaching peace must be worthless--and I already know that preaching peace is deadly."

1. [Rant on; Bruce Campbell mode]

Well hello Mr. Fancy Pants! What is it with all this seriousness? Bang two rocks together, and listen up bucko...It's a JOKE! A joke for heathens, and, well, probably most non-Christians!

A Joke. You know..."Funny".

Ha.

Ha. ?

In the first place, I told you jar heads that religious people wouldn't like the story -- but you had to go and re-lig-ous-ly read it anyway. Like an itch that must be scratched.

Then you humorless louts come and complain -- indignant that you're part of someone else's JOKE. Well, I've had enough of it. It's like you primates have never heard of a religious joke.

Some you just had to jump in as if your favorite puppy was getting beaten...to a JOKE! No harm, no foul, no puppy!

A JOKE that you were told up-front you wouldn't like because you weren't in the 'in' crowd. Yet, you didn't believe me, and thinking there's nothing but religious people listening, you drag out tired stories as if they were gold. Gasp! Horror! Surprise!

Take this one, full of vigor, responding with a pedantic and unconvincingly humorless counter story as if I'm just going to say 'eureka' and join in with the Choir.

Just tell the ignorant heathens what they really think...as if we didn't know better. Remember: JOKE.

1. [Rant off]

If you want a serious response, take a look here

The terminology I use is that agnosticism is the belief that the existence of god is unknowable.

Atheism is merely the absense of belief in a god.

I would call many people who call themselves agnostics, "atheists." I would also call some buddhists atheists as well, as many of them have no belief in deities.

However, I know that many people who think they are agnostics say that atheism is the positive beleif that there is no god. In atheism discussions we usually differentiate that definition as "strong atheism" as opposed to "weak atheism."

See also: George H. Smith's "Atheism: the case against god." I've seen it in bookstores, but you may just want to check it out at the library.

Since this is the web, this would be a quicker intro to the terminology, including the differences between weak atheism, stroung atheism, and agnosticism.
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html

I look forward to your reply.

And if the Internet should require an unjust and unfair paradigm in order to perpetuate itself, then it too will crack, crumble and collapse, and it won't take five decades of Cold War politics for it happen.

Meyer writes well, but like those cats that were reared in an environment without vertical lines, he just can't see anything that isn't in his preconceived worldview. [Mind you, that's a common ailment in many people who believe in universals, as he quite openly admitted that he did.]

That's the reason why, despite a lot of analysis of Richard Stallman's writings, Meyer did not level any criticism whatsoever at the freedom of source code which is RMS's primary and vastly most important issue. The entire rant targetted only side issues at best, and irrelevancies at worst.

Meyer, you normally think and write very clearly, but that essay was a beatifully written piece of mental rubbish. To find out why, read the standard piece on Logic and Fallacies --- you've tripped virtually every logic alarm in the book.

A friend, for instance, runs infidels.org, a secular website with about 6000 documents in its library.

The Catholic Church is just a bigger, older cult - Well, it's what happens when a cult gets big enough to take over and control a state (the roman empire), and thus call itself legitimate.

Scientologists are trying the same thing, buying their way into positions of power, and using brainwashing techniques to stay there. As an atheist, I find both institutions pretty sick.

www.infidels.org

Warning: If you are of anything even remotely resembling a "fundamentalist" mindset, you will probably find this post flame-ish at best. You will probably also want to scroll down, because there is probably very little I could do to show you just HOW you are being led about (even to the point of showing you examples of how your own leaders have outright lied to you). I can only say, in this case, that I feel very sorry for you and that I hope that whatever god or gods may exist may take pity on you--especially since the actions of those who lead you are probably against everything the founders of your religions stood for.

I will also forewarn that I am in a generally pissy mood to begin with tonight, and many of my statements may come out more harshly than I meant them to. My apologies. I've had a bad day, and a bad temper to go along with it (I had to deal with Hellsouth about a problem which has been going on for well-nigh over three years). If things sting too bad, I suggest you take heed of Yshua's example and turn the other cheek and forgive me my tresspasses.

Now that THAT disclaimer has been taken care of...

Some anonymous coward dun said:

That's not true, what they want is to protect their families from harmful things. Beleive it or not pornography really is harmful to people, it helps increase rape and child abuse among other things. Porn addiction can occur and it causes real problems with families. This is not something that people need nor is the obsessive viewing of it in public at all healthful.

Assuming that you aren't an outright shill that is astroturfing Slashdot in support of fundy viewpoints--something which I cannot discount, unfortunately, because it is a fairly well-known tactic that is used by Religious Right groups on occasion--allow me to correct some misguidings and rip a few new holes in your argument.

First off:

That's not true, what they want is to protect their families from harmful things.

Well, for starters, I hate to tell you, but the major pusher of censorware in the debates nationally are not "concerned families" but rather multi-million-dollar funded PACs and pressure groups that have as an explicit goal the establishment of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in the United States.

Let me repeat that for you: The vast majority of groups that are pushing censorware in libraries and whatnot are multi-million-dollar PACs and pressure groups that have, as an explicit goal, the establishment of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in the United States .

Yes, you heard that right. They want to set up a fundamentalist Christian version of Taliban Afghanistan, up to and including bringing back Old Testament punishments for such things as homosexuality, sex outside of church-sanctioned marriages, and even "being fresh" to one's parents.

If you want to learn for yourself just how well funded these groups are and just how MANY of them are interlinked, go here and read up all about the Coalition for National Policy (basically the "think-tank" of the Religious Right in the United States; it is invitation-only, and contains many "fortune 500" individuals and state and national legislators). Then go here for some hard info on many of the Religious Right groups and their real agenda...or here or here (or here for a special page for those who've seen how destructive and utterly un-Christian the Religious Right is--I'll get to that in a sec).

For your info, by the way, the major folks pushing it in Holland are a little group called the Family Research Council. They were set up specifically as the "lobbying" wing of a group called Focus on the Family after the IRS threatened to yank FoF's tax-exempt status (it was set up under the same exemption as a church, and thus they aren't supposed to be doing political lobbying). One of the names you might recognise from them is Gary Bauer, their head; he recently did a failed run for the presidency. One of their favourite tactics, by the way, is stuff with stealth candidates who don't reveal links to the Religious Right till they're elected; they are also far, far from being merely a "concerned parent's group" (they are extremely homophobic, push very, very heavily for the entire Religious Right agenda, and incidentially the head of FoF is a "Christian reconstructionist" who thinks the US should be a theocracy complete with religious tests for government office). You can find out more info here or find a big ol' archive of their writing to their membership here.

If you want to know more about the Religious Right's agenda in general, I've put a much longer post here that even goes on about some groups that folks don't traditionally associate with the Religious Right (like, oh, Home Shopping Network's links with the Religious Right, or NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon's links, or the many links the PMRC has with the Religious Right).

Oh, and while we're on the subject of "protecting their families from harmful things"...you'd think if they were really interested in that, they'd be pushing for the Convention on the Rights of the Child to be ratified...but no...they're one of many fundy groups across the US that have lobbied specifically to KEEP it from being ratified, because they think it'll take away their right to force their ways on their kids, forcibly "exorcise" their kids, beat them, etc. (By the way, the US is one of two nations that still hasn't ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The other nation, Somalia, has a reasonable excuse for not ratifying it as it has no working government right now.)

For THAT matter, you'd think they'd work extra hard to protect their families from such destructive things as Bible-based cults (which do everything to isolate their members from birth, use outright deception to recruit members and keep them, and which are every bit as destructive as Scientology is--I've actually put up a post here comparing practices between the two if you odn't believe me, so you can look at the hard evidence for yourself). But no, they don't do that--they actively promote many of the Bible-based cults, because half the Religious Right groups could well be considered coercive in and of themselves and most of their hard-core membership is gotten from people in Bible-based cults (often people who have been members for generations and literally isolated and indoctrinated since birth--there's a college that has been set up for "Christian" homeschooled youths to train them to be politicians for the Religious Right), and their entire mindset shows just HOW cultic the whole mess is.

And before you tell me I don't know what the hell I'm talking about...I do. All too well. I just happen to be a walkaway from a Bible-based cult my family has been involved in for several generations; I was raised up into the whole spiel, and found out quite accidentially at age 12 that I had pretty much been fed lies...I found out later (partly from info regarding Scientology that included "is your group coercive?" checklists) that the group I was formerly involved in WOULD count as a Bible-based cult. The group I walked away from also happens to be one of the largest fundamentalist churches in Kentucky, and is the de facto center of the Religious Right in that state...trust me when I know all too well what I'm talking about here, and I still suffer after-effects from it. I would move heaven and earth if it meant some kid didn't have to go through the absolute hell I went through as a kid, being abused in the name of God. I'd love them not to wince whenever discussions of Christianity were brought up because it makes you flashback to just how fragging twisted some of the things that were done to you were. I'd love for them not to be scared shitless that the very groups you walked away from were working hard to put the entire nation under the same hell you walked away from--complete with force of arms, if they were to get power.

And yes, I can say that as a direct result of that I've been hurt by the Religious Right and it's just a wee bit personal to me. Then again, I think any kid who's been abused by another has the right to be pissed, and more to the point, to work to make sure that abuser can't ever hurt another kid ever again.

Beleive it or not pornography really is harmful to people, it helps increase rape and child abuse among other things

There has been only two studies that have ever shown a negative effect regarding pornography in general--the Meese report, which Edwin Meese III literally bullied through and had to have rewritten after the scientists he hired reached exactly the opposite conclusion, and the Surgeon-General's report on pornography in 1987 (by Dr. C.E. Koop--a Surgeon-General who was also appointed by Reagan, who pandered to the Religious Right on many issues). (As a minor aside--Edwin Meese III is a raving fundy, and is heavily involved with the Religious Right [see here for more info]. In fact, he's SO much in with the Religious Right that he's a member of the very secretive Coalition for National Policy [here's his info from the membership list here], and is involved in a Religious Right group known as the Heritage Foundation [more info on the Heritage Foundation here and here [the last article also contains info on another Religious Right group Meese is involved in]; as a minor aside, "Heritage" is a very common "code word" for fundamentalist/Religious Right interests, along with "family" and "Christian Life Center"]. In fact, he was put in specifically by Ronald Reagan, who was largely elected due to the Religious Right and who started the not-so-great Republican tradition of pandering to the Religious Right...needless to say, Edwin Meese isn't impartial, wasn't impartial, and was looking specifically for evidence he wanted to have "scientific proof" for a very specific agenda of the Religious Right in the US. Even worse, there is a fair amount of evidence from his own public speeches to indicate Edwin Meese may be a "Christian Reconstructionist" [Christian Reconstructionism is the canard that the Founding Fathers intended the United States to be a fundamentalist Christian theocracy and that it is the duty of Reconstructionists to "re-establish" this theocracy]; info here. In other words, he flatly had an agenda and bent the evidence towards it.)

Most scientists who have studied human sexuality, and specifically stuff relating to porn and to sex crimes, see so many holes in the Meese Report that it's not funny. There are no less than five studies which indicate that pornography isn't harmful (at least to normal people); more to the point, many of the statistics which have been argued to show that porn is harmful could also be argued to indicate that people into certain categories of porn are likely to be pathological in and of themselves.

A rather informal example is with the Japanese, and in particular, hentai comics (which feature sex and adult situations). Hentai is pretty popular and readily available in Japan, even to under-18's; some of it goes farther than most US porn does (Playboy just shows naked women, for example). The Japanese percentage of sex crimes is actually somewhat below that of the US, even considering that the Japanese are generally a somewhat more repressed society than the US is.

As a minor aside--rape and child abuse (except for very, very exceptional circumstances in the latter, and even often there) aren't so much crimes of sex as of power--in other words, the main component of these crimes and the motivation for them isn't so much sex as, well, power and domination over another by degrading them in the lowest way possible. Rapists are often found to be hostile against women period, and so rape them as a dominance thing; same thing with the vast majority of child abuse (the major exception may be child abuse in which there has been found actual pedophilia--a sexual paraphilia in which the person is actually sexually attracted to children--but even then, there is a definite dominance streak to this). Also, it's been found that treatments to try to stop rapists and child-molesters from having sex by attempting to curb the sex-drive don't work very well (again, the major exception to this is child molestation in which it's been found actual pedophilia exists)--they simply will rape their victims with objects or will find other ways to "get it up". This is because they're using their gonads as weapons--it's like trying to castrate someone to cure them of beating hell out of someone else.

There is a known correlation between rape (and to an extent, child molestation as well--most notably incest) and other violent behaviours--such as torture of animals when young, assault, etc. Most of these folks seek out violent porn and violent entertainment in general because they're generally prone to violence to begin with; there is some evidence that in extreme cases there may be an actual defect in brain chemistry to account for this. Needless to say, castrating a rapist or child molester isn't going to fix them, and neither is depriving them of pornography.

Another interesting statistic--there are some reports to suggest that there is actually a higher rate of child abuse (including incest) in households in which most of the family are members of coercive groups such as Bible-based cults or Scientology. This, again, probably has a lot to do with the whole dominance thing; coercive groups, which rely VERY much on a "master/servant" relationship to begin with, can't help things much. (In Bible-based cults especially, the whole "spare the rod and spoil the child" bit can't help either.) Based on my own experience (which fortunately did not include sexual abuse, but did include physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual abuse) I'm inclined to agree with this, if only because of all the other kinds of abuse which are the norm in such families.

Porn addiction can occur and it causes real problems with families.

First, a primer about "addiction". Addiction, in the purest sense (and the medical sense) of the word, is where the body chemistry changes to require the use of a drug to maintain normal body function; this tends to occur with narcotics, cocaine, nicotine, most of your "downer" drugs (including alcohol, benzodiazepines [Valium, etc.] and phenobarbital and friends), amphetamines, and (to a lesser degree) caffeine. (The "nicotine cravings" you get if you don't get your smoke, or the "coffee migraines" longtime coffee drinkers get if they don't get their caffeine, are actually withdrawal symptoms resulting from the fact your body has become dependent on that substance to maintain normal function.)

"Psychic addiction" as commonly described (where no actual physical addiction occurs) is a misnomer, and denotes a state where people feel they "need" something to "function". There is no real biological need for it, merely a "craving"; hence the proper term is "psychic dependence" since the effect is more of a "crutch".

Now, in some cases, this does occur; however, "addiction" has been used to describe "psychic dependence" for so many things (from overeating to sex to the Internet) that it's patently ridiculous. Better to say "obsession" because this is closer to what is happening.

I'm certain there have been a few cases where someone has become obsessed with porn to the exclusion of family. This has also happened, by the way, with TV...with the Internet...with religion (no, I'm not making this up--people in coercive religious groups WILL participate to the exclusion of all else including their family)...with food...with jogging...with dieting...and with literally anything else that makes humans "feel good". Does this mean we ban everything that humans find pleasurable? No.

As a minor aside--there is some evidence that people who do develop "obsessions" like this do have a genetic tendency to do so; it's basically a minor brain-chemical defect, much like a milder version of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Turns out that in a lot of cases, they can be treated with the same drugs used for OCD too (this has been especially useful in overeaters and in folks with anorexia and bulimia). It also turns out that most folks who do develop "obsessions" that could be termed "psychic dependence" can, again, develop "psychic dependence" on literally anything that makes them feel good (to an extent, this is why people tend to gain weight when quitting cigarettes; there is a measure of psychic dependence in cigarette smoking (along with the physical dependence), largely related to the rituals of lighting up, etc. when smoking, and many people tend to overeat to compensate with "crutches")...this is related to very, very primal instincts and emotional triggers in humans relating to comfort. One could literally say that small kids can develop psychic dependence on their "woobies" or other comfort-toys ;)

This is not something that people need nor is the obsessive viewing of it in public at all healthful.

Well, people don't need the Internet or Slashdot, either, and obsessive use of the Internet can certainly be non-healthful and harmful (ask any student who has ever flunked out of a semester in college because of excessive IRCing/MUDding/Everquest/MP3-scarfing/etc.). Doesn't mean we need to ban Slashdot or the Internet, though.

In fact, sometimes porn can actually be helpful to a relationship--such as when a couple gets ideas from a bit of pornography to try in their own bedrooms. Such things have actually saved marriages in past, and an increasing number of marriage counselors will actually suggest to couples who have lost lustre in their love-lives to *gasp!* rent porn movies or read articles in Penthouse (or alt.sex.*) to get ideas.

No, we aren't suggesting Junior be made to watch porn. For starters, he's probably not going to be terribly interested and will go "ooh, ickie"--exactly the same way even most adults will go "ooh, ickie" when they see porn that doesn't match their own particular sexual preference (most straight girls gross out at lesbian porn; same with guys and man-on-man pics; I think most of us not into boinking goats go "ooh, ickie" at http://www.goatse.cx, or those of us not into fisting go "ooh, ickie" at sites featuring fisting...I could go on). It doesn't scar us for life--neither kids nor adults.

I honestly expect most kids who even accidentially hit a porn site (which is unlikely if Mommy or Daddy is actually bothering to parent the little monster instead of using the Internet as an electronic babysitter the same way they used tapes of Barney the Insipid Purple Demon From Hell when the little monster was a tyke of 3 or the same way they use Teletubbies tapes with his sister of 2...and even more unlikely unless the little monster is precocious enough to be searching out warez or cracks, in which case you've got a wee bit more to worry about than little Junior maybe being exposed to nekkid women ;) are going to either be grossed out or very, very confused...in which case (assuming Mommy and Daddy are doing their job, and not using the Internet as an electronic babysitter the same way they use Barney tapes and Teletubbies and the entire collected works of Disney [both pre-Eisner and in the Dark Ages]) Mommy and Daddy explain that this is something not meant for Junior to see, and they distract him and steer him to something a bit more appropriate like YaHooligans or the like.

Just like what Mommy and Daddy do (if they're being good parents) if Junior accidentially picks up Madonna's "Sex" in the library. Or if Junior is riding in the car with Mommy in downtown and passes the Show-world Dance Emporium which features "Topless And Bottomless Men And Women". Or if Junior (Cthulhu forbid) sees two doggies Doing The Nasty in front of Goddess and everyone.

If you're doing your job as a parent, it's not going to permanently warp Junior's mind. If he grows up at age 16 and starts raping cattle despite your best job, you can safely assume he was probably bent to begin with (and if you do your job as a parent and actually parent the kids instead of using electronic babysitters or keeping your face buried in stuff while the kids are being babysat by the entire cast of Donkey Kong and each and every one of the characters in each and every game Squaresoft has ever released, you will probably notice the initial signs that the child is Seriously Bent and you will hopefully get help for that kid before he hurts someone).

Unfortunately, a lot of people are too bloody lazy to parent their kids, and are all too content to let folks with horrible, destructive agendas (like the FRC) parent their kids because they get fed the line "It's for the good of the children" (and these people are too busy with the grownup equivalent of electronic babysitters they don't even bother to research that these people are very, very, very good at lying or covering up their bad parts when they have to). No offense, but those kids would honestly be better off being raised by wolves IMNSHO--at least the kids would learn how to get along in a structured society, and have loving parents that gave a damn for them. (Yeah, they'd have a hell of a time getting along if/when they returned to human society...but half the kids now have a hell of a time, period.) And don't even get me started on those parents who look at their kids not so much as humans but as pawns or tools or (worse yet) all-so-much-more cannon-fodder for the Army of Gawd...if anything, those are as bad if not worse than those who just use TV and the net as a babysitter, because those kids get warped into more Borg just like their folks if they aren't lucky enough to have just enough of a factor that leads them to walk away from it all...

Bruno truly is one of the great figures of history. Robert G. Ingersoll put it very eloquently in his The Great Infidels:

On the sixteenth day of February, in the year of grace 1600, by "the triumphant beast," the Church of Rome, this philosopher, this great and splendid man, was burned. He was offered his liberty if he would recant. There was no God to be offended by his recantation, and yet, as an apostle of what he believed to be the truth, he refused this offer. To those who passed the sentence upon him he said: "It is with greater fear that ye pass this sentence upon me than I receive it." This man, greater than any naturalist of his day; grander than the martyr of any religion, died willingly in defence of what he believed to be the sacred truth.

...

He was the first of all the world who died for truth without expectation of reward. He did not anticipate a crown of glory. His imagination had not peopled the heavens with angels waiting for his soul. He had not been promised an eternity of joy if he stood firm, nor had he been threatened with the fires of hell if he wavered and recanted. He expected as his reward an eternal nothing! Death was to him an everlasting end -- nothing beyond but a sleep without a dream, a night without a star, without a dawn -- nothing but extinction, blank, utter, and eternal. No crown, no palm, no "well done, good and faithful servant," no shout of welcome, no song of praise, no smile of God, no kiss of Christ, no mansion in the fair skies -- not even a grave within the earth -- nothing but ashes, wind-blown and priest-scattered, mixed with earth and trampled beneath the feet of men and beasts.

The murder of this man will never be completely and perfectly avenged until from Rome shall be swept every vestige of priest and pope, until over the shapeless ruin of St. Peter's, the crumbled Vatican and the fallen cross, shall rise a monument to Bruno, -- the thinker, philosopher, philanthropist, atheist, martyr.

To start this off on an honest note (after flaming a Microsoft worker for not saying so w.r.t. a Microsoft post he made), I'm a theology student with the PAOC, although they have no responsibility for the words herein ... :-) I love my beliefs ... I believe in God and basic Christianity and the rest of it. If you don't like that (anyone reading this), tell me about it elsewhere and read my feedback on the Internet Infidels site. I would agree that most incarnations of organised Christian religion (I won't comment on others) are not perfect and, in some cases, bad. However, it should be pointed out that from within the worldview of true Christianity, organisation makes sense, even if it doesn't always work out well. The PAOC, for instance, organised itself mostly because there was a desire to share funds between individual independant churches to send people overseas with. In todays incarnation of it, there is still the attitude that we are an association of independant assemblies ... (we are a sister organisation to the Assemblies of God in the USA). Why do I mention all this? I don't want to compose a 20 page essay on the issue, but suffice it to say that Christians wouldn't be Christian if they didn't believe in getting together for Church regularly, that certain activities are wrong (like murder, lying, cheating or homosexuality ... none more than the others), etc. If you don't like the beliefs of Christians, that's not the problem of Christianity. If a person is truly a Christian, it will permeate their life and system of thinking. If so, it will affect what they have to say to their governors and how they vote. If this happens, you will end up with what looks like religion in government when in fact all you have is Christians who are voters. Yes, there are Christian-right groups who aren't thinking straight and not acting in love of the world while promoting their beliefs. Mind you, the rest of "us" try to keep them straight as much as the rest of "you" do. We just tend to be nicer about it ... Censorship? Just on a note that hits home a little, I believe that censorship is wrong to the Christian because, if anything, those who are able to control anything will control and stifle religion first. I'm not too worried about the religious right taking over the world (it won't happen) ... but getting my free speach shut up (including my belief that homosexuality is wrong but that I can still hang out with and befriend a homosexual) is something that really scares me ... ... have fun with this ... I'm not proofreading :-)

you're not helping. you're giving people false hope, and holding back the progress of rationality and science. Go to www.infidels.org and read up on why unreasoning, unquestioning faith is such a bad idea.

I see no reason to believe in the various deities that mankind has come up with over the years.

how much actual study have I done on the subject of atheism (and the proofs therein)?

A heckofa lot, thanks to The Secular Web. But that's not really relevant. I don't need a proof of atheism, I need a proof that some deity exists, and I haven't been given one yet.

how do I know there isn't a God?

I don't know that, and anyone who thinks they do is being absurd. AFAIK there's no decent proof that deities can't/don't exist.

how much of my belief system comes from my parents?

Seeing as how I'm an atheist and therefore don't have a "belief system", I'd say none. My parents are deists or agnostic depending on their moods. In other words it's not a big issue for them.

[...] science/atheism is a faith as well.

OK, here's the problem. You seem to think that atheists believe things. You're mistaken: we lack certain beliefs. We don't run around claiming "God doesn't exist, nya nya!!", we just say "prove it and we'll believe it."

We don't know what happened before the big bang (science can't answer that yet) [...]

If you understand that science doesn't have all the answers than why do you insist that it is a faith? (let's try to keep discussion of science separate from theism/atheism, BTW)

[...]and our basis of belief is pretty close to the possibility of a God (for He could have just started it all off with the big bang, and left us on our own.

So if it's "possible" then it's reasonable to believe it? I'm sorry, I just don't think like that.

why do you want to be right so badly?

Look in the mirror pal.

The only thing we want so badly is a proof that a deity exists.

-lev (an atheist)

I don't believe you.

Slashdot is not the only place where Christians are being actively oppressed. Here are plenty of other examples of how we are being attacked, slandered, and being denied the ability to run people's lives.

Go to www.infidels.org and read up on how stupid ALL religions are.

By definition, a religion is based on faith. What is faith? Unquestioning belief. Unquestioning belief is the anathema of the scientific method. What has science done for you? Well, you're writing on a computer, aren't you?

All religion does is offer a false hope to people. The world would be a better place if people would realise this is it, this is the only chance you get, there is no hope but that future which we make for ourselves. So don't fuck it up.

Even if, by some wierd twist of fate, christian doctrine was true, really, what did your wonderful god do? Denied us all immortality (there were two trees, remember?). Denied us equality with him. Git. I'd side with Lucifer, prince of the morning, named for the light, against the christian god, if either of them actually existed.

If you want to learn something about what atheists actually do believe -- as opposed to your caricature of them to make them look closeminded and you morally superior -- you should read "An Introduction to Atheism" and "Common Arguments". Of course, with your sense of superiority established around thinking of atheists as cowards or those with no good reason to reject your religion, I doubt you'll bother to learn.

If you want to learn something about what atheists actually do believe -- as opposed to your caricature of them to make them look closeminded and you morally superior -- you should read "An Introduction to Atheism" and "Common Arguments". Of course, with your sense of superiority established around thinking of atheists as cowards or those with no good reason to reject your religion, I doubt you'll bother to learn.

Oh please, not another "atheism is just another form of faith" argument...

As an atheist who finds this quantum evolution to be utter tripe, more akin to the dogma of religion than science, I find your comments offensive. Just because one person writes something half-assed, you decide to take a swipe at atheists. Well, I got a few questions for you.

• Since when is Belief in God intellectually credible? Please don't bother with any of the following arguments, as any educated atheist can tear them to shreds.
  • Pascal's Wager.
  • Arguement from incredulity (Well I can't believe that this happened, so there must be a (insert bullshit proposition here)).
  • Argument from design.
  • Affirmation of the consequent. Saying A ->B, B is true, therefore A is true.
  • Argument from Antiquity. Millions of people have been mislead for thousands of years, therefore its right.
  • Evolution violating the second law of thermal dynamics. The earth is not a closed system.
  • The dozens of others, just go read the athiesm logic FAQ.

In your world, is atheism solely the result of pride?

Does massive unlikelihood always cause your mind to boggle? What about literal interpretations of the bible?

Are you still clinging to a belief that the earth is only 5000 years old? (A much smaller, less mind boggling number)

Is your self-loathing religion the only source of decency? Are you only capable of acting ethically with the threat of your supernatural diety sending you to torture and torment hanging over your head?

Perhaps you can't conceive of other people being stronger than you are, acting ethically by reason rather than threat. Perhaps the evil, bad world you live in is an after effect of seeking moral guidance from an outdated book, which you allow some other man in a collar to re-interpret for you on a weekly basis rather than expending the mental energy to read and think for yourself.

Cheers,

I would assert the soul doesn't exist, except
as wishful thinking by a brain scared of mortality.

If people would realise that we've got no
hope but that which they make for ourselves,
and stop thinking death's OK because some
part lives on, in my opinion,
the world would be a bettr place.

www.infidels.org

I'm not hiding anything. Mail me at anatoli (at) dejanews (dot) com. I do read this account.

Don't pray for me. You are wasting your time.

Visit Infidels.org.

Please read this and then ask yourself again if Christians are really being persecuted.

You know, there are places where people really are being persecuted for their beliefs. There are places where people are thrown in jail or executed for not following the status quo. There are people who are sentenced to years of hard labor for not toeing the party line. And yet you have the sheer nerve to suggest that Christians (or anybody else) are being actively "persecuted" on Slashdot. Persecuted how? Please elaborate. Do you scream "PERSECUTION!!!" when some Anonymous Coward posts "Intolerant bigot!" in response to "God wants us to kill gays?"

Come on, grow up. Your worldview might not be appreciated or held by the majority of people who read Slashdot, and they might not agree with it, but that doesn't mean they're persecuting you. Claiming persecution is a slap in the face to the people around the world who really are being persecuted for their beliefs. Get real. If you want to self-righteously tell other people how they should live their lives, you should expect some negative reaction in response. And guess what .. that ain't persecution.

Or maybe this is all just a petrification lead-in?

What the f*ck are you doing on this forum, using a computer, if you object to scientists? Computers are a product of science. That is to say, they are a product of REASONABLE DOUBT, NOT IRRATIONAL FAITH. Go live on some hippy commune somehere, and don't blame me if your entire colony is wiped out be something stupid like meningitis.

www.infidels.org

• Christianity was clearly the driving force behind the worldwide elimination of slavery. (A first in world history, by the way...)
  • In those days, almost *everything* was argued from a religious standpoint. If you wanted to convince someone, you made sure to make a lot of references to God. The pro-slavery camp also used Christianity to defend their position. Christianity was used as a debating rhetoric tool by both sides of the debate, so you are wearing blinders if you only see the anti-slavery camp's use of it.

• Further, understand that the radical ideas in the constitution you claim to support were a direct outgrowth of Protestantism - our government is more closely modeled on Presbyterian church than on anything else that existed in 1776.
  • The founders of the country were Christian, but they certainly didn't use Christianity as a basis for the government. Quite the opposite in fact. Check this site:
    Some quotes by "founding fathers" of this country.
    Some more
    And some more
    Yes, they were Christians of one stripe or another, but it was their stepping away from orthodoxy and into a weaker more fuzzy religion that was the springboard for their ideals. They were men of "The Enlightenment", which was the beginning of the end for dogmatic religions. That they didn't drop their religion outright all at once doesn't change the fact that they were slowly losing faith. The irony is that a seperation of church and state actually helps the church. (Keep church and state tied together as was done in Europe, and each successive generation grows up more and more cynical toward religion.)

And finally, as to the more on-topic point: It doesn't matter whether or not you favor censoring porn when there doesn't even exist software that can do it correctly. What we have is software that attempts to filter just porn, but instead filters out non-porn as well (for example, denying access to yahoo altogether because some searches occasionally come up with sex sites). It also lets some porn through. In other words, the means to implement the censorship is flakey and broken, and as such the whole point is moot. Or at least it would be if the voting public had any clue how the internet works.

Exactly. Taht is an explanation based on faith. Faith is _defined_ as belief without proof. A true believer in the scientific method is faithless. He doen't know _anything_ for certain, just uses a theorem until it is disproved, or a better one comes along. Read up on this at
www.infidels.org

For pity's sake. There is no god.

www.infidels.org

Please go to www.infidels.org and read up on "burden of proof", "Occam's Razor", "the scientific method", "the logical impossibility of disproving a negative", "the definition of faith: belief without evidence", "transhumanism/extropy"

Then see if you still think any god, whether christian, moslem or jewsih, celtic, roman or egyptian, exists. I certainly don't.

Besides, who says that an absolute moral framework (Ten Commandments) are necessary to behaving in a socially acceptable manner? There are many atheist moral/ethical philosophies out there, such as Secular Humanism, which do have a "moral framework". Not to mention Relatavism, which does NOT have a moral framework - everything is judged independently.

Check this page on The Secular Web for more information on atheism and morality.

(!God) != immorality.

Cheers,
Brian

Besides, who says that an absolute moral framework (Ten Commandments) are necessary to behaving in a socially acceptable manner? There are many atheist moral/ethical philosophies out there, such as Secular Humanism, which do have a "moral framework". Not to mention Relatavism, which does NOT have a moral framework - everything is judged independently.

Check this page on The Secular Web for more information on atheism and morality.

(!God) != immorality.

Cheers,
Brian

Your reasoning is faulty. Supernovas, the organic molecules detected in interstellar dust, and pulsars spewing circularly polarised light all make it rather more likely than your figures suggest. Just because the universe is 99% H2, does not mean it is 100%. After all, all the universe is currently thought to be the www.infidels.org

Yes, but Christians really do need to be monitored. They're nutters, and they hunt in packs.

www.infidels.org

www.lucifer.com

Um, this was a GOOD study that showed that prayer does work.

The above poster is a damned anti-Christian zealot who will do something, anything, to attempt to discredit it.

Well, let me fill you in on something: prayer does work! This post was a blatant and sickening attack on Christianity, and whoever moderated it up: I will be praying for you. Let's hope that God is as forgiving as I am.

Actually, you can watch viruses and bacteria evolve in the laboratory - HIV being a particularly nasty example.

There is no God. All god does is provide a father figure for the sheep, so that priests can control them. Sure the false hope religion gives is comforting, but we must forsake God to realise our own power.


www.infidels.org

You're wrong. Ever hear of burden of proof? Occam's Razor? A load of power-hungry cultists writing the bible is much simpler than invoking the ineffable. I'm much more likely to beleive quantum physics than christian/muslim/hindu etc. doctrine. I have faith in nothing. Faith is belief without justification. The essence of faith is giving up your questioning, doubt and reason. I believe in some things, but only if they are not disproved.

The leap of _belief_ required to say the bible is not the word of the christian/jewish god is much smaller than that required to believe the bible is the word of that god. The christian god is no more valid than the roman pantheon, the irish pagan gods and nonhuman races, the egyptian gods. The silliest thing is - you christians are not even worshipping your *own* god - you're worshipping the jew's god. Most people in america are of european descent. You should be worshipping the roman gods, the celtic gods, or the norse gods, not some random (and bloodthirsty) god from a group of sheep farmers from a fault valley who'd been out in the desert too long.

www.infidels.org
www.lucifer.com
virus.lucifer.com

ESR cannot seriously study fascism without running into the unfortunate fact that Hitler was a neo-Pagan, just as ESR is.

Please don't drag out Hitler unless it's actually on topic, since the mention of his name tends to end most conversations. Thank you!

Sidebar: There are bad eggs in any group. In Hitler's case, he was not pagan but was in fact a Christian - in private and in public. That does not make all or even many Christians bad, but face it Hitler's a world champion undisputed bad guy. If your point is valid, you don't have to drag his moldy corpse up to prove it - your argument alone will suffice.

What puzzles me is how creationists can possibly think that christianity is true... There were equally valid religions before the chritianity/judaism/islam* block (*they're all pretty similar really). What makes christianity any more valid than the Roman Pantheon, or the Greek Pantheon, or Hindu, or Sumerian, or Aborigine, or Pagan Irish, or Mayan, or Egyptian, or any other of the innumerable religions that exist (many of which were popular when christianity was just a twinkling in a power-mad control-freak would-be priest's eye...) The basis of religion is unquestioning faith. That is to say, by definition, belief in the absence of proof. Science has no absolute truths - there are only theorems, that, if invalidated, are discarded. What has relgion done for us? millenia of stupid wars, suppresion of the social and intellectual development of the populace, etc, etc. What has science? Pretty much the entire modern world, good and bad - but you certainly wouldn't even be reading this without it. www.infidels.org www.lucifer.com

Yes, and I'm all for it! Actually, I think we need more of this sort of thing to raise the cyncism of the sheeple, so that humanity can throw off the self-imposed shackles of religion.

Religion's one big group delusion that is only around because it makes people feel better by giving them false hope.

www.infidels.org
www.lucifer.com

It seems to me that in our country today it is becoming acceptable for everyone to lambast White Male Christians.

Yes, America is a country that is well-known for its persecution of Christians.

Here are some shocking examples:

Life In Our Anti-Christian America

Look. Many "White Male Christians" have made it their life's work to "lambast" other groups. If it's not calling Muslims the "s pawn of Satan" or advocating killing homosexuals because the book of Leviticus says they should be put to death, it's blasting professional women because they have high-paying corporate jobs instead of a non-paying role as a submissive housewife.

I'm sorry if it offends you when people say that these views are completely full of shit.

But they are. They just don't fly anymore.