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EXACTLY! Steins' approach is tangential, which is particularly effective for propaganda purposes. And, amazingly enough, Stein happens to be a career propagandist!

One thing I've had trouble doing with Creationists is convincing them that just because they can pull some random, unquantified, and untested potential causes of error in scientific methods out to raise doubts about a scientific method not only doesn't disprove the particular method, but it also wouldn't support Creationism if it somehow did manage to do so.

For example, take my discussion with a Young-Earth Creationist a year or so ago. I described dating methods. She attempted to foster doubts about radiocarbon dating by talking about how "there could've been different concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the past" and about K-Ar igneous rock dating with something nearly as spurious. For the sake of diligence, I looked up these doubt hypotheses myself, most hits were to Creationist websites and not detailed. I then asked her to elaborate on these hypotheses, to be specific on the margin of error these doubts could potentially introduce. Unsurprisingly, she wasn't able to put-up so she wound up shutting-up.

"What would the concentration of carbon compounds in the atmosphere have to be in order to change a date from on the scale of tens of thousands of years, to fewer than 5,000 years, and what mechanism would you propose that would account for this sort of change?"

"Is the potential flaw in the K-Ar dating method substantial enough to cause an igneous rock that solidified less than 5,000 years ago to appear to have solidified hundreds of thousands of years ago based on isotope ratios?"

The moral: you want to object to a scientific method, you'd better have thought about the method and magnitude of the sources of error you're trying to convince scientists of; it's not like faith, where the mere shadow of doubt is catastrophic. Doubts must be quantified and their implications analyzed before any meaningful damage is done to a theory.

Ben Stein wins at propaganda, but fails at science.

Ben Stein's pseudo documentary has nothing to do with fact and reason. It is all about maintaining control over the ignorant masses by means of religion. People who believe in invisible sky faeries can be easily maneuvered using the lever of the pulpit. People who embrace empirical evidence, logic and reason are much more difficult to control.

Does anyone think it coincedence that this movie comes out just in time to stir up mindless, knee-jerk religious animosity towards 'godless liberals' when the republican candidate is not well liked by the religious right?

LOL Jobs is Ming who suvived (long story)and is using the Name Jobs as a disguse so he can kill flash and take over the earth in a suprise move. New movie The wrath Of Apple Ming or Ming Jobs revenge or The Apple Strikes Back LOL.

    P.S. My reasons why I wont buy an Iphone Intergrated memory, wired in battery, No SD memory expansion, Limited to one carrier and the number one reason I wont buy an Iphone or an I anything for that matter is Jobs is still in charge of apple. Until that godless son of satan is removed from apple utterly totally and completely I wont except anything from apple not even if they paid me millions to do so.

    Apple will never get my buisness not as long as they keep the evil Satan jobs in any way shape or form.

I concur. China is a beacon of shining light in this otherwise Godless, hopeless, and immoral world we all live in. Their advances in such areas as the arts, sciences, and humanities are light years ahead of anything the uneducated unwashed teeming masses of red-staters could ever come up with. /sarcasm

atheist -noun a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings. [Origin: 1565-75;

--Synonyms Atheist, agnostic, infidel, skeptic refer to persons not inclined toward religious belief or a particular form of religious belief. An atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings. An agnostic is one who believes it impossible to know anything about God or about the creation of the universe and refrains from commitment to any religious doctrine. Infidel means an unbeliever, especially a nonbeliever in Islam or Christianity. A skeptic doubts and is critical of all accepted doctrines and creeds.

Online Etymology Dictionary atheist 1571, from Fr. athéiste (16c.), from Gk. atheos "to deny the gods, godless," from a- "without" + theos "a god" (see Thea). A slightly earlier form is represented by atheonism (c.1534) which is perhaps from It. atheo "atheist."

Please have a commonly defined set of terms or else all arguments are are useless as the incorrect definitions.

You can't believe in one God or set of gods and by denying others be an atheist as some in these threads have said. As to which belief system is correct, have fun arguing.

Why is the creationism debate on Slashdot always posed as "Idiots who think God magiced the Earth into existence last tuesday*" vs "Reasonable people"?

Heresy!

It was last Thursday. Everyone knows that. Everyone who went to Thursday School as a child, that is. The rest are godless heathens, of course.

I'm reasonably certain that when faced with a guy who can build bombs, you worry a little less about his religion, and more about getting these bombs to where they need to go. After all, you don't see terrorists refusing to use Kalashnikov's just because they were made by those godless Communist's, do you?

Any non-Americans will be fine. Remember, bears of any kind are born with an innate hatred for America. They are godless killing machines. As an American myself... well it was nice knowing you all.

Let me clue you in. Just because you do not believe in god does not excuse you from having a religious framework. At a high level, this is easy enough to prove: if there is no god, and yet, religion exists, then religion must be solely a human invention and a social framework with exclusionary membership requirements. Basically, if people can act in a religious capacity and there is no god, then, it follows that people do act in a religious capacity even when they do not believe in God. By itself, this is begging the premise, but the factuality of that statement has been born out in godless societies, such as communism and atheistic liberalism.

For that reason, I don't accept that atheists can be fair minded or decent people because I think you are all self delusional. You've absolved yourselves of a supposed crime, belief in God, that actually has no bearing on the behaviors that you ascribe to organizing around such beliefs. Lacking any sense of awareness of what you really are, but having the same organizational bent as a religion, you are more likely than any other organization to engage in the behavior that you accuse religions of.

So yes, you do seek to destroy humanity in accordance with your religion. First, you deny humanity any sort of priviledge space despite you being a member of that group, and seek to stop those that would. Then, you argue that infanticide is justifiable because a fetus is not alive, while at the same time, you argue that animals should triumph over humans. We're all meat, you would argue, and so it is perfectly natural that a human should be eaten by a wolf or a bear as much as a human would eat a cow. It's justice to you.

At the end of the day, you ask that I and others do not discriminate against you for your beliefs? That's crazy. How could we not despise you. I want to associate with people, and be led by people, that want humans to eat cows and not be eaten by bears. It's better for -our team-, the human team. If you want to give up an arm or a leg for the bears to eat, go right ahead, but, since you aren't willing to play on the human team, then there's no reason to compel the rest of us to trust you, as you already said we cannot.

Unfortunately not in the UK yet :(

Although they get some props for actually displaying a custom "Sorry England, its coming soon" rather than the customary "You are outside the US, you must be godless barbarians who cant possible want/have the means to view this and anyway arent going to anytime soon. So There."

Its actually a lot nicer when companies do this because at least you know they have thought of your market area and have some plans to offer the service to you to when reasonably practical.

Ah, the strawman of Hitler and Stalin and Mao. With ignorant raving loons like yourself it is only a matter of time. Too bad the historical facts just don't support your nonsensical argument. Communism IS a religion: it replaces one set of irrational beliefs with another. Both are irrational ideologies. Atheism and science, on the other hand, are the antithesis of this; they are rational assertions based on evidence and are open to change and correction in the event that new evidence comes to light. Communism, naziism and fascism are all social systems that self-destructed as a result of irrational ideology. Show me a society that self-destructed because of too much logic and rational thought, and then we might have something to argue about. In the meantime, be sure to have a look at Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. They are the most developed countries in the world, with the highest standards of living, highest literacy rates, lowest crime rates, lowest teen-pregnancy rates, and highest economic and social equity rates. They are also the countries with the highest levels of atheism (80% in Sweden). Where's your argument now?

So yes, you do seek to destroy humanity in accordance with your religion

Wow. In your mind my assertion that all thinking and feeling creatures should be awarded rights and protections makes me "seek to destroy humanity." What a paragon of rationality and clear thinking you are.

I want to associate with people, and be led by people, that want humans to eat cows and not be eaten by bears. It's better for -our team-, the human team.

So even though we can "build skyscrapers and spaceships" it's still eat-or-be-eaten to you, hmm? There can be no peaceful co-existence? No harmony with nature? I may think that we are no more entitled to privilege than animals, but it's you who thinks humans are no different than animals and should therefore have no greater obligations or responsibilities. No, the truth has come out: it's you who doesn't care about our planet or the other creatures with whom we share it, because in your mind it's us against them. Your grotesque egocentrism and self-importance is both monstrous and pathetic. It is you, with your barbaric irrationality and wanton destructiveness, who are to be despised. And it is rational people like me - scientists and philosophers - who are left to clean up after your mess; it is up to me and others like me to do the heavy lifting of civilization: to abolish slavery despite its sanction in the Bible, to invent antibiotics and cure disease where the religious were sure it was all just 'possession by Satan', and to create real miracles and wonders like cell phones and computers, where you would be content with burning bushes.

If there has ever been a more circular, self-agrandizing statement than this I've certainly never seen it.

Trust me. You are the one that is the same as a monkey. I'm not. So, why don't you go have a banana or throw poop at something, while I do the heavy lifting of thinking for you. Are you litter trained?

This is a joke, right? I write that, "all thinking meat is the same" and you think I believe in magic spirits? Wow.

There's no basis for that belief at all, that's what I'm saying. All meat is not the same. All animals are not the same. Humans have skyscrapers and spaceships and guns, and animals, well, throw poop at each other.

The fact that you are unable to value anything without a magic sky-daddy telling you what is good and bad, what is right and wrong, what is important and unimportant is entirely your problem. I assure you that the hundreds of millions of atheists around the world are perfectly capable of valuing biodiversity and the beauty in the natural world without having to be ordered to do so under penalty of eternal torture by a comicbook superhero who lives in the clouds.

Let me clue you in. Just because you do not believe in god does not excuse you from having a religious framework. At a high level, this is easy enough to prove: if there is no god, and yet, religion exists, then religion must be solely a human invention and a social framework with exclusionary membership requirements. Basically, if people can act in a religious capacity and there is no god, then, it follows that people do act in a religious capacity even when they do not believe in God. By itself, this is begging the premise, but the factuality of that statement has been born out in godless societies, such as communism and atheistic liberalism.

For that reason, I don't accept that atheists can be fair minded or decent people because I think you are all self delusional. You've absolved yourselves of a supposed crime, belief in God, that actually has no bearing on the behaviors that you ascribe to organizing around such beliefs. Lacking any sense of awareness of what you really are, but having the same organizational bent as a religion, you are more likely than any other organization to engage in the behavior that you accuse religions of.

So yes, you do seek to destroy humanity in accordance with your religion. First, you deny humanity any sort of priviledge space despite you being a member of that group, and seek to stop those that would. Then, you argue that infanticide is justifiable because a fetus is not alive, while at the same time, you argue that animals should triumph over humans. We're all meat, you would argue, and so it is perfectly natural that a human should be eaten by a wolf or a bear as much as a human would eat a cow. It's justice to you.

At the end of the day, you ask that I and others do not discriminate against you for your beliefs? That's crazy. How could we not despise you. I want to associate with people, and be led by people, that want humans to eat cows and not be eaten by bears. It's better for -our team-, the human team. If you want to give up an arm or a leg for the bears to eat, go right ahead, but, since you aren't willing to play on the human team, then there's no reason to compel the rest of us to trust you, as you already said we cannot.

I'm a godless heathen who thinks that you're mentally ill if you believe the Easter Bunny died for your sins then rose from the grave in order to fulfill Santa Claus' ultimate plan for mankind. But, I think church-goers regard their congregation (if that's the correct word) as a kind of extended family. Clinton made a comment that you cannot choose your family, but you can choose your church. I wonder if church-goers would disagree and retort that a statement like that only shows just how out-of-touch Clinton is with religious people. If I'm correct, Obama might respond that this particular church is part of his family. He can't just walk away from it like he would a cell phone service just because of comments the pastor has made. You're painting this church as being akin to the KKK. Is it a hategroup disguised as a church (ie World Church of the Creator)? How often does the pastor give orders for all blacks to rise and kill whitey? Or was this just an asinine comment made in the passion of the moment? Is there nothing redeemable about this church and its congregation. I would like to know what "their philosophies" are exactly. I'm not even aware of the denomination. :D

Concept of God???
That is a tautology of sorts.
There is always a 'concept of god'
The very act of being self-aware provides the 'concept of god'.
I'll even go further, that atheism the AC claims to have, is really a form of agnosticism being in this interpretation, that the non-existence of god is a concept of replacement.
So what replaces god? Physics? Scientific methodology?
You cannot argue non-existence of god, because we are self-aware. Being self-aware awakens us to hierarchy. Hierarchy of Being always leads to some form of Absolute. Call this absolute God, Universe, Physics, Evolution of Being or whatever. There is always a concept of god.
To be a true atheist is saying that existence is 'godless' - totally and utterly godless. An atheist therefore cannot hate the concept of god.

Are we so blind by national pride that we cannot see the faults in our own government and our own people?

A large portion of the populace is, yes. They believe what they are told to believe - namely that what the government of this country does is good and in the best interest of the people and that the people who question that are working for the enemy at the gates which wants nothing more than to destroy our way of life.

Nevermind that the things this government is doing *are* destroying our way of life. Enemies at the gates! Barbarians! Terrorists! Godless Heathens! etc etc etc.

Don't question or we won't win.

Besides, since when did criticizing America become unpatriotic? I would think it's the most patriotic thing to do.

That happened a long time ago.

This country was founded in order to gain freedom from an oppressive monarchy. The last hundred years or so, it's been trying to work it's way to *becoming* an oppressive monarchy (of sorts).

It's not just Congress that needs a swift boot in the ass, it's the Executive branch too. No war since (and including) Korea has been declared by Congress --who is constitutionally the only body allowed to make war. For some reason being the "Commander in Chief" has gone to some peoples' heads that they go on little military adventures across the globe to fight whatever godless terror they've found (even if 20 years ago we put that godless terror there...but that's another story).

And that's only on a part of the foreign policy side of things, there's a whole 'nother can of worms you can open on domestic policy where the Executive pokes its little nose.

Oversight though will let the terra-ists win though!

Republicans are full of statements like that: 'no new taxes', 'mission accomplished', 'we had no knowledge of arms for hostages', 'the Taliban are good religious people fighting against the godless soviets' ...

I also have problems reconciling science and faith. It does seem to me that a profound life-defining belief in something which cannot be proved to exist is incompatible with the scientific method of a rigorous and logical evaluation of evidence to arrive at a conclusion. However, i have many friends who do seem able to reconcile this, and despite their beliefs are (by any metric) excellent scientists. Apparently the logic goes something like - god created the earth/universe etc, and made it conform to a bunch of laws. We are discovering and understanding those laws to the best of our abilities, using the curiosity that god gave us. The use of scientific method provides us with the means to do it, and its ok because god doesn't intend us to live through eternity in the mud saying to each other "oh, god did that, we don't need to know about it".