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As an atheist, I don't demand that God be any one thing or another.

"Personally my view of God as a superior force also includes being able to manage infinitely complex systems."

This is what I mean when I say that all surviving theories of God (held by rational people) are not testable.

The fundie theory has the virtue of being disproved. Your theory can't even do that.

"That being said I think it is almost disturbing that you would relate procreation to recursion. Incidentally you left out all the life forms that actually fork to procreate."

I wasn't the first. This was a problem faced by the ancients. They didn't see how humans could "recurse" indefinitely without divine intervention. If a man's sperm is a little homonculus, or fully formed tiny human as one "godless" theory supposed, how does the homonculus form? Where does the sperm of the son reside when he himself is only sperm? They also weren't aware of reproduction by fission.

This problem wasn't solved until the idea of a genetic code that is distinct from the body and copied in a special process arose in the 19th century and was demonstrated in the 20th.

The russians have a unique satellite system called Molniya. Because of their high northern latitude, Ivan Ivanovich cannot use geostationary satellites. Therefore the dozen or so Molniya sats orbit serially in a 12-hour highly excentric north pole trajectory to provide constant coverage evn for those above 60degrees north! I think ground station requires use of 8ft or 12ft dish antenna though. Net service may be available via them, of course HIPPA or whatnot law may prevent you from relaying sensitive yankee data via godless communist link, blah-blah.

Right, it's not a symbol of racial dominance. I'm sure that had nothing to do with why the Georgia legislature added the Confederate Battle Flag to the state flag back in 1956, during which year the legislature also passed a resolution opposing Brown vs. Board of Education and the governor said "The rest of the nation is looking to Georgia for the lead in segregation."

This was only four years after "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in order to distinguish the US from the godless communists. Both of these -- the addition of the confederate flag and "under God" -- were obviously political acts with strong symbolism.

I grew up in Georgia and still visit there often. It's changed a lot for the better in the last 50 years, but don't whitewash history.

One common argument I used to hear is that the North didn't want the South to continue gaining economic power. Prior to the invention of the cotton gin, the South was extremely poor. Then Eli Whitney came along and the South started making boatloads of money. The only problem is that they used slaves to pick the cotton. Without slavery, the economic model is severely undermined. They needed slavery for it to work.

IOW, "states rights" == slavery

Well it's profane against Christianty for one. I'm surprised few Christians object to it.

Atheism should be just as valid a religion (which I consider it to be) as any other in the government's eyes, but of course, "In God We Trust" was a direct attack upon atheists. There was no other intention for it when it was put in -- it was to affirm the United States as a fundamentally Christian nation, and not a godless nation like the USSR.

We should already have moon-based lasers to shoot down them godless foreign spy satellites before they enter orbit. We should own that goddamned moon, complete with a Disneyland! And blackjack! And hookers!

In fact, forget the moon!

Thats pretty much what happend.

Hate to get a weepy and jingoist, but isn't this just kinda pathetic? We sent people there almost 40 years ago, fer Christ's sake, and now we're in a "race" to send orbiters around it?

We should already have moon-based lasers to shoot down them godless foreign spy satellites before they enter orbit. We should own that goddamned moon, complete with a Disneyland! And blackjack! And hookers!

In fact, forget the moon!

The hydrogen bomb has always protected your freedom from Godless communism. My one regret is that the building of hydrogen bombs is being done big Big Government in Washington rather than by skilled private contractors like Ryan Industries.

Every American should have a small (<5MT) hydrogen bomb in their homes to drop on the advancing Reds from their flying car should the need arise. There's no need for costly quasi socialist spending on Statist "Air Ministry" rife with bureaucrats. If those Commisars knew that they had to avoid provoking millions of normal Americans rather than a small group of fellow travellers in Washington, I bet they'd be much more cautious.

Better, if the cars were nuclear powered with a reactor and had an auto pilot like the German V2s, they could just be launched in waves by the militia to spread deadly radiation over an advancing Red army. Small towns would club together to buy a few cobalt salted 5MT devices to drop just in case the Reds proved to be hard to stop.

Most Americans will buy at least one car, and our Founding Fathers believed in the right to bear Arms, not just guns. Why not try to combine the two?

It serves you right for all the years you terrorised people online you Godless freak.

Called any people up on their mobiles at 3am and played music to them recently?

The French are planning to intelligently design our spy satellites?? But aren't they a bunch of Godless euro-trash heathens??

Sounds like the Bush administration is really starting to take a "tough" stanch against terrorism now

Of course religions don't have the corner on human sacrifice, not by a long shot, and pointing at the Inquisition or the Crusades as some example of barbarity, as if the body count had some bearing on the level of "bad" produced by the umbrella group perpetrating the crime, is just as silly as this whole conversation being on slashdot in the first place.

Hell, the "godless" commies killed more people in the 20th Century than all other mass killings combined, ever.

I guess in the grand scheme of things (here's a hint, there isn't one) then yeah the crusades and inquisition are bad, but nothing as bad as the Mayans and Aztecs or the Islamic invasions of Europe, the Islamic invasions of Asia and India, and no where near Pol Pot's reign of terror or Hitler's slaughters, which are just barely in the same ball park as Japan's attrocities during WW2, which pale in comparrison to the slaughters of the Russians which are like cake and icecream compared to the death at the hands of the Chinese.

Plenty of "bad" to go around and they didn't need a god to blame it on, neither will future mass murderers though many will use it as an excuse.

I knew L. Ron Hubbard in Clearwater, FL before he called what he had Scientology. He started as Dianetics and the goal was just "Going Clear" with the help of his e-meter. He claimed that he could actually make a religion and people would believe. Their headquarters in Clearwater was plagued with claims of fraud and coersion. This peaked when a woman died in their residence. A number of people fled the country in order to stop from testifying and making prosecution of the church impossible, so the muder charges against the church were dropped. There have been many charges of criminal activity leveled against them by former members. Hubbard decided to 'make' a religion from scratch for several reasons: one was to prove he could do it and people would beieve him and it was a great legal tax evasion scheme. When I knew him, we all considered him to be little more than a used car salesman in wolves' clothing. He was no ones friend unless you had something he could use.

I fail to see how that connects to the LDS church. Joseph Smith wasn't beaten to death. He was in the jail in Carthage and a mob stormed the jail and shot him. The people that shot him had no prior connection with him. He had never done business in Carthage. He had only preached there several times. What Joseph founded was a religion from the start. The established religions at the time had a hard time believing God would talk to a 14 year old boy instead of all their educated selves. Then he said God told him that he was not to join any of the established religions. I guess they all pretty much felt insulted at that point or why would they start a religious war against a 14 year old boy? Why didn't they just ignore him.

There isn't a shread of similarity between the two. Good ole L. Ron never was shot by a mob (or anyone else, surprisingly). He pretended what he had was a Godless religion. He only introduced the spiritual part when he had a hard time making the connection with what he had already written and his new proclaimation of religion.

I really don't intend this to be a religious war here, but uninformed statements need to be answered.

Bill

"belief in a power greater then ourselves is not about logic."
Nor are the comments of the liberal, irresponsible, emotion pandering, baby killing and Godless left which will follow.

All these folks jumping on your comments are just showing that they do not understand the concept of God(you need to ask what is God first) nor do they understand themselves. The article makes a good point as to how people continue to believe things that just aren't true...like what Democrats and/or Liberals have been telling us for years...which still gets repeated by "so called" educated young people of today.

"if only religion would kindly get out of our way with its attachment to backwards notions about where life begins and ends and how it's a sin to "play God"."

Ah yes, and here we have a perfect example of the myth that organized religion is the only force responsible throughout history for the suppression of humans. Plenty of atheists have wreaked havoc in their time. See Stalin and Hitler for just two relatively recent examples. Saddam also appeared to be more or less godless until his own mortality was imminent. This myth is usually just a smokescreen trotted out by people who don't want to accept that they aren't God. The same people also selectively forget that many of history's greatest scientists were Christians, and that America was founded by Christians who the media would surely label as religious lunatics by today's standards.

You foolish children, shaolin monks, ninjas, pirates, and monkeys are NOTHING compared to the horrendous and frighteningly destructive power of those godless killing machines without a soul....

BEARS!

*runs away*

When did this become a discussion about killing babies? Why do you suppose you know my stance on that? Oh I know because I'm atheist I must be into all kinds of immoral godless things. You got me pegged.. and every atheist reading this. The jig is up guys put down your slaughtered babies wipe the blood from your chin and get back to work... I really don't see a point in reply to this ridiculous post. But I will suggest you read Deuteronomy 21:18-21. It's in there.

And 99.9999999999937624% of the time, making up statistics to 'prove' your point just shows you're an ass. (That's right, this post of mine is the sole known exception :-) ).
      And I read the whole review. There's no specific claim that the writer is attempting to 'debunk Darwin', rather, one that his pretty models are irrelevant to real biology. The review's writer is apparently an atheist, by the header on his page that refers to godless liberalism. He is likely an atheist as a reasoned, philosophical point, and I can easily respect his opinions.
    The article said nothing one way or the other about Christianity. Despite this, many of the posts have been "Oh Noes! the nasty awful Xians are oppressing us again!". It must be horrible to be so filled with hate and fear.

Most violent video games out there that people freak out about are extremely tame compared to many horror movies out there, but the outrage seems to be much less tame... Where's your outrage over all the violence on TV and movies?

Like I said, I don't care about Mortal Kombat. Impossible cartoon violence doesn't bother me. As to horror movies, those get rated R. I don't know of a theater that will let a 10-yr old in to see Hostel without a parent. Theaters are pretty good about self regulating. Game Stop is not. TV is also regulated.

What about the internet?
What would stop someone from porting these games to flash and putting them out for free on a website. Nothing really. However, the Internet really is free speech. A video game for sale is not. Free commerce is not guaranteed by the Constitution.

By your same arguments, we should start doing this stuff for television... but hey, you can't.
Uh, we can and we do. Janet Jackson showed a boob during the Super Bowl half time show and CBS got fined for it. The Sopranos was not on ABC, it was on HBO. That's a bit different.

Video games are an important cultural part of our society, and reflect, just like any media or artform, the characteristics of that society.
I could say the same thing about peep-shows, strip clubs, and bars. But I still don't think children should be allowed in these places without a parent! Besides, preventing children from purchasing these games without a parent will not change that.

Children aren't going to be conditioned and trained as mindless killers because they played Postal2, but they ARE going to be unprepared to cope with a lot of things if they're 'shielded' from all these 'godless' 'evils'.
That's up to me as a parent to decide when and how to educate my kids about "godless evils".

Also, have you actually looked up the correlations between children who play violent video games and actual violence? Go do so.
Have you read the correlation between children who go to strip clubs and and those that actually become violent? Are you going to take you seven year old daughter a strip club? Have you read the correlation between children and sexual activity? Are you going to take your little girl to the a swingers club? Of course not! In other words, I don't give a shit what researchers say. I don't think it is a good idea for children to be exposed to adult themes without their parents' knowledge!

I'll be letting my kids play whatever games they want. They'll be better, much more intelligent people. :)
Do you really know what they are playing? I hope so. If you're OK with it, great! I'm glad you have the type of relationship with your kids where you can do that. Do you watch porn with your daughters? If so, good for you. If not, why not? Would you mind me giving your kids a burned copy of Back Door Bitches while they wait at the bus stop? I'm just trying to make the better, much more intelligent people.

Most violent video games out there that people freak out about are extremely tame compared to many horror movies out there, but the outrage seems to be much less tame... Where's your outrage over all the violence on TV and movies? What about the internet? By your same arguments, we should start doing this stuff for television... but hey, you can't. Video games are an important cultural part of our society, and reflect, just like any media or artform, the characteristics of that society. Children aren't going to be conditioned and trained as mindless killers because they played Postal2, but they ARE going to be unprepared to cope with a lot of things if they're 'shielded' from all these 'godless' 'evils'. Also, have you actually looked up the correlations between children who play violent video games and actual violence? Go do so. There's bigger factors in whether a kid will turn violent, and I assure you playing video games of a violent nature is not one of them. Then again... this is kinda like preaching to a brick wall. Enjoy your little Bush-is-the-messiah world. I'll be letting my kids play whatever games they want. They'll be better, much more intelligent people. :)

nothing I've said is even a little bit racist. Racism is the belief that one group of people is genetically superior to another. I don't believe that and nothing I've said would suggest it.

You're just so irrational and emotional that you are completely incapable of refuting anything I've said, so you fall back on your old standby, the nuclear attack of liberalism, you call me "racist" because in your mind, that negates everything I say.

Well, here's a little cluebat for you: it's not 1990 anymore. Nobody is scared or even bothered by your childish name-calling.

The irony here is, you've probably been on the receiving end of just such an attack. As a liberal, you've probably debated conservatives who are every bit as irrational and emotional as you are. Maybe you had an evolution vs. intelligent design debate. You made a logical, well-reasoned case for evolution, and the conservatives, completely unable to formulate a response, called you a name. "Well, you're just a godless heathen!" they probably said. And you probably laughed at them, realizing what morons they are.

Well here we are in exactly the same situation. I made a well-reasoned post and you are doing exactly what the ID people do. You are just angry about what I said. I mean, I'm right of course. Deep-down you know that I'm right. But it makes you angry. You've been indoctrinated to a certain way of thinking and anyone who challenges that just plain makes you angry. So you lash out at me just like the ID people lashed out at you. You call me a name, thinking to yourself that the name-calling ends the argument. "Racist!" you shout! Well, I laugh at you, realizing that you're a moron.

It doesn't matter what race a culture is. You can't see past that because of your indoctrination, but it's true. Over tens of thousands of years, there were successive migrations across the land bridge into North America. Each migration wiped out the people who came before them. The native Americans had no more or no less right to own the continent than did the white Europeans. Native Americans took the land from others. Europeans took the land from them. It has nothing to do with race. It's called life. The only reason that race is an issue is that people like you pick one race, the white race, and you say it's bad when they take the land away from people who took the land away from other people. You're the one who makes that arbitrary distinction. You're the one making a moral judgment based on nothing more than race. I make no *moral* judgment at all - and furthermore, the judgment I do make is made based on results, NOT race.