Don't dictate beliefs

[It aint necessarily so]

The laughing atheist wrote:

I have read some of your [Langoliers] posts....
Not very impressive. You apppear to be a less intelligent version of Derek(not that he would be considered intelligent by any standard). Is every believer on this thread so incompetent that they can't even hold up their end of a conversation without resorting to purposely misdefining words, and demanding proof that something does NOT exist? I see you have added an appeal to the majority, which of course is a logical fallacy.

If this is the best that the theist world has to offer, atheism should be universally accepted in no time.

Yes.

That is part of the value of this exercise. We don't teach the Dereks or Langoliers a thing. Nor do we need to be taught that they are incorrect.

But I think that most skeptics that have not spent time in an environment like this have no idea how damaging their religion really is, or the importance of diminishing its influence from public life.

Just look at the arguments of the Christians posting in this thread, and compare them with those forged from humanist values. Christian philosophy severely deforms psyches, both intellectually and morally, in direct proportion to the degree that informs the individual Christian.

You seem a little surprised by this. The regulars here are not. We are accustomed to it.

Don't we owe it posterity to help diminish this church in any way we can? I don't mean to persecute individual Christians, who are mostly victims of their church as well, but rather, to emphasize the sickness of Christian philosophy, and facilitate its rejection in best sellers, billboards, and message boards like these? Does that matter?

As I mentioned to Derek a few weeks a go, we are posting to people like him, even when we reply to his posts and address him. If Derek and I were the only two people on this thread, he would be alone. Posting to him is a waste of time. We post to one another. I am posting to you, even when I answer him. And my message is that his church is more pernicious than I think you knew.

[It aint necessarily so]

derek4 wrote:

You know, I've been wondering if all your thoughts are copy and pastes ... Have you no original ideas / opinions of your own? You aren't able to think for yourself?

Seriously? Are you really this insight-free? I haven't seen an original idea from you yet, and about 80-90% of the words that you have posted in this thread are preformatted Christian apologetics.

[Khatru]

derek4 wrote:

<quoted text>
Do we throw out the Constitution because there are people who have difficulties understanding it, many of them arriving at different interpretations that must be decided by our courts?
[Being as you're in the UK, you may not know what our Constitution is – if not, ask someone and they will explain it to you.]
“What happened to Nietzsche? What went wrong? When did this all begin? The aim of this inquiry is notwhat caused Nietzsche's madness; it is when his madness began. This is a significant question for philosophy, for if his street collapse was the culmination of a serious mental illness that had been underway for even a few weeks before this event, at least one or two of his six 1888 books must have been written under the spell of madness. If this were indeed the case, the difficult question is precisely how many of these books have been infected by his illness.”
http://www.bu.edu/paideia/existenz/volumes/Vo...

Oh I know what the US constitution is.

It's something that American Christians wished their country didn't have.

[derek4]

Just Think wrote:

<quoted text>
That wasn't the point of my post or the person I was speaking to, Spam Boy.
The wheels really come off your posts when you have to use your own words instead of cutting and pasting spam...

You have no “points”, lmao.

You lose points each time you try to post.

You know why? Because there are no wheels turning in your pointed little head, lol.

There is nothing but a vacant space where your brain should be.

If you want to worship Zeus and Mars and Athena, feel free to do so – or just keep holding on to your godless faith in science with all it's frauds and misconduct, and embrace your atheistic religion – the choice is all yours.

[derek4]

Patrick Greene, Longtime Atheist Activist, Announces Conversion To Christianity

04/04/12

“Two months after he threatened to sue a Texas county for allowing a Nativity scene on public property, longtime atheist Patrick Greene has announced that he is not only converting to Christianity, but also plans to become a pastor, the Christian Post reports.

Greene, an Air Force veteran from San Antonio who has a history of activism, threatened in February to file a lawsuit against Henderson County, Texas, if they did not remove a Nativity scene in front of the courthouse, Malakoff News reported.

But he was forced to drop the lawsuit after doctors told him that he had developed eye cataracts and was in danger of losing his vision, according to the Houston Chronicle. Shortly thereafter, Greene's failing vision forced him to quit his job as a taxi driver and he was left with the challenge of supporting himself and his wife of 33 years.

That's when Jessica Crye, a Christian woman who read about Greene's troubles in the paper, went to members of her church and asked if they would be willing to donate money to help Greene. They ended up raising $400 in donations for Greene, which left him "flabbergasted that Christians would help atheists," the Athens Review reported at the time.

Both Christians and atheists alike ended up donating to Greene through a fundraising account he set up on the site GoFundMe.com .

It's that compassion that Greene says compelled him to start rethinking his religious beliefs. He told the Christian Post that after thinking deeply about Christianity and reexamining his views on evolution and animals, he decided to start practicing the religion.

"There's been one lingering thought in the back of my head my entire life, and it's one thought that I've never been able to reconcile, and that is the vast difference between all the animals and us," Greene told the Post.

He added later, "I kind of realized that the questions I [was] asking you just had to accept on faith without doubting every period and every comma."

Now Greene says he plans to use some of the money he received from good samaritans to move out of San Antonio and buy his wife her "dream" mobile home, according to the Christian Post. He's also planning to write a book about the donations he received that he's tentatively titled "The Real Christians of Henderson County."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/04/patr...

[Khatru]

Langoliers wrote:

Religion is not a myth you Dolt!

Nice of you to accept that all the Hindu gods and goddesses are for real.

[Khatru]

derek4 wrote:

<quoted text>
Have you checked the news on what the majority of AMERICANS accept?
From CBS NEWS, February 11, 2009:
Poll: Majority Reject Evolution
Most Americans do not accept the theory of evolution. Instead, 51 percent of Americans say God created humans in their present form, and another three in 10 say that while humans evolved, God guided the process. Just 15 percent say humans evolved, and that God was not involved.
These views are similar to what they were in November 2004 shortly after the presidential election.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500160_162-965223...
Also, it was YOU who once posted this comment,“You should know that being in the minority doesn't mean you're wrong. What percentage of the population did Noah and his family make up?“
And I feel sure you remember that the answer you were given is 100%, lol.

I guess there's not much chance of Darwin appearing on American banknotes then.

Never mind, we think Darwin is great and he's on our £10 notes.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/curr...

[derek4]

The atheist's leap of faith

“According to the News Bureau at the University of Illinois, "Life did not begin with one primordial cell. Instead, there were initially at least three simple types of loosely constructed cellular organizations. They swam in a pool of genes, evolving in a communal way that aided one another in bootstrapping into the three distinct types of cells by sharing their evolutionary inventions."

I have some news for the University News Bureau. If you talk about life beginning as a "loosely constructed cellular organizations" that swam "in a pool of genes," then it wasn’t the beginning at all, because loosely constructed cellular organizations swimming in a pool of genes already existed.

Ex-atheist, Lee Strobel said, "Essentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything; non-life produces life; randomness produces fine-tuning; chaos produces information; unconsciousness produces consciousness; and non-reason produces reason. Those leaps of faith were simply too big for me to take ..."

For the beginning to be the beginning, there must be nothing. Zilch. If you disagree, in simple language, explain to me where I am going wrong. Tell me what was in the beginning--what was it that began the evolutionary process? Let me guess your answer. You don't know what it was, but you know that it wasn't God.”
http://www.pulltheplugonatheism.com/art09.sht...

“You don't know what it was, but you know that it wasn't God.”

[What a strange religion!]

[derek4]

From: USA Today:

Atheists:'Hate' calls prompt removal of anti-faith signs

“The American Atheists group that posted billboards mocking Mormon and Christian beliefs to greet Democratic National Convention-goers in Charlotte next week have waved the white flag.

The signs slap at the mainline Protestant Christian faith of President Obama, the Mormon faith of GOP candidate Mitt Romney and their running mates' Catholicism.

Now, however, the billboards are down after an onslaught of threats, according to CNN's Belief Blog.

Amanda Knief, American Atheists' managing director, said in a statement quoted by CNN:

No subject, no idea should be above scrutiny -- and this includes religion in all forms.... We are saddened that by choosing to express our rights as atheists through questioning the religious beliefs of the men who want to be our president that our fellow citizens have responded with vitriol, threats and hate speech...

One sign calls God "sadistic" and Jesus "useless" as a savior (his image is shown as toast, literally) and conclude that atheism, by contrast, is "simply reasonable."
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Relig...

“One sign calls God 'sadistic' "
[How can a non-existent God be sadistic? Can a pink unicorn be sadistic, lol?]

[derek4]

Khatru wrote:

<quoted text>
I guess there's not much chance of Darwin appearing on American banknotes then.
Never mind, we think Darwin is great and he's on our £10 notes.
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/curr...

Well - there you have it - if Darwin's mug is on your bank notes, that's all you need in the UK to prove to you that his theory is indisputable, lol.

I knew you'd find a way to prove beyond a doubt the theory has no flaws.

Thank you for your treasured contribution to the forum.

[The laughing atheist]

Wow, that was easy.
Do all the believers on these forums fold up and run away like derek4?

I guess when exposed and cornered, he had no choice.

[The laughing atheist]

derek4 wrote:

Scientific Fraud, Accountability and Prison: The Curious Saga of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Two years ago, Judy Mikovits and the Whittemore-Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease were triumphant. Mikovits had just published a report inScience pointing to a retrovirus called XMRV as the possible cause of chronic fatigue syndrome, a little-understood illness characterized by debilitating flu-like symptoms that worsen with exertion. A wealthy woman whose daughter has the disease had started the institute in 2007 to study CFS, fibromyalgia, and Gulf War illness—and it wasn’t long before its researchers appeared to have shown they could succeed where two decades of government-led research had produced little.
Best of all for many CFS patients, the work seemed to offer undeniable proof of what they had long hoped to establish: that their disease has a physiological cause, not a psychological one.
But as of mid-November, the XMRV retrovirus research had been discredited and was suspected of being fraudulent; Mikovits sat clad in a blue jumpsuit in a California jail, accused of stealing lab notebooks and computer files from her former employer; the research program at the Whittemore-Peterson Institute was in disarray; and CFS patients were as confused as ever about the source of their illness and how to treat it.
http://www.itsokaytobesmart.com/post/14582350...
[“... research had been discredited and was suspected of being fraudulent; Mikovits sat clad in a blue jumpsuit in a California jail...” LMAO]

Well that certainly proves God is real..... NOT.

I see you're still enraged, um, I mean engaged in your courageous, losing battle to try and tie atheism to something it's not. How's that working for you? LOL. Getting alot of converts? LOL!

[derek4]

Khatru wrote:

<quoted text>
I guess there's not much chance of Darwin appearing on American banknotes then.
Never mind, we think Darwin is great and he's on our £10 notes.
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/curr...

Khatru? After all that nice stuff I said about Darwin, I thought you would thank me.....

What's wrong - "cat got your tongue" - lol?

Of course, you do realize that "In God We Trust" on our currency is the proof God is real you have been looking for.

(The UK just hasn't found out yet - they always were behind.)

Shhhh ...... don't tell anyone, we'll keep it our secret. LMAO

[derek4]

Scientific journals publish 20,000 fraudulent papers every year

Annalee Newitz
Writing in Nature, science journalist Colin Macilwain exposes a little-known fact about articles published in reputable scientific journals. Every year, 20,000 of them are fraudulent. Scientists fudge their work in these papers about 1% of the time, and it adds up. But now, science institutions are starting to be more skeptical about what their researchers publish, and many countries are pushing for better scientific misconduct investigations.
http://io9.com/5931011/scientific-journals-pu...

[20,000 PER YEAR? Gosh, what's wrong with the peer review system?]

[The laughing atheist]

derek4 wrote:

<quoted text>
Did you and the laughable atheist come from the same momma? Your lack of common sense, and your manner of expression is about the same - and neither of you contribute anything to the forum except to make jokes of yourselves.
If you're stuck back in time, and you want to worship Zeus and Mars and Athena, feel free to do so – or just keep holding on to your godless faith in science with all it's frauds and misconduct, and embrace your atheistic religion – the choice is all yours, lol.

Coming from someone who thinks atheism is a religion, and tries in vain to tie atheism to science and evolution, while failing to even attempt to prove his God real, I can't see that you have any room to judge anyone else. Basically, you have spent a very long time on this thread, acting like a little, uneducated clown, and haven't proven anything, except that you are an angry believer who has some real obvious security issues.

[derek4]

Misconduct in science

An array of errors

Investigations into a case of alleged scientific misconduct have revealed numerous holes in the oversight of science and scientific publishing

Sept 10th 2011

ANIL POTTI, Joseph Nevins and their colleagues at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, garnered widespread attention in 2006. They reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that they could predict the course of a patient's lung cancer using devices called expression arrays, which log the activity patterns of thousands of genes in a sample of tissue as a colourful picture (see above). A few months later, they wrote in Nature Medicine that they had developed a similar technique which used gene expression in laboratory cultures of cancer cells, known as cell lines, to predict which chemotherapy would be most effective for an individual patient suffering from lung, breast or ovarian cancer.

At the time, this work looked like a tremendous advance for personalised medicine—the idea that understanding the molecular specifics of an individual's illness will lead to a tailored treatment. The papers drew adulation from other workers in the field, and many newspapers, including this one (see article), wrote about them. The team then started to organise a set of clinical trials of personalised treatments for lung and breast cancer. Unbeknown to most people in the field, however, within a few weeks of the publication of the Nature Medicine paper a group of biostatisticians at the MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston, led by Keith Baggerly and Kevin Coombes, had begun to find serious flaws in the work.

continued:
http://www.economist.com/node/21528593

"serious flaws in the work."
[How many patients paid for these flaws?]

[How many flaws may have been in Darwin's work? Where were his "peer review(ers)" ?]

[Oh well, he got on the second lowest Bank of England note - that's proof enough he was right, lol.]

[Wasn't Sadaam's picture on the currency in Iraq at one time?- I should research that.]

[The laughing atheist]

It aint necessarily so wrote:

<quoted text>
They call atheism a religion, and evidence based trust "faith," in an attempt to level the playing field by demeaning them both, which is remarkable in itself.
<quoted text>
That ship has long since sailed.

I have met very few religious people in person who would be so naive as to try to call atheism a religion. It's such an indicator of a misunderstanding of the English language, and indicates a lack of education to the point that most would be too embarrassed to even suggest it. Obviously being behind a keyboard changes all of that for some.

Our poor little Derek obviously has some real deep-seated emotional problems that keep him from having a sense of embarrassment, or even the ability to debate a subject in an intelligent manner. I assume that is why he ran away from you so quickly. He is obviously terrified by anyone who calls him out.

[Just Think]

derek4 wrote:

<quoted text>
You have no “points”, lmao.
You lose points each time you try to post.
You know why? Because there are no wheels turning in your pointed little head, lol.
There is nothing but a vacant space where your brain should be.
If you want to worship Zeus and Mars and Athena, feel free to do so – or just keep holding on to your godless faith in science with all it's frauds and misconduct, and embrace your atheistic religion – the choice is all yours.

Are you mentally ill in some way? I wasn't talking about science. I was pointing out the lunacy of someone saying "religion is not myth".

Seriously, you're messed up...

[The laughing atheist]

It aint necessarily so wrote:

<quoted text>
The Christian church has no respect for Americanisms such as church-state separation. Their church only gives lip service to such ideas. Their first four Commandments command religious observance, and exclusively to the Christian god.
Christian philosophy is anti-American in spirit. The models of government are authoritarian: the god over man, and the man of the house over his wife and children. There is no voting in heaven, and their god doesn't take surveys or count hands.
And there are no rights or freedoms in the bible - just the right to obey or burn.
Does anybody really doubt that if the church had the power to enforce its theocratic model that it wouldn't?
Even more so, has that church ever had the authority to burn witches at the stake or impale heretics in the iron maiden and said, "No, that is cruel and barbaric. We refuse to exercise that power"? Of course not.

Fourtunatly we have a constitution that pretty much keeps people like Derek, and longalier, and Rick Santorum, at bay. Of course they have a right to babble on, but that's all. They are the fringe, and are upset because their religion is fading as education becomes better. Education is the enemy of religion, and that is why people like these two knuckle-heads try to dumb down forums like this one. If they can get anyone dumb enough to believe their anti-education babble, they feel they might be able to keep them in the ignorance of the "flock". Hey, maybe that's why the Bible compares followers to sheep. Sheep just mindlessly follow without asking questions(Not the smartest of animals).

[The laughing atheist]

It aint necessarily so wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes.
That is part of the value of this exercise. We don't teach the Dereks or Langoliers a thing. Nor do we need to be taught that they are incorrect.
But I think that most skeptics that have not spent time in an environment like this have no idea how damaging their religion really is, or the importance of diminishing its influence from public life.
Just look at the arguments of the Christians posting in this thread, and compare them with those forged from humanist values. Christian philosophy severely deforms psyches, both intellectually and morally, in direct proportion to the degree that informs the individual Christian.
You seem a little surprised by this. The regulars here are not. We are accustomed to it.
Don't we owe it posterity to help diminish this church in any way we can? I don't mean to persecute individual Christians, who are mostly victims of their church as well, but rather, to emphasize the sickness of Christian philosophy, and facilitate its rejection in best sellers, billboards, and message boards like these? Does that matter?
As I mentioned to Derek a few weeks a go, we are posting to people like him, even when we reply to his posts and address him. If Derek and I were the only two people on this thread, he would be alone. Posting to him is a waste of time. We post to one another. I am posting to you, even when I answer him. And my message is that his church is more pernicious than I think you knew.

I am simply amazed at their lack of common sense. They are either living somewhere that does not require schooling, or they are terribly dishonest. They both appear to be very angry and unfulfilled. I would be very surprise if their church endorsed their behavior. Well, unless they belong to the Taliban, which would be ok with it.