AngryNoodle

So I recently got into a bit of a dopey internet fight on Facebook over abortion. I easily fly off the handle when my buttons are pushed, what can I say? Anyway, this was on a public wall of a 3rd Party (Bob Johnson MD [fake name], not a personal profile but a page for his practice), and I was surprised when friends started contacting me saying that my posts on that page's Wall were showing up in their news ticker. I'd rather not constantly be spamming my friends when I get into these discussions - how can I keep those posts from appearing in my friends' newsfeeds?

The prophecy outlined in "Order of the Phoenix" accurately predicts events that are documented in "The Deathly Hallows".

Back it up with evidence, please!

My Scrabble box only had four.

It's pretty clear that the current God isn't doing a very good job.

Vote for AngryNoodle as your new God, and I promise the following:

1) I will sacrifice my omniscience and give humanity TRUE free will. I will retain only the knowledge necessary to benefit mankind, and the knowledge needed to understand how magic tricks work.

2) I will permanently shut down Hell. No one deserves eternal torture. No one.

3) When you die, I'll ask you what you want to be next. If your request is within reason and doesn't involving harming others, you'll probably get it.

4) I will host weekly Fireside Chats with God, which will be open to everyone in the entire world. You can attend, see me, hear me, ask questions or favors of me, ask for proof of my existence and powers, whatever you want.

5) I will provide free universal healthcare for everyone on the planet by eliminating disease and fixing all of the original design flaws in the human body.

6) I will respond IN PERSON to all prayers. I may not grant you them (if, for example, you're praying to have someone murdered), but I will always respond. If you want to set up a camcorder to get some proof, feel free.

7) Worldwide Casual Fridays.

8) Crocoduck exhibits will be added to all zoos.

9) I won't give a good god damn whether you worship me or not. Your faith is your business, not mine.

10) I'll set up an email address where you can send me your suggestions. Even if I were God, I would still be far from perfect, and I would not be arrogant enough to think I know better than everyone else in existence. If there's any changes you want to see or improvements you want made, drop me a line and I'll take them under advisement.

Vote for AngryNoodle!

No, this is not Pascal. :P

I don't believe that a God exists, because there is no evidence. However, just as a fun mental exercise, IF a God exists, what do you think we could deduce about him/her/it?

For example, if God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, then he would have known about the Norway shootings, would have seen them happening, would have had the power to stop them, and would have had the motivation to stop them. Yet they occurred. Wouldn't this mean that if a God exists, one or more of those qualities must be false?

If a God exists, I think the best explanation is that he/she/it is to us what we are to ants. Infinitely more powerful, infinitely more knowledgeable, but still a far cry from omnipotent and omniscient. And given the wacky design of the human body, the universe which is 99.99999% uninhabitable, the vast number of species that have gone extinct over time, and the general randomness and chaos of life, I'd have to assume that he/she/it is a being who does not have a full awareness or understanding of what they're capable of.

Someone posted a question here a while ago asking if God was a careless little kid with a chemistry set. Joking aside, IF a God exists, I think that really would be the best explanation for what we see around us.

Examples from this very forum:

"Here's the Big Bang Theory. Theres this one big rock. And theres another big rock. They suddenly collide making the Earth."

--> That is nowhere near what the Big Bang Theory states.

"Atheism: The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs."

--> Atheism is not a belief, and it has nothing to do with the origins of the universe or life on Earth.

"Can someone tell me the facts of evolution? No! leave that. Just tell me why it's more widely known as "the theory of evolution". Is it because this is a better description of pseudo science or, is it because "Theory" is now the new facts?"

--> Displays outright ignorance of what a scientific theory actually is.

"Where are the transitional fossils?"

--> Museums and laboratories. Here's a few:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/0605...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=n...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=f...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id...

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/p...

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_...

--> "They found Noah's Ark!"

This has been claimed many times, by many different groups claiming different boats in different countries all to be Noah's Ark. Not only has every claim been debunked and dismissed by experts (either that, or the experts are kept away from it), but none of the "boats" found have ever been large enough to house even half of the animal species on the planet.

--> "Atheists, do you ever see a monkey or gorilla at the zoo....? and go "Hey, good looking!"

Since you guys claim that we share 98% of our DNA with monkeys..."

Atheism doesn't claim anything about human DNA. That said, the claim that we share a substantial amount of our DNA (95-98%) with monkeys is backed up by evidence, which has been verified in thousands of peer reviewed scientific papers.

--------------------------------------------------

What's the deal? Are they Lying for Jesus (TM), or are they just uneducated? And if they wanted real answers, wouldn't they be asking in the Biology/Physics sections?

I'm sure someone out there can spin this into "OMG see you're really searching for teh lordz!", but I'm asking purely out of curiosity:

Do you guys find yourselves drawn towards, or pushed away from, certain stories (books, movies, television shows, etc) because of religious content?

I ask because in looking over my list of favorite shows, they're stuffed to the gills with religion in some form or another. Carnivale (short run on HBO, pretty much "What if the kinds of stories that were told in the Bible were still happening" set in the Dustbowl during the Great Depression), Battlestar Galactica (religion all over the place), LOST (religious allegory), Haibane Renmei (never fully explained, but the best interpretation I've seen is angels in limbo), etc.

So, yeah. That's all. Religion in entertainment - a turn-on? A turn-off? Neither?

I'm not asking what the Bible says, or what your God says. I am asking you, the person sitting in front of the computer reading this right now:

If you were the all powerful ruler of existence, would you condemn nonbelievers to hell? Would you have flooded the world and killed 99.999% of humanity? Would you have killed all those firstborn in Egypt? Would you have punished all of humanity for Eve's mistake? Would you have sent bears to maul 42 kids for teasing someone?

If not, congratulations! You're more moral than the God you worship.

If so, then you genuinely frighten me.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=132449260105...

June 3rd is Hug an Atheist Day!

Any of you believers out there plan on participating? :P

"Now I'm not gay, but..."

And then proceed to remind us at least five or six times throughout the body of the question that they are describing a totally hypothetical scenario, because they're totally not gay at all.

Do you really think you're convincing anyone?

Let's make a deal here.

The snarky atheists on R&S (myself included) will be 35% less snarky towards Creationists, if Creationists will stop using:

- Pascal's Wager (aka "What if you're wrong?"). It presents a false dichotomy (either the believer is right or the atheist is right), failing to take into account the possibility for other Gods. I could just as easily ask a Christian "What if you're wrong and Allah is real?", or ask a Jew "What if you're wrong and Thor is real?" It also assumes that God would be OK with me converting out of fear, rather than genuine belief.

- The Watchmaker Argument (aka "Complexity = Design!"). The argument is self-contradictory from the start, as you are arguing that the entirety of existence is so complex it must be designed, yet this watch on the ground stands out because of its complexity. If complexity equals design, and the universe is complex, then the watch would not stand out anymore than anything else in the universe. The watch stands out not because of its complexity, but because watches are not naturally occurring phenomenon. Life, and the universe, are naturally occurring phenomenon.

- "Everything Has To Have A Creator/Cause". What created/caused God? And if God can exist without a creator or cause, then why can't the universe?

- "If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?" (aka the "I don't know anything about evolution!" argument). Watch and learn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh0F4FBLJRE

It's as simple as that. Stop using arguments that have been debunked a thousand times before, and we'll be a little less mean to you guys.

Deal?

Apparently I'm blocked (side note: how hilarious is it that she asks "so called Atheists" questions, then blocks them for answering?), but I want to see this video. Is it the "Letter From Hell" one, or something else?

Title says it all, really. Loved those, looking for more like them. Already tried Paranoia Agent, liked the first half, hated the second. Not sure where to go from here.

Thanks!