I remember reading about this just before last Christmas in the Metro (free commuter paper here in the UK). Apparently a lot of people in not particularly serious relationship break up in time to have some fun in the Christmas party season. It's kinda sad in my opinion that a statistically significant number of people are unhappy enough in their relationships to ditched them in favour of the chance of a drunken quickie in the stationary cupboard at the office party.

Bollocks. The burden of proof is to prove that god exists. As a "rational agnostic" there is not an equal likelyhood of God existing or not existing. That simply isn't true, since there is no evidence whatsoever to support the existence of God, every day that passes the probability of him existing fades to zero. And even worse he is no more likely to exist than any other crackpot ideas you can think of (Thetans, anyone?).

I agree that it is rational to be agnostic over atheistic, denying the possibility of something we cannot definitely prove is as irrational as believing it is definately true. But when the probability of god is so low that he is no more or less likely to exist than the flying spaghetti monster, the invisible intangible silent unicorn, or Russell's teapot, "rational agnosticism" tends towards very-nearly-atheism to such a point that it becomes a mere semantic difference.

I would imagine that the majority of racists are not the smug closed minded "just a faith in no god" morons you suggest, but very well informed "99.9%-no-agnostic-but-I-call-myself-atheist-it's-easier".

Consider this difference:

If someone proved categorically there was a God tomorrow, the majority of atheists would be eating humble pie and choosing a religion to join.

If someone proved the opposite beyond all doubt, ie. that no god can possibly exist, the vast majority of religious people would reject the evidence and carry on as if nothing happened.

As for the original point, I think it was Bertrand Russell who once said something relevant:

"A good man will do good deeds, whilst an evil man will do evil deeds. But for a good man to do evil deeds requires religion"

War. Racism. Homophobia. Sexism. Indoctrination of children. Rejection of science/reason. Rejection of contraception leading to the spread of STDs.

So what's the good bit? It better be fucking massive.

You could make same argument about sport, TV, video games, playing D&D or just about any primarily recreational activity when done to excess. Having a couple of spliffs or taking a pill or two at a club occasionally has been consistently proven not to be any more harmful in the long or short term than drinking alcohol.

No it wasn't. It got three events in roughly the right historical order (although actually most modern animals evolved a long time after all three had been created), if you look at it a certain way. In a book over a thousand pages long that is not impressive at all. Now I would be impressed by the biblical creation stories if god has spent the previous three weeks creating strange single celled creatures and burying fake skeletons to trick us into believing evolution. I still wouldn't believe it though.

How can you have blind faith in science? The point of science is that it can be proven wrong and therefore does not require any faith. Wanting definite answers is something I can certainly sympathise with but choosing the Bible over science is not choosing the definite over the uncertain. It is choosing something which has already been proven wrong over something which has not been proven wrong yet.

No, the most competent people with the most relevant qualifications for the job should be hired first. People with useless degrees in made up nonsense subjects, like psychology or social science, should retrain or put up with a low paid menial job.

Are apple fanboys going to whine every time they do?

Neither is prettiness but Apple seems to get away with it.

It's "old and grey" not "old and gray" At least Google can spell, they have "Greyglers" not "Grayglers", although to be honest both of those spellings make for an equally abhorrent word.

Technological investment seems like a pretty good way to encourage long term economic growth and stability to me. It sure beats paying people to do fuck all, like the rest of our unelected socialist dictator's retarded policies.