I'm sorry but as an atheist and wholehearted supporter of evolution, I still have to admit that Dawkins is an asshole.

As much as I used to be a fan of his writings, he seems to have blind faith that religion is the cause of every single problem in the entire universe, however unrelated, and is not afraid to admit it in the most asinine way possible. I don't like religion, but he takes it to quite a ridiculous extreme.

That being said, it shouldn't prevent him from speaking or anything. Universities invite assholes to speak all the time.

Well, since science is obviously irrelevant in the abortion debate when up against the rantings of religious fanatics, if we're going to ban abortion we should ban it in the christian way.

And in all the writtings of early christians and the early catholic church, it's not the brain that develops over time but the soul. The soul starts out as the equivalent of a plant-soul (okay to kill) then over time develops into an animal-soul (okay to kill), then into a human soul (OH NO!). This last stage was supposed to be reached about 60-90 days after conception.

This is why christian groups, including the Catholic Church have always been pro-abortion (during the first 60 days of pregnancy) until modern times. Now that it can be turned into a wedge issue and one of the few remaining tools left the church has to screw with women, all the religious doctrine goes out the window and suddenly every sperm is sacred!

Thus I claim that all christians that oppose abortion in the first 60 days of pregnancy are either bad christians or must allow religious dogma to change over time ( and thus have no excuse for hating gays).

P.S: I know in the bible, it specifically says not to have abortions, but for most of the church's history, people who violated this were treated no worse than those who violated the ban on masturbation or working on Sunday. You paid a small fine to the church and everything was okay. Early abortions weren't considered "murder" until modern times.

If you RTFA, it says he's getting macbooks, not cheap easily breakable laptops. I've had my macbook forever, including back in highschool. I treated it like crap, dropped it all the time, lugged it around in my backpack which I tossed around carelessly. I ate food while using my macbook and even spilled a bottle of water on the keyboard (I freaked out and flipped the computer over so the water could drain, but the computer was fine, didn't even miss a beat on the video I was watching.) The only thing that doesn't last in a macbook is the power cord. They're cheaply made and break easily. The rest of the computer is still completely fine (except for scars and a somewhat warped frame).

In most of the world through most of history (with definite exceptions) knowledge of math and science were not fashionable. Just look what happened to Galileo.

This is how it's been for most of history. (except for the wacky puritans who thought they'd go to hell if they didn't work) If work was fun, they wouldn't have to pay you for it.

As opposed to the good old days when 'being hated' was in and girls were encouraged to be ugly? 'Being liked' is always in and outside of fundamentalist religious groups, girls have always been encouraged to look pretty.

People have always wanted to have power. The only difference is that now we have a slight amount of class mobility and so normal people who dream of becoming powerful leaders might actually be able to.

I think more often, the message stressed is obedience. For example, look at Finding Nemo (number 1 grossing G rated movie). It's about a Fish who get's screwed over because he doesn't listen to his dad.

Damn, let's go back to when it actually was a birthright.

This one might be right, but I think there's also a pretty strong race factor.

And from your other post:

When did leaders ever rule out of love? The more you go back in time, the more brutal leaders tend to get.

It really bugs me that people are always trying to get back to the "good old days" when these "good old days" that they yearn for never actually existed.


And that is my review of Phantom of the Opera's revenge of the nerds post.