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Overmann's Comments
Re: Sarah Palin: Against Women's Reproductive Rights
Of course people will choose to believe that life starts at the moment of conception. Why? Because that belief still conveniently allows them to believe in a just and good God who isn't directly responsible for sending millions of little potential lifes to their deaths through his grotesquely incompetent design of the male and female reproductive systems.
I enjoy what George Carlin had to say on the matter: "People say life begins at conception; I say life began about a billion years ago and it's a continuous process."
I enjoy what George Carlin had to say on the matter: "People say life begins at conception; I say life began about a billion years ago and it's a continuous process."
By: Overmann
Re: Sarah Palin Can't Name a Newspaper She Reads
It's not exactly a pointless question.
By: Overmann
Re: Creationist Lunacy Invades Science Museum
Clarification is required on the term 'gradualism', because even you seem not to understand it.
Gradualism simply states that evolution occurs gradually (think millions of years) through a series of small steps. It doesn't necessarily mean that creatures are constantly changing from one point to another, which is the definition I think you are interpreting, but rather that *significant* changes occur within a shorter timespan when the environment drastically changes. Put another way, organisms don't significantly "evolve" when there's no pressure from their environment for them to do so, but the process, DNA mutation, is still on-going - it just doesn't produce any substantial changes when there's no need to, when indeed there's no natural selection being done.
Gradualism simply states that evolution occurs gradually (think millions of years) through a series of small steps. It doesn't necessarily mean that creatures are constantly changing from one point to another, which is the definition I think you are interpreting, but rather that *significant* changes occur within a shorter timespan when the environment drastically changes. Put another way, organisms don't significantly "evolve" when there's no pressure from their environment for them to do so, but the process, DNA mutation, is still on-going - it just doesn't produce any substantial changes when there's no need to, when indeed there's no natural selection being done.
By: Overmann
Re: Creationist Lunacy Invades Science Museum
"irreducible complexity"
Provide me with one example of irreducible complexity that has not yet been refuted by vile Darwinists.
"DNA sequencing probabilities"
What are you blathering on about now? Explain this point a bit further before I go off on a completely unrelated tangent.
"LAW of Entropy"
If you're referring to the second law of thermodynamics (for I know of no Law of Entropy by that name) and how it supposedly denies evolution, perhaps you should consider the further implications of such a statement. If the SLoT applied in the context you suggest, it's a wonder you are able to browse the internet on your computer, much less that you are even alive right now. Just because there is a *general* tendency towards entropy doesn't mean we are not able to build up anything, as indeed we most certainly are.
Provide me with one example of irreducible complexity that has not yet been refuted by vile Darwinists.
"DNA sequencing probabilities"
What are you blathering on about now? Explain this point a bit further before I go off on a completely unrelated tangent.
"LAW of Entropy"
If you're referring to the second law of thermodynamics (for I know of no Law of Entropy by that name) and how it supposedly denies evolution, perhaps you should consider the further implications of such a statement. If the SLoT applied in the context you suggest, it's a wonder you are able to browse the internet on your computer, much less that you are even alive right now. Just because there is a *general* tendency towards entropy doesn't mean we are not able to build up anything, as indeed we most certainly are.
By: Overmann
Re: Stephanie Miller on Sarah Palin
I think it's just irresponsible to be above the age of forty and have a child. Of course the chances are higher that the child would have Down's Syndrome. Were she caught up on her biology education, she'd know that.
By: Overmann
Re: Richard Dawkins Reads His Email
This was funny as hell.
"Hah hah, you f*cking dumbass!"
"Hah hah, you f*cking dumbass!"
By: Overmann
Re: Pat Condell: Take Your God and Shove Him
I think the distinction DaveoftheRave is trying to make is that of religion and faith, that these are two separate entities. One might say that faith is just the belief there is a god, while being religious is participating in any number of worship activities or behaving a certain way or dressing a certain way. I understand this distinction, but I don't agree with it. I think that when people believe in a god, their behavior (whether following religious custom or not) is the direct result of that. I can say I dislike religious people and still cover the whole spectrum (just believers and then those who consider themselves Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, etc.) because one needs necessarily have faith to be religious.
By: Overmann
Re: Pat Condell: Take Your God and Shove Him
I'm of the opinion that a number of actions and ideas believers have about their faith and society in general should be met with outright hostility. Not violence, but opposition. I'm more willing to try and persuade the less fundamental believers, but the real hardballs? Nothing much more than ridicule seems to have any effect.
By: Overmann
Re: Creationist Quote Mine Collapse
One thing I would add to that is that works are deemed acceptable by a community of scholars (peer-review) based on that works' commitment to the scientific method. You wrote a whole paragraph on the process of democratically accepting scientific work without so much as a hint of the criteria by which works are judged acceptable. That is the critical success of science - an ability to demonstrate that all other things being equal, assertion x is what the evidence seems to indicate.
By: Overmann
Re: Top 80 Best Short Atheist Quotes
Even if all those comfortable could also be considered complacent, I don't see how religion encourages someone to better themselves. I consider myself a better person for possessing critical thought and compassion and I don't feel I need religion to experience the latter.
By: Overmann
Re: Pat Condell: God is Not Enough
It's not unfair for you to ask for a reasonable and respectful argument against Christianity, Hadman. It's just that those already aware of the reasonable argument and are not motivated to change anything are most often those who subscribe to Christianity or otherwise benefit from its perpetuation. Those aware of the reasonable argument and who are willing to change things are already doing so. Therefore, the only message that needs to be sent is one of open hostility, that having one's religious beliefs pushed on individuals or otherwise pushed through public policy (and given tax-exempt status when none is warranted) is unwelcome; and this message needs to be delivered to the only group whose beliefs are principally swayed by emotion: religionists.
By: Overmann
I can fully appreciate that a good deal of abortions occur once the baby is commonly acknowledged to be living (has its own heartbeat), but I've no qualms against it dying be it the mother's wish because a fetus, at all times, is fully dependent upon the mother for its continued existence.