Hey!  Its everyone's favorite theist.  I figured, since Brian and I are good buddies now ( ), I could ask for a favor.  I'm not sure exactly how much of an affiliate Todd Gates is with the RRS, but I was wondering if he'd be willing to take me on the show, and use the Socratic Method with me.

It might be a great way for him to promote his book, and as an added bonus he may be able to deconvert me.  Sounds like a good deal to me.  I know its a snowball's chance in hell that this will actually happen. 

But I can't help but ask. 

This is an explanation of Genesis I got in my email the other day. I think this person was responding to something I said in a stick am Chat. I mentioned if any Christians want to try to explain the genesis story in a way that makes sense feel free. (not that I need it explained) But I just thought I would post this and see what you guys think.

The universe was not created in a day, the Bible says that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (from memory).  From this it is obvious that no limit is set upon the age of the universe or the earth -- this permits any number such as billions of years that scientists may desire.

The following seven questions/challenges/musings are intended for fundamentalist Christians. Liberal believers may not recognize themselves in this address.

1. The historical evidence for biblical truth-claims is thin, to be sure. I know of no secular historian who reports on Mary undergoing parthenogenesis, for example. Because this is the case, it seems to me that Christians ought to present some credible secular historical evidence to support their most cherished stories. It is in this spirit I request the names and relevant works of at least two secular record-keepers—who lived at the same time as Jesus—who specifically mention Jesus as well as at least one of his alleged miracles (for example, bringing dead-long-enough-to-stink Lazarus back to life). I have not been presented with any qualifying names yet, so I am curious to hear some.

I wasn't going to bring this subject up, but since I am writing anyway, I will. I heard an Atheist say that if we were "intelligently designed" then how come we have such a poor circulatory system and such a poorly made heart. Well....

In the first days of computers, the programming was done by punch cards once they got a little sophisticated.  These computers may have been less powerful than my Casio programmable calculator I have on my table. (I am not even going to check)

Still bits are bits, and bytes are bytes, and computer CPU's according to each generation have different words, instruction words that they execute.  Once you get down into assembler language tailored to a particular machine these words show up.  The instructions consist then of the number of bytes required to target the word and the data it consumes.  Any bit change of the instructions would cause a crash or cause a different word's execution meaningless to the program probably.

In 1925, on the eve, of the feast of the Exaltation of the All-Honourable and Life-giving Cross of our Saviour, 14 September according to the Orthodox Church calendar, the all-night vigil was served at the church of St. John the Theologian in suburban Athens. By 9 o'clock that evening, more than 2,000 of the true-Orthodox faithful had gathered in and around the church for the service, since very few true-Orthodox churches had been accidentally left open by the civil authorities. Such a large gathering of people could not, however, go unnoticed by the authorities. Around eleven P.M. the authorities dispatched a battalion of police to the church "to prevent any disorders which might arise from such a large gathering." The gathering was too large for the police to take any direct action or to arrest the priest at that time and so they joined the crowd of worshippers in the already over-flowing courtyard of the church.

Hey all,

 I wanted to get your opinion on the "95 A-Theses".   It's a heavily satirical rewrite of Martin Luther's 95 Theses, but from an atheist perspective.  The satire is quite biting, but sharply thought through.  I look forward to your thoughts.

New Scientist

f you think of yourself as unique, think again. The days when physicists could ignore the concept of parallel universes may have come to an end. If that doesn't send a shudder down your spine, think of it this way: our world is just one of many. You are just one version of many.

David Deutsch at the University of Oxford and colleagues have shown that key equations of quantum mechanics arise from the mathematics of parallel universes. "This work will go down as one of the most important developments in the history of science," says Andy Albrecht, a physicist at the University of California at Davis. In one parallel universe, at least, it will - whether it does in our one remains to be seen.

I have a friend who is a theist and he is usually a very rational guy, however when it comes to the existance of God he is incredibly irrational... here are some things he's said

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"Well,God only gives us a little push to do things. God would only tell you to give money to charaity if you'tr the type of person who would anyway"

"God has proven himself to me and because you don't believe just means that he's not going to prove himself to you"

"Just because Stephen Hawkin has a very high IQ and the the majority of scientists with a high IQ are atheists, doesn't make them right"

One of my top favorite YouTubers, inmendham, has done this very thought provking video pertaining to the currently discussed topic of "is theism a mind disorder?".

We are living on a small blue-white looking planet orbiting a G-type star at the distance of 150 mio kilometers. There are a lot of things that need to be in place to make life possible on earth.

But however numerous those constraints for an advanced civilization on a planet my be - the universe is huge enough to make it certain that there are somewhere extraterrestic civilisations.

Giving the time the universe existed and the several waves of extinction life on earth went through we should expect those civilisations to be much older than we are. I always wonder how the writers of Star-Trek suppose that the civilization we could find out there could be about as old as our civilization is.