Andrew Turner's page

Nope, not wierd. Caring about it when it's someone else is though.

Here's why the government is important: 1)deep pockets 2)private industry won't invest dime one unless there's promise of profit. Research should be done for research's sake, not just with a profit motive in mind. That's what universities are for, and universities are often largely funded by the state and have close ties to federal agencies to which the students might be hired.

When I visited my grandfather last month he gave me his lively, if somewhat vitriolic, opinion on the fading support for the sciences, among like fifty other rants. I would type out the entirety of the conversation that I recall but half of it would disappear under the profanity filter so I’ll just give you the broad strokes. He is of the opinion that part of what changed from the great support of the 50s and 60s to the lackluster care of modern times is that back then the heights of technology where so mysterious and out of reach of the common man that they assumed an almost magical quality in the minds of the uneducated and held immense fascination. Nowadays a startling level of tech is in the hands of us rubes and we have lost our fervor for the arcane powers of science.

“The damnest thing is that people never supported the sciences, not really!” He informed me. “It was merely a replacement mythology and now that the magic is gone you useless wastes of space have dropped support of it even though we are in a position to accomplish more now than ever thought possible! You kids are the worst, you have no interest in the only real thing that can unlock the secrets of the universe and change our lives for the better! I hate you all!”

“I dunno grandpa, I’ve always thought science was pretty cool.” I informed him.

“That’s because you’re so dumb everything is still magical to you boy! I doubt your ability to add two single, positive integers together you stupid piece of s&%$.” He declared.

“I think perhaps I can prove you wrong, but first I’m going to have to Google what an integer is on my iphone.” I replied.

I think the best way to think about it is vector table

If you didn't get to play one in high school physics, its basically a washer that gets pulled in all different directions by weights placed at various angles.

So for an individuals orientation, you have Culture, choice, and biology pulling in various directions with different strength depending on the individual. Any or all of the forces can be significant without necessarily being deterministic.

The causes only seem to matter to people who object to certain sexual orientations.

I don't think it is at all important.

-Has anyone ever argued the US public education system is anything other than a disaster?

Given your frequent errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation, I'd submit that your homeschool education (at least in the area of English) may have been somewhat less than stellar as well. One is inclined to reference motes and beams.

Something else I love - Dunkin Donuts munchkins. Although back in my day, we just called 'em donut holes. I can eat a box of 25 all by myself.

I removed some older posts. Holocaust denial is not cool.

If magic is possible in this universe, it is included in the underlying structure of the universe, thus it doesn't defy its laws. It may defy the laws of logic and reason as percieved by us, but that is not the same thing.

Your/our worldview =/= the laws of the universe.
Our perception of the laws of the universe =/= the laws of the universe.

As long as we don't know every last bit about the underlying structure of the universe, we don't know all of its laws thus we can only say that something is outside the bounds of the known laws of the universe.

And yes, I know the questions are hypothetical, but answering them without taking the premise seriously defies the tangential philosophic nature of the question, making the whole game of thought moot, unless you think every 'yes' or 'no' answer is routed in the same basic personality trait.

1. Einstein is a LOT more impressive. Your magician has a small assortment of parlor tricks; he doesn't know how they work, he can't teach them, and he can't really do anything useful with them. They may as well not exist. Einstein can figure out how stuff actually works -- a much wider range of stuff, as he already proved -- and transmit that knowledge to others.

2. I refuse to let a large, faceless organization like AI tell me who or what to kill. Also, it's beneath my sense of professionalism to kill something in that clumsy a manner, in view of witnesses. If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right!

3. Is this a trick? The skull is an inanimate object, and I get paid for it. The turtle is semi-animate, and potentially costs me money. There's got to be a catch. Like, are neo-Nazi thugs going to break into my house and kill me and my famility to get the skull? Will an Isreali hunter-killer team assassinate me for owning it? I need more information to make a decision.

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

See, my thinking is almost identical to 1) and 2). As for 3), many turtle species are threatened/endangered here in FL. You should see the turtle rescue programs down here that have to surgically excise tumors and treat diseases in sea turtles from the pollution. So, a chance to keep one turtle healthy and thriving for two years sounds like a win to me, even if I don't get paid for it.

Aaaah, but how many would donating the $120 a month from your skull stipend save? More than 1 for more than 2 years? ^_-

Excellent point.

Just for the record.

1. One is bound by the laws of the universe, one isn't. No question in my mind who is more impressive.

2. You can save the lives and/or prevent the torture of hundreds if not thousands of people who have been vetted as actual political prisoners if you will kill a single horse. No question in my mind I have to try.

3. I can risk losing 1000 bucks to pay out of my own pocket to care for a turtle, or I can get 120 dollars a month for the ultimate conversation piece. No question at all.

There are no right or wrong answers, but I do think answers say a lot about who you are and the type of people you would get along with.

Wait! If atheism is a religion, then surely tax-exempt status can't be far behind?

I wish to change my position! ;-)

You've got to keep up with the Newspeak, IQ. "Freedom from religion" has been rebranded as "discrimination against Christians."

But will you be more machine than man?

Removed some posts. Play nice, people.

How can *this* thread need to have posts removed? I feel like I'm watching a salon:

"Tosh and fiddle, my dear sir! I shall demolish your arguments thusly- but first, may I offer you a glass of this fine tawny port?"

Back to eavesdropping. Thanks, you two. :)

Actually, calling deriving a hypothesis "science" is like calling both walking to your car, and driving your car "transportation," and then deciding what they have in common, and then calling that "the scientific process," but, hey, whatever.

Which of the 15+ pieces of information that I've posted have you seriously considered?

And again, you guys keep accusing me of making a strawman argument, yet you turn around and do the exact same thing everything you say I'm claiming indoctrination. Can you prove where I've advocated indoctrination? It should be easy if you're not making a strawman argument.

I don't think you're even reading posts on this thread anymore, man.

Me: Let's say I agree with you that science needs to change its narrative to reach more people. How, specifically, do we do that without diluting the science or promoting it as a religion.
You: OMG I already posted people saying that we need to teach it differently!

I'm not disagreeing. I'm asking for a SPECIFIC proposition as to how science needs to change its didactic method. Saying something vague about metaphors doesn't help, especially since science already does that (Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Stardust for example).

I also didn't claim you said indoctrination. Seriously. Read my f!~@ing post just once. I'm trying to be on your side. But if you don't offer examples of HOW science needs to change (not just experts that say THAT it needs to change) it still sounds like you're advocating indoctrination. I'm CERTAIN you don't mean that, so I'm asking you to: explain in specific detail a didactic method that you think science should adopt, how it is taken solely from religion (as opposed to educational psychology), and how, once science's teaching method is altered, the core of doubt is still intact.

@Irontruth

To make my point more clearly, when James Cameron made avatar, he gave the Navi breasts. He was asked in an interview why he did this, considering the species would likely not have breasts.

He said because people like boobs.

This is where science and science fiction part.

Half of the "cool" science articles that come out actually do a very poor job of giving science information, and are misleading. It leads to people having unrealistic expectations based in fantasy.

Science isn't Santa Claus, it's the actual grown up in the room who gives you the gift.

Science will never, ever, be able to be as cool as Santa Claus.

Fortunately Santa Claus isn't real.

Science shouldn't strive to be as cool as Santa Claus.

Science should be the rational grown up who actually gets you the gifts.

If science tries to compete with Michael Bay, it stops being science. I think the problem with science education isn't the "cool" factor or the "Shiny" factor.

When you say that it should compete, you imply they are equals. When you tell science to dress itself up for the camera, with that comes exaggeration and misinformation, which is the exact opposite of what good science is.

My best teachers were not always my most fun teachers. My best teachers were the ones who taught me to think.

I like brussel sprouts...

Introducing kids to science fiction can't hurt either.

I think the problem is less science not being "cool" and more education in the US being in a terrible, terrible state. Seriously, when people think the religious fundamentalists have gained ground by calling evolution a theory, rather than understand the difference between a hypothesis and a theory, that's bad. That means people aren't educated in the basics of the scientific process. Next thing you know you've got arguments on the magical interwebz about how atheism is a religion because it feels like one to me, and about how science is dogma because scientists believe in gravity.

Speaking from personal experience. Only time I've seen a christian fight for someone else's religious rights is when they realize that they are a minority. If they are in the majority, they fight tooth and nail to ban any other way of worship.

Maybe you don't know a lot of Christians? I personally know plenty of Christians in the Army who risk their lives for our freedoms, including 1st Amendment religious freedoms. You probably see what you want to see.

Right now, science is playing second fiddle (which is a metaphor) to metaphors in the popular arena (a metaphor). I'm sorry you disagree with me, but there is significant academic backing for what I'm saying. Joseph Campbell basically created the field of study in the late 40's, looking at how humans develop myths and explain the world around them. He compared the similarities between religions to help show their universality in the human experience. This isn't to say that they're true, but rather the ways we use them to explain our world is true. The methodology used to create stories that explain the human existence is pretty consistent throughout the world.

In case it's not clear, I don't think you're implying that religions are actually true.

I disagree with you about the primacy of metaphor in religion because it's incredibly obvious that the religious don't believe their religions to be metaphors. We both appear to agree on that so I'm not sure what you're on about. I also don't know why you're crediting transparent apologetic the religious trot out only when it becomes obvious their stories didn't actually happen as revealing the True Nature of Religion (TM).

To me if you're saying metaphor is the primary thing about religion and religion is all metaphor, you must be describing religion as it exists in the wild as believed by the believers. Not as one would prefer it or as one would regard it as a good secularist. I would say instead that metaphor is the excuse of apologetics and the vehicle by which religion is transmitted, not the religion itself.

Which brings us back to using effective rhetorical and teaching techniques, a field in which religion has no particular insights not available elsewhere.

I understand that you are somewhat awestruck at the cultural dominance of religion. It is tragic, I agree. But it's not mysterious. Religions spread by force and ignorance, then inculcate anti-epistemology to preserve themselves. If you're willing to cheat outrageously, of course you're going to come out ahead of people who insist on playing fair.

One more thing I almost missed:

Just because someone mistakenly believes a metaphor is true, doesn't make it not a metaphor anymore. The same way that because someone believes evolution is wrong doesn't change anything about evolution.

Actually yes it does. If you literally jumped with joy, your jump was not a metaphor. The fact that you did not is the only thing making it a metaphor instead of a literal account of events.

Samnell wrote:

Nope. First it's a category error to describe methods as dogmas when dogmas are beliefs rather than practices. But let's set that aside for a moment.

Yep, it's still a dogma. The belief is the practice.

Do you intend to milk your equivocation fallacy much further? We've been pretty clear about what we mean by dogma, repeatedly. Your attempts to ignore those statements and tar us with the brush of dogma for behaviors which do not contain the distinguishing traits we have laid out are, well, really transparent.

You can possibly get true (or increasingly accurate) knowledge from other methods, so it's not the one true way.

You infact can, BUT, science does not accept those methods because it leaves to much room for error, unaccounted variables, etc. . . Hence, right back at scientific dogma.

In other words, those methods aren't as good as science. You said it yourself: they are more prone to error. Thanks for agreeing. Pass Go, collect $200, and deposit your faith in this circular receptacle. We'll send you your Secular Humanist card in the mail. Don't worry about addresses, the Evil Atheist Conspiracy already knows where everyone lives.

You know, I think I'll flip this around for the sake of argument. Let's say science is a dogma. In fact, let's say it's a religion. That's right, a full-blown religion. If science is a religion, it's the religion that heals the sick (right here and now, not just in miracle stories, and of real observable maladies instead of invisible plagues) and reveals the secrets of the heavens. The priests of science can, quite blatantly and without any hemming and hawing about metaphors, verifiably in front of everyone whether they believe in it or not, produce a genuine faith-based miracle. Using the principles of their religion they have literally gotten people to fly and even walk on the Moon.

So we could toss out all the verbiage. We could agree completely with your claims about science and you know what? Our would dogmas still beat yours hands-down. When's the last time one of your miracles didn't run away and hide when we applied critical scrutiny to it? Our gods must be greater than your god to be able to work such wonders.

Just like the scientific method, perhaps? That's not the one true way, ie dogma?

Nope, just the current way. If you can find a better one, the scientific community will move to it.

Can you say the same of religion?

Edit: Really, the main determinant for something being dogma is 'are you allowed to question it?'

Science, by default, is meant to be questioned. What you see of science as being 'unquestionable' is simply the scientific community saying 'you better have serious evidence behind you'. And 'God did/said it' is not serious evidence.

I've also talked about how successful religion is at spreading it's message. I still think that is valid. Science is full of awful communicators. Religion is full of awesome communicators. That is something science needs to learn to do.

Ideally, I agree. I want to see a world where we can just lay out facts, have them be understood and move on. That isn't human psychology though, as much as we wish it was. I'm not saying we need fantastical stories to get science accepted more broadly, I'm saying we need to focus on the compelling narrative that amazes and inspires.

I highly recommend this book, one of the things it talks about is ethical development. It presents some theories and hypothesis on how to encourage and improve critical thought in children, which is a key element in ethics. One of the methods talked about is playing with a child and making up ridiculous stories for them, or asking them to imagine ridiculous scenarios. An example from the book is while walking down the street with a child, asking them where a lion would hide. The purpose isn't to train them to watch out for lions, it's to get them to think about the perspective of someone other than themselves, a key element of positive moral behavior.

The majority of the people in the world will never be scientists. I think the world would be a better place if all of them placed their trust in science, regardless of any other beliefs they might hold. I'm putting forth the notion that to date, religion is the best tool we have ever seen for spreading and teaching difficult and complex concepts. Atheists account for roughly 2.3% of the worlds population, non-religious another 12%, so I feel comfortable saying that religion is pretty successful.

I love watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos. More science should be taught like that, though I think even that could be improved to be more compelling. Not through better effects, budget or updating, but rather just finding the central themes and learning to teach them better. Science is full of wonderful stories, but scientists are horrible at telling them.

ciretose wrote:

Irontruth wrote:

You think we should remove all religion from the world instead of say... studying it to see if it can unlock a cure or treatment for neurodegenerative diseases?

Strawman is made of straw.

Please explain to me how this is a strawman.

Because he didn't say we should remove all religions. Lying about your opponent's position immediately before refuting or disagreeing with it, is a strawman.

What he has been saying, and what I would wholeheartedly agree with, is that the wisdom of religion should be scrutinized by the eyes of reason. The parts that don't hold up (don't eat shrimp, stone gay people, etc.) should be chucked out. He's further saying that he SUSPECTS that the parts that will hold up are things we hold to be self-evident today, like you shouldn't kill people or rape people or take their s%*$.

Basically, if the virtues of your religion can be boiled down to "don't be a dick", then there's no reason to keep the emotionally resonant portion of religion that says the world was created in 6 days, or other falsehoods, just because it helps to convince the rubes not to be dicks.

Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, or a particular group or organization.

So let me get this strait. F=M*A is scientific Dogma?

North Dakota is north of south Dakota is Geographic Dogma?

George Washington was the first president of the united states under the US constitution is Historical Dogma?

I think that nobody really teaches pure altruism. Christianity doesn't. Christians are supposed to be altruistic because it pleases God. As I understand Buddhism, it doesn't, either, because building up good karma is good for you. The classical arguments for secular altruism found in Plato and Aristotle teach that it is in your own best interest to be altruistic. Even biological altruism is based on individual organisms' reproductive success; that's why animal parents will self-sacrifice for their children.

So who's going to keep moving the goalposts?

I would, but I don't believe in them. No one has shown me any proof they exist. They keep talking about them, and how people are moving them, but I've never seen where they are before or after someone moves them.

Elinor Knutsdottir wrote:

I'm a militant atheist, believe that anyone with a faith is irredeemably stupid

I'm an atheist myself, but... really?

Does that include whoever came up with "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?"

I may not believe in a god, or that we are all going to keep being reborn until we can achieve oneness with the Brahma, but to claim that anyone with a faith is "irredeemably stupid" is just, to borrow a phrase, irredeemably stupid.

Throughout human existence, as far as we know, the majority of us have had some sort of religious faith, and you'll have to excuse me if I disagree with the notion that Isaac Newton was stupid because he dabbled in magic and thought of the universe as a clock created by God.

If you want more people to turn away from religion, I suspect that a good start would be to not insult their intelligence.

Oh, look, somebody already responded to that!

This is the second religon thread where people have had to jump back 15 days to find something that offends them. Blah blah blah.

I'd imagine that a group of atheists (or at least irreligious) wouldn't likely remain friends for very long with a member of their circle who became demonstrably religious.

In my experience, we don't hang out in homogeneous "circles" or whatever. When I hang out with a group of friends, it's likely to contain a mix of atheists, agnostics, mildly religious, and devout. Had one friend who was a young earth creationist and used to challenge me about evolution all the time -- that didn't matter, we were still friends, both still spent time with our other friends as well. Religion (or lack thereof) is only a barrier if you let it be.

If I place my mini on those mountain ridges, do I get +1 or +2 for high ground against my opponent's AC? I mean, it's on the battle mat, so it's fair game, right?

Mmmmm......BttH

I think its quite clear from

this
that many chaplains do not expect to have to serve the needs of all soldiers equally.

As a gay lawyer living in Washington, DC with many friends who are gay and who have or are serving at all levels short of being a general officer, and with friends and colleagues who have litigated DADT and DOMA issues, I am quite familiar with that. As I said, they're human. No system is perfect. What some individuals "expect" and what the chaplain corps is required to do under the law and military code of conduct are two different things. And if they can't do it, they can resign with honor. You can have a beef with individuals and be perfectly justified in it. But be careful to not paint with too broad a brush.

Hitdice wrote:

Every outdoor farm in the world is solar powered :)

Very true, but unless they've really gone to town with the GE stuff...people won't be plugging their cars into tomatoes to get from point A to Point B. ;)

Nor will people be powering their home appliances with artichokes. ;)

As, yet another aside, the growing of 'bio-fuels' tends to run into the problem of supplanting food crops. So, while bio-fuels are useful...too much of them means our cars will run well and we all starve. Not to be see to be kicking the whole 'convert as much waste bio-matter into fuel' type thing either.

bugleyman wrote:

Solar power aside...isn't there some crazy relationship between matter and energy that science might someday exploit?

You may be thinking of 'Zero point energy'. Something that Star Gate latched onto in its fictional setting. The 'Zasimir effect' (Casimir?)? Hold two plates a bare fraction of space apart and an amount of force is some how generated. I think is the current example of such? But yes, supposed an amazing amount of potential energy in 'Nothing'...*Bows*

No insult, but it would be, like, much easier read your posts in regular color and size :)

I was just saying that the Sun is about as close to a 100% percent reliability rate as we're likely to find in this generation is all.

1. Yup, the world use to have some kind of equilibrium before atheist science came along.

2. Now thanks to their crappy genetic engineering and fossil fertilizers, we can feed billions of people: so people breed until they get hungry again.

Sorry, guy, but you're violently confused on a couple of points.

1. Any equilibrium you think you perceive is an illusion. The continents move; climates change; random impact events occur. Species die all the time. No science needed.

2. People breed regardless of food supply. They either starve now or starve later, or kill each other off first. That's how things work, with or without science.

P.S. If you really hate science and technology so much, and aren't just trolling, then put your money where your mouth is. Get off the power grid. Start hunting and gathering all your food. Start making your tools out of stone. All of that takes time that you're wasting by posting in the internet via computer -- both of which are manifestatins of that evil science and technology, by the way. Until then, your statements seem a trifle hypocitical.

Zombie, atheists support science which will blow up the world in nuclear fire, so you still lose. If Christianity succeeded in stopping science we wouldn't be facing extinction at the hands of nuclear bombs or engineered virus. ;)

Cranewings, species go extinct quite regularly without nuclear weapons or engineered viruses -- it's estimated that 99.9% of all species that have existed on Earth are now extinct. What science can do for us is provide shelter from changing climates, enhanced food production to feed our population, and early warning of impacts (like the one that most likely wiped out the dinosaurs ~65 million years ago)... none of which would be possible if we abandon all technology and go back to living as tribal hunter-gatherers (which is what you seem to be advocating).

Yes, I believe that atheists are attempting to slowly transform American society. Thats not crazy its a fact. Its what atheist organization strive to do.

Atheists come to mock and resent public displays of faith, or any acknowledgment of God or religion by the state. The mere suggestion that the country is in fact a Christian one is declared backward, dangerous, and heretical to the Constitution of the United States.

Do I think its persecution in the scale Christians face in in Iraq, Nigeria, Egypt, No!
That is the context in which your failing to see or simply ignoring.

But you do think it qualifies as persecution. I rest my case.

Lots of stuffing things in each other's mouths in this thread, and You Know Who wouldn't approve of that!

Please behave yourselves, lest I declare you all abominations and shut down the thread with great vengeance and furious anger.

I now return you to your unresolvable argument.

What are you attempting to accomplish by saying I'm absurdly bigoted? Is it to get me angry or to respond to you in kind?
I know your just pathetically looking for attention sweety.

No I just meant what I said. To see what I'm talking about look to your third sentence.

Darkwing Duck wrote:

The removal of special privileges is not the same as persecution.

I don't know whether to be embarrassed for Aretas or insulted that he would have the gall to compare having the Ten Commandments taken out of court rooms to obstructing the passage of the violence against women act because it ensures that funding to protect against domestic violence won't discriminate against LGBT people.

Please be honest. I did not make that comparison.

You said that persecution of Christians is worse. That implies that the actual examples of persecution which you provided are worse than any actual example of persecution other groups experience.

If they keep seeing themselves as victims, no amount of change in the world will have a positive affect.

None of the examples you cited strike me as persecution Aretas; no offense, but they seem to me to be a step back from out and out endorsement of a particular religion by the government.

To Aretas, at al.:

Atheists aren't afraid of satire.

We're not afraid to poke fun at ourselves, and we're not offended when you join in.

On my way out to fabricate more evidence for evolution, I went through the local atheist village and found this wonderful new restaurant. There's a free abortion with every dish! Your empirical mind cannot deny the overwhelming evidence for value this great!

It makes sense since 78% of Americans identify with some brand of Christianity.

Yet only 33% worldwide, according to that same Wikipedia page I presume we are both looking at.

But oddly, there are 698 Red Lobster locations worldwide, despite it being an "abomination"

@Triomegazero.

Here is what the moderator posted before he locked the "Where is President Obama" thread.

Lambertz(Digital Products Assistant)Thursday, 10:27 AM
While we are totally okay with political discussions, it seems like this is quickly derailing. Please do not insult each other. That generally hinders fruitful discussion. I've removed most of this thread for that reason. This thread is now locked.

All the insults were directed at me for expressing my disappointment
on economic/political issues and saying we need a statesman not a politician.

I like this community & I really appreciate everyone but its shamefully obvious how the moderators turn a blind eye to the hateful anti Christian rhetoric while lockin down a thread critical of President Obama.

Citizen Aretas,

Not that I have anything to do with messageboard moderation, but I'm pretty sure the thread was locked not because it was critical of me, but rather because of the outpouring of not niceness against you.

If I am correct, the moderators were defending YOU, not me.

Now, let's address why there was an outpouring against YOU.

Some of the amusing hijinks that I have observed since you came on the boards: asking Comrade le Couard two questions about the Balkans and then determining that he hated America; accusing BNW of anti-semitism because he doesn't support Israel; saying that you voted against some Proposition for gay marriage because you hate the Democrats so much; etc., etc. As Irontruth pointed out above, there have been other shenanigans that I have missed.

This kind of behavior generates bad feelings. So, when you decide that you're going to stop your trollish ways and begin such a thread as "Where Is President Obama?," surprise, surprise, some of the people who have been offended by you go on the attack. You can say that you are going to change your ways, but people aren't going to change their approximation of you until you actually, you know, change.

And, getting back to your thread, posting what reads like an open-letter to the President of the United States of America on Paizo is pretty silly, regardless of political content, and that was the only point of my posts (Comrade Anklebiter, on the other hand, also dislikes me, which makes me sad.)

Either you like bacon, or you're wrong.

All I have to say is... He's done More and better in 4 years than GW Bush did in his 8.

Remember Bushie screw the economy up royally in 8 years. I'm sorry but it takes more than 4 to get it back on track. And in 4 years things HAVE gotten better not worse

He has tried to get us out of 2 wars Bushie started, and kept us out of more like Iran, Korea, Syria, Egypt, Libya (well for the most part Libya at least we did not send troops there to break up that mess)

And no, while he is not perfect, I cannot remember 1 single president that has been alive since I was born (JFK was the first) That was perfect, he sure as all heck is better than Bushie and Chaney

IF you think you can do better, then go start campaigning for the job yourself

Have you not been paying attention, one speech a week for the last 3 months and weekly whitehouse broadcasts. If you're only watching the 24 hour news networks you might have missed them because for some reason the news networks don't broadcast everything he says.

All statistics show that all of your concerns, (economy, race relations, foreign affairs) have gotten better since Obama was elected. So what exactly is your proof that things have gotten worse since Bush was in office? Gut feelings and talking points from the 24 hour News networks don't count.

From what I can tell, this is where my initial break with your argument comes in. The Bible tells me that God is in fact all-knowing and all-powerful. It also shows me that He created the universe and is not constrained by the laws of said universe. Given that, I don't agree that the rules that govern the universe apply to Him, so He can't be disproven using this method.

A few things. 1)The bible does not "show" that god created the universe. It says it. No evidence is presented.

2)If you believe that there is a being that needn't obey the laws that govern the rest of the universe, what stops you from believing in other things like ghosts, goblins, unicorns, fairies, UFO abductions, or other deities?
3)Why is it that you believe only your interpretation of the bible is correct? Certainly you've been shown factual evidence as to the veracity of the stories? Who do you think has the right to "edit" god's word? Do you further believe that those who compiled what we now know as the bible from disparate holy texts and letters from the apostles were ALSO divinely inspired? On what basis do you decide who, in today's world, is divinely inspired and who is a kook? Joseph Smith claimed divine inspiration for the Book of Mormon, why do/would you disbelieve him in favor of someone else?

Okay that's more than a few things, but it illustrates my primary concern with people who take the bible on faith. You're not just saying "this book was written/inspired by god" you're also saying that its compilers, editors, translators were inspired by god. Furthermore you believe that your interpretation is right, or the most right, out of the thousands of interpretations that exist.

Science is a methodology that attempts to answer the question "how?" not "who? or what?". Most atheists, if asked "who? or what?" would say I don't know but until I can know I will accept a null hypothesis. When asked "how?" most will default to the current scientific consensus. However, a scientific explanation does not describe an ultimate purpose. Because atheists, in general, do not attempt to explain an ultimate purpose to the universe, life, and humanity - they do not belong to a religion. Atheism does not contain central mythologies that explains why we are here, how we should act, and who we should marry.