Shawn Patrick’s Comments (group member since Dec 22, 2007)

Shawn Patrick’s comments from the Atheists and Skeptics group.

Sorry, Dutch, this was posted and then life got in the way and I forgot. (Surprise! Hence the premise of this post, lol.) Yes, I get random private messages here and there regarding moderation, and I'd rather have someone who is active and trustworthy within this group be able to handle any of the admittedly few and minor complaints/suggestions. I'm glad to hear that you guys don't think a moderator is needed, but I'd still rather someone other than me have the ability to moderate, just in case. I'll go ahead with the Will/Paul suggestion. Thanks, guys n' gals!

OK, so I'm not a great moderator. I created this group a few years ago when I first started using Goodreads because there wasn't any group of this nature on the site. Since then, I've dropped off of Goodreads, but my awesome little group has grown and continued to be relevant, which is awesome =]

What's not awesome is that since I'm not on here, people's issues go unaddressed, and that's not cool.

So, on that note, I'd like to find out if anyone (or maybe a couple people) want to volunteer to become moderators. I'll take a look at everyone who shows interest and I'll choose the most active members who also seem to have a good head on their shoulders as far as being rational, not overly emotional, and not overly inclined to censor. (I don't want to censor opposing voices, only people who truly contribute nothing and/or are simply being assholes.)

Who wants to moderate?

We are officially the only page on the entire Internet to use the exact phrase "fuckhead-dick-sucking jesus." By the way, that's not something to be proud of. I use explicitness myself, and I'm certainly not as averse to them as MadgeUK, however, there's a point at which you're simply using them to be volatile and to hear yourself talk that goes beyond convincing anyone and simply functions in a self-serving way. Xox has definitely gotten to that point. Nothing he says serves anyone but himself, and in fact it serves as a detriment to atheists everywhere, as his viewpoint will be the one religious people remember and the one that paints atheists everywhere as stubborn, vulgar assholes who aren't trying to be rational so much as bullying and condescending.

I'm very much against censorship -- and as such, I will not delete any comments that Xox makes unless they are spam -- but Xox needs to know that his comments are selfish and hurt atheists everywhere, don't convince anyone, and aren't funny (if that's his aim), they're pathetic.

As with anyone like Xox, the best way to shut them up is to ignore them. I encourage everyone to ignore his comments and refrain from responding to them, no matter how vulgar or extremist.

Thanks everyone (else) for making this a great group.

I decided to anonymize myself when speaking about the blog because 1) I work for a media company and 2) I'd rather not have worry about personal attacks.

Pretty sad that I'm even worrying about either, but that's simply how things are in the U.S., frankly.

lol, I know you would, Madge :) We've spoken privately about our opinions of swear words, haha.

In fact, here were my exact words: "On the flip side, expressing himself in such a way will diminish his argument in many people's eyes (like yours) because it is overly crude and sounds less thoughtful and more fanatical by virtue of the language."

So ... looks like I'm not taking my own advice ;)

Entirely understandable :)

OK, shameless plug, but I figure I created this group, so I'm allowed one plug :)

I just started a blog called AtheistApologist.com. Basically, I hope to take a bunch of individual debates or points dismantling religion and talk about them one by one, linking to resources and sharing funny/intelligent videos along the way.

Anyway, check it out if you like, become a fan on Facebook, and above all, use the blog entries to start discussions just like you have here! The best way to promote your viewpoint is to give a calm, intelligent, reasoned response, and I hope to do that with this blog.

Thanks to everyone who's keeping this discussion group alive and kicking!

I'm actually happy with the way this group has been turning out. I very much like the fact that some some in to try to break up the monotony of our "Haha, we're so right" diatribes.

From the start, I encouraged people to put pro-religion books on the group bookshelf and encouraged Christians to enter the debates. Without hearing both sides, we are just uninformed of the arguments and preaching to the choir.

Anyway, just had to say that. Carry on ;)

I saw that Daily Show interview, too, and both the person I was watching it and I turned to each other at the end of the interview and said immediately had the same thing on our minds: "I wish he hadn't said that it was middle-ground and non-combative, because he contradicted that with everything else that he just said in this interview." He said that he wasn't making fun and wasn't being condescending, but every clip that I've seen thus far shows the opposite. I'll still hold judgment until I see it in its entirity, and I'll love every minute of it, but I think it's unlikely to be very Christian-friendly.

Also, the really exciting part for me is that I'm bringing a friend of mine who is in town to it. This friend used to be an extremely religious guy. (He once broke up with a pretty awesome girl citing religious reasons (she was an atheist.)) When I mentioned Religulous, to him when he came out, he got all excited and said he definitely wanted to see it. That was when I found out that he had started questioning his previous faith. What an excellent feeling it is when a good, smart friend finally comes to his senses, huh? Celebrate with Religulous!

But...wait...Chantel/Heather, you guys are women, so you're obviously lying about not being extremely excited about Sarah Palin. McCain took a huge risk snagging an unqualified, freaky extremist woman as his running mate, all to pander to women like you two! Don't ruin his hard work and brilliant tactics by saying it didn't work to cross you over!

Bleh, any women whose votes are actually decided by the Sarah Palin pick should not be allowed to vote (or procreate).

The problem is, it'll preach to the choir, just like all of the anti-religion films before it and most of the pro-religious films. Everyone's trying to cash in on the craze more than make a difference; if someone took the middle ground and made a highly impactful, less confrontational anti-religion documentary, I think we'd make a lot of progress in worldwide skepticism/reason.

With that being said, I'm 100% seeing it in theaters and fist-pumping/cheering along. Maher is the man.

I haven't posted here in a long while, but that doesn't mean I've abandoned the group. I read posts from this group every day, and I love the caliber of intelligent, logical people that have joined up and have become posters.

I haven't been posting myself because I feel like I have more to learn than to add. Plus, my initial posts were just to get the conversation started. Thank to everyone!

I had a very interesting discussion with a friend of mine, a friend whom I consider intelligent and like-minded. The discussion was about fate, and he, surprisingly, took the position of believing in fate and the impossibility of us controlling our own destinies.

I left the discussion keeping my old opinion, although I did not think that I made any valid points to contradict his thoughts, so I was coming to his side a bit. I want to discuss some of his points here to see if you guys can see anything wrong with it. (Note: I don't think I'm going to be able to explain this very well).

How an atom moves is based on the state it was in the moment before, and the state it was in the moment before is dictated by the state it was in the moment before that. Thus, everything is reliant on what happened before it and is thus predictable based upon what happened before it, ad infinitum. Our thoughts (including the way that our brains work, in general) and experiences are reliant upon the physical world, and thus the movement of atoms. So, even our decisions and personal reflections should be predictable based upon the physical world and what has happened in the past. If we had a super computer capable of tracking the movement of every atom since the beginning of time, we would conceivably be able to predict everything that would ever happen.

I know this has got to be a flawed line of reasoning, but I admit that I haven’t really been able to poke any real holes in it. I doubt there is no free will, but is that simply because I don’t want to believe it, by nature? (Like how theists don’t want to believe that when life ends, that’s it?)

Help me out here, folks.

Not a poser at all. This group is really for everyone. Funny you should mention Zeitgeist, I was just about to watch it on Google Video (if you go there and click on "most viewed" videos, it's in the top 3, so it's easy to find).

I'd recently seen the article in Skeptic magazine about the 9/11 conspiracy, and I actually met a Truther in a poker tournament a few days ago who urged me to see it because it would "change my life." We'll see about that ;)

But this kind of topic is also acceptable for this group, because it's a group to discuss atheism and skepticism, and this falls into the latter category.

The group image has officially been changed to the scarlet A, but that does not mean that better suggestions are discouraged. If you find/think of something better, let us know here and link us to it.

I take a bit of issue with the idea that atheists view the universe or life as devoid of purpose or meaning because we do not believe in a supernatural creator. I actually think I live a much more meaningful life simply because I believe that this is all that I get. I want to be a better person, I want to accomplish more, and so on, simply because I think that this is my one shot at making my mark in eternity. I think I'd be slightly less motivated to live my life to the fullest if I believed that my life was just a prelude to an eternity of an alternate existence.

People always seem to think that atheists must be a despondent bunch because they have nothing to look forward to after death. I think this very fact makes us a less despondent bunch because we're trying to make the most of the short time that we have, rather than biding our time until we get into our perfect afterlife.

Anyway, I know that this is a little off topic, but the above quote of yours, Sally, just struck me as a little off. I may have even been taking it a little bit far from its intended meaning. I'm sorry if that is the case.

Hah, that first FSM pic "Touched by his Noodly Appendage" is actually my desktop background.

A lot of these are probably too complex and busy for a logo as small as this needs to be. (The teapot, for instance, you wouldn't even be able to see.)

I think, for the above reason, I might have to go with the scarlet 'A'.

Excellent suggestion, Sally. I own a few of Josh McDowell's books, and that seems like a logical way to go to get the Christian perspective on the historical Jesus. I already own some from the secular point of view, so I wanted to temper it with the other side, and he is one of the most prominent Christian apologists out there.

I just put one up, but I'm not in love with it. If anyone else has a better image/idea, please let me know (and link to the image here).

Regarding prayer, many of the neo-atheism books that I've read, and some of the videos/debates that I've watched, point to the same study. The study (click here to read about it) was done on 1,800 people about to undergo heart surgery. The study concluded that there was no significant difference (in terms of the number of complications, etc.) between those patients who were prayed for and those who were not.

I have two questions. The first is whether or not there are other reputable studies that have been done on this subject. I have to believe that there are, but this is the only one that I ever see cited. Secondly, has anybody heard of any faults in this study, or any reason to question the reliability of it?

I would think that this study would be pretty damning for those convinced that prayer can affect the outcome of future events.