He's not actually serious in this monologue, is he? He just comes across as an old man screaming "Get a haircut, you hippie!" before throwing some teenagers off his front lawn.

Dude, it's the 21st century. Social dancing in public has been a thing since my grandmother was a teenager back in the "roaring 20s." Only an idiot can't understand the idea of expressing your emotions with your body (rather than say a pen, paintbrush, or your voice). And Stephen Fry has never struck me as an idiot, so I'm not sure where this monologue is coming from.

Some references:

Drums: https://youtu.be/k59E7T0H-Us?t=9

Topless drummers: https://youtu.be/4tgtyl_5x5Y?t=59

Grandmother plays the drums: https://youtu.be/RWQCgSB_lpE?t=150

Violin: https://youtu.be/M3RpKTehDi0?t=43

Old women baking: https://youtu.be/BgUstrmJzyc?t=13

Man in a hamster wheel: https://youtu.be/slHboKF9PIQ?t=123

Pretending to be in love: https://youtu.be/iq2yLykdjvA?t=134

Burning Piano: https://youtu.be/-f993p0CAV8?t=105

Russian man on skates: https://youtu.be/bawnwSYOCFU?t=119

Creaming butter: https://youtu.be/VJ920cN2HmA?t=138

Lordi: https://youtu.be/gAh9NRGNhUU?

Loreen: https://youtu.be/Pfo-8z86x80?t=53

+ dancers, strange costumes, wind, light, love songs, etc.

But altruism is how you portray the works of the church, but you're correct, it's absolutely NOT the right word. They do 'good' for rewards, it's the same reason religious people do 'good deeds', just different 'rewards'.
If atheists did 'good deeds' but required conversion to atheism/abandonment of religious beliefs before offering needed assistance, that would be quite wrong. That's usually how the church, and religious charities work....it's NEVER how atheist charities work.

Religions are evil, not just the churches that use them. Yours starts with instructions to murder, torture, commit incest, enslave non believers, and ends with threats of eternal torture if you don't submit mind body and soul. All that from the bible, which is not a church, but is a doctrine.
EDIT: Religion is terrorism. It is a way to control the actions of others through threat of never ending supernatural torture if they don't do as the church/the preacher/your grandmother/your political party/whomever is using religion says.

You don't need any religion to live honorably, sacrificially, or lovingly. In fact all those things are easier without the blind worship and certitude that 'your religion has the right answer' (to the exclusion of all other 'answers') that all religions insists on, and they are nearly impossible with religion. History has recorded that consistently since cuneiform.

I went with mom, dad, and my grandmother. We flew to Washington and drove from there.
It was a neat trip, but I expected more from the expo. With a few exceptions, it seemed like it was done on the cheap, compared to what I had seen in old footage. I expected to ride in a hover car, watch hologram movies, ride moving sidewalks, ride monorails, see some early teleportation, etc. Of those, I got a holographic movie, so I was somewhat disappointed. What do you expect from a 16 year old though?

Posted the other 2 videos in the comments of that one. Feel free to sift them if you wish, I won't be posting them for real.

I can't even watch this. I feel like I perhaps have the stomach to watch Salo with my grandmother, but I lack the stomach to watch this interview alone.

You really do. Iain M. Banks was an amazing writer.

Excession is probably my favourite, along with Look To Windward and Use Of Weapons.

His non-sci-fi work is fantastic too, especially The Crow Road (any book that opens with the sentence "It was the day my grandmother exploded" is instantly brilliant IMO).

He was also a wonderful speaker. Listen to this (skip to 29:32 if you haven't read Use Of Weapons, it spoils the whole plot) http://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2012/oct/12/iain-banks-book-club-podcast?fb_ref=Default. I love his analogy of writing fiction is like playing a piano and writing SF is like a massive pipe organ.

I don't know about feminism in the US, but where I live, the feminist movement was started by women who couldn't vote, couldn't go to school, couldn't work, had no rights when they married, and there were zero family rights. These women were able to resolve most of these issues by fighting for many years. YES, it was about equality... They should be admired for their dedication, not slurred.

So a very large part of the work has been done. The last remaining battles being at the workplace and in the media. I get that some people think feminism is not needed anymore . But to me this lady in the video is annoyingly only looking at the snapshot of today's media depiction of feminism.

Of course, she can say now "I don't need feminism", after all the work has been done by her grandmothers .

P.S What the hell is it about comparing rape statitics between men and women ? Does't make any sense to me.

Every year for my birthday my grandmother would draw Killroy peaking over a fence in the card, just as her way of personalizing her greeting. She most likely picked it up from my grandfather, who was a WW2 vet. I'd never made the connection before now, though I'm certain I heard of the Killroy thing before now.

You're still missing my point.

No one NEEDS (your word) a church to "complete them". I'm not saying there are no positives to belonging to a church (sense of community, charitable works, etc), but those can all be found elsewhere.

This is demonstrably true and has nothing to do with being an atheist.

I really don't care if someone else is religious or not, as long as (as you say) they're a good person. Frequently, that's in spite of or even in direct contradiction to their churches teachings. And quite frankly, as you don't suck at your religion, I really don't care what you believe. Problem is, lots of people really do suck at it, as we were sadly reminded once again this weekend.

One more thing:
>> You don't like religion being all judgey? I recommend you stop doing it yourself, and let people be.

What gave you the idea I don't like judging other people? I judge people ALL THE TIME.

It's how I decide who I want to be friends with, who I want to employ, hell, even which pub I want to go to. If you don't judge, you don't think. I just don't judge people for things I don't have a problem with (gender, sexual orientation, race, etc). On the other hand, I ABSOLUTELY judge people if they are spiteful, petty or have terrible taste in music

No, I have zero problems with the church judging people for immoral acts. I just vastly disagree with them on what constitutes an immoral act (they generally seem to be pretty down on two people loving each other if they don't have the right set of genitals, I'm more opposed to child sexual abuse, for example).

So yeah, I judge.

I'm sitting here judging the hell out of those assholes in Paris for example. And there's "nothing wrong with that. Judging is human."

You remind me of the time my grandmother, at 91 years old, was walking her small dog on Memorial Drive in Houston (MAJOR street, up to hundreds of cars per minute). She tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and fell hard on her face, smashing it badly and knocking out some teeth. She ended up crawling well over 2 blocks on hands and knees in full view of the street (no bushes or trees obstructing the view), bleeding profusely down her face, and not a single car stopped to help. That was over 6 years ago, and it still boils my blood that so many people are so uncaring/unhelpful, and it makes me think these are likely the same people that beg for help at the slightest discomfort in their own lives.
Sometimes I just hate humans.

We do disagree. I would suggest you're confusing racist humor with racial humor.

Racist humor means you are attempting to convey an idea about one race's superiority over another. Racial humor is topical humor that concerns race, which includes mocking racism. There's a difference.

Another example of racial humor that's not racist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF1NUposXVQ

He's expressing his opinion that it's BS to tip toe around the "N-word" by using that phrase instead or others that are similar, just say it and be done with it, and that words don't mean what they traditionally mean depending on the context. He never expresses any idea that one race is better than another despite basing a bit around a racial slur.

Another favorite of mine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWdVwt2deY4

The whole bit centered around Randal, the village idiot, not realizing a term was a racial slur, and suddenly realizes his grandmother was actually pretty racist. There's a litany of racial slurs in that bit, but never once was the bit expressing the idea that one race is superior to another. It even has Randal accusing Dante of being racist because Dante told him not to attempt to reclaim the racial slur against black people because he's white.

It's hilarious, racial, but NOT racist.

One last tip, if I'm frustrated, and I hyperbolically saying I'm going to kill someone, and you correct me, don't be surprised if it changes to literal*.

* That's a joke.

Hey Lantern, why don't you tell us how "totally not racist" you are..

while claiming that black people are inherently violent, underachieving, thugs & savages.

Oh but wait, you "have a bi-racial relative" so you couldn't POSSIBLY be an unapologetic racist.

Nope, you just believe the first biracial president is "unamerican" because he spent 4 years as a child in -*gasp!* - a "foreign" country.

[You know, like how Republican Ted Cruz is a Cuban-Canadian with an untrustworthy racist father]

Or maybe you can tell us how the "black community" conspired to make certain that open racism and discrimination in EVERY facet of life was perfectly acceptable until the 1960s.

Pssh, seems EXTREMELY racist to still benefit from the enslavement of an entire group of people..
- not to mention the whole murdering & subjugating the indigenous population beforehand -
..then blame that group for not being able to "fix their own problems", doesn't it?

P.S. - It does. Because it is. Because you're a racist.

Just like my hispanic grandmother.. oh, and she has TWO bi-racial grandkids.

Nice. Now I better call my 97 year old grandmother.

I don't know if I ever said he was born in Kenya. I don't know. He ( his parents) did list him as being Kenyan citizenship on some school for or such.
His grandmother or great grandmother indicated he was born in Kenya-- So there is that.

I did say that the birth certificate he posted as a pdf did indeed look odd- When opening it in illustrator.

If you were to get your Birth Certificate copy they would give it to you in person or mail you a copy. If you were to "post" it as the White House did why would you not scan to JPEG or PNG?


They posted PDF. But would that truly produce 13 layers and look that way? We all scanned or OCR a document - you end up with odd characters and broken sentences but not what was posted by the White House..

Odd Very Odd---- never resolved- It ran for 1 week and Bin Laden was taken out and wiped this issue off the radar.

Everybody slams W but he's the only President with a master's in business (from Harvard), and he flew an F-102, which was not an easy aircraft to fly.

He's also the author of a biography of his father, and never once did he throw his grandmother under the bus for being a typical white woman.

He certainly came across as a dunce, but it's obvious to anyone with a brain that he was and is pretty sharp.

Obama, on the other hand...