At least that guy dresses up like a religious dumbass so I know not to invite him to any parties.

I'm glad "stumped" was in quotes, he just stopped acknowledging that guy. Ya think the whole heart thing was a witty assassination attempt? "Hey Dawkins, make your heart stop beating." haw haw

The sad thing is that guy probably thought "yeah ill ask him the heart thing, That will get him".

I heard arguments like that all the time when I was a kid. I believed them.

Then I grew up.

Does. . um. . . biology mean nothing to this man? Of course you can't just make it stop and start. You can however slow it down and some people to an insane degree. Plus, this guy seems like he has serious ADD, he was so excited to have such a great argument.

Dude, take off your hat and then throw it in the dumpster. You have complete control over your wardrobe. Or did God dress you today?

the concept of god is interesting. but as soon as we try to give specifics about god it all falls apart, because people acknowledge thousands of gods, each religion procuring the name "god" for their particular set of beliefs, customs and history.

lol dawkins owned like a little girl

The heart is an involuntary muscle controlled by subconscious areas of the brain. With mental training it's possible to slow your heart beat to almost nothing.
Dawkins should have said that, but I don't think the guy would have let him get a word in. He was like a Muslim O'reilly.

His argument seems to be that anyone with more power then you is god. So god is the mayor of your town, the president, the big bang, or even the sun which can go supernova and kill you. This cultist reminds me of a guy who e-mailed me once and claimed god exists because molecules vibrate. These nuts always mention something that science explains but they don't understand and claim it as proof of god (usually the specific one they worship).

A wise man once said: "Never argue with an idiot, he'll drag you down to his level, then beat you with experience."

Heh, this site used to be rich with interesting and insightful comments, yet all we have now is some liberal spam base (which always seems to be the devolution of any web site with comments). If I were bored enough, I could look back at my first comments on this site when it was first starting out and quote my prediction of this very thing.

thanks for the fun quote, jimnms.

@ Anliz, religion can look pretty silly when co-opted to explain physiological and biological processes, especially ones very well characterized and understood. Religion bashing is to be expected when zealotry, selectively blind to modern understandings of our world, attempts to fill holes in knowledge long ago resolved with analytical techniques and critical thought.

... and I still find the site to be rich in insightful comments, but its highly dependent on the video subject. Word on the street is that v3.0 will have a comment rating system.

I actually enjoyed the comments. Don't see what's wrong with them.

Liberal spam base? Really? Meh, maybe you're right.

That's funny, though, because I've grown to appreciate the intelligent (for the most part, in any case) conversations/debates that this site has contained since I first ran across it.

I mean, when I compare this site to YouTube, Dailymotion, and Break!, sites which I simply will NOT read comments from anymore (because they're mostly unintellegent rants that butcher the English language beyond repair, and are mainly just insults being thrown back and forth), I realize how much I enjoy this site. Plus it feels like there's a very healthy community here of people that not always agree with one another, but enjoy eachother's presence in the comments pages regardless.

But like I said, maybe you're right. But it seems to me that what's defined as 'liberal' nowadays has a pretty broad range. Anything outside of this very defined list of ideas seems to be classified as 'liberal' now, even atheism. The ability to make such a sweeping generalization such as that just feels very unoriginal, if not just lazy.

Karaidl beat me to a response, but mine is longer! Thus...more important?

EDIT: As did Bamdrew! Damn me for taking too long with my messages!

Well, after the far right's nutball arguments are destroyed by the Facts, of course all you have left is a 'liberal spam base".

The 'conservative spam base' has slinked back to the safety of Jeebus Camp where the earth is still 6000 years old, and Terrorists and The Red Menace are still hiding around every corner conspiring to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.

I stop my heart, and then tell it to start again. I do it every time my heart 'beats,' and I don't even have to think about it! Gotcha!

Don't try to out-idiot me!

Oh yeah, and about the nature of all the comments on the Sift- This is the only place that I bother to read them, too. Though there still get to be so many on certain videos, and people leave so many comments trying to reiterate what they're saying it can become tedious trying to work through them, I believe that it shows a strong amount of integrity in the comments over all. Generally intelligible sentences from everyone, and not too often do we degenerate into epic rants where we try to repeat ourselves from every possible angle. (it's more a matter of etiquette than anything, depending on how you believe your comment is being recieved.) Maybe we could leave some tips somewhere about leaving good comments... ah yeah I'm sure they're in the FAQ now aren't they? Which we've all memorized, right?

Sure there will always be people who just spout out their first response no matter how many other people have already said it. You can't stop that, but you can learn to identify it for yourself, and realize that there's no need to get all defensive because someone with a different point of view has a small cadre of short-attention-spanned followers. It's actually slightly embarrassing when you see even people you agree with lambaste the comment column in a drunken fashion.

So cheers to you all, and thanks for the well-natured and concerned comments you've all left somewhere.

OMG, you people call yourselves tolerant and enlightened? But you attack anyone who believes in something outside science as if you are the Cardinals of Science or something! Listen to yourselves...

I actually pretty much agree with the point i THINK this guy was trying to make (even though he made it VERY badly)

First, he is talking about the ORIGIN. He believes there is an origin of all this, and he believes that and origin necessitates and originator. You can argue against that, sure, but believing it doesn't make you an idiot. We don't know either way, and by definition the alternative frameworks are incomparable and incompatible. He might believe in the Big Bang, but still ask the question "what pushed the button?" and your science has no answer. You say "there didn't need to be a button!" or what?

Secondly he seems to hint that his definition of God is "that mysterious thing which science might never explain and the english language cannot articulate"... he is saying "i don't believe that everything can be described by science, language and mathematics".

He doesn't deny evolution, he doesn't claim the world is flat, and he doesn't call Dawkins an idiot.

Dawkins, on the other hand, responds with all the gentlemanly enlightened wisdom of an ID proponent. Rolling his eyes? Yeah, good comeback.

Atheists are always saying "show me the proof of god's existence" which is the same as saying "There is but One Science and way of knowing things, and all shall obey the Holy Logic and think only one way for all eternity, for all other ways of Thinking are Evil and Retarded for ever and ever Amen"

MINK, I've never 'attacked' anyone with opinion's in opposition of my own.While I can't speak for everyone, I feel I can say the same about a good number of sifters. I have stated my own argument in complete disagreement to theirs, but I try my best not to belittle them or insult their intellegence in the process.

I'm not so sure he 'rolled his eyes', as it was the host that translated his actions as that. However, I did pick up a certain "I'm not going to touch that one" vibe from Dawkins. But who can honestly blame him? Who would even know where to start responding to that? I mean, it's exactly like you said - "I actually pretty much agree with the point i THINK this guy was trying to make (even though he made it VERY badly)"
Not even you, who is trying to defend his point (to a degree) knows exactly what he was talking about. How would someone who's trying to debate him have a response in the short amount of time given before they went on to the next question?
And plus, as a man who's spent a TON of time interviewing a lot of people these past months, if someone was given the microphone and immediately started spouting "GOD IS THIS AND GOD IS THAT" in a very forceful tone of voice as that man had done in the video, what would be the point? The guy obviously just felt the need to put Dawkins "in his place" for questioning God's existence. The guy obviously has no desire to discuss or debate, instead felt the need to just tell Dawkins that he is wrong, and that is that.

Who would debate with that? Who would even bother?

as a scientist, you HAVE to bother. As a believer in God, you don't. I think this whole debate is ridiculous because neither side can translate their ideas into language that the other side can incorporate into their own ideas. It's like using english to tell chinese people they have to speak english, when they don't speak english.

Demanding proof is absurd to a believer in God (and many say they HAVE seen/felt/heard god, so that IS proof enough for them, whether or not you believe it)

When believers try to be scientific, like this guy, they sound stupid. When scientists try to talk about God, they also sound stupid. God could be laughing at them saying HAHAHAHAHA I INVENTED THE LAWS OF NATURE YOU DUMBASSES! except he isn't human and wouldn't do that. Maybe.

I don't know the answer, at least I admit that up front instead of telling you a scientific explanation for 99% and then demanding that you take the other 1% for granted. ( i mean "you" collectively, not singling anyone out)

Dawkins annoys me. I agree with most of what he says but he annoys me and I am not going to start worshipping him like some people on here do. That's the irony I was trying to point out, the behavioural similarity between both sides, the way the fundamental atheists fall into the traps they ridicule. My downvote was for the title and for Dawkins' patronising aloof bullshit. If you are bored of religious people telling you "stupid shit" about god, then stop writing books and going to debates. If you think answering those questions is beneath you, because of your belief system being inherently so much more TRUE than anything else, then look in the damn mirror.

Personally I am happy to sit on the fence. There's a good view from up here even if it's a bit uncomfortable.

Most people who say they've seen or felt god are simply lying in the hopes that you will judge them to be better people. After all, if they're close to god, they must be good people.

Like Dawkins, I'm basically sick of being expected to respect everyone's religious beliefs. It's okay if I feel someone's infantile if they believe in Santa Claus, correct? God is Santa for adults and I'm sick of acting like it's okay to run your life according to this claptrap.

Or they're schizophrenics.

In any case either they have no grip on reality or they think other people don't. It honestly sickens me and there are people I can't talk to anymore because I've discovered they're sincerely religious to the point they believe stuff out of the bible. To me they might as well be as schizophrenic and on anti-psychotics.

anliz-here? http://www.videosift.com/talk/Comment-writing-philosophy#21227

the answer to life, the universe, and everything = 42

@MINK: An origin necessitates an originator? Then why wouldn't an originator necessitate its own origin and originator? ad infinitum.

Religion by its own admission is based on supernatural belief. End of friggin story!

There is absolutely no need to keep holding on to the increasingly fewer unexplained phenomena, and constantly grasp at the currently unexplainable phenomena, to give meaning to belief. Its just beleif! It doesn't need facts! It doesn't need anything but you believing it for it to be a belief. I knock on wood and don't break mirrors and think about karma and what not, but I don't justify these thoughts and actions beyond shrugging the shoulders and saying, "meh; human condition to just believe in some things".

bamdrew, you have a lot of faith there.

" @MINK: An origin necessitates an originator? Then why wouldn't an originator necessitate its own origin and originator? ad infinitum."

god is infinite. so now what?

just because the concept of god doesn't fit into your science, doesn't mean he is impossible. It just means he is impossible within your framework (which is constantly being updated)

In summary: my "faith" is that science will eventually prove the existence of something A LOT closer to god than you think. I hope that explains that i am not a moron inventing hallucinatory appiritions to comfort my idiotic self. I swim in a beautiful lake and I feel God. That's good enough for me. It's my god, not the one you are so proud of rejecting.

*Dead

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