io9 
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San Francisco, 4:46 PM
Tue Dec 1
30 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/28/09
09/28/09
And the Robot Chicken version didn't communicate that well at all. Thanks for the exposition guys. We needed it. At first I thought they were doing Aardman and failing.
A better multiverse/style hopping cartoon is The Fairly Oddparents Changing Channels movie.
09/28/09
Don't forget the less flashy but still quite funny Futurama episode.
09/27/09
09/28/09
I don't care what people believe/don't believe , but the idea that "science has been impeded by religion" is a gross oversimplification.
09/28/09
09/28/09
It's an oversimplification because in many cases it was religious orders that spurred scientific inquiry and even preserved scientific knowledge in times of ignorance. Genetics was first studied by a Catholic priest. Algebra comes from Muslim scholars. Pascal, Copernicus and Kepler all considered themselves Chrsitians. In the modern age, the Vatican (which, btw, has never condemned the Origin of Speciesd or evolution) has its own astronomer and the late Stephen Jay Gould, while not religious, nonetheless did not dismiss religion entirely. And yet all we hear about is Galileo (who never denounced Christianity, btw) and Creationism.
09/28/09
Generally religion as a whole has impeded scientific findings which contradict the bible. It hurts them to have something they believe in be proven wrong, so they fight it. It took quite a while for the Vatican to accept evolution. And even still they have currently only accepted macro-evolution, for obvious reasons.
Fact of the matter is, if religion didn't exist, then the millions of people who would have been brought up to believe in it it, would now have a clear mind. They wouldn't have a mind influenced by stories that were pushed into their heads as kids. We would have a society that has a larger percent of people willing to see the evidence that science has put forth, and be more willing to accept it. It would be a society based around science, influenced by science. Not influenced by religious agenda.
09/29/09
"Generally religion as a whole has impeded scientific findings which contradict the bible. It hurts them to have something they believe in be proven wrong, so they fight it. It took quite a while for the Vatican to accept evolution. And even still they have currently only accepted macro-evolution, for obvious reasons."
Not exactly. In fact, they reserved judgement on evolution, neither condemning or accepting it.
And there are plenty of believers who do not take the Bible literally, but as an allegorical work. That's very hard for atheists to understand or accept.
"Fact of the matter is, if religion didn't exist, then the millions of people who would have been brought up to believe in it it, would now have a clear mind. They wouldn't have a mind influenced by stories that were pushed into their heads as kids."
Stories that for the most part still have psychological resonance and deal with problems of the human condition that science can't answer readily. For example, science can tell us why we die, but creating meaning in life is up to either religion or philosophy.
" We would have a society that has a larger percent of people willing to see the evidence that science has put forth, and be more willing to accept it. It would be a society based around science, influenced by science. Not influenced by religious agenda."
Or we might still be back in the dark ages, because the monks never preserved the works of previous generations. It's a simple fact that in the pre-modern era, religion was one of the main purveyors of knowledge (and no, it was not just so they could "control it.")
I understand that religion has impeded science in some way, but religion is not monolithic. Judaism has always taken the Biblical creation story as allegorical. Other religions have very different relationships with science.
09/27/09
09/27/09
09/27/09
09/28/09
An invasion would absolutely, positively cost more American lives than nuking them did. At the time, pretty much nobody in the US gave a rat's ass for the welfare of the Japanese.
-Kle.
09/28/09
09/28/09
09/27/09
Lots of negative comments about Family Guy here btw... What's up with that? It's a hilarious show.
09/27/09
Also, and I hate to sound like a big old moralizer here, but often the jokes on Family Guy go for the shock and easy laugh rather than anything well thought out. I'm not of the opinion that there are some things that you shouldn't joke about, but, well, maybe not on an animated show aimed at teenagers.
Cripes, I'm getting old.
09/27/09
09/27/09
09/27/09
(That said, Family Guy is the most blatant imitator of the SImpsons of all of them.)
09/27/09
Yeah, sorta. I mean, that's the time when you go for shock humour.
I remember a chapter in this book by Ken Tucker (longtime TV critic for Entertainment Weekly) in which he lumped in both Family Guy and MST3K because they used obscure references. I thought it was unfair because MST3K used references the way a beat poet would use profanity, whereas Family Guy uses references the way a gangsta rapper does.
09/27/09
09/28/09
09/28/09
09/27/09
As full disclosure, I cannot truthfully say that I have never chuckled heartily at anything Mr. MacFarlane has done, but the show is so scattershot that the whole written-by-manatees theory makes perfect sense.
09/27/09
09/27/09
09/27/09
09/27/09
Sigh, I hate my job on so MANY levels.
09/27/09
09/24/09
Stick me in one of these and let an annoying side-kick carry me around.
09/23/09
Maybe one of the greatest comic book moments ever when Mallah confessed his love for the Brain.
09/24/09
09/23/09
09/23/09
09/23/09
09/24/09
09/24/09
09/24/09
09/24/09
09/23/09
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09/24/09
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09/24/09