Tex, I thank you for your post, but it is largely unnecessary. You followed so closely to what I assumed in my last paragraph I am legitimately surprised you even bothered. You did not address any argument or point I made in the previous posts with the possible exception of giving your opinion on faith.

I'm actually not a big fan of Richard Dawkins as a new atheist, but if I owe royalties to him you certainly owe royalties to Kirk Cameron of Growing Pains fame. You are using identical anti-intellectualism and attacking science in similar fashion to Cameron when he exploded on Stephen Hawking after Hawking claimed he did not believe in an afterlife. Again this is typical of a religious fundamentalist.

You posts reek of insecurity with you repeatedly attempting to convince me that you must be intelligent. You are aware, by this point, I do not value your opinion and we are probably are the only people reading this, so when you continue to insult me and make incorrect assumptions about my past you are actually telling me a lot about your own insecurities as you are aware I will easily disregard the insults. It is not designed for me to take seriously but is telling, none the less.

The irony is that the Sam Harris quote near the beginning of this thread I think is too harsh on religious types as many do not fit this stereotype. Unfortunately, you have shown that this quote can be very true with certain believers. The level of hatred aimed in my direction for simply attempting to challenge your ideas about the supernatural is exactly what he is referring to. This drop of a hat anger is what I have come to expect from many religious types of all creeds, and the only emotion I feel towards you is genuine pity.

I believe I have done my due diligence and responded to your request for me to post despite your obvious tone and unholy ire. As I am equally aware that you do not value my opinion as I do not value yours and you are not addressing the arguments in the previous posts I do not see a need or reason to respond to you after this. You are free to respond to me if you desire and I will concede the last word on this topic.

Tex, there is no need to point out ad hominem fallacies because you are not giving any arguments. You must give an argument and try and to justify using the ad hominem fallacy to make this relevant.

I have to start by staying you did not disappoint. Your response is typical of a fundamentalist Christian or Muslim (I would call you an apologist, but that gives you too much credit as you are not putting forth arguments) in the position of having your belief in the supernatural questioned. Instead of entering a discussion about the topic at hand their blood boils and their anger swells until we get a rant like the above (or worse), complaining when I point out flaws in their their reasoning as "cliched" or angered when I notice their fallacies instead of countering. Tex then tries to assert that I am dumb because he is under the delusion (one of many) that implicitly makes him smart (after all, only a smart person can call another a moron). This is exactly the type of post I expected from someone such as Tex.

I will attempt communication with you (usually a futile effort with someone as far gone as yourself) and try and get this discussion away from the path you went down in the above.

I fully admit that Newton was a far better scientist than Tyson; this point was never in contention. But in addition to being a scientist you also are saying that he is equally authoritative on apologetics. Many of the contentions about the supernatural Newton has made have been rejected by philosophers before and after his death. This is similar to how many of his beliefs about the natural world have been rejected by modern scientists, but science does not defend rejected hypotheses like alchemy the same way believers defend god.

What arguments that Newton used on the topic of apologetics for the positive claim of the existence of god most convince you that he is an authority? So far you have offered none and instead try and state that being a great scientist makes one a great theologian. This is not about "rejection of faith" but about one taking the position of belief in the supernatural which Newton defended.

As you had a guess at what I would respond, I feel that I should try my own shot at it. You will probably continue to rant and insult rather than make an argument (I honestly hope you do, as it would follow a typical fundamentalist progression; do not worry, I will not take it personally). You will try and write off your obvious anger by saying you find this funny while the irate truth shines through in your childish insults. I look forward to your response and hope that I am wrong about you being too far gone so we can enter into an adult conversation.

P.S. Don't forget to say I worship science, whatever that means.

Per your request I would be happy to respond, Tex.

You will note in the above I never compared Neil deGrasse Tyson to Isaac Newton; I was offering a quote BY Tyson where Tyson refers to Newton as a great scientist who believed in a supernatural god and tried to rationalize the two. Obviously Newton has contributed much much more to science than Tyson, and Tyson was using him as an example of a religious scientist.

I believe you are trying to make some sort of appeal to authority and straw man in "And who does the Lib choose? The Discovery Channel." (first of all, I am an atheist, but not a liberal). I did not "choose" Tyson over Newton in any sense of the word, and, as stated, if I had to make a choice who was a better scientist, of course it would be Newton. That is a ridiculous comparison. BUT just because I acknowledge the vast contributions Newton made to science, does not mean I agree with him on matters of the supernatural (and would reaffirm that even a mind as great as Newton's failed to make natural science fit into supernatural dogma). Pointing him out as a great scientific mind who believed in god does not give an arguement for one to believe in the supernatural (textbook fallacious appeal to authority).

Really mind numbing logic

In the above you never attacked my logic, just offered a straw man that I somehow thought Tyson was a better scientist than Newton because I quoted him.

Are you suggesting that if you get cancer you will trust in prayer, and not in science with regards to your treatment?

Look up the efficacy of prayer in scientific research. The effect of prayer has time and time again proved to be statistically insignificant.

The reason that the public is aware of the flaws in Duke University's findings is because other scientists in the cancer research community are questioning their methodology and data. This is how the scientific method works: it is a self-correcting process. Your comment on the Duke cancer research is actually giving an example on how that quote is right on the money (I looked it up and it is by famous atheist and scientist, Sam Harris). New evidence is being offered on how the data may be flawed and scientists, instead of screaming heresy, are attempting to either validate or throw out the data. Such scrutiny is never applied to religious arguments.

I leave you with a quote by one of my favorite scientists: astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson:

"Great scientific minds, from Claudius Ptolemy of the second century to Isaac Newton of the seventeenth, invested their formidable intellects in attempts to deduce the nature of the universe from the statements and philosophies contained in religious writings.... Had any of these efforts worked, science and religion today might be one and the same. But they are not."

I have read this too, though I cannot confirm or deny its authenticity.

And yes, I believe it was a bit naive to think that the Bible would have disappeared so soon, but I have the advantage of hindsight.

That is taken from a passage where Voltaire was speaking of religion (which he was famously critical of).

Here is the full statement where this quote is derived:

"Formerly there were those who said: You believe things that are incomprehensible, inconsistent, impossible because we have commanded you to believe them; go then and do what is unjust because we command it. Such people show admirable reasoning. Truly, whoever is able to make you absurd is able to make you unjust. If the God-given understanding of your mind does not resist a demand to believe what is impossible, then you will not resist a demand to do wrong to that God-given sense of justice in your heart. As soon as one faculty of your soul has been dominated, other faculties will follow as well. And from this derives all those crimes of religion which have overrun the world."

This statement can, of course, can be applied to things besides religion, I just wanted to point out the context of the quote.

Insistently, reading Voltaire's Candide in high school was an important step for me becoming non-religious (and now an agnostic atheist).

P.S. I know Voltaire believed in god (as evidenced in the quote above).

Wouldn't a better question for god be "Why did you create (or, at the very least, allow) cancer in the first place?"

Or any natural evil for that matter (i.e. where human free will is not involved).

Also god's response does not make sense, even in the rules of this fiction. God, being omniscient, must have known that the person he "found" to cure cancer would have been aborted, and, being omnipotent, he could have sent them to a place and a family where their talents would be utilized. But god must have chosen not to. Maybe god did this to teach a lesson to humanity about abortion, but try to justify that to the hundreds of thousands of pro-life people who die of cancer each year. Or, even worse, the millions of children who will die to cancer before even getting a chance to form an opinion on abortion.

In other words, if the story were true (of course, I know it is not), it would show god being a real as.shole.

So you agree that Tebow's 316 passing yards was just a Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy and that Christians who thought it was god referencing a Bible verse were assigning patterns where none exist?

He is probably asking that god kills Tom Brady.

This video cites 2,476,636 people god killed or were killed under god's orders (keep watching till about 2/3 of the way through, satan tries to beat god's high score but, as you stated, only is able to rack up 10 "points")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IrtdLukslY

Keep in mind he is only counting when the bible directly references specific people or a specific number of people, so many of the implied slaughters are not included. For example, as it is never mentioned how many people god killed in the flood, this genocide is not even a part of the 2.5 million number. Estimates of implied killings by have been put around 25 million.