Yep, and apparently me and Talkorigins.org are chopped liver to Scrumpup. Sure there is snark on my post, but I do lay the evidence first before going for the mockery.
This place overvalues sharp tongues if it is actually about fighting ignorance. I have been a teacher since 1985. I have taught kids from grade 7 through 12 and I have taught adult education. Snark irritates a prospective learner but it does not promote either curiosity or learning. If we are really about fighting ignorance, then it is time to drop the snark outside of the pit. If we are about being sarcastic assholes who revel in how much smarter than other people we fondly believe ourselves to be, then it is time to quit bullshitting ourselves that we have any other purpose.
Objection, this ignores the past behaviour and background of the “student” in question. It was also a reason for the sharp tongue, and you are still ignoring that I posted the relevant info several posts before njtt
BTW I’m also in education and indeed I do not snark to students. I expel (I worked in the administration side before too) the ones that wilfully ignore the material and snark to begin with.
Me too!
Oh, please. If the OP was actually interested in learning about the Big Bang theory or thermodynamics, he could have started a thread in GQ genuinely asking questions and he would have gotten a ton of people responding to walk him through the theories.
Instead, the OP chose to spout out false information about those theories and falsely try to link those theories to atheism (when we all know there are plenty of science-minded folks who are plenty religious). These are bog-standard tactics of the dishonest creationist movement.
Then you come in lecturing people about how they are “name-checking thermodynamics” when the OP brought it up himself in his very first post. And you completely ignore the fact that several posters gave solid answers to the OP, even though it’s clear from his posting history that he’s not interested in them.
You can keep your school-marm lectures. You’re not interested in fighting ignorance. All you are doing is carrying water for utterly dishonest people.
This goes out to Scumpup and all…
The above insults everyone, and I’ll allow it because no one in particular is named… But let’s not let it get personal. That wouldn’t be a good idea.
Agreed. It is much wiser to utilize the soft answer that turneth away wrath.
Instead of, “You dummy, why don’t you use Google and look it up yourself,” we can say, “Yes, in fact, this has been well-known for a long time, and can be found in several places with a Google search.”
By human nature, we don’t feel comfortable being told, “That was dumb.” We can much more readily relate to, “No, that isn’t correct; here’s how it really works.”
Courtesy and good etiquette are far more conducive to persuasive education and correction of error.
(And anybody thinks different is just a ol’ meany.) 
Because we’re rational, intelligent human beings for the most part? My mom is pretty religious and used to take my sister and me to church every sunday, but now I find it just baffling that people would devote time and energy to praying in groups to a figure still not proven to exist.
Read the City of God by Augustine. He says; It is impossible for the earth to be round.
Not really a good response, there had to be Existence before any thing could exist, Anything has to be in existence (even the universe) or it wouldn’t exist!
Ah, yes-suddenly speaking of “Existence” as if it were an entity instead of the physical state of being, which is the common definition of the word.
EXISTENCE: noun- the state or fact of existing; being.
monavis,
No. Here are some citations:
http://www.creationtips.com/flatearth.html
Quote for me the exact passage in The City of God which makes you think that Augustine believed that the world was flat.
The problem with this argument is that it means…nothing can possibly exist.
You’ve defined “reality” as being self-contradictory.
Since we know there is such a thing as reality, the definition is patently flawed.
Again: God might be the universe. He isn’t “in” it: he “is” it. That is one possible exception to your argument about “having a place to exist” and, all by itself, invalidates your supposition.
(I do not endorse that view, I hasten to add. I’m an atheist, and consider any talk about God to be meaningless. But it is not automatically invalid on the kind of definitional grounds you’re attempting to construct.)
(I also hasten to add that I bear you no ill will, and that I am not stalking you, hounding you, or belittling you. I think you’re wrong, is all, and when you say something like that, I will respond. I beg you not to consider this in any way an indication of personal disrespect. You say “n is prime” and I say “n is composite” and there really isn’t any way for either of us to prove our contention.)
I like the thread title, but it has nothing to do with the text of post #1.
Re the thread title, in as much as it is true, it’s because people gravitate to places where viewpoints are similar. My hypothesis, which would take a lot of work to check, is that boards.straightdope.com started out only slightly more atheist than average, but that was enough to push it in a certain direction.
Similarly, if you look at the most and least religious cities in US – possibly Provo Utah and Boulder Colorado respectively – Provo may have been only slightly more religious than Boulder a century ago, but, over time, as people moved around, they sorted themselves so that the difference became more pronounced.
A good point, generously worded.
Although this is called Great Debates, there still may be a tendency to defer to a strongly stated majority view, making those majorities seem more statistically dominant than they are.
Also, may we refer to the board’s inspiration and excuse for existence, namely Cecil Adams’ newspaper column *The Straight Dope *, Ed Zotti, ed.
The typical answer there seems to be three paragraphs of more or less normal explanation sandwiched between an opening and a closing paragraph heavy on the snark, with the whole thing however generously seasoned with smartaleckry.
So we’re just following tradition.
The poll currently running in IMHO shows slightly under 53% of respondents identify as atheist. So, certainly more atheist than average but by no means “overwhelmingly atheist” as the OP claims.
If you were to break it into forums - the GD would likely lean much more Atheist in content (where it is a factor)- while other forums - where a persons faith/religiosity mean much less - will never even come into play.
IOW - GD and religious topics - if thats all a person were to review - would generally make a passerby think that the SDMB were heavily atheist.
PhillyGuy, thinking about your guesses about the most and the least religious cities in the U.S., I found the results of several polls:
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2013/04/americas-most-and-least-religious-metro-areas/5180/
The OP probably considers agnostics as being atheists as well. Add them in and you get up around 62%. Of course, he may consider anyone who isn’t an avid bible thumper to be an atheist, in which case the poll shows that only 13% of the respondents are devout theists and the remaining 87% are all heathens.
Don’t presume to speak for me, please.
If I had thought they were the same, I wouldn’t have had separate categories.