400-408 – • (2:12) FDR Montage (December 8, 1941). Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us God.
• NJ.com (12/1/2010) Catholic League funds 'Celebrate Jesus' billboard to combat atheist billboard in North Bergen.
• Fox News Insider (11/29/2010) New Atheist Billboard Calls Christmas a Myth. A brand new billboard was put up in New Jersey saying "You Know It's a Myth: This Season, Celebrate Reason" with a picture of a nativity under it. Is this ruining Christmas for all the children out there? The president of American Atheists, Dave Silverman tells us why they created the billboard.
• Fox News (11/28/2010) New Atheist Billboard Calls Christmas a Myth.
• The Blaze (11/28/2010) 'Celebrate Reason': New Atheist Billboard Calls Christmas a Myth.
(:18) Billboard 1/1 Intro (David Silverman, President of American Atheists, on Fox and Friends with Dave Briggs 11/28/2010).
(:28) Billboard 1/2 Why take aim at Christmas? First, To address the closet atheists.
(:30) Billboard 1/3 Second, to call Christians out on their own history.
413-423 –
(:24) Billboard 1/4 It's not a war on Christmas, it's a war on the solstice, and the Christians started it.
(:42) Billboard 1/5 If the religious right wants a war on Christmas, we'll make sure they know what one looks like.
(:25) Billboard 1/6 We're going after the people who don't believe and fake it.
428-437 –
(:38) Billboard 2/1 (David Silverman on Fox with Megyn Kelly 11/29/2010). Christmas doesn't own the solstice season.
(:49) Billboard 2/2 The purpose of this is to urge atheists out of the closet.
(1:05) Billboard 2/3 We're urging the 50 million closeted atheists out of the closet.
(2:27) Billboard 2/4 Adam and Eve and the talking snake is a myth. Etc. (Good exchange.)
443-452 – It always reduces down to the three fundamental questions of philosophy: What's real? (ontology) What's good? (ethics) And, How do you know? (epistemology) Bottom line, What's true? And what's admissible evidence for theism and atheism?
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458-508 – • (:43) FDR Montage (December 8, 1941).
Aquinas's Five Ways (MCNGD) – Thomistic arguments assert that finite contingent beings owe their existence to either (a) a vicious infinite regress of other dependent finite beings, or (b) a necessary Being with causal powers.
1. Argument from Change or Motion – Aristotle's argument that motion implies a First Mover. God is pure actuality, there is no potentiality in the Divine Nature. God is not in the process of becoming, He is Pure Being.
2. Argument from Causality – Avicenna's argument that if every effect requires a cause, then there must be a First Cause for the existence of the world.
3. Argument from Necessity – Maimonides' argument that if contingent beings exist, then there must exist a Necessary Being.
4. Argument from Goodness – Plato's argument that if there are various degrees of perfection in the world, there must be a source of all perfection, the Perfect Being.
5. Argument from Design – Damascenes' argument that if there is design in the world, there must be a Designer.
512-523 – Atheism & Calls
528-539 – Atheism & Calls
544-554 – Were there craters on the dark side of the moon in ancient Greece? Ontologically, yes. Epistemologically, no. There were, but no one knew it yet. This is the distinction between the subjective – "what is real to me," and the objective – "what's real."
T 554 – Robert Micone & Bill O'Connor "The Money Guys" from Applied Financial Planning at 866-SEEK-COUNSEL, (866-733-5268, SeekCounsel.com).
558-608 – Calls
612-623 – Calls
628-639 – Calls
644-656 – Calls
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(1:15) Maher on GPS 1. (Bill Maher on CNN with Fareed Zakaria 12/5/2010.)
ZAKARIA: "Politically Incorrect" was the name of the show Bill Maher hosted in the 1990s. It's also an apt description of the man himself. Now host of eighth HBO's hit show "Real Time", I find Maher to be one of the sharpest observers of American politics and life in general out there. It doesn't mean I always agree with him. I always find him funny, though. //
ZAKARIA: How much do you think the Tea Party is about, you know, taxes and libertarianism and how much is it about religion? I ask this because, a, I know how much you love the -- the issue of religion.
MAHER: I do.
ZAKARIA: But when you watched Glenn Beck's rally, what's fascinating is it was mostly about religion.
MAHER: I think he's doing what some people before him have done like L. Ron Hubbard, who's a novelist and decided, you know what, it's a much easier gig to be a religious leader.
ZAKARIA: And tax exempt.
MAHER: And tax -- tax exempt. And you already have people -- I mean, there's a reason they call them the flock, because they're sheep and they'll believe anything. So I think Glenn Beck is segueing (ph) from what he was mostly a political preacher, to a preacher preacher. It is an easier gig and you make more money, you know, Jim Baker kind of money. And so, yes, I think that could be something.
(1:25) Maher on GPS 2.
MAHER: But, you know, the Tea Party -- I'm not the first one to notice this, is really an amalgam of a whole bunch of different types of people and it's some old school John Bircher types, it is some racists, it is actually people who care about the deficit and the debt as I do, as you do, we all do. And I think there is an element -- there was an article in the "New York Times" about a month ago that said an article of faith of all the teabaggers is to believe that global warming is a hoax. And you mentioned religion. I saw one of the guys quoted in the article, a teabagger guy said I've read my Bible. God put the earth here for us to utilize it.
And, you know, we can laugh that off exempt that the guy who's going to be taking over the energy commission, Shimkus, you know this guy. He's Republican John Shimkus. He's a real winner. He says that we don't have to worry about global warming, because in the Bible, God promised Noah after the flood, you know, Noah, the 500-year-old man who got two of every animal on the ship and got them to -- OK. He promised Noah after the flood, he wouldn't wipe out the world again, so why are we worrying about global warming.
I mean, what -- you're a man of the world. What does the rest of the world think of this country? It is embarrassing that we have these yokels who are in charge. They must be laughing at us in almost every world capital when they hear something like that.
ZAKARIA: Bill Maher, always a pleasure.
MAHER: Good to see you.
ZAKARIA: We will be right back.
(:44) Dawkins-Maher 1
MAHER: So, when people say "the Bible is real," what they're really saying is that ancient people somehow have more knowledge, somehow are wiser [than we are today]. That's silly, right? Because wisdom develops on the shoulders of other people. I mean, there could be no Einstein without Newton –
DAWKINS: Yeah, that's right. We're not even talking about the ancient Greeks. We're talking about a tribe of wandering Middle Eastern herdsman [the Israelites]. Why would they have any wisdom about the origin of the world or the origin of anything else? That particular myth, is the myth that just by sheer chance, the Judeo-Christian myth happens to have come to our civilization. There are thousands of myths in the world, none of them are any better than any of the others, some are a lot more poetic than that one, but that's all you can say.
(:25) Dawkins-Maher 2
DAWKINS: The "Out Campaign" it's partly, "come out as an atheist." Don't be afraid to come out [applause]. But, we're not in the business of outing people. People may out themselves, and all we do is encourage them. Umm, keep out, keep religion out of schools, keep religion out of politics.
(1:47) Dawkins-Maher 3
MAHER: I want to hear your answer to the people, because I heard you speak about this, who say, "well, you know, atheists are responsible, really, for all the horrible things that have happened in the last century because Hitler and Stalin and Mao were all atheists, and look what they did."
DAWKINS: Hitler was a Roman Catholic. And, even if he wasn't, which he was, even if he wasn't, his soldiers, his foot soldiers, that actually did the horrible things, were either Catholic or Lutheran, and they had been schooled for centuries to hate Jews, both Catholics and Lutherans had been trained to believe that Jews were responsible for killing Jesus. So Hitler had a ripe field to plow there, in the Christian heritage of Germany.
MAHER: But, could I add something to that? Because I've thought about this, I've been confronted with this myself many times, which is that, I think, people get hung up on the word "religion". Hitlerism, Stalinism, Maoism, were state religions.
DAWKINS: They were state religions, of course.
MAHER: And Hirohito, in Japan, was a godlike figure. The real crux of it is, any time people give up on logic and put their faith in someone – ugh, Kim Jung Ill in North Korea, the mythology around him, they said the first time that he played golf he had eleven holes in one. [laughter]. That's religion.
DAWKINS: That's right! And, um, the point is, there is no logical pathway that would lead you from atheism to do those terrible things.
MAHER: Right.
DAWKINS: There is a logical pathway that would lead to, either from a Christian religion, or something like that, or from one of these state religions like Nazism, like Stalinism, and so on. You really can justify doing those awful things if you believe something as strongly as religious people do. But, nobody is going to go and kill for the sake of atheism, why on earth would you? [laughter]
MAHER: Right.
• The Washington Times (12/6/2010) 'Faith gap' seen among married.
• Fox News (12/6/2010) Parents Pull Son Out of New Hampshire School Over Assigned Book That Refers to Jesus as 'Wine-Guzzling Vagrant and Socialist'.
