One of the most militant atheists on YouTube is a lesbian who calls herself BionicDance. Here is one of her recent videos:
I questioned her position about atheism in order to get her to defend it in an empirical and non-dogmatic manner. She failed to do that.
Laci Green is a YouTube personality that is known for two things: At first she was mainly interested in proclaiming and defending her atheism (she was raised a Mormon and rebelled against that religion in her teens). Later, she turned to discussing sexuality and dedicated herself to making “sex positive” videos in which she offers advice and suggestions on how to improve your sex life. But she does have her limits.
For years, I’ve had a YouTube channel, but lacking a webcam I was unable to make actual videos. So I was content to favorite videos by others and make comments. But that all changed when I finally bought a webcam after several months of hesitation and learned how to edit files on my computer to make videos too.
Here is my first, made purely to test the systems.
Satisfied with that result, I produced this one a couple of days later about one of my favorite topics:
And this will be just the beginning!
The YouTube member cdk007 is well-known for making videos attacking Creationism/Intelligent Design, and promoting evolution. This is one of his early works and I consider it to be an masterpiece.
But after seeing it several times, I came up with ways to improve it further. Here are quotes from the video in red and my suggestions in blue on how to make the simulation of natural selection upon clocks even more realistic and consistent with how it works on populations of organisms.
Each clock organism consists of 30 gears, 1 ratchet, 7 hands, 1 spring, and one housing.
Each clock organism consists of a random number of gears, ratchets, hands, springs, and one housing, determined by mutations of the organisms themselves . Reason: Mutations should be allowed to change the number of clock parts to make the process of natural selection even more difficult. Humans have two kidneys but can survive with one and it is perfectly possible that we could have evolved with only one.
Remove 3 at random and arrange them in order of their ability to accurately tell time. The better two clocks kill the worst clock. Mate the surviving two and produce an offspring. Return all three clocks to the pool and repeat.
Remove 3 at random and arrange them in order of their ability to accurately tell time. The better two clocks kill the worst clock. Mate the surviving two and produce FOUR offspring. The remaining two older clocks are also killed off. Add the four new clocks to the pool and repeat. Reason: Represents the process of overproduction, which is an actual factor for populations of organisms to evolve over time, plus even the most successful organisms eventually die. As long as they are able to reproduce viable offspring first, they may be considered a success. After two “generations”, the population of clocks will have doubled, and so it will randomly split into two populations which will begin to evolve independently, simulating the process of speciation. Further splits occur every two generations. Finally, after TEN generations, all but two populations will be randomly wiped out, simulating a mass extinction. The cycles of two generations and ten generations continue indefinitely. As a result, the surviving populations of clocks diverge in form over time.
It would probably require a much more advanced computer system, with a lot more memory, than the one cdk007 used for his original simulations, but I still think it is worth a try.
I’ve invented the term “musical collage” to represent a group of songs by different artists assembled around a common theme or storyline, much like a compilation album except the songs may be featured in a live performance. Here’s one example, which I’ve titled “The Price of Fame”. The videos are all by the original artists.
This is another musical collage, which I’ve titled “From a Broken Home to a Healed World”:
I would LOVE to hear a band actually play those songs together!
These videos, as assembled by me, are my gift to the world this Valentine’s Day. Enjoy!
First, see this earlier entry:
https://dalehusband.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/venomfangx-the-biggest-liar-on-youtube/
That was then. This is now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2KdvvajOKY
This was uploaded by dprjones today. See it and read the lengthy commentary he gave on it.
Shawn, I’ll be watching. This should be the VERY LAST TIME I expect to see you on YouTube! Goodbye!
VenomFangX, aka Shawn, is a teenager (or at least appears to be one) and self-styled Christian evangelist who has made a total @$$ of himself on YouTube for at least a couple of years. He has gained quite a following among his fellow Christians there, as well as redicule and scorn from skeptics who have had the misfortune of dealing with him. And in a battle with one user in particular named ThunderfOOt, he got totally clobbered for engaging in violations of the YouTube terms of service and for legal reasons was forced to admit his wrongdoings on a video for all to see.
Now, if this “Christian” had any sense of honor or humility whatsoever, you would expect him to never bother with Thunderf00t again. But instead, he has just pulled this stunt:
Shawn, Shawn, SHAWN! Ray Comfort is no match for Thunderfoot, and that’s obvious. For you to call Thunderfoot wrong when YOU are the one who engaged in dishonorable behavior against him is totally bogus!
You are a FRAUD and so is your religion, period! If you cannot learn from your mistakes and just GROW UP and live like a man and not like a little boy, you can GO FUCK YOURSELF!
In the description of his video, VenomFangX says:
“Thunderf00t displayed all the weaknesses in the naturalistic philosophy. It robs people of a basic appreciation and value of human life over that of animals, and ultimately all life is seen as nothing more than complex machinery with our consciousness being little else than a spark of electricity. When morality and ethics are brought up, it is impossible for Thunderf00t to articulate a coherent answer, after all, speaking of right and wrong according to an electrical current is pretty silly, don’t you think, Thunderf00t?”
No, what is silly is you engaging in such a lame strawman. The notion that life is merely glorified chemistry is exactly what modern science has revealed over the past few centuries, and if you are too much of a coward to deal honesty with that, that’s your problem. It need not be anyone else’s.
Who are you to assume that because we are an assembly of extremely complex molecules, we have been robbed of anything? That is entirely an unfounded assumption on your part. If you need your delusional religion to feel that you have some dignity in your life, then YOU are the one that is robbed……of rational thinking! People are valuable because we as a species are unique, just as every species is unique and adapted to their environments and lifestyles. You don’t need religion at all to live in harmony with your fellow men or with other species. You just don’t! And how can you imply that putting man on the same level of value with animals somehow makes man worthless? Do you need us all to be as arrogant as you to feel better about yourself? What a terrible weakness!
No wonder your religion is dying, hypocrite!
UPDATE (Jan 7, 2010): After another round of dishonorable behavior, VenomfangX has been called out by another YouTube user, dprjones:
Think he will listen this time? I think not.
Dale Husband's Intellectual Rants 