And the entire argument fails due to the simple fact that it does not take into account that homosexuality has been found among ducks. So sorry guys & gals, the ducks won't take over the world.

Of course I'm sexist. Aren't we all? :)

Speaking of smart, I actually had lunch with a very smart guy today who may turn out to be a cool new friend. Bumped into him at the supermarket so we grabbed lunch together after shopping and had a good natter for 3 hours. He's very intelligent and even speaks 4 languages - Afrikaans, French, English and Zulu.

I don't think I"ve ever met anyone who speaks Zulu before, so that was cool :)

Weirdly too, he was in a bad car accident a few years ago and had major brain damage. Had to completely relearn walking and talking etc. But....he eventually came out of it being able to understand Chinese - can't speak it but knows pretty much what everyone is talking about if he hears it. Now that's phenomenal. I want that talent!

And yes, enjoying the rest of the replies on here too. Very enlightening :)

Of all the fallacies present in this text, petitio principii gets me the most.
Let's assume that evolution works overnight, is a contest where the best species "wins" the world, all humans are gay, all ducks are monogamous heterosexuals.
It still does not follow that ducks would win. The only reason she assumes that is because of the implied "being heterosexual is superior", which is the very thing she was trying to prove in the first place.

The girl herself does not believe her argument, she wrote the letter in hopes of making those poor misguided souls who believe in evolution join forces with her against the more immediate and insidious evil of homosexuality.

Evolution-"based" homophobia is widespread in Russia, and while it is usually combined with racism (as in, threatens population numbers of the master race - whites in general or Slavs in particular), specieists (people who believe other organisms are "failed humans" and "evolutionary dead-ends", and humans, being the pinnacle of evolution, should never surrender the planet to them) also exist. They earnestly believe that gay cooties will poison the memespace (or "noosphere"), population pressure will never force humans to colonize space, and civilization will end when the sun explodes. All because of gay cooties.

If they were earnest theists, they'd have no reason to fear death, because, you know, paradise. So either the concept resides in the atheistic partition of their minds and they never cared enough to cross-check their beliefs for consistency, or they are full atheists. The latter are more likely to be actively campaigning. One notable example is Yuri Khlestkov, an EE prof at my alma mater.

That didn't answer my question at all: How is any of her arguments "atheistic"?

Do you mean any argument where the one stating it doesn't believe it him-/herself is an "atheistic" argument? That makes no sense. Do you mean any argument based on beliefs that can't be substantiated is an "atheistic" argument? That would be ironic, to put it mildly.

I don't find it stupid either. She's a typical hyperactive extroverted happy go lucky american girl. She's prone to a lot of (hyperactive) affectation, and while I prefer a serious, substantial approach, I can't really say that hers is bad (other than reinforcing stereotypes). If anything, with her bubbly personality she probably tends to cheer up people that watch her. She's a case of style over substance (at least based on few vids i've seen), and as a rule, people (especially younger ones) will usually prefer the former. Especially for entertainment.
Totalbiscuit has both style and substance which is why he's so big. Some other (better) fantastic commentators don't have a "flashy style" to attract masses.

Also, since I'm guessing she makes money with her videos, even if she were totally fake (I think she's just a hyperactive extrovert), she is successful. You may not like, or even hate the way for various reasons, but her personality based approach works. I think she'd do well in some mainstream/pop tv show.

@op - how do you classify someone's posting style as male or female? can you determine my gender based on my post? or do you think that a girl would use more smileys and be a lot like...the girl from press heart to continue?

p.s. i didn't go through all the posts regarding religion since i have no time or will atm, but you seem to put atheists (lack of belief in a god, being unconcerned with god unless provoked, expecting reasonable proof from religious people about god's existence), and anti-theists (belief that there is no god, essentially believers like religious people) in the same category.

Zulu... hm... so that's how you impress girls these days... weird time we live in.

It is fully compatible with atheism and actually professed by some atheists. Lack of a belief in gods does not preclude other irrational beliefs.

She does not actually believe in duck threat. She expressed two beliefs:
1) that evolution is false, and
2) that the fake duck threat is something she can use to convince atheists (those fools believe in evolution, they can be convinced of anything!) to oppose gay cooties.

Atheism (lack of a belief in gods) does in fact strongly correlate with rational, practical, useful, correct beliefs. But there are also irrational atheists, and some of them believe in duck threat, in yellow threat, in GMO threat. And when you hear that GMO is evil because Man shouldn't mess with God's creation, that's theistic all right - but if anyone goes on about GMO will kill us all because blah blah stardust nature evolution genetics drexler zombies mutants aliens, and when you ask them point blank about religion they say, well, maybe there's something out there... - that's a 6.9 on the Dawkins scale, same as Dawkins himself.

When someone actually believes we should take care to not be out-evolved by ducks, they are much more likely to be an atheist. Because for most modern theists, humans are godlike beings that are in no danger from ducks whatsoever. It's not that atheists are more gullible on average (they aren't), it's that in a selection of gullible people, the atheists are more likely to believe in duck threat and alien visitors, and the theists are more likely to believe that God personally talked me in 1976.

The secular millenarians, eh ;P ?

Sorry, but that's just a load of crap. It may make sense to you but there are several logical fallacies in your reasoning. You might as well call it a "female" argument; it's fully compatible with females and actually professed by at least one (14 year old) female. You can also go on saying that females are more likely to feel threatened by ducks because there are fewer female than male duck hunters. It's a load of crap because you're trying to connect things that aren't connected, especially not in the way you present them.

That said, I feel bad for you (personally as well as your fellow russians) having to suffer such stupidity and ignorance. I don't know what kind of "status" such opinions have there in the general population - hopefully they're seen the way Phelps' anti-gay ramblings are seen over in the US. Unfortunately, not everyone is as critical to the opinions of other "like-minded" people as long as they're working towards the same goal, replicating even the most unbelievable and easily refutable shit as if it were gospel (no pun intended).

I guess it varies from country to country, region to region, but where I live the atheists, humanists etc are amongst the most open-minded and including people when it comes to homosexuals (since you brought it up) and other groups that are traditionally not on "the good side" of the church. The ones still fighting gay marriages etc here are mainly religious people, using mostly religious arguments - but of course, some atheists are against it too, using any argument they can conjure up.

In closing, I resent that you try to make homophobia (and general stupidity) stick to atheism by labeling that 14 year old's arguments as "atheistic". It's a logical fallacy to do so, and even empirical knowledge shows differently (at least here). My, or anyone else's, atheism isn't any threat to any belief system you might have of itself. Some atheists may threaten it, true, just like other *theists may, but that's not part of atheism. Very little is, really - we're a quite boring lot.

Dude, that's not what he meant.
As I understand it, he has been simply trying to point out that the girl's reasoning was not conducted within the frame of what she believed in but outside of it. As in "even assuming the nonsense you believe in, my conclusions still follow".
It's not a case of such idiocy being at the core of atheism. It's more of a background, really...

I didn't ask for an elaboration on what the girl might possibly have been thinking (unless Starmaker is that 14 year old girl it'd only be assumptions anyway) but what Starmaker meant by calling her argument an "atheistic" argument. So far the closest thing to an explanation is that it's "atheistic" because it isn't "theistic" - which is a logical fallacy - followed up with stuff like "When someone actually believes we should take care to not be out-evolved by ducks, they are much more likely to be an atheist". That's Starmaker's statement, not the girl's, and indicates both (even more) faulty reasoning and a wish to put atheism in a bad light.

So, yes, "load of crap" pretty much covers it. Atheism may be stupid, ignorant and a steaming pile of shit, but that's not something one can deduce from anything written by that girl. Not that I'd care much if it did - I'm not an atheist by choice, so it'd be kind of a moot point (yet something to keep in mind).

No - it's basic etymology. "a-" being a prefix meaning "not". We're implicitly assuming that "atheism" and "theism" deplete the domain as "cat" and "non-cat".

How intolerable ! How can anyone even CONSIDER saying anything BAD about atheism ? Good Logos xD...

First of all - he's not saying anything about atheism. Claiming that many people might eat a picnik outdoors is a statement more about picnic than the outdoors, IMO.
Secondly - you're acting like a religious zealot. Stop that. For an atheist, being an atheist should be as much of an achievement as not wetting his bed, so that's neither something to be proud of nor get upset over.

OK - I've got another comparison. Imagine writing a poem on a pink piece of paper. Imagine someone remarking on this fact. Does this tell you anything about pink paper, the color pink or paper itself ? It can be written on, that's all. Lots of things could've been written on it, the paper is not responsible for the writing it may contain. It's not in paper's nature to contain said writing - it was merely the way things went.

The girl used a frame of reference conveniently and purposefully devoid of deities. An "atheist perspective", you might say. Then she made some claims, attempted to string them together with what little reason she could muster and reached some conclusion... There is nothing particularly ludicrous about calling the background for her attempts "atheistic". It can only be if you insist that everything labelled that way has to be reasonable, smart, insightful or whatever... in which case, you're using the word not in a strictly descriptive sense but more as an evocative measure. Which makes me giggle, since being this touchy (unreasonable even) is understandable when a discussion touches upon what one considers "sacrum" - a lovely term known by anthropologists and students of religions alike...

It is pretty great.

Yes, if marriage and feminists have taught me anything, it's that being a woman sucks. Society looks down on you, your body acts up all the time, it's harder to gain physical strength, you're taught to fear the dark and distrust men, if you want kids they have to take time off work or school and spend months worrying about everything.

Not all men have big egos. I've known quite a few who spend all their time dwelling on the things they don't have - but even ego aside it's fantastic being a man.