1. Mind your manners

Comment #88459 by crumbledfingers on November 16, 2007 at 7:15 pm

NMcC, please. If you disagree with someone's point of view, join the rational among us and don't lower yourself to throwing bricks at the one holding the opinion. Your response to MuNky82 didn't even specify what you disagreed with. Maybe you should reread the title of A.C. Grayling's article?

2. Response to Theodore Dalrymple

Comment #85202 by crumbledfingers on November 5, 2007 at 9:34 am

I wonder if Dalrymple has read "God: The Failed Hypothesis" by Victor Stenger? That book contains many up-to-date cosmological observations that were not available in the early days, and derives new arguments from them (many of them variations on older themes, but definitely novel counter-evidence).

As to his second point. This is just flat-out not reading the books he's supposed to be criticizing. Dawkins repeatedly states in the God Delusion that religion may have many palliative effects on people, but he's more interested in the importance of truth. I wonder if Dalrymple has read Hitchens on religious "charity," in which he notes that the terrorist organization Hamas is now known to donate to the poor and homeless. Does that count as points for their religion's truth value? Certainly not. But the real squirmer is: does it mean Hamas is a force for good? That seems to be unequivocally false, since the benefits they confer could easily come from a non-violent (or non-religious) source.

3. Religion as a Force for Good

Comment #74594 by crumbledfingers on September 29, 2007 at 4:21 pm

The author keeps mentioning the "moral authority" of the religious. I wonder where this comes from, given that the author admits to not believing any of their religions to be factually true? "Its strength is belief itself, in a moral order that defies secular or indeed religious dictators." So the moral authority of religion comes from the belief in its moral order...? Isn't that just called "morality," or did I miss something?

4. RELIGULOUS: A Conversation with Bill Maher and Larry Charles

Comment #69998 by crumbledfingers on September 13, 2007 at 2:55 pm

The article is mistaken. Larry Charles had nothing to do with Seinfeld, that was Larry DAVID.

5. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58337 by crumbledfingers on July 24, 2007 at 2:05 pm

It's as if the interviewer looked himself in the mirror prior to the program and asked, "How can I present my questions in a manner such that it appears I have never read the book?" Which he probably hasn't.

6. Hitchens on Falwell, Part 2

Comment #43503 by crumbledfingers on May 21, 2007 at 8:52 pm

Hitchens' last line is unforgettable; one wonders if he deliberately timed it to land right before the Faux News Fadeout?

7. The Cyclic Universe: A Talk With Neil Turok

Comment #42458 by crumbledfingers on May 18, 2007 at 8:43 am

I got this far and stopped dead:

"According to our best theories — string theory and M theory —"

Lee Smolin's excellent book, The Trouble With Physics, demolishes this statement; basically, according to him, we know nothing more about the fundamental structure of the universe than we knew in the 1960's. M theory has so many variants (probably in the thousands) that any failed prediction can be chalked up to using the wrong model. It may turn out to be true, but a lot of things might just as well, like the absurd post by Ryan.Vilbig above. In the meantime, it's almost impossible to get any headway into physics departments at universities without showing a strong, almost religious interest in string/M theory.

8. Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton: A Debate God Is Not Great

Comment #38617 by crumbledfingers on May 8, 2007 at 7:01 pm

Al Sharpton seemed to be debating with the book based on title alone. He was not clever enough to realize its ironic nature as a reversal of the "allah ackbar" chanted by jihadists. And, as his opponent, the moderator, and questioners have mentioned, he seems to be completely unable to defend a single piece of the scripture.

However, I do wish Hitchens was not so wishy-washy about the existence of God. Although it cannot be proven or disproven, the two hypotheses are far from being on equal ground, as Sharpton says without rebuttal. In fact, it is impossible to disprove the existence of God, so that goes without saying; how telling it is that although proof of God's existence is very possible, it is conceded by the reverend that none exists.

I'm surprised that Hitchens did not pounce on the "no morality without God" more forcefully. What Sharpton was saying, in effect, was a universal negative: that nobody can be moral without God. He pointed to dictators who happened to be atheists, but no amount of individual cases can prove a statement of that sweeping nature. Hitchens missed a great opportunity to ask why there have been so many kind non-believers throughout history! Why was Carl Sagan such a devoted humanitarian and environmentalist? Why did Albert Einstein look toward the prospect of an atom bomb with dismay? Why have no rapists come from the National Academy of Sciences? Sharpton would have to ride a pretty thin line, namely that all of them secretly believed in a morality-providing God, or were invoking God unconsciously, to support his reasoning.