1. Origins - The BIG Questions: 2008 Skeptics Society Conference

Comment #242486 by german-atheist on September 3, 2008 at 10:35 pm

i don`t consider „does science make belief in god obsolete" an important question and in no way the biggest question of them all.

2. Secularists have a right to maintain their ethos

Comment #240621 by german-atheist on August 31, 2008 at 5:25 pm

i was wrong about jr.-sen.
i remember the video though-it was not a conference room,it was in daylight and somewhere around an airport.
bush,sen. did not say it in a private conversation,so at least i was right about that. i haven`t found the video but i found this text when i checked on youtube(i don`t know how to use quotes):


When George Bush was campaigning for the presidency, as incumbent vice-president, one of his stops was in Chicago, Illinois, on August 27, 1987. At O'Hare Airport he held a formal outdoor news conference. There Robert I. Sherman, a reporter for the American Atheist news journal, fully accredited by the state of Illinois and by invitation a participating member of the press corps covering the national candidates, had the following exchange with then-Vice-President Bush. Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are atheists? Bush: I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me. Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists? Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God. Sherman (somewhat taken aback): Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church? Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on atheists.

3. Secularists have a right to maintain their ethos

Comment #240402 by german-atheist on August 31, 2008 at 12:52 pm

@healthphysist

though i don`t think it too important,but it really was bush jr.
in a press conference during the campaign for his second turn he was asked by a journalist what he would say to atheist citizens why they should vote for him.
he answered s.th.like:i don`t regard atheists as american citizens.
there is a video of this,either on youtube or on a website of an atheist/secular organization.

like jack rawlinson i am hostile to religion but i am cool with the article.
i like the way it clearly says:secularists don`t care how you (the religious)live your lives,
but stop fucking with my way of living.

4. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #238971 by german-atheist on August 28, 2008 at 8:24 pm

the former german chancellor schroeder and his vice-chancellor and minister of foreign affairs
joschka fischer were the first who did not end their oath of office with:so help me god,which is optional in german parliament.
neither the press nor anyone else noticed it here,until some us politician brought it up (don`t know his name) when he said something like:america has to rethink the german-us friendship,when germany`s leaders have been divorced several times,don´t say :so help me god and refuse to take part in the iraque war.

5. The Science of Religion and the Religion of Science

Comment #200439 by german-atheist on June 27, 2008 at 4:21 pm

if you are a native english speaker it might not make much of a difference,but i find it easier to understand a foreign language watching the speaker.

6. In God's Name

Comment #183180 by german-atheist on May 21, 2008 at 1:43 pm

i had to stop watching,when in the first part,the woman told the children what happens to sinners.
this shit makes me feel sick and i get agressive.

7. Dumb and Dumber: A discussion between Ben Stein and Glenn Beck

Comment #175529 by german-atheist on May 5, 2008 at 2:41 pm

i wonder,if writing a speach for nixon,predicting america`s independents of foreign fuel by the early 90s,realy makes him a credible expert in economics,evolution or anything else.

8. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #131310 by german-atheist on February 22, 2008 at 8:15 am

i find it amazing that only 80 per cent of the british muslims feel discriminated.
i expected numbers like 110 per cent because your head of state her majesty
refuses to ware a burkha.

9. Murder plot against Danish cartoonist

Comment #126316 by german-atheist on February 13, 2008 at 1:16 am

hi jaster,
i seem to be with you on most of what you say about torture,capital punishment and situations where uttering rational words in a friendly way will get you nowhere.
like you i think the word torture has to be defined.torture to press for a confession of a crime,
torture as punishment or torture for sadistic reasons is different from forcing a kidnapper to tell where he hides his victim.
also i find it amazing that some suspect you are not a “ true atheist “ or a “ true humanist “
sounds like:my atheism is better than yours - to me.

about standing up for my country,people or freedom weapon in my hand i am undecided.
maybe because these words ring a certain bell in my german ears.
maybe ruling out torture and war makes sense for the same reason that it makes sense to ban capital punishment:you want to make shure there are no innocent victims being hurt by mistake.

(stupid german sound engineer writes sure like the famous microphone company,did that in school already,was my only mistake in a test then,got to remember:sure and sugar sound like sh but are written : s)

10. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #121522 by german-atheist on February 3, 2008 at 2:38 pm

@paula kirby

his english is hard to understand for me,but i got the „islam is tolerant“ and „rushdi ten times“
bits.something tells me nothing of what he said after that would make me feel more friendly towards islam if my english were better.

btw germany also has a blasphemy law,which is seldom applied.the greens said they wanted to get rid of it,but when they were in power(with the social democrats)nothing happend.

11. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #121423 by german-atheist on February 3, 2008 at 11:33 am

s.rushdi is ten times more popular because of his death threat.
makes me think of anne frank.without the nazis she would not have streets and schools named after her.
maybe nazism is as tolerant as islam.

12. A Matter of Faith

Comment #64791 by german-atheist on August 21, 2007 at 10:24 pm

K1mgy , ericcolumba


what`s wrong with being interviewed in front of a bookshelf or while having a walk in a park?
i have seen dawkins and hitchens in the same situation.would you rather watch richard dawkins and some high ranking english clergyman discussing religion (as they did some time ago on tv) sitting on the shitter?


i have learned about this comedian sweeney on you tube before and i find it amazing to see her getting all this media attantion for struggling with a childish fairytale.i was only nine years old when i talked to a school buddy and we wondered why the grown-ups kept on telling us about god when we already knew that it was our parents who placed the presents under the christmas tree and jesus was a fictional character like tom sawyer or the cartright family.the whole religion thing stayed that simple to me.who needs all those intelectuals and philosophers wrenching their brain about a simple question?are there gods?-of course not.
i can only admire dawkins and the hitch for keeping calm and friendly most of the time when they repeat over and over again the obvious- much like telling a five year old girl not to kiss one of the frogs in the garden,because this is all a nice little story to amuse small children.

13. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason

Comment #61804 by german-atheist on August 7, 2007 at 1:10 am

if you use the link to the articel in the daily mail you will find a comment by a reader who seems to have learned from the articel that a scientist called richard dawkins developed a theory he called "big bang"!
could someone inform me if this comment is serious or a joke. my english is not good enough
to decide.

14. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason

Comment #61782 by german-atheist on August 6, 2007 at 9:58 pm

not knowing which category of paper the daily mail is in,i went through some online articels.
it`s mainly about david hasselhoff being too fat,intelligent women not beeing able to find mr right and britney spears wearing a see-through dress in public.need one say more ?

15. Hitler Was an Atheist Who Killed Millions in the Name of Atheism, Secularism?

Comment #56661 by german-atheist on July 16, 2007 at 9:10 pm

@ geckoman

i don`t think one could make a strong case that the germans whorshiped hitler in a god-like manner,although i can imagin many of them included him,along with ma and pa in their prayers.one of the reasons why i think this is an important point is that what you say makes it easy for christians to say something like: you see-they left the "real god",they lost christian morality and that made them do all those evil deeds bla,bla...

@mrempirical

i don`t think the articel misses the point in that it does not represent an opinion but rather tries to give a summary of historical facts. it is labeled:hitler was an atheist...but here the name hitler is also synonym for nazism and the articel is intended to give atheists facts at hand in the boring hitler,mao,stalin discussion.

of course i`m all with you that the question should be:does atheism cause people to be less ethical.


---------
i just read comment #56656 by tgbarton

seems like tgbarton and me agree on the articel

16. Hitler Was an Atheist Who Killed Millions in the Name of Atheism, Secularism?

Comment #56456 by german-atheist on July 15, 2007 at 9:14 pm

everytime i read your comments about the hitler,stalin,mao argument i get the impression that brits and americans collect their knowledge about nazis,wwII and hitler from watching monty python parodies-hitchens being no exception in his interview in "the atlantic".
neither the german people nor any nazi organisation whorshipped any non-christian god
(jews the biblical god) in significant numbers.some members of the party and the ss thought it would be an advantage for their career to leave the church and when they had to fill in papers or documents they wrote: believer in god (gottgläubig).germany did not have more members of obscure cults than any other christian country.
until they find eva hitler`s (born:braun) diary telling us that adolf got angry when blondie`s
loud barking interupted his evening prayer kneeling in front of his bed in the führerbunker
nobody knows for sure what religios conviction he had.
what he wrote or said in public does not count,since he was a politician.in many speaches before the war and even shortly after the germans had overrun poland he called himself peaceloving !!
i actually never got the hitler,mao,stalin stuff from german theists and when i think about it never from s.o. who comes from a country that had been invaded by germany.maybe their grandparents saw german soldiers attending sunday mass and celebrating x-mas.
so our counter argument should be:nobody knows what hitler believed but almost all germans
were christians which did not protect them from that dangerous virus that stiffens the right arm.