1. God is not responsible for war and suffering

Comment #48217 by leaping.judas on June 7, 2007 at 4:32 am

Sadly Heard seems to strive to define himself via means of the more extreme of suppositions available to him.

As a gay Catholic who seems to strongly defend and support his chosen religions persecution of homosexuals, he probably isn't someone that anyone of sound mind would even consider taking seriously.

Heard seems to go to great lengths to confirm the complete (and unintentionally comic) stereotype of the theistic apologist (as perpetuated by those evil athiesits and anti-thesists) in his emotional and fallacious article of 06/06/07 (if only it were 2006...)

The argument of Dawkins and his ilk is not that "God" is responsible for the ills mentioned in Heard's article, rather that the belief in such a figure is often used to justify such ills.

Heard essentially misses the point and indulges in a diatribe of obfuscation not too dissimilar to that employed across the "great Abrahamic faiths" in order to continually muddy waters of the minds of their followers.

It was interesting to note that Heard was credited as a "Melbourne writer" at the base of his article - presumably because little to no research actually went into the piece.

Whilst beginning his "argument" reasonably, he quickly falls victim to his own thinly veiled sense of outrage at those who dare to presuppose an opinion or belief that differs to his own.

Heard has either not read or completely disregarded the content of one of the texts upon which he casts his criticism.

Dawkins' "The God Delusion" at no point hypothesises that there is in fact a god.

Part of Heard's central argument is that atheists and anti-thesists hold "God somehow culpable for the violent actions of his followers" as a means of constructing an agrument against religion yet this is fallacious on so many levels - not the least of which being that atheists do not believe in a god let alone the influence of one.

Heard, in his attempt to distract people from the real issue, has done no more than argue strongly for a point of view that would accuse him of many logical fallacies, not the least of which being "argumentum ad ignorantiam"

Sadly the furore generated by his fallacious article will probably fuel his hungry ego :(