1. Dawkin 'bout a revolution

Comment #225609 by Crosius on August 7, 2008 at 5:39 am

The article mentioned above points out the "lose/lose" nature of the enterprise.

If not enough atheists donate, the press writes an article snickering at the stingy, pinch-penny atheists and their inability to organise.

If enough atheists donate, the press writes an article whining about the mean-spirited, hateful atheists and their intolerant sign.

2. Does the Pope wear Prada?

Comment #204546 by Crosius on July 5, 2008 at 7:14 am

Nice use of Brand Identity in the deflection by the bishop.

The Pope doesn't wear PRADA, because that would be worldly and demonstrate a lack of humility.

He wears bespoke shoes fashioned by a local artisan.

Because bespoke shoes are what all the humble people living quiet lives of minimal accumulated wealth wear.

The point of the PRADA comment was that the shoes were ridiculously expensive (which they STILL are), and pandered to Papal vanity (which they still do). The brand-name under which they accomplish this is immaterial.

3. The religiosity test: Doubters need not apply

Comment #106255 by Crosius on January 2, 2008 at 3:08 pm

I think the theists are creating a situation where an athiest candidate can have a powerful, rousing, Kennedy/M.L.King-esque "I believe... in AMERICA!" speech that would make any theist foolish enough to ask "Do you believe in (my) god" look petty and small in the debate where the question was asked.

4. Disquiet over schools' moment of silence

Comment #103070 by Crosius on December 24, 2007 at 9:27 am

Using peer pressure and the internal desire to "fit in" is a powerful strategy used by many cults to coerce conversion. The "silent moment of reflection" is designed to make the students who do not pray feel isolated when they look around and see their peers "united" in prayer.

This "harmless" moment calls attention to the differences between the students. Significantly, this occurs in high-school, where being different from your peers can result in eggs thrown at your house, and people screaming at you from their cars.

The policy is not harmless. It is intended to make non-believers feel uncomfortable. It's intended to "out" the non-religious so they can be turned into targets for the kind of negative behaviour described in the latter part of the article. It is a subtle program of coercion and intimidation.

5. How can the Earth be so perfectly suited for life by coincidence?

Comment #98375 by Crosius on December 13, 2007 at 2:32 pm

Life and the environment found on Earth do not mesh by coincidence, and you have your causality reversed.

It is not the environment of earth that conforms to the needs of life, rather it is the function of life to conform to the features of the available environment. As a single example, if the Earth were too hot for the proteins currently present in our bodies, the organisms on earth would be composed of different proteins.

Life adapts to fit the niche, not the other way around.

Further, the term "coincidence" is inaccurate. Evolution is not the same thing as coincidence. Evolution is a process of incremental refinement of living systems measured against their successful interaction with their environment. After millions of generations, it is no surprise that this process of incremental refinement would result in organisms well suited to the environment of Earth.

Finally, the "Environment of Earth" is a vastly variable theatre in which life makes its way. There are organisms which function under terrestrial extremes of temperature, pressure, light and darkness that would easily kill organisms from other terrestrial environments.

A given living thing is not perfectly suited to life on the whole Earth - only in a very small subset of the Earth's environmental scope. Yet, the entire Earth, with the exception of the most hostile parts of it's core and the most rarefied heights of it's atmosphere, is home to life.

6. Most religious people are moderate, and don't hurt anybody

Comment #82056 by Crosius on October 25, 2007 at 3:42 pm

I don't think any religious person self-identifies as an "extremist," even though many of the religious who advance this argument _are_ extremists by someone else's measure.

If you stood every religious person in a line ranked from most to least extreme, you'd only have one person in that line that everyone _else_ considered an extremist, and he'd probably protest that characterisation as "unfair."

If you then set the midpoint of that line as the dividing line between extremist and non-extremist, you'd still have many people in the "moderate" half who the rest of the moderates would _still_ consider extremists. You could slice the remaining non-extremists fraction in half again and still, there would be members of _that_ group considered extremists by the rest.

With only those two divisions, you would demonstrate that the total number of non-extremist religious persons would necessarily total something less than 1/4 of the total religious population of the world.

7. Backlash forces British Airways to review ban on wearing cross

Comment #9615 by Crosius on November 25, 2006 at 9:14 am

I do like that the religious are branding themselves when they go out. It lets me know I'm dealing with a fundamentally irrational person right up front.

#1 nailed it right on - I bet the Archbishop has a whole list of exceptions to his list of "faiths" that are entitled to display their faith commitment in public.

We could wear a whole raft of pins that wouldn't make the grade.

Strangely, my Loki pendant rarely provokes comment. Apparently, there's no offense in religious symbols of which the offendee is ignorant. Of course, for me it's not actually a religious symbol - I just like the design.

8. Reptiles of the Mind -- Giving Thanks for Rational Atheists

Comment #9223 by Crosius on November 24, 2006 at 6:49 am

What Dawkins actually says in most of what I've read and heard is that religion is something he, personally, has no use for, and is something that can be found close to the root cause of much conflict in the world. He also urges people to move past religion, to adopt reason.

But nowhere does he foment intolerance. He doesn't demand forced conversion of the religious or destruction of public religious observance. He doesn't demand people stop being religious, or even that they stop identifying themselves as religious (which I dare suggest is the limit of religious life practiced by the majority). All he's trying to get across is that religion shouldn't get a trump-card to play in every debate. That religion, like all other human endeavour, should be required to support its agenda with facts, not heresay or a lop-sided* appeal to some nebulous concept of "respect for all beliefs", and that when religion does not meet this requirement, we should be allowed to confront it on those points. - that's hateful?

* Lop-sided because it generally takes the concrete form of "You respect my religion, I still get to dismiss, or even oppose yours." Even in my neighborhood churches, there is hostilite opposition to the presence of other-faith volunteers at non-religious church activities (like bake-sales, book drives or charity fundraisers). The standard "Beam and Mote" quotation applies.

9. Top court refuses to hear whether religion can be a murder defence

Comment #8153 by Crosius on November 20, 2006 at 2:22 pm

As this man was "bound" to behave in accord with Muslim Law, so is the judge "bound" to behave in accord with Canadian Law.

No doubt Allah will toss this fellow a couple of compensatory houris in the afterlife for fulfilling his obligations as a "devout" Muslim in the face of all this Canadian repression.