Comments by Mike Dudley

Comment #189720 by Mike Dudley on June 7, 2008 at 3:42 am

No no no no no... It's all too complicated and difficult. The Magic Man in the Sky did it...

Phew. That's better.

2. Richard Dawkins on five of his favorite books

Comment #140978 by Mike Dudley on March 9, 2008 at 10:35 am

I'll play the book game...

In no particular order:

Catch-22
The Dice Man
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Dracula
Foundation Trilogy
What Katy Did (just kidding).

3. Richard Dawkins on The Big Debate

Comment #128602 by Mike Dudley on February 17, 2008 at 12:40 pm

My rejoinder to the chap in the beard and pillbox hat, when he said that the sentence of death for apostasy does not exist in this country, would be - "Yes, but you'd LIKE it to be, wouldn't you?"

Religion poisons everything.

4. Hitchens and Boteach Debate on God

Comment #126118 by Mike Dudley on February 12, 2008 at 1:21 pm

My favourite bit of Shmuley's rants. He said it twice.

"...and finally."

5. Archbishop of Canterbury Praises Richard Dawkins

Comment #104333 by Mike Dudley on December 28, 2007 at 10:42 am

Your impressed with "our" Archbishops?

"whom he described as being in touch with the "amazement and awe" of God's creation"

How is it possible for the good Professor to be in touch with something which he himself says DOES NOT EXIST?

The clerics, like every other victim of indoctrination, always fall at the very first hurdle by trying to misrepresent the atheist position - not because they are wilfully manipulative, but because they don't seem to be able to follow the simplest of logics...

6. Three wise men just legend: archbishop

Comment #103663 by Mike Dudley on December 26, 2007 at 12:51 pm

It needs to be said more often and at every opportunity: There is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that ANY of the events described in the gospels ever took place, including the alleged borth of the alleged Jesus - it is ALL hearsay.

7. Bill Moyers interviews Jonathan Miller

Comment #93766 by Mike Dudley on December 4, 2007 at 7:08 am

His production of "The Mikado" at The National was complete pants...

8. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93109 by Mike Dudley on December 2, 2007 at 8:10 am

Empty vessels make the most noise. D'Souza's arguments can be described as at best, risible. He appears to be little more than a shouty idiot who's best reason for being is as a fine example of the fact that a child who has become religiously indoctrinated is thereafter unable to reason like an intelligent human being.

One point I would like to make that has not been observed so far is the nonsense of D'Souza's argument for "god" creating time as well as matter and space, quoting "Saint" Augustine, who's pronouncement differs only from the modern comologist's argument in that it includes "god" as a creator (that is, this is what D'Souza's argument seems to be)....

I would ask, if "god" created time itself, how is it possible that it took "god" no time to engage in this process? It would not have been possible to create time without taking a certain amount (no matter how small) of time to perform the action.

I suspect that D'Souza would simply have fallen back (as he did to the "What created the creator" argument) by saying that, well, "god" just did it by magic...

By the way, is anybody else starting to get the sense that religion is getting a bit LOUD and sounding a bit scared about having to deal with a real challenge to it's assumption of authority these days? It seems hardly a day goes past (I'm in the UK - I don't know if your own experience concurs) without some branch of the media featuring a reigious pundit in a form of great agitation, complaining about being held up to question by what has been called "The New Secularism".

9. Physician, Heal Thyself

Comment #58275 by Mike Dudley on July 24, 2007 at 8:12 am

"Remember that Stalinism itself was self-defined as "a great experiment" on the human being and that fascists loved to say that they were cutting out the tumors of society and extirpating the "bacilli" that caused disorders in (another revealing phrase) "the body politic."

Hmmm. Bit like Che Guevara, then?

... and all the time I thought that was the poster of some kind of moral hero.

Sorry to digress.