1. Sex for diploma offer caught on tape

Comment #164346 by whig on April 20, 2008 at 5:19 am

This should not be one of the featured news item of this site and I am disappointed that it has appeared, being a frequent visitor. Unfortunately, there will always be perverts and sex abusers, and churches, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, do have a lot to answer for covering stories up, but this particular story has little to do with the aims of this site, promoting reason and science, and criticizing religion in society. It makes as much sense as a story a founder of a humanist school asking the mother of one of his pupils for sex being on the website of an evangelical Christian society.

2. Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art

Comment #160361 by whig on April 14, 2008 at 1:48 am

This article would be more credible if he acknowledged the particular arguments in The God Delusion, without which it seems he hasnt even read the book he's criticizing. He has two points, one about morality, the second about art. On the first, I have in front of my a coffee table book, The Great Philosophers, which has profiles of 54 philosophers from antient times to those still living. Obviously some of those were in a Christian context, but a fair amount of them were not, either for being before Jesus' time or modern secularists. What we think of morality at this stage is a mix of all these influences, as well as a reaction to events of the last century and certain amount of biological instinct. Personally, I see Christianity as a poor guide for morality.

On art, how many times does Dawkins have to cite Bach's Matthew Passion as one his favourite pieces of music for people not to think that he proposes that we tear down our beautiful architecture and replace it Soviet-style blocks. The author names two artists who believed, Matthias Grünewald and Benjamin Britten. So what, what does that prove? To put the case as he does he needs to show how an atheist is incapable of producing great art, and how atheists disapprove of art because it is religious. Paradise Lost is a great work of literature, based on an epic tale as told in the Bible, just as the Iliad and the Odyssey have the old Greek gods playing a part, and I have no greater problem with one than the other.

Oh, and I look forward to watching that Doctor Who episode with my little brother. Last year, I gave him a book on the Science of Doctor Who and the DVD of Growing Up in the Universe, and given how much of Who fan he is, I was chuffed when he said he liked Dawkins more.

3. The atheist delusion

Comment #152322 by whig on March 30, 2008 at 5:24 pm

Gray is the most insidious of recent critics of atheism. Unlike some obnoxious Christian like McGrath, Gray knows that there is no god. His politics and philosophy are somewhere between those of a conservative and a hippie. He's anti-human, in the extent of his support of the Gaia theory. He believes that any notion of progress, whether Christian or whiggish, is a fallacy, but he's fine with that, as in the end, it wont really matter if humans die out as a species. In the short few paragraphs on atheism in his 2002 book Straw Dogs, he criticizes the search for truth, and says that this is only an extension of Christianity, as many philosophies around the world arent particularly concerned with truth, so endorsing the relativist outlook of the postmodernists.

4. Beware the Believers

Comment #152315 by whig on March 30, 2008 at 5:04 pm

Thanks. As you can tell, I'm only self-informed when it comes to philosophy, but in as much as I hope to continue to teach myself, I'll take some of your advice.

5. Beware the Believers

Comment #152302 by whig on March 30, 2008 at 4:30 pm

Thanks Alexander on post #301,

Now that you mention it, I remember that you're right that Aristotle did posit the unmoved mover. I was reacting more against their use of the Plato image (since reading Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies, I've taken a dislike towards Plato, more for his politics than metaphysics). On that, while we might dislike Aquinas for his Five Proofs, which are still thrown our way, even after Hume showed what's wrong with them philosophically, and the big bang and evolution theories what's wrong with them in fact, but he did reintroduce the study of Aristotle. It might have been in a Christianized form, which was the only way it coud have been then, but that might have brought reason back a century earlier than otherwise.

Edit: Continuing my own "their use of Raphael" tangent, they used the image of Aristotle for Democritus.

Back to the video, I think their main aim was humor, to have fun. If I were caricaturing Hitchens I woud probably reference his fondness for whiskey.

Will we all find out in a few days anyway who was right, when the producers make another video, or tell us where they stand? (I'm betting anti-ID)

6. Beware the Believers

Comment #152270 by whig on March 30, 2008 at 3:11 pm

The first time I watched it, I wasnt sure; the second time, with a few things, such as references to so-called science, the whole narrative we're all familiar with, from the Greeks, thru Darwin, Darrow, etc., made me think it was very much on our side. But being a rap, and tongue in cheek, it had a few elements that woudnt be there if it was produced by RichardDawkins.net. I suppose if any of us was to step back, we might find the whole debate somewhat amusing, mock all, while still agreeing with the science side. I did get the feeling that the 'you' in the "He's smarter than you chorus" was Ben Stein. I didnt particularly like the dollar signs, but Darwin and Dennett were amusing as bearded rappers. Ultimately, as I seem not to have been the only person who watched it more than once before reaching a conclusion, I dont think it was intended as evangelical propaganda for either side. I agree with Dr. Benway, way back at comment 26, that they like Dawkins, but arent going to praise him without being a bit irreverent.

Also [in edit]: how many IDers would know all of the heroes of this site, to have Dennett looking so cool, Eugenie Scott, who isnt as prominent as an atheist, but is known to us as an anti-IDer. The whole thing seems like a parody of how the creationists fear Darwin and his gigantic machine expelling people. The fact that so many here like it and interpret is as somehow on our side shows that it probably is. The only argument I see that those who think it's anti-us have is that they're portrayed as arrogant, rather than any of the lyrics. If it was pro-creationist, it would have had a line like "Hitler followed Darwin in killing the Jews but we dont talk about that". For a moment, think like a creationist (I know it's an oxymoron) and ask if you were creating an anti-Dawkins rap, what would you put in the lyrics. Certainly not this.

One problem I had was that they used the image of Plato with his hand pointing upwards towards the world of the form, a mystical view, when they mentioned Aristotle. I dont know enough of philosophy to know whether what they said in the lyrics about Aristotle was right, it might have been, but against Plato, he was on our side, shown by Raphael by having him point forward to the physical world.

7. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #149905 by whig on March 26, 2008 at 10:26 am

Happy Birthday.

I just got your Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing in the post this morning, I look forward to reading it over the next few months.

8. The Secular Conscience

Comment #147400 by whig on March 20, 2008 at 9:38 am

Eric Blair:

Michel Onfray (The Atheist Manifesto) agrees, saying we have to expunge Judeao-Christian dogma from our derivative "modern" ideas and institutions.

Onfray is the one atheist the great anti-Enlightenmentist John Gray has any time for, so that automatically makes me suspicious of him.

9. Atheists claim censorship by billboard company

Comment #146745 by whig on March 19, 2008 at 10:52 am

I dont in anyway see this as censorship. As I have a dictionary next to me, I looked the word up, and as expected, it mentioned official action.

In Ireland, discrimination is prohibited on nine grounds: gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, physical or mental disability, race or membership of the Travelling community (an indigenous nomadic group of people). I think religion is different to some of those, someone shd have the right to refuse to employ a creationist as a biology teacher, for example. I think the real issue is where discrimination receives public support. Here, it's prominent because 95% of primary schools are owned by the Roman Catholic Church, with most of the rest owned by smaller churches. They have an exemption to the above equality legislation on moral grounds in certain areas, so they have the right to refuse to employ someone as a teacher (the local bishop usually has a veto over appointments) for reasons such as being divorced, an unmarried parent or gay, even tho the state pays for the teachers. There's also a problem now with parents finding it increasing difficult to find a school for their children unless they're baptized Catholic. I wouldnt have a problem with this if were like the US or France, where religious schools were an fee-paying minority.

I know I'm branching out a bit, but on the overall question of the right to discriminate, I'm not sure that I'd be against all laws prohibiting discrimination, but it is far worse, both morally and in practice, when state sanctioned. From what I can tell of America from across the pond, the most insidious form of discrimination was at school level, and this was supported by the states. It's wrong both because the black students and their families in worse schools contributed thru their taxes to the upkeep of the better schools, and because the lack of integration at that level meant that it continued for the rest of their lives.

But back to the billboard, what of a private radio station? Should they be forced to accept an ad from the FFRF? And also, whatever about anti-discrimination laws based on race, I think that discrimination based on ideas should be allowed, for the same reason as I agreed with opposition to the Religious Hatred Bill.

10. Special Guest: Richard Dawkins

Comment #142724 by whig on March 13, 2008 at 3:48 am

Geoff wrote:

I love hearing Richard, of course, but I'm afraid I found the interviewers somewhat sycophantic, and I could do without the songs at the start, and in the breaks.

Yeah, I know the songs are cheesy, but it's all in the very pleasant spirit atmosphere of Freethought Radio. They sound like ordinary Americans enjoying themselves, tho often dealing with serious topics, so I'd agree with AdrianB, they are good ambassadors for atheism in the US. I liked the part when Dan Barker talked for a minute about his time as a fundamentalist Christian minister, with his wife and Dawkins friendlily tut-tutting.

11. Do our leaders believe in God?

Comment #105289 by whig on December 31, 2007 at 5:05 am

jeepyjay wrote:

Parris writes: "Churchill believed in Providence, but would not have got on with God at all."

But "Providence" is just God's (or the Universe's) plan for you isn't it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Providence

So belief in Providence is belief in some sort of God. Not Atheism.

Not it's not atheism, but it is deism, of the Jeffersonian sort. Modern rationalists tend, rightly in my opinion, to claim the American founders as one of their own, so Churchill shouldn't be too much out of reach.

This was an interesting enough article, and I would probably have suspected that of most of them.

12. What We Believe: Atheism

Comment #105025 by whig on December 30, 2007 at 11:28 am

He doesn't believe God exists. And his long-held conviction didn't change when he traveled to a war zone.

Well, duh!

13. Russia prohibits denial of Santa

Comment #103953 by whig on December 27, 2007 at 11:36 am

Thing I don't get about Santa, and this particular ruling, aren't children's trust in their parents going to be undermined anyway.

As well as the whole lying and undermining trust, and in this case the parents actually know there's no Santa, whereas those who tell them about gods just aren't sure, the other thing is that I think it doesn't do much to encourage gratitude for gifts given. For the first few years, children think the presents just arrive and take that much for granted. Then as they get older and have worked it out, they might still not thank their parents as they might think their parents still want them to believe or not to say anything if there are younger siblings. Why does Santa Claus live one, why do parents bother?

14. Man and God

Comment #103742 by whig on December 26, 2007 at 4:07 pm

I disapprove of the Fowler's approach. It is clumsy, and does not reflect everyday pronounciation. I mean, if you attempt to say "Dawkins's" you end up with something Gollum (LOTR) would say "we like our precious Dawkinses". With the Trussian approach, the plural hides within the normal pronounciation of the surname, so, based on principles of parsimony, it is the more elegant approach.

I've used both, and I'm still not sure which I prefer, I think for some phrases Dawkins' sounds right when I say it out loud, for others Dawkins's. I'd definitely be a Fowlerite in the schism; in a recent context, I described myself as a grammar libertarian. My main concern is for clarity, not regularity, and while that does mean a clear use of punctuation and non-convoluted language, where there is a question mark, such as in this particular case, I don't see a cause for criticism.

Not that that mitigates the fact that this article is a load of shite.

15. The Four Horsemen: on Christmas

Comment #103738 by whig on December 26, 2007 at 3:54 pm

Oh, when I said, "I don't doubt that it might occur in other species", I was using too cautious language. I know and knew as I wrote it that it does occur in many species. It is sometimes that requires explaining from a biological point of view, but whatever it is, there is one.

In NO case do the other mammals/birds show any revulsion towards the homosexual members of their group. Ergo, it is not 'natural' because it does not appear in nature.

This is actually an interesting question, that of why there is a certain revulsion towards homosexuality among many people, and I thought of an answer to it today. People posting here tend to assume that all these things are either genetic, so we should be able to find parallels in the animal kingdom, or else a more imposed by society or religion that might have no rational basis.

My hypothesis is that it is from internal introspection, a product of individuals' rational mind. Take my own case, and according to what I know of such things, such as Kinsey's study, it wouldn't be uncommon. I am now quite decidedly heterosexual, and also have absolutely no problems with homosexuality, whether between men or women. But a few years ago, while a teenager, I'd at times think I might be gay, just in that wondering way, mostly as times when I was unsuccessful finding girlfriends. When I realised I wasn't my instinctive attitude to homosexuality was that it was lazy, that it must be very rare for someone to be entirely homosexually inclined, and that it was not at all what I wanted to do. So I think the dislike many men have towards it is a leftover from a reaction they felt, a product of teenage angst if you will. This hypothesis doesn't even need parents, peers or the public discouraging it. And it is because mammals, birds and other animals don't engage in conscious introspective thought on such matters in the way that we do that they were never antagonistic towards it. Why would they, a gay couple of birds eliminates two of the straight birds' competitors for a mate?

16. The Four Horsemen: on Christmas

Comment #103641 by whig on December 26, 2007 at 11:20 am

I think I'd have to disagree with you. Helping an infant niece or nephew is more advantageous than putting resources into helping an adult child, who can probably look after themselves anyway, but in general it's more profitable to one's genes to reproduce oneself. You would think so, but sometimes it isn't. We can see how non-breeding individuals help relatives in raising offspring even in higher species, such as birds.

I don't doubt that it might occur in other species, but I'm skeptical about it as an explanation for homosexuality in humans, because we don't in general find gay men acting as a second father to his sibling's children, or lesbian women as a second mother. We might find it if the parents died with young children, but not often enough to make a rule. If any family has historically played the role of helping in raising families, it's been the grandparents.

17. The Pagan Christ

Comment #103588 by whig on December 26, 2007 at 8:29 am

Okay, guys (used in the american sense)....what is the atheist solution to the problems in the world?

As was asked, what's the religious answer? To me, it seems to be to say that there isn't one in this life, and hope that in the next world everything will be hunky dory.

But an actual answer to your question? Okay, not an atheist solution, but the liberal rationalist solution, to be more specific, at least IMO. A society where all are free to live their own lives as long as they don't interfere with others. Free trade between all nations, so that countries aren't exploited by the trade advantages that first world countries currently have because of subsidies for their own produce, and also with the advantage that nations with free trade between each other rarely go to war. A reasonably fair system of taxation that provides who those in need and vital services. There's nothing here that Thomas Paine didn't say in The Rights of Man in 1791, and it is a long tradition, with roots in Athens, and then through Milton and Locke in the seventeenth century, Jefferson in the eighteenth, Mill in the nineteenth etc., and wherever in the world some or more of this philosophy has been implemented, people's lives have improved, and in Europe, there has also been a decline in religious observance.

18. The Four Horsemen: on Christmas

Comment #103521 by whig on December 26, 2007 at 4:03 am

Reproduction is not about the survival of genes in an individual's body. It is about survival of the gene wherever it is. Therefore there are circumstances where assisting parents or siblings in the raising of children can confer an evolutionary advantage. Having a certain proportion of the population as non-reproducing can be selected for.

I think I'd have to disagree with you. Helping an infant niece or nephew is more advantageous than putting resources into helping an adult child, who can probably look after themselves anyway, but in general it's more profitable to one's genes to reproduce oneself. Matt Ridley in The Red Queen addresses homosexuality, and one suggestion is that it passes down because it helps female fertility, that it is like the 'male killer' genes that are quite common among certain insects. He also does say, which is relevant to this discussion, that until the 1960s it was presumed to me caused by upbringing. Rand's comments date from 1968 and 1971, and in the Wikipedia article on the subject, it indicates that she modified her position later in life because she admitted that they didn't have full knowledge of the causes and also that recent Objectivists dismiss these comments.

19. Man and God

Comment #103519 by whig on December 26, 2007 at 3:49 am

Yes, they love to portray us atheists as people who don't know what it's like to feel faith - it's so inconvenient for their case that a large number of us are former Christians ourselves.

Paula, I like using that with god squadders on the street I sometimes feel in the mood to talk to. Once one said you can't really know what you're talking about, and I quickly snapped back that I was till recently a Christian and know quite a lot about religion, theology and church history.

Sara wrote:

Paula - I was most recently a liberal Christian. Episcopalian - but raised roman catholic - a rather liberal brand of that, in the sense that no one seemed to take it very seriously. It was just THERE.

Really? The same with me. I was raised as a Roman Catholic, disliked the most superstitious elements as a teenager and became Church of Ireland (Episcopalian) and then at 19, I read The Age of Reason and ditched the lot.

As to using an alias, I used whig first on an Irish politics site (politics.ie) and have used it for any other forums I joined. People could work out from context who I was on that if they knew me, and I'm not paranoid about anonymity, I just like it. There would be no repercussions among anyone I know if they knew I posted here, I'm known as a liberal rationalist.

As to the article, it's utter tripe. I sensed as much when he described the party known only as the Liberal Democrats as the Liberal Democratic Party. The last few paragraphs are the usual nonsense, and aren't worth responding to when I don't have the author in front of me to challenge him about them. Just to say the quotes around "scientific" probably refer to his own makey-uppy science, where non-Soviet biologists lost their positions. The answer in my mind to the Stalin question is that Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and others like ourselves are not just promoting atheism, but a whole scientific, rational and liberal tradition. Hitchens makes this point, and it is important.

20. The Four Horsemen: on Christmas

Comment #103472 by whig on December 25, 2007 at 6:50 pm

As the one who brought up Ayn Rand, I may as well add my few cents. This will be a little rambling as I'm writing at half two on the night of Christmas Day.

I'm gone through the last few pages, and I'll pick up on something AtheistJon said in post 91, that Rand probably meant to imply "disgusting to me" with regard to homosexuality. She didn't, that's why her philosophy is called Objectivism, she believed that she had discovered the objective and rational truth. On that, I find her views on that and related to it on feminism and women quite reprehensible, take on quote on http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/femininity.html. The third thing I'd say about that specifically is that a repulsion to homosexuality hasn't become a facet of current Objectivist thought, I think they have accepted it as a scientific fact that it is biological and congenital in the same way that they abandoned their policy of smoking as a symbol of man's power over the elements. When I had Yaron Brook, the President of the Ayn Rand Institute over in Dublin (who's quite friendly), my ex-girlfriend who I asked along because of her interest in the books, told him of the homosexual undercurrents she saw in Atlas Shrugged between Rearden and Francisco and between Cherryl and Dagny, and he was amused while disagreeing rather than morally appalled.

There are many problems with Rand and Objectivism, I find, the biggest I think being the dogmatism and absolutism in its followers similar to that which we find in religions. It's all or nothing for them, you're one of us or an irrational looting mystic collectivist second-hander. With its actual findings, I don't think they make enough use of science, particular in the assertion of the tabula rasa and the general influence of genetics. I find a lot of her work useful in many of her general principles about how one should live one's life or approach certain questions, but I do think society is an objective fact and there are things that the state should provide beyond basic protection, particularly in regard to children. She's useful to me as an extreme example to one interested in liberal political theory.

In relation to this particular discussion, it's worth remembering something Dawkins said during the Four Horsemen discussion, when Harris said that he knew that the three others disagreed with him a bit on meditation and spirituality, Dawkins said he didn't mind that, as disagreements on some matters show the disparate nature of the views of atheists and that it would be good to have people who weren't just politically left speaking as atheists as well.

21. Survey finds most Americans believe Jesus born of virgin

Comment #102507 by whig on December 23, 2007 at 3:41 am

Titus wrote:

Wikipedia
"Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction in which females produce eggs that develop without fertilization. Parthenogenesis is seen to occur naturally in aphids, daphnia, rotifers, and some other invertebrates, as well as in many plants. Komodo dragons and sharks have recently been added to the list of vertebrates—along with several genera of fish, amphibians, and reptiles—that exhibit differing forms of asexual reproduction, including true parthenogenesis."

Mary was a frog, all hail the saviour of frog kind.
Cue the frog chorus.

I was at the Conference of the European Council of Skeptical Organizations in September and in Massimo Pigliucci's presentation he said that Frank Tipler in The Physics of Christianity actually uses parthenogenesis to justify the virgin birth, not extrapolating, of course, on the fact the Jesus would neither be male nor a mammal.

22. The Four Horsemen: on Christmas

Comment #102307 by whig on December 22, 2007 at 9:53 am

Hitchens seems a lot nicer about Christmas than he was on the clip of him singing Tom Lehrer's Christmas Carol, when he compared this month to living in North Korea.

AtheistJon, you bring up a few points I found worthy of comment. I agree with you I think about Hitchens on Iraq, as against Dawkins. Dawkins does take the British liberal stance on that, I would wish he were a little more critical. He tends to focus a little more on Christianity than Islam, which I think unfair. He uses the term American Taliban, for example, and I would have to disagree with that. American fundamentalists may be bad, but they don't stone women to death for being raped. But I suppose from a scientists' point of view, living in the West, he has had the most trouble on questions like evolution from Christians. Dennett's temperament is much more reserved than any of the other three, not that it did him much good it seems, but his books are worth reading. I've read Freedom Evolves and Breaking the Spell.

On your point about Hitchens saying that someone being an atheist tells us nothing more about them, I think the Objectivists are interesting on this. I had the President of the Ayn Rand Institute over for a talk in Dublin, and he said that in a way he preferred talking to students over here than in America, because we took criticism of religion for granted, that socialists at least claim to metaphysical rationality, so there can be a starting point. His view on politics was anti-Bush, because of religiosity of the Republican Party under the last few Presidents, and that Clinton wasn't really that bad economically.

23. Three wise men just legend: archbishop

Comment #102103 by whig on December 21, 2007 at 3:03 pm

The archbishop said his approach was to stick strictly to what the Bible says.

Is that Matthew's or Luke's version of the nativity?

24. 2007, a bad year for God squadders

Comment #102101 by whig on December 21, 2007 at 2:53 pm

That God would choose to come among us in such a way is so strange, so inexplicable, so unbelievable, it compels us to believe.

What? Why? How does someone in a supposedly reputable paper get away with this.

Surely Pallas Athena born from Her Father's head trumps Jesus' virgin birth in inconceivability?

25. Sorry to disappoint, but it's nonsense to suggest we want to ban Christmas

Comment #102091 by whig on December 21, 2007 at 2:34 pm

I liked that last line.

26. Good God! A politician who doesn't believe...

Comment #102086 by whig on December 21, 2007 at 2:28 pm

But, WSteG, how did his clarification make him any less of a rationalist, except to clarify the extent to which they have agreed such things between himself and his wife. And I have no problem with journalists asking such questions, I would rather know and, to an extent at least, make my decision with this information.

27. Clegg 'does not believe in God'

Comment #100836 by whig on December 19, 2007 at 12:19 pm

First off, I was quite glad to hear him say this, very few party leaders would say it explicitly. I think I can understand his position, and forgive it him, even tho I would think it would make more sense, IMHO, for them not to be brought up as Roman Catholics. The reality is that in a liberal family in the secular society of England, given their two parents, they are probably as likely to end up believing in a god either way. There is also the stipulation, which hasn't been mentioned in the comments so far, that the Roman Catholic Church explicitly requires that in mixed marriages the non-Catholic agree that the children be raised as Roman Catholics. At the end of the day, once the children start asking questions, if they have not reached that age already, the fact of their father's disbelief will likely cause their own doubt.

28. CBC News: Sunday - Richard Dawkins

Comment #100137 by whig on December 18, 2007 at 9:38 am

This was fun to watch, as it was so easy for Dawkins. They were on two completely different levels, Dawkins talking about the parallels in nature, such as the altruism of the cuckoo's foster parents, as he did in The Selfish Gene, the first of his books I read. I think Dawkins deliberately decided to play the interview that way, treating his questions with the derision the lack of intelligence in them deserved, but coming across as very knowledgeable. I cheered when he said, "You're not going to bring up Hitler and Stalin, are you?", and then dealt with it properly when he had to. I think an uninformed viewer watching this would be reasonably impressed with Dawkins' responses.

I was sorry he didn't ask him about Christmas, given that in the intro he described him as akin to the Grinch. His answer there would have further endeared him to the ordinary viewers.

29. The empty myths peddled by evangelists of unbelief

Comment #97115 by whig on December 11, 2007 at 12:57 pm

onclepsycho wrote:

Ok, can anyone tell me if this John Gray is the John Gray who wrote "Men are from Mars, women are from Venus"?

No, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gray

30. The empty myths peddled by evangelists of unbelief

Comment #97114 by whig on December 11, 2007 at 12:55 pm

I got a copy of Gray's Straw Dogs for Christmas last year, and of all the critics of liberalism I've read of late, I find him the most vile and insidious (and I read Ann Coulter's latest book recently). He has an odd way of looking at the descent of political thought, he really does seem to believe that modern liberalism is just Christianity without God, and follows on such religious lines.

One of the things that I want to comment on in this article is what he says about myths, how the apple story is a good fable. Personally, I think it's one of the worst aspects of Christianity, for the reason given by PJG above and as Ford Prefect said, "if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up". Further, the cursing of knowledge implicit in the this is, I believe, the root of most evil, encompassing as it does religion and other forms of unquestioning following of a leader.

But isn't the scientific creation story and cosmology much more compelling, to understand the vastness of time and space, and the sheer randomness that led to us being here today, that each of here today came from an unbroken line of successful ancestors. I don't know how he link progress and Christianity, given that in the first century Christians believed that the second coming was on its way, which was why there is such drivel in Jesus' teaching as "live not for the morrow".

Good old Grayling had a go at him recently in an article in the New Humanist.

31. Holy Nonsense

Comment #95366 by whig on December 8, 2007 at 6:59 am

Would be nice if people stuck to the issues of atheism versus religion instead of trying to turn this site into a left wing political site.

All the democratic contenders are on record as being believing christians and claiming that faith is important.

So, lets not try to make it out like the democrats are a bunch of atheists, because they are not.

I am sure that there are other here to who would prefer some of the Republican candidates, like mcCain, Thompson, Giuliani to Hillary or Edwards.

I would agree with your sentiments to a certain extent, there's no reason for atheism to be linked with the left in every sphere, and I was particularly unfond on Matthew Chapman's speech at the AAI conference. I'm a strong individualist, favouring free trade and free speech, freedom in the bedroom and the boardroom. But the most important issue for me is the question of church state separation, which is why I would support the Democrats, as the lesser transgressor. There are two areas in which I think this is important, supreme court and the war on terror. Compare the Republican-appointed Roberts, Alito and Scalia, who would almost favor theocracy, to the Democrat-appointed Ginsburg and Breyer. These are among the most significant appointments, given the control they have over the interpretation of the extent of the First Amendment and the Constitution in general. And on the war on terror, I think we can only win if we fight as rationalists. As things stand, I'll grant the Democrats are reluctant to fight at all, but I strongly believe that we can't win with a clergy dominated mentality, and as it will be fought, that I would trust the Democrats more.

32. Bill Moyers interviews Jonathan Miller

Comment #93250 by whig on December 2, 2007 at 2:00 pm

I quite liked this documentary, as a history student, when I watched it on Google Video during the summer, and I took most of the quotes down in a little book.

Miller mentions that Dawkins was a Christian till the age of sixteen. Has Dawkins written about this, and his moment on the road to Damascus?

33. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #92338 by whig on November 30, 2007 at 10:10 am

Towards the end, he made the point of how a precise sperm had to meet the egg and then not split to make an identical twin. That doesn't even nearly show the amount of chance that was required for each one of us to be here. He makes the point better in Unweaving the Rainbow, I think, when he stresses that each of us needs to have come from an unending line of successful ancestors. Think of the number of small chances that could have occurred that our parents hadn't met, that each of their parents hadn't met, and so on to the primordial sludge.

34. Romney's Mormonism is fair game

Comment #90064 by whig on November 22, 2007 at 3:38 pm

What surprises me is how tolerant Fox News and others who are predominantly Christian are of Romney from a religious perspective. Yes, Mormonism is a sort of Christianity, it have Jesus in the name, but it is such a stretch from any other sect, a wild heresy, a difference not just in interpretation of the bible but a whole new book. Back in the 1960s, denominations mattered to an extent, JFK had to declare that he would not take advice as President from Rome, but now all that matters is that one believes in something, the Muslims would probably be OK in their eyes were it not for the political situation.

35. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!

Comment #81876 by whig on October 25, 2007 at 10:33 am

This was, predictably enough, brought up in a debate I organized on the existence of a god recently. For a start, it's not relevant to that particular question; whatever Stalin or the Inquisition did has nothing to do with the objective truth of the universe.

To Hitler first. He was not an atheist, or if he was, he was not a public atheist, and atheism was not part of Nazi policy, as it was in the case of the named communist regimes. At least some of the top Nazi were committed Christians for all of their lives, and there is reasonable reason to believe that Hitler himself never ceased in his commitment to Roman Catholicism. If any thing, Christianity has to take blame to a degree for the Holocaust, as ostracization of the Jews in ghettos had for centuries been a policy promoted by churches because of the believe in their collective responsibility for the death of Jesus of Nazareth. Where else did the Nazis find particular support for the particular selection of the Jews.

As to Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and other communist dictators. Yes, they were atheists, but that was as part of Marxist ideology. Stalin also had Soviet science, based on ideology rather than objective reasoning. What we are promoting is a tradition of rational inquiry, in the line of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Stuart Mill, Albert Einstein and other scientists. The purges happened in the name of class justice, not because of their lack of a belief in a god, and in their definition of heresies are similar to the actions of the Inquisition and religious purges.

Also, it's worth adding saying in such cases if I have time, that I have no objection whatsoever to private practice of religion, as long as I don't have to play any part in it, directly or indirectly through taxes.

36. Christopher Hitchens and Bill Donohue on Mother Teresa

Comment #68207 by whig on September 6, 2007 at 10:59 am

It's been said before in these comments, but as another Irishman here, it was ridiculous for him to use that argument, completely meaningless, and if I wasn't trying to find some way to make real Irish Roman Catholics like David Quinn die an excruciatingly painful death, I'd put some effort into making Donohue disclaim his Irishness. How many generations would you say he is?