1. Judge says UC can deny class credit to Christian school students

Comment #229049 by Blueboy5 on August 13, 2008 at 3:37 am

Three cheers for the good guys!

2. PZ Myers Desecrates a Eucharist

Comment #221635 by Blueboy5 on July 30, 2008 at 12:05 am

That was mildly amusing.

3. PLEASE WRITE IN SUPPORT OF PZ MYERS

Comment #208442 by Blueboy5 on July 11, 2008 at 12:25 am

Done. :-)

Sir,

I recently read that a group of Catholic fundamentalists led by Bill Donohue have decided that they want Dr. Myers removed from his position at the University of Minnesota and that they intend to bombard you with demands to sack him. I urge you to ignore this group of extremists and their demands and put your full support behind Dr. Myers.

Respectfully,

James

4. Muslims outraged at police advert featuring cute puppy sitting in policeman's hat

Comment #203437 by Blueboy5 on July 2, 2008 at 11:36 pm

A message for Councillor Asif: Get over it!

5. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175232 by Blueboy5 on May 5, 2008 at 1:03 am

I protest! The surveys are only for a) christians and b) atheists/non-believers. What about we poor deists? We always get ignored. I'm going to go stand in the corner and cry for a while.

6. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #150513 by Blueboy5 on March 27, 2008 at 3:36 am

Happy Birthday, Professor D! May your success continue and may you continue your noble work of saving humanity from beliefs in invisible sky fairies, their mewling progeny and various and sundry demigods and goddesses.

7. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148850 by Blueboy5 on March 24, 2008 at 3:49 am

Dear Richard,

Lying for Jesus is one of the key weapons in the fundamentalists' arsenal. They are, I am sure, vaguely aware that lying is forbidden by their holy book, but when you are doing it for a 'good' cause and will be forgiven by a personal saviour, they feel themselves to be justified in their actions. To paraphrase their approach, "I can be a complete hypocrite because my actions are justified by my beliefs."

It all makes me want to weep.

8. Bad Faith Awards: Vote for the winner now

Comment #94663 by Blueboy5 on December 6, 2007 at 7:40 am

* Chuck Norris: an idiot actor trying to stay in the limelight.

* The Bishop of Carlisle, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, Westboro Baptist Church, Archbishop Francisco Chimoio, Pope Benedict XVI (aka Benny 16): all superstitious flakes doing what superstitious flakes are supposed to do. (No big shock here.)

* Dr Joyce Pratt: MY CHOICE FOR THE WINNER. People go to her looking for real treatment, not voodoo cures. She is the clearest example of someone acting in Bad Faith.

* Richard Dawkins: One heretic New Humanist reader even put forward rationalism's very own Dawkins, for turning "the 19th century's doubting of religious dogma into another kind of dogma". The cheek...

* Dinesh D'Souza: Conservative martinet masquerading as a public intellectual.

* General Sir Richard Dannatt: a man deluded by the superstitious, unable to see meaning outside of his own superstitious beliefs.

9. 1996 Richard Dimbleby Lecture

Comment #73513 by Blueboy5 on September 25, 2007 at 6:46 am

If a video were posted of Prof Dawkins reading a cake recipe, I swear I would watch it through a couple of times. (The recipe would have to be for Devil's Food cake, though.)

10. Talking Action Figure Jesus

Comment #73512 by Blueboy5 on September 25, 2007 at 6:38 am

And we're wasting resources on this?

11. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #69874 by Blueboy5 on September 13, 2007 at 3:39 am

Three cheers for Sam.

12. The Fleas Are Multiplying!

Comment #68674 by Blueboy5 on September 8, 2007 at 4:35 am

I wonder how many trees they killed to print all these hysterical replies. There had to have been many alternative uses - the first two that come to my mind are toilet paper or, better yet, not cutting them down at all.

13. The Flea Circus moves to your iPod!

Comment #67612 by Blueboy5 on September 4, 2007 at 2:34 am

I would say that all of this is a case of, rather than the rats deserting the sinking ship, the rats manning the pumps and carrying bucks to keep the waterlogged hulk afloat.

14. Enemies of Reason

Comment #67123 by Blueboy5 on September 2, 2007 at 3:19 am

As I watched, I couldn't help but get the feeling that everyone was acting a bit like little children, not the spoiled kind, but the kind that say "I don't feel well. Can you help me?", and I remembered my own childhood when my mom would give me a sugar cube with some food colouring on in and tell me this would make me all better. I saw that it was just sugar and artificial colouring but I took it and I felt better: It came from the hand of a caring person who smiled and told me all would be well and I believed it, just as the patients believe what their 'healers' told them. From the documentary, it was pretty obvious to me that comfort had trumped reality once again. Rather in the same way that religion offers comfort to some who probably 'know' it doesn't really work but they feel better none the less. I noted that Professor Dawkins as much as said that if it's just a placebo, then there isn't any real harm. I wonder how he would reconcile his stance on this kind of placebo with the placebo effect of religion.

15. Christopher Hitchens and Bill Donohue on Mother Teresa

Comment #66770 by Blueboy5 on August 31, 2007 at 9:29 am

When the Irishman doing the talking is named Yeats, Shaw, Joyce or Wilde, then the Englishman must be silent. But for the likes of Donohue? Not a chance!

16. CNN Request for 'I-Reports' on religion

Comment #64965 by Blueboy5 on August 22, 2007 at 1:58 pm

I wrote:

People of faith have wrapped themselves in a safety blanket because they are afraid of reality. I feel sorry for anyone who's too afraid to face the truth. They have created elaborate myths and alternate realities where their faith is something good, all in an effort to make their cowardice honourable.

To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, "the wall between church and state needs to be reinforced and built higher". A failure to do this and the United States is in real danger of becoming some kind of 'fear-based' theocracy rather than the democracy that 'faced any challenge' and defeated fascism and communism. I suppose if the majority of Americans are cowards and embrace faith and fear (something I seriously doubt), then they can wrap themselves in their superstitious ignorance but shouldn't be too surprised when they end up a foot note right along with Afghanistan and Iran as failed religious states.

17. Unreasonably superstitious

Comment #64428 by Blueboy5 on August 20, 2007 at 3:45 am

The verbal gymnastics that members of the religious community go through to hang onto their myths is utterly astonishing.