1. Town moves against Islamic school

Comment #192459 by Skeptic Jim on June 13, 2008 at 5:14 am

"How do you know? I have been arguing this for a rather long time with NC and he had no answer to give to that question. So I place the same question to you: how do you know?"

Because a few years ago Pauline Hanson, One Nation with the support of every biggoted redneck in the country were pandering to the mob in the same way with particular emphasis on asian immigrants.

But what's even more revealing is what they didn't say. Not a single rational logical argument. Everything they said was emotive and based on fear.

There was not one thought out logical argument. Nothing said about the problems associated with faith schooling... none of the logical anti-multiculturalism arguments we often see in the opinion media...

Typical mob behaviour. Typical redneck behaviour.

"I'm not a xenophobe because I live next door to a scottish person... Send all the muslims home they're wrecking australia"... yeah real intelligent.

2. Town moves against Islamic school

Comment #189308 by Skeptic Jim on June 6, 2008 at 2:25 am

Al-rawandi,

I don't doubt there are some perfectly salient arguments one could use against setting up a school in the area. I personally dislike the idea of faith schools in general and agree with RD that the labelling of children with the religion of their parents is a form of child abuse.

However, that is not the kind of reasoning that this mob of ignorant rednecks is using. This mob of ignorant rednecks is using bigotted, in group/out group type reasoning.

As an Australian I find it embarassing. Camden is a disgrace.

3. Town moves against Islamic school

Comment #188984 by Skeptic Jim on June 5, 2008 at 6:17 am

Wow what a bunch of ignorant and bigotted red necks.

4. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #173111 by Skeptic Jim on April 30, 2008 at 11:14 am

I suspect the premise for this article would not exist had the author bought the audio book rather than the printed edition. There isn't so much room for assumption when it comes to the tone of the audiobook. His preconceptions would have been shattered before the interview.

5. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #167529 by Skeptic Jim on April 24, 2008 at 6:25 am

How can any educated person in this day and age propose Pascals wager as an argument. Apart from being a false dichotomy it also assumes it is possible to choose to believe in god.

I stopped reading Winston's argument at that point... please tell me it gets better!

6. Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed

Comment #163178 by Skeptic Jim on April 18, 2008 at 3:51 am

Finally somebody standing up to big sex. Avian Transportation Theory is NOT stalk science!

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

Comment #160562 by Skeptic Jim on April 14, 2008 at 7:48 am

Another argument against Dawkins' atheist activism by someone who clearly hasn't read the god delusion (where this very argument is debunked in advance).

8. Discussion of The God Delusion

Comment #115764 by Skeptic Jim on January 24, 2008 at 4:28 pm

Richard Dawkins Vs Germaine Greer

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=lc2Lw_-iZBM

9. Discussion of The God Delusion

Comment #115763 by Skeptic Jim on January 24, 2008 at 4:27 pm

Richard Dawkins Vs Jason Steger

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=y3LRlspLGrU

10. Frequently Asked Questions about the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust

Comment #89850 by Skeptic Jim on November 22, 2007 at 12:30 am

76. Comment #89712 by Novembrino on November 21, 2007 at 3:08 pm

This money raising should also raise a basic question:
given that 2 milion dollars is a lot of money, let's imagine if more ex-muslim women spoke against Islam. Just 1000 women means 2 billion dollars per year.
Isn't that discouraging for more women to come out?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Not as discouraging as seeing her killed for coming out.

11. Frequently Asked Questions about the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust

Comment #89708 by Skeptic Jim on November 21, 2007 at 2:54 pm

I just donated $10/month.

12. War in Heaven: Hitchens Meets D'Souza on Home Turf

Comment #81091 by Skeptic Jim on October 24, 2007 at 3:57 am

I don't trust reporters to accurately report on these kinds of debates. When Hitchens demolished John Waters in Dublin the local media reported it as a fairly even debate where Hitchens won by the skin of his teeth.

Was anyone there who can verify the veracity of the report?

13. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #66710 by Skeptic Jim on August 31, 2007 at 4:26 am

>Try this link: it worked for me. RD is on for about 7 minutes starting at 1:34:00

All I get at 1:34:00 is some rant about not being able to use mobile phones in the desert. I can't find Richard Dawkins anywhere in this entire stream.

14. Scientist Build a 'Brain' From Rat Cells

Comment #53048 by Skeptic Jim on June 29, 2007 at 5:20 am

This isn't a first. It was 1999 that I first heard that sceintists had built a calculator out of leech neurons.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/358822.stm

15. Richard Dawkins on his online alterego

Comment #52215 by Skeptic Jim on June 26, 2007 at 1:38 pm

hmmm. I'm really trying here. so you can sell things and convert it back to real money...

but the things your selling are pretty much useless to anybody... My guess is that very few people make any money out of this. I've yet to see anything i'd actually want to buy. they have helicopters but none with sidewinders. They have cars but where you can go and what you can do with them is incredibly lame. You can buy property.. and build a shop and then sell useless things to people who also want to sell useless things for money... Tell me i'm a cynic. I just can't see any reason to bother with this... game? reality? whatever you want to call it.

16. Germany imposes ban on Tom Cruise

Comment #52114 by Skeptic Jim on June 26, 2007 at 7:41 am

Doesn't Germany have a church tax? So they're actively complicit in helping the roman catholic cult make money.

17. Richard Dawkins on his online alterego

Comment #52085 by Skeptic Jim on June 26, 2007 at 5:51 am

I had a go at second life... I really can't for the life of me fathom what people see in it. Maybe I'm doing something wrong but it seems like a virtual world where you just walk around and look at stuff and don't really do very much at all. Sure you can buy land and buy items just to carry around with you but why would you bother?

The one intersting thing I managed to do was enter a church and trash the cross... i'm guessing the owner didn't mean to leave it editable.

18. The Future Forum Presents: Christopher Hitchens and Marvin Olasky

Comment #49921 by Skeptic Jim on June 14, 2007 at 5:25 am

I've seen better and quicker debunkings of Pascal's Wager. I can't believe people still consider that ridiculous argument. That guy claims to never have heard a good answer to pascal's wager??? He obviously has never typed those words into a search engine.

Pascal's wager is a false dilemma. It assumes the choices are only the hole in the ground or the christian afterlife. What about all the religions that claim christians are going to have an unpleasant afterlife? For that matter, what about all the subsections of christianity who believe that all of the other christian sub-sections are going to hell?

Pascal's wager assumes one can lie to an omniscient being and pretend to believe or that they can make a conscious decision to change and all of a sudden believe the opposite to what they currently believe.

It's a ridiculous argument and there is no excuse for anyone to fall for it in this day and age.

19. Hamas Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony

Comment #47648 by Skeptic Jim on June 5, 2007 at 6:21 am

Comment #47536 by Spinoza on June 4, 2007 at 10:52 pm

Um. How is this worse than G.I. Joe?

20. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46095 by Skeptic Jim on May 30, 2007 at 7:41 am

Lets say i had a lemon and it could talk. Would it believe in god?

21. Al Gore on Reason

Comment #45128 by Skeptic Jim on May 26, 2007 at 1:11 pm

>It's pretty ironic that a religious creationist would title his book "The Assault on Reason."

I find it difficult to believe that a creationist could care less about the environment and global warming.

22. I Don't Believe in Atheists

Comment #44350 by Skeptic Jim on May 24, 2007 at 11:55 am

*smiles and rubs hands together*

The theists are getting angrier and angrier. =)

23. Two idiots get a forum

Comment #35642 by Skeptic Jim on April 28, 2007 at 4:33 am

No! No Mr Comfort. Not the banana! Anything but the banana! AAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!

24. Send The God Delusion to your MP

Comment #33533 by Skeptic Jim on April 20, 2007 at 1:58 pm

We've kicked off something similar at atheist.ie to send books to Irish TDs...

http://www.atheist.ie/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=373&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

25. NEXT MONDAY: Bill O'Reilly interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #33360 by Skeptic Jim on April 20, 2007 at 12:22 am

This is a REALLY DUMB THING for Professor Dawkins to do, as he will find out.

26. Irish poll shows parents no longer want to force religion on to children

Comment #32465 by Skeptic Jim on April 17, 2007 at 6:00 am

A resident can correct me if I'm wrong but the politicians in Ireland appear more susceptible to the Catholic Church's influence than this survey would suggest for the population as a whole.

Thus legislation lags behind the prevalent social mores and large amounts of money are made available to the church virtually on demand e.g. to pay for all the sexual abuse claims.

How long will it be before the politicians realise there are votes to be had, rather than lost, by standing up to the church?

27. Dawkins vs Haggard: the Python Edition

Comment #29956 by Skeptic Jim on April 5, 2007 at 5:51 pm

Nah sorry that was crap. The emperor is showing us his nads.

28. Is God a Delusion?

Comment #29852 by Skeptic Jim on April 5, 2007 at 7:47 am

>This is hardly an intuitive fact, and so I don't blame the atheist for failing to get the answer right.

Why should it be intuitive?

29. Is God a Delusion?

Comment #29848 by Skeptic Jim on April 5, 2007 at 7:20 am

>What's the most arrogant way to respond to somebody's point whthout actually having a real argument? Laugh at them. The guy can't stop doing it

Yeah. Appeal to ridicule is a logical fallacy. In any given debate i'd turn it back on them and ask why they had to resort to it if they have a good argument.

30. Is God a Delusion?

Comment #29816 by Skeptic Jim on April 5, 2007 at 1:29 am

>The fact that we don't know what was before the big bang does not make positions all equal

That line of questioning annoyed me most of all and i'm a bit miffed that the Atheist didn't answer correctly. What happened 'before' the big bang is like asking what is south of the south pole (thanks prof Hawking for the analogy). The big bang was the moment of creation for not only matter but also space and time. If time started with the big bang then there WAS NO BEFORE. It is completely meaningless to ask what existed before the big bang.

31. Stalking Strangers' DNA to Fill in the Family Tree

Comment #29232 by Skeptic Jim on April 2, 2007 at 6:54 am

I want to dig up my ancestors.

32. Dawkins says religion is 'like sucking a dummy'

Comment #28401 by Skeptic Jim on March 29, 2007 at 4:40 am

>What other possible explanation can there be for the phenomenon of educated, intelligent adults clinging to such puerile mythologies, when all sense and reason would surely lead them to conclude such fantasies are obviously false?

I have one...

Not only is the emperor naked but he's also playing with himself.

33. Richard Dawkins: Author of the Year!

Comment #28362 by Skeptic Jim on March 29, 2007 at 12:52 am

Fantastic news. Congratulations RD. The God Delusion was a witty, humerous account of reality. Well deserving of such an award.

34. Peanut Butter, The Atheist's Nightmare!

Comment #27913 by Skeptic Jim on March 27, 2007 at 7:58 am

*slaps head* Of course! Peanut Butter! How could I have been so stupid! They sure showed us!

35. Germany Cites Koran in Rejecting Divorce

Comment #27113 by Skeptic Jim on March 23, 2007 at 7:14 am

>yes, the Christian Democratic Union. So... if the judge had referred to the Bible, instead of the Koran to negate national law, would our friend here still be up in arms?

I reckon he'd be running around in circles with his hands over his ears screaming 'OUT OF CONTEXT OUT OF CONTEXT'.

36. Mr. Deity

Comment #26888 by Skeptic Jim on March 22, 2007 at 7:06 am

Episode 8 has been out for two weeks. Episode 9 has been a long time coming!

37. Does God answer prayer? ASU research says 'yes'

Comment #25989 by Skeptic Jim on March 16, 2007 at 1:15 am

ah ok. so he takes 17 separate studies presumably using various methods to derive their results and assessed using various criteria and thinks he can pile it all together and make a claim?

Bwahahahahahahahahaha
*takes deep breath*
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
*wipes tear from eye*
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
*falls of chair*
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
*picks self up*
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

38. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #25795 by Skeptic Jim on March 15, 2007 at 7:00 am

"But even after you have been saved by reason, you will die, Sam. And what will save you then?"

Well, nothing. Why frame this question in such an alarmist manner? Any comfort religion affords people has nothing to do with its truth claims.

39. A 'Sad First' in the History of the Congress

Comment #25776 by Skeptic Jim on March 15, 2007 at 5:23 am

This is interesting indeed. Just look at the biased language, rhetoric and outright lies in this steaming pile of horse shit.

This statement is an absolutely ludicrous exageration and is an example of bias that you simply can't get away with unless it's somehow tied to religion...

The liberals in Congress want to throttle any school child who bows his or her head in prayer, but they want to establish a right for liberals to bash Christians and berate God around the clock

40. Did You Know? Shift Happens - Globalization, Information Age

Comment #25569 by Skeptic Jim on March 14, 2007 at 6:24 am

While most of this was based on overly-simplistic extrapolation, the overall message is sound. Think about how much knowledge you have gained since you first plugged into the internet. Knowledge that you wouldn't otherwise have if it weren't so readily available. I can't speak for others but for a curious animal such as myself, the www has had a profound impact on my level of knowledge and understanding of the natural universe. This comes from being curious enough to look up topics that I hear or read about and don't yet understand. Easy access to this information is our best bet to combat ignorance and superstition. All we need to work on now is ensuring that everyone gains some understanding of critical thinking. That being the only thing that might prevent people from choosing to gain their worldly knowledge from the answers in genesis web site.

41. 1986 Oxford Union Debate

Comment #25430 by Skeptic Jim on March 13, 2007 at 4:41 am

Who was that pompous fool who stood up in protest suggesting that atheists shouldn't be allowed to speak?

42. Mr. Deity

Comment #24908 by Skeptic Jim on March 9, 2007 at 6:28 am

Episode 8 is out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-25iBw2EX8

43. Lewis Wolpert and William Lane Craig on Religion

Comment #24720 by Skeptic Jim on March 8, 2007 at 7:40 am

I'm beginning to find interviews such as this highly annoying. Because of time contraints there is never any opportunity for the two sides to explain their arguments properly, the interviewer controls the interview in such a way that they don't get to address each other's points properly and just when the thing is beginning to get interesting they're cut off in mid sentence and the interview ends.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr!

44. Lewis Wolpert and William Lane Craig on Religion

Comment #24718 by Skeptic Jim on March 8, 2007 at 7:37 am

Hi LB. I get the same problem. There's all this funny stuff in the URL. I just remove the funny stuff. Try this...

http://richarddawkins.net/audio/Wolpert_lanecraig.mp3

45. Panel discussion on atheism where no atheists are included

Comment #20967 by Skeptic Jim on February 7, 2007 at 6:18 am

Wow talk about crap journalism.

Christians in the USA are always having a big cry about prayer being 'removed' from public schools. The fact is it was never removed. If any individual students want to pray at school they have every right to. Prayer was never removed. What was removed is the act of forcing students to pray as apart of something organised by the school.

What an incredibly obnoxious bunch of bigotted pseudo-intellectuals.

46. Discussion of The God Delusion

Comment #18248 by Skeptic Jim on January 19, 2007 at 5:56 am

Wow. How embarassing for us Aussies. The accusations they make against Dawkins are completely false and most likely based on assumption.

Just as an example, Dawkins has said many times that he has an appreciation for religious art and architecture and that it should be taught in schools so that people can understand shakespeare et al.

What a profoundly pompous and ignorant panel.

47. The problem with secularism

Comment #14349 by Skeptic Jim on December 22, 2006 at 5:56 am

fun·da·men·tal·ism (fŭn'də-měn'tl-ĭz'əm) Pronunciation Key
n.
Usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.


What are the fundamental principals of atheism?

48. 7 monks injured in clash over monastery

Comment #14070 by Skeptic Jim on December 21, 2006 at 3:46 am

Why does this keep conjuring up mental images of friar tuck from the disney version of robin hood?

49. The Blasphemy Challenge

Comment #13546 by Skeptic Jim on December 18, 2006 at 8:14 am

Different people respond better to different methods. To say this method is 'the wrong way' to go about this is to forget that not everyone is you. The more atheist activists there are using completely different methods to appeal to people the more people will be appealed to... simple. I'm sick to death of hearing people tell RD he should do things differently because his style doesn't particularly appeal to the person doing the whinging at the time. The same applies to this. If this method of appealing to the masses doesn't do anything for you then feel free to take a shut the hell up pill. It looks like its been quite a productive gimick so far.

50. The Blasphemy Challenge

Comment #13426 by Skeptic Jim on December 17, 2006 at 3:45 pm

Too many times in debates i've been involved in with christian fundies i've had an argument thrown at me suggesting that everyone is really a christian. We all believe in god deep down. We all feel guilty about jesus dying for our sins etc...

The idea that atheists really believe in god but they hate him is quite a popular one amoungst fundies. This stunt should hammer the last nail in the coffin of that ridiculous argument.

I see this as a positive move that will contribute to breaking the spell for some people.