1. Richard Dawkins on 'Have Your Say'

Comment #96328 by Atlas on December 10, 2007 at 11:19 am

It seems talking loudly makes your arguments sound better, or makes people think your arguments are better than they are. It works for Dinish and Father Morris tries it.

In all honesty though, the last bastion of the faithful appears to be trying to attack atheism rather than defend their own position "Stalin was an atheist therefore atheism is evil, therefore theism must be good, therefore God exists". It's a horrible fallacy but one that most atheists struggle to counter in an effective manner.

"Atheism" has become an iron weight that those who disbelieve in God are now forced to carry around their necks, it slows us down and prevents us from attacking the core issue at hand here: irrationality. We can say Stalin didn't do the things he did in the name of atheism until we're blue in the face but it'll make little headway with the faithful.

We have to make the distinction between those who are reasonable and those who aren't, those who think rationally and those who don't. Stalin may have been an atheist but was he a reasonable man or a rational thinker? Certainly not. Was he open to new evidence and debate? Of course he wasn't. And that's the point we've got to try and make, Stalin wasn't a rational man and having an unshakable belief in God isn't rational either.

2. Ask The God Delusion author Richard Dawkins

Comment #94278 by Atlas on December 5, 2007 at 6:35 am

Pope Benedict probably thinks Hitler was an atheist, or that Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot did the things that they did because they were too reasonable. In this point I agree with Harris, let's just drop the label "Atheist" because then people can come back "well, Stalin was an atheist blah blah blah", how about we just promote reason and rationality? I mean what reasonable person would argue against reason?

3. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93499 by Atlas on December 3, 2007 at 9:37 am

What really got my goat was when Dinesh started spouting all of this pseudo-philosophical bullshit about how our 5 senses aren't enough to fully perceive reality, therefore God can and apparently DOES exist outside the range of our perception. Of course despite this statement Dinesh offers absolutely ZIP reason why we should actually believe this to be true. God of the gaps? more like God of the Grand Canyon, there's no gap bigger than the gap which we can't perceive nor measure with any instruments, now or probably in the future.

If we can't taste, touch, see, smell or hear God, nor can any of our instruments detect him or even hope to detect him then why exactly should we pay attention to him in the first place? If this God has no noticeable effect on our universe what's the point in even positing him? Let alone devoting our entire lives to him in some vain hope he'll make us all floaty and ethereal?

Dinesh also attacks the multiverse theory, well, as soon as people start being completely convinced that the multiverse exists, so much so that they go around trying to convince other people that it exists without any evidence that our measly 5 senses can analyze then he may have a case. Until then the idea of a multiverse is just that, an idea, a possibility that a few physicists entertain.

On the other hand billions of people around the world believe TO BE ABSOLUTE FACT a different theory for which there is equally little evidence (probably less). Yet Dinesh actually rips into the multiverse theory in an attempt to make his own position look stronger? Laughable.

4. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93103 by Atlas on December 2, 2007 at 7:50 am

I don't think Denett's strength is in debate, like Hitchens or Harris. To be a good debater you have to get as much in the time alotted, Dennet simply speaks too slow.

5. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92934 by Atlas on December 1, 2007 at 7:31 pm

Of course we should try to find out why the laws of physics are the way they are, but to start from the assumption that they're the way they are for some big reason is wrong in my opinion, we shouldn't focus entirely on looking for reason when there maybe none.

It's like asking "why was the universe created in the first place?", we can attempt to find out the sequence of events that lead up to the creation of the universe but is asking that question the correct one for science? Religions often start with the assumption that everything has some deep rooted meaning to it's existance and go from there, and that simply doesn't have to be the case.

What I stated was the Anthropic principal, which is a good argument against the "divine engineer twiddling his knobs" theory. It doesn't disprove there is one, but it's a good reason for why there doesn't have to be one.

6. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92920 by Atlas on December 1, 2007 at 6:42 pm

Also when Dinesh goes on about Pascal's wager, dear me, he says that neither he, nor dennet can understand God because he lies out of our frame of reference then he goes on to claim he knows the mind of God, who's to say God will punish those who disbelieve in him, how the hell does he know?

7. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92916 by Atlas on December 1, 2007 at 6:28 pm

It's not really a valid question. For example what if the universal laws were different? Humans and life in general can only exist because of the universal laws, but if the universal laws were different then there'd probably be phenomana equally as complex as life, just different. We're a product of the universe, it's no good to take the stance that the universe was tweaked to fit us in. It's like asking why the animal was designed around the working heart, he's approaching it from the wrong direction.

8. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92910 by Atlas on December 1, 2007 at 6:16 pm

Wow, I like how Dinesh uses that reduction to Hitler, and also how he brings up the old red herring "Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot were atheists therefore Atheism is evil". Not impressed at all.

And that "fine tuned" rant is ridiculous, Richard challanged this in "The God Delusion", if the universe wasn't in a state where we could exist then we wouldn't exist to debate it or think about how the universe is fine tuned.