1. Deliver us from the god delusion that imperils our humanity

Comment #18241 by CitizenPaine on January 19, 2007 at 5:25 am

As Logiciel said - TinySaint, your blog is a hoot.

Only problem I have is the white writing on the black background. It's really hard to read.

Citizen P.

2. Readers Write: Atheist Sam Harris on Torture and Faith

Comment #17076 by CitizenPaine on January 10, 2007 at 3:58 pm

JohnC wrote:

Article 2.2 of the UN Convention says: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." Sam either supports the convention, or he does not (yes, it really is binary). If he does not, then I oppose him on this issue.

I absolutely agree. As I said before, it's one thing to argue for torture as a concept, but the practicality is horrendous UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

CitizenPaine

3. Intelligent design is a science, not a faith

Comment #16920 by CitizenPaine on January 9, 2007 at 3:52 pm

Here's Ken Miller, a Roman Catholic no less, making the point that scientists have to put forward hypotheses, carry out research, have peer reviews and get consensus before being allowed into classrooms and textbooks, while the ID brigade expects to get academic acceptance by going no further than the hypothesis stage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg

CitizenPaine

4. Halting progress

Comment #16918 by CitizenPaine on January 9, 2007 at 3:34 pm

I can't do more than endorse all of A.C. Grayling's comments. Even before he said he was writing in anger, his anger shone through and all the more powerful was the piece. Will they pay attention? Unlikely. Will the lawmakers do their duty? Hopefully.

CitizenPaine

5. Open Letter to Rev. John Auer

Comment #16895 by CitizenPaine on January 9, 2007 at 1:29 pm

That letter has the ring of truth. A patethic commentary on the historical mistake which is the catholic church.

CitizenPaine

6. The Nodder

Comment #16894 by CitizenPaine on January 9, 2007 at 1:16 pm

The kind of letter I would have liked to have written myself to RD after I'd read The God Delusion. Excellent.

CitizenPaine

7. Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture

Comment #16512 by CitizenPaine on January 7, 2007 at 3:31 am

I enjoyed "Letter to a Christian Nation" and I like to see Sam speak. I have a problem with his approach to torture, however. I appreciate that he is talking about a concept, but there's no point in promoting a concept unless the practicalities of putting it into effect are also considered.

Sam says that capital punishment has not led to moral chaos. But capital punishment is totally wrapped around with due process. Can anybody imagine how unreal and ghoulish would be a court case to decide whether or not an individual were to be tortured, quite apart from the fact that the "ticking time bomb" would long since have either exploded or been found by other means in the interim?

Some context: I write from Europe where we have no death penalty.

Citizen Paine

8. The Only One in Step

Comment #14876 by CitizenPaine on December 26, 2006 at 8:32 am

Here's what Mark Twain had to say on the age of the earth and the time it took for humans to evolve. There's been an update in the figures since his time, but the analogy is still a good one:

(Apologies to all who may already be familiar with this - quite a few I imagine).

"Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; & anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would. I dunno."
-- Mark Twain, "Was the World Made for Man?"

9. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #14870 by CitizenPaine on December 26, 2006 at 7:11 am

John Cornwell can certainly change his mind. He began, by his own admission, the research for his book, "Hitler's Pope", with the object of protecting Pope Pius XII's reputation from imputations of wrong doing with regard to the Jewish population of Europe during WW2. He even states that it was his Catholic background that allowed Vatican archive doors to be opened for him.

Then his research led him to write a completely different book, one that is severely critical of the pope's behaviour in the matter.

Now, his current position, if his entry in Wikipedia is to be believed, has changed back again:

'Five years after the publication of Hitler's Pope, Cornwell has somewhat modified his views: "I would now argue, in the light of the debates and evidence following 'Hitler's Pope', that Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossible to judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by the (sic) Germany."'

Which is exactly what defenders of Pius XII had been saying since the war.

10. The Atheist Delusion: a pisspoor presentation

Comment #12068 by CitizenPaine on December 10, 2006 at 5:55 am

"The Atheist Delusion" video reminded me that an awful lot of people accept religion through sheer laziness. Example: A relative of mine failed to get accepted for medical school. Another (older) relative remarked that God knew best - that the younger person would not be able for the strain of medical training. In my experience this is a fairly standard, ultimately well-intentioned response from casual and/or lazy believers. The problem is, a few years ago I attended the funeral of a suicide victim who, it was accepted, had killed himself because he could not accept the loss of face that would result from his imminent failure to qualify as a doctor. Why did God not know best in this case and prevent him from making medical school? To bring it to its logical conclusion, did God "know best" and contrive for this young man to commit suicide? Even for a believer, this is ludicrous.