1. Happy Birthday Josh Timonen!

Comment #119248 by Stewart on January 31, 2008 at 12:27 pm

Hope you're enjoying all the congratulations and praise; you certainly deserve them. I think it's no exaggeration to say you're helping to change the world. A lot of people appreciate that. Keep it up, but take a break to celebrate, too.

Happy birthday,


Stewart

2. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #113577 by Stewart on January 20, 2008 at 4:46 am

What can one do other than add one's voice to the choir in thanks? Here's hoping the number of well-wishers has its own good effect on your morale.

3. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #99073 by Stewart on December 15, 2007 at 12:45 pm

Haven't yet had time to see more than part of the first hour, but my main comment is not dependent on knowing the precise content of what was said. Firstly, great job, Josh. Unintrusive, well-focused fly-on-the-wall. Just what the doctor ordered. Skimming the comments so far is also instructional and I think it's more than fine that there is not just sycophantic agreement with everything that everybody said. As an informal summit of the four best-known names of this movement, it takes no brains to predict it will yet be considered an important cultural document of its time.

Wider exposure is vital. Any TV would be good. "They" have "Expelled" in the pipeline and "we" have "Religulous" coming up, but this is different. I hate to make the analogy to the "swinging voter" but I suspect there are a lot of people in the middle ground whose religious views are moderate if they exist at all, but whose attachment to tradition would never permit them to condemn their "own" religion and which therefore prevents them from taking any stance against religion in general. And I think many of them hear too much about rabid fundamentalist atheists without realizing how false the image is. They are the people who need to be exposed to these four, not just in debate situations or under attack by hostile TV interviewers, but in the setting this shoot provides. Sure, there'll be some who will only be able to explain these four reasonable individuals as a piece of staged and carefully rehearsed propaganda (as we would, if we saw a meeting of Discovery Institute honchos that contained no hint of anything but the spirit of honest scientific inquiry), but it may have the power to open a few further pairs of eyes. How many depends on how viral the attraction of these two hours can be made to seem. After all, our opponents aren't claiming merely that we've come to the wrong conclusions scientifically. The loudest of them are saying that we are denying what is scientifically obvious, deliberately perverting, inventing, concealing and misrepresenting evidence, all in the name of protecting the reign by terror of a pre-existing materialist agenda. Think one stage further than that and it can easily mean: yes, the evolutionists know that without these shady contortions the existence of god is blindingly obvious, ergo, they do know privately that god exists and they are immorally keeping that quiet in order to push something else. And what does that boil down to? Probably Satanism. What else could come to mind if people who know god exists are acting in opposition to him?

So, yes, please push this, especially in the direction that needs it most. Even without having watched everything yet, I feel certain that a very enticing trailer could be made out of a few choice phrases. Or is that already in the works? It's different and that can be made its strength.

4. Double-checking Dawkins

Comment #93022 by Stewart on December 2, 2007 at 1:59 am

I remember coming across that little passage and not doubting it was genuine rather than made up. Someone on the other side might wish to interpret that as meaning that Dawkins' acolytes believe everything he says in a religious sense, but that couldn't be wider of the mark. One can get the measure of a man from his writing if he does it well and everything I've read consistently gives the same impression: that nothing has been committed to paper without maximum reasonable certainty having been attained that it is correct, as far as one can know. It's backed up by the occasions when the admission is made that something may be imperfectly remembered or is being paraphrased because an original quote has not been found. (The opposite, in fact, of what one experiences when reading much of what emanates from the religious/creationist/ID camp. There was a Christian commentary I saw just after Oppenheimer's NYT piece on Flew appeared and one needed no information beyond reading them and seeing how the one misrepresented the other to see that there was a manifestly manipulative and dishonest agenda at work on the Christian side. The most open-minded person would be disinclined to believe anything coming from a Christian if that could be taken as the level of accuracy in the transmission of information. And they want us to take the Gospel literally...)

5. Fear of Barbara Forrest

Comment #92127 by Stewart on November 29, 2007 at 10:59 pm

How about producing a short film about the getting-rid-of of Chris Comer that could precede screenings of "Expelled" in the cinemas? The side that is unjustifiedly screaming for equal time won't give one second of it once they have the upper hand.

6. 'Expelled' Movie: The Extended Trailer

Comment #88308 by Stewart on November 15, 2007 at 11:29 pm

I don't know about optimism, but it's not like we can say in fear "what would happen if people who thought like that were in power in the States?" They are in power and despite all their attempts to erode rational thought, they keep hitting snags like Judge Jones in the Dover trial. Not that the battle does not have to be fought; it does and most energetically. But the most nightmarish scenarios are not happening. Those in power would love summarily to dismiss anyone with a position of influence who spoke in favour of Darwin and didn't profess religious belief. The great thing is that enough steps forward have been taken that that's not that simple to do anymore. And frankly, despite the numbers of believers out there, the way we are getting attention now and the way many of them are reacting makes me feel they're feeling quite a bit of panic. They can't just shut the internet down and that means their youngsters have access to what we are telling them. Those tempted to look who also have more brains than fear are going to end up deserting them. Despite the fact we can't be "herded" into power the way they do it, I like to think the above observation means their side will keep on losing those with both brains and guts. So much the better for us.

All that said, I'm afraid "Expelled" will not be limited to private gatherings and our side needs to be on the cutting edge of getting a more sensible message heard. Like Nova on Dover.

7. The Turning of an Atheist

Comment #85102 by Stewart on November 5, 2007 at 1:33 am

Oh, and one "Nickerson" was left in, anyway.

Quick recap: the DI's "Evolution News & Views" has opposition to sloppiness as a raison d'etre.

8. The Turning of an Atheist

Comment #85100 by Stewart on November 5, 2007 at 1:24 am

I guess they follow this site pretty avidly. Oppenheimer's name has already replaced Nickerson's (albeit with a spacing error at the beginning of the second paragraph - nothing is ever sloppy at the DI). Of course, it could be coincidence. Unlike the DI, I believe in coincidence.

9. The Turning of an Atheist

Comment #85099 by Stewart on November 5, 2007 at 1:20 am

Dembski's blog, Uncommon Descent, was whooping it up about Flew 4 days ago
(http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/anthony-flew-interview/).

I was wondering how they'd handle the Oppenheimer story. They still haven't. Maybe they've been waiting for a nod from the Discovery Institute, which just came through

(http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/11/the_cuckoo_ones_over_flews_nes.html).

Apart from hinting that NYT reporters who don't toe the line are banished to Iraq a la Siberia under the Soviet Union (because they can never be fired, I guess) and being unable to spell "Darwinist," the DI release credits the entire article to photographer Jackie Nickerson, describing how "Nickerson sat for hours, glass of water at hand and Flew's cat at side, to interrogate the gentleman, none-too-gently it seems..."

The really amusing part is that the bottom of the page bears the footer "The misreporting of the evolution issue is one key reason for this site. Unfortunately, much of the news coverage has been sloppy, inaccurate, and in some cases, overtly biased. Evolution News & Views presents analysis of that coverage, as well as original reporting that accurately delivers information about the current state of the debate over Darwinian evolution."

Let us now watch the spread of Nickerson's name as the author of the expose as site after site takes its gospel from the DI...

10. The Turning of an Atheist

Comment #85031 by Stewart on November 4, 2007 at 3:24 pm

If the article is inaccurate and Flew is in fact capable of writing the book with which he is now being credited, then he is also capable of issuing a reaction to the piece. No reaction from Flew may, I think, tell us a lot.

11. Those fanatical atheists

Comment #38108 by Stewart on May 7, 2007 at 1:54 am

Maybe this'll fit on a t-shirt: "'Read Dawkins, have abortion, repaint Gulag' Grow up."

12. Those fanatical atheists

Comment #38085 by Stewart on May 7, 2007 at 12:07 am

Roy_H,

Agree very much. One of the very best to have been written. Must be circulated a lot more. Shame it probably won't fit on a t-shirt. Agree with Russell about the fingernails on the blackboard, too. Dawkins never makes that impression. But let's assume that for a believer he does and ask, is that it? Is that the worst we have going for us? Marvellous piece.

13. Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

Comment #33990 by Stewart on April 23, 2007 at 2:16 am

Of course this is ridiculous, but up to a certain point I can't overcome my impulse to reply decently. Chamber, are you aware that you have been throwing website addresses at me as if the very fact that someone published something on the web made it true? Would it satisfy you if I just flung back a bunch of other links that disagree with yours?

You claim that we are claiming that evolution works (your words) "through chances and luck." Richard Dawkins (in an interview available on this site) referred to "the non-random survival of randomly varying hereditary elements." If you don't understand why we say you are mischaracterising when those two quotes are juxtaposed so closely, then we lack the basis that might enable us to discuss something.

I wonder what you think god had in mind when he created the non-human primates. Why would he have made creatures so close to humans if he had wanted mankind set apart from the animal kingdom?

14. Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

Comment #33396 by Stewart on April 20, 2007 at 2:39 am

Oh, I get it. Chamber thinks the carpenter created the wood. I thought he would have thought that god created both wood and carpenter. If the carpenter has children, who created them? Chamber claimed to have read "The Blind Watchmaker." If this claim is true, he does not seem to have understood it very well, because he is mocking claims that have not been made. I can only say I'm glad that we are finally making enough dents in the public consciousness to have caused this massive backlash. It's about time believers realised that their position is neither shared nor respected as widely as they wanted to assume.

Just saw the other comment that came in. "If we just believe in god we won't need science" seems to be the gist of it. I wonder if Chamber even realises that many, many people find the all-purpose-solution idea of supernatural entities much more preposterous and impossible to swallow than he does the evidence-based scenarios proposed by science. A few hundred years ago even to claim it were possible to do what we're doing now by contributing comments to a website from different continents in real time might have had us burned at the stake.

15. Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

Comment #33351 by Stewart on April 19, 2007 at 11:37 pm

"Who are the 'enemies of free thought'? Isn't everyone free to think as they choose?"

It is very difficult to stop people from having their own thoughts. The enemies of free thought are those who try. The fact that it is easier to suppress the expression of thoughts than it is to suppress the thoughts themselves does not mean there is no distinction between those people and systems that encourage open enquiry and those that take the opposite tack. Why do you choose to ignore that and write as if free thought does not have enemies?

16. Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

Comment #33112 by Stewart on April 19, 2007 at 8:13 am

While it's true that there can be no point in trying to reason with Chamber the way he's going on, it is worth pointing out (for his benefit, too, if he's still reading) that arguments like trees mutating into tables can only be the result of people he trusts misinforming him about what evolution is claimed to be. The problem needs to be attacked from the root and one of the roots is people cleverer than Chamber deliberately misrepresenting the case they are against to a wider public. Chamber may not agree with us or understand us, but he couldn't have written some of the nonsense he did if people he considered authoritative had not misled him. I wonder whether he cares that he is being lied to by the leaders of what he thinks is "his" side. What atheists actually think is out there, openly available, if he is interested in reading it from the source, rather than hearing the distortions put out by the enemies of free thought.

17. Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

Comment #32182 by Stewart on April 16, 2007 at 5:32 am

If you are someone to whom science has any value, the pope's views cannot be of any relevance to you. The pope is, in the most official sense possible, the representative of an unchanging dogma based on a text written when we didn't know most of what we today know about the world. There is no point in listening to what such a person has to say about a body of knowledge that constantly adapts itself to fit each new discovery. Try to find an analogy to the ridiculousness of anyone listening to what the pope thinks of science and it's hard to come up with anything that sounds more like an exaggeration than just that. I'll give it a try, anyway. Imagine a town where everybody sports a brand new Rolex, yet continue to believe the old town-crier (whose watch stopped years ago) whenever he announces what time it is.

18. Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

Comment #31953 by Stewart on April 15, 2007 at 3:35 am

John's point (number 97 in this thread) is important and should be reiterated more often. Those who say RD has no business expressing an opinion on questions of whether or not there's a god (they're wrong, of course, because it is a scientific question) should be equally firm with non-scientists butting into scientific questions like evolution, which is not a question theologians (or popes) are in any way "qualified" to make pronouncements on.

19. Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

Comment #31381 by Stewart on April 12, 2007 at 8:12 am

To avoid confusion, my above comment refers to the period before 1939-40.

20. Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

Comment #31380 by Stewart on April 12, 2007 at 8:06 am

I have it on first-hand authority that it was not unheard-of for teachers to simply order children who had not yet joined the Hitler Youth (including children of communist parents) to get themselves in uniform or else. Nor were these orders delivered in a kindly tone of voice. This could certainly explain a high membership, including "some very anti-nazi people," despite it not being "like the boy-scouts." I'm not sure we all appreciate what it is like to live in a society where peer pressure and draconian legislation are both pushing in the same direction.

21. Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

Comment #31356 by Stewart on April 12, 2007 at 5:47 am

as Ian wrote: " There is only one reason to listen to this old fool: he has influence over so many."

Were it not for the fact that millions consider him an authority on anything he feels like talking about, why would one care what an elderly non-scientist thinks about a scientific issue? Catholics wouldn't agree, of course, but the pope has no more entitlement to be listened to on science than the heir to the British throne has to be listened to on alternative medicine. In fact, considering that the only field in which the pope can claim expertise is a fictional non-subject, his views are almost sublimely irrelevant. The head of a Tolkien fan club is more relevant; at least he knows and acknowledges that the subject at hand is fiction.

22. Hey Mom, I'm an Atheist

Comment #31291 by Stewart on April 11, 2007 at 11:41 pm

Did someone already link to what William Dembski had to say about this (oh, yeah, he posted it - approvingly)?

"Who knows where Richard Dawkins would be if he had a mother like this:"

And one of his commenters chimed in:

"Whoa! I'd hate to see what she'd do if she found her son had taken the Blasphemy Challenge. I wonder if she kisses the pope's ring with that mouth. Anyway, I like her. Can we pass the hat around to buy her a ticket to Oxford and cab fare to get to Richard Dawkins' house?"

I almost forgot that it's the atheists who are the arrogant, intolerant fundamentalists.

23. Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

Comment #31289 by Stewart on April 11, 2007 at 11:16 pm

"The Pope also says the Darwinist theory of evolution is not completely provable because mutations over hundreds of thousands of years cannot be reproduced in a laboratory."

But still doing a lot better than god, if both are held to the same standards of evidence (this would be the same god who can do anything except fit into the gaps science leaves, because they're so small not even god can fit in them).

24. Is this another Sokal Hoax?

Comment #31132 by Stewart on April 11, 2007 at 5:18 am

"I expect a few pages cut and pasted from the middle of any 600-page work, even a work by the illustrious Mr Dawkins himself, would become cryptic when cited out of context to people working in another field."

I couldn't help myself. I reached for what seemed the fattest Dawkins book on my shelf, "The Ancestor's Tale" ( my paperback runs to 685 pages) and opened it as close to the middle as I could. It turned out to be page 332-333, as close to Guertin's specification as one could ask for. The beginning of "The Lungfish's Tale." It would be advantageous, as the diagram caption recommends, to consult the earlier "Gibbon's Tale" to understand maximum likelihood analysis, but the writing is a model of clarity and while a complete layman might want to check a few definitions if he/she came in right in the middle like that, nobody could possible wonder "what on earth is he talking about?"

Ms. Guertin's expectation is unrealistic. As many literary anthologies over the decades have shown, one doesn't need to start at page one to appreciate good writing. And the reverse is true, as well (check out the comments on the longer version of "Peddling Stupidity" for that).

25. Is this another Sokal Hoax?

Comment #31101 by Stewart on April 11, 2007 at 2:07 am

David,

You are most welcome and it is I who should be doing the thanking. I'm always on the lookout for good debunkings and this was one of the better ones. A couple of sentences not in the shorter version were excellent and particularly apt for my purposes (somewhere, sometime, you will certainly be quoted).

I see great similarities to our problem with religion. Too many people who think something is not right about all this feel themselves too much in the minority to say that they think it's all bullshit. Take away that fear (as Dawkins is trying so hard to do) and you may see an eruption of unexpected proportions.

26. Is this another Sokal Hoax?

Comment #31016 by Stewart on April 10, 2007 at 4:04 pm

Apologies if someone's already contributed this link and I missed it (Ophelia Benson had it at Butterflies & Wheels): http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/bad-faith-viii/

It says pretty much everything that needs saying in this case.

27. Is God poison?

Comment #30831 by Stewart on April 10, 2007 at 3:20 am

Well, I was going to write almost exactly what Prof. Dawkins wrote at the beginning of his post, but by the time I got to the end of the article I saw that he'd beaten me to it. It is always infuriating to be misunderstood; how much more so when one's actual views, expressed with exemplary clarity, have already been broadcast so widely. Surely this is a case where efficient meme replication is being intentionally thwarted.

28. Militant atheists: too clever for their own good

Comment #30193 by Stewart on April 7, 2007 at 7:47 am

"Moore should instead focus on the impact that Harris and Dawkins are having on the debate. Why are these books selling so well? Why are rooms packed whenever one of them speaks? That's the interesting question."

So much easier to view them as an external, possibly Satanic, threat than to wonder whether any of their points are worth addressing. But then, that's a large part of our problem with them in a nutshell: faith isn't there in order to be questioned. Questioning is precisely what one is not supposed to do with faith. That's why if it's under attack, the problem must lie with the attackers, because it's not allowed to lie with the faith.

29. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #27673 by Stewart on March 26, 2007 at 4:42 am

"... because if he were not just he would not be God."

I think that says it all. DR needs him to be both just and god, therefore he axiomatically is both. Although he has here assented to my suggestion of the possibility that all Christian teaching is wrong. And if god is just then there is no type or amount of suffering that DR will call unjust. Doesn't matter what happens to you, it's always right. Bad things can happen but never anything unjust. For every serial killer whose existence god has on his metaphorical hands, there's a string of victims who - axiomatically - must have deserved what they got (or have I misunderstood the word "just"). If the Jews in the extermination camps hadn't had it coming to them, if being gassed en masse were not just, god would not have permitted it to happen. Or can he really be a just god who still permits unjust things (for every one of which, as the creator of every perpetrator, he must ultimately be responsible) to happen? What exactly inspired this god to create the Amalekites, knowing in advance (how could he not?) that he was going to command the Israelites not to leave the tiniest trace of them alive?

"But who am I to sit in judgement upon the Bible?" DR wrote in one of his letters to Dawkins. Exactly the same person who judges what he should eat, what he should wear, what he should vote and who has not considered it at all presumptuous of himself to judge every other text worshipped as sacred by every other group on the planet as unworthy of his respect.

"... I made a decision that it was stupid and arrogant of me as a young Christian to think that I alone could understand the bible and to attempt to sit in judgement upon it. It was not that it was wrong to question but rather that I had to be patient, humble and thoughtful. After more than 25 years studying it I have come more and more to appreciate the truth, wisdom, beauty and relevance of the Bible."

Forget atheism (for a moment); DR made a decision on the strength of which he devoted over 25 years to studying the one text he'd already decided to adopt - not one of the others, which, theoretically at least, might have been just as, if not much more, rewarding, had he decided to make the investment, rather than dismissing out of hand those which were not his choice.

We don't "need" the bible to be true or god to exist to feel fulfilled in our lives and live morally, which I suspect we can do better than DR precisely because we always have to think more about what we're doing than someone who merely has to check what the ancient instructions prescribe. If homosexuality is a criminal offence somewhere and we think this is antiquated and unjust, we can ponder, debate and argue the issue and have the law changed, having weighed up as many sides of the problem as possible. Does a believer in biblical truth have to do this? Is he encouraged to? Is he permitted to? If sodomy is an abomination and that's all there is to it because it says so in a book we have been told is true in a divine sense, who has put in a greater effort to ensure that the most just thing is being done, the secular or the believers? Atheism doesn't mean anything goes; it means we, the doers and the done-to, have to work to arrange our society in the best way our circumstances permit and "best" can be endlessly argued. Belief means only one thing goes, whether it is really just or not, and the effort goes into enforcing it. It's like the difference between digital and analogue (won't go into it now for those who don't get it); if we secular do make mistakes, even bad ones, in getting the balance right, we're still well-intentionedly striving to go in the right direction, with a chance we are doing some, or a lot, of good. If the religious have it wrong about the one point on which they're betting everything, they have it completely wrong and will have unjustly hurt many people, in addition to having misunderstood the one shot at life they will get (where's Pascal's wager now?). Or maybe the religious think that if they are wrong it doesn't matter because there can't be justice without god anyway. No god is as screwed as you can get, so what does it matter if life is hell on earth? That's where the golden rule can come in handy: how about letting this life be liveable for those with a different viewpoint? How about tolerating and understanding those who want to live free of religion? We don't begrudge you your right to have it, as a private individual, although we think it's very wrong and can be very dangerous.

30. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #27492 by Stewart on March 25, 2007 at 2:54 am

This is just so pathetic, isn't it?

I can say I've invented a machine, which is invisible, which is already miraculous, that can control everything in the universe and it beats the crap out of all previous attempts at AI by really having a will of its own. It has the power to punish the sinful, reward the righteous and answer prayers. It doesn't always choose to do these things, because it has a mind of its own, but I guarantee you that any time justice is seen to be done or a prayer answered, there's your evidence that everything I've said about my machine is true.

It is not possible to disprove this claim of mine. So, does everyone believe it and think it's true?

Yeah, humans are really neat, aren't they? They invented god.

31. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #27424 by Stewart on March 24, 2007 at 1:47 pm

DR,

Why are you ignoring the (enormous) difference between banning Christians from public life and permitting only their ideas on religion to be a part of public life as some kind of default? Sorry, but that's simply a dirty debating tactic.

My morality and politics can certainly be discussed and evaluated. You have a text which takes care of yours and we are of the opinion that it was written by human beings who knew a lot less than almost anyone alive today. You've put forward no real arguments that the being you claim is responsible for that text ever existed; you've merely thrown around terms like "evidence" and "logic" without either stating what the evidence is or walking us through what the logic is supposed to be.

Once again, you ignore important differences: that between propagating a belief and imposing one.

"you want all schools to teach as though there were no God. Please don't pretend that that is neutral."

I don't want any school to teach vulnerable children anything as fact for which there is no evidence. Yes, that is the most neutral thing one can do.

"After all no morals are absolute are they? They could evolve into something else. Might is right."

These are dangers faced by all of us, whether believers or atheists. What were most slave-owners against whom Wilberforce was campaigning? Not Christians? Your list was very selective and one could easily make another skewed in precisely the opposite direction. We have a big problem with your claiming moral absolutes on the strength of the dubious text you grant a sacred status.

Coercion: your political examples have been shot down too often to begin again here. I will say, from personal experience, that to have to play ball with religious practice in the absence of belief when a minor is not something to be laughed off. The enormous service Dawkins is doing (and your reactions are fortunately helping to make the issues ever harder to avoid) is letting people who didn't think they had a choice at all understand that there is one, even if it is fraught with hardship. I wonder if you would be able to write as you do if you'd ever had to escape a coercive religious environment.

"Actually I think there are lots of things that one cannot say – look here it is."

Are you suggesting that one should approach quantum physics and an ancient tale about the son of a god who did miracles with the same level of seriousness?

"How can I convince those who are determined not to be convinced and have already predetermined the answer?"

We haven't predetermined anything. But you're giving us nothing that is convincing. You keep on portraying us as the failures here, unable to get what you're offering us, except that you're offering us nothing that makes any sense. I, for one, am trying very hard to continue being civil, but, with the greatest respect, I am beginning to think you're just simple-minded.

You say you did start off not believing and you did make discoveries that changed your mind, but you don't tell us what actually happened. Or do you know in advance that only you would be convinced by what you "discovered?"

So you clearly take 6 days of creation and Jesus as a door metaphorically. I presume you take the resurrection literally. Why? Would you be able (theoretically, even) to take a bible and mark out with certainty what was meant in which way? Is it possible that you and another member of your church would not mark it identically? Where would either of you get the authority or knowledge to settle such a difference?

32. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #27317 by Stewart on March 23, 2007 at 11:41 pm

In an earlier post I said something along the lines that nitpicking about who took notes when Hitler spoke wasn't the real point, but I must backtrack here slightly and second stevencarrwork and ask most pointedly what makes it of vital importance for events that took place 70 years ago, where you do raise doubts about plausibility, although nothing supernatural is described, and of no importance for nearly 2,000-year-old texts of unclear authorship describing events that violate the laws of physics and in the total veracity of which you have complete faith? Can you convince us under such circumstances that it is our demand for evidence that is unreasonable and not your insistence on the truth of your sacred text? After all, you do say "I believe the Bible is true because of the evidence..."

33. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #27227 by Stewart on March 23, 2007 at 3:35 pm

I didn't cover everything I could have in the previous post. Ewan, I agree, that last contribution by Sam Harris was magnificent. The clarity of thinking is so refreshing. Anyway, back to DR.

"I believe the Bible is true because of the evidence – not in spite of it."

I must then ask if there was a time when you regarded the bible as no truer than other mythological literature of similar vintage and if so, what did you discover that convinced you that one and only one of those books was the genuine article? Was it anything that we, too, could discover without benefit of an already existing belief?

"I see no conflict between science and the bible."

I suspect you misunderstood my point here, but, in any case, do you really think there is no conflict? What about something like the age of the earth? And if you answer that that isn't to be taken literally, could you explain once and for all how it is that you are able to decide what parts of a text you consider wholly true are literally so and which are only metaphorical? And after that, how you came by the knowledge to distinguish between them?

"I cannot think of any where where the Bible has been proven wrong."

You previously wrote, in the opposite direction "The kind of proof you ask for means that you will never accept anything." The context was then miracles, which you defined as "something that works contrary to the normal laws of science." The ones you believe in that are described in the bible can only be accepted as having really occurred after you decide to accept everything in the bible as true, right? Or is there something we've all missed?

34. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #27084 by Stewart on March 23, 2007 at 5:31 am

I wrote: " "Not one of us is interested in curtailing your right to pray to or otherwise worship whatever you believe in."

To which you replied: "I wish that that were true." But it is true. It is utterly, literally true. I think all here agree you have that right. Are we to be blamed if you claim that your belief or faith mandates influencing things beyond the private sphere to where it may conflict with our right not to worship anything or the rights of religious groups whose beliefs are radically different from your own?

"You want to privatize religion – our faith does not allow that to happen." To me this sounds like you are assuming religion (specifically yours) does have a right to influence the public sphere. How can this be right, when "your faith" is only one among many and not everyone has religious beliefs at all? You cannot prove the existence of a god to our satisfaction, yet you claim the right to influence beyond your own right to worship. Is this not, by definition, imposing your beliefs upon those who may not or do not share them? Can you deny it is so or do you agree it is so and see no problem with it?

"My faith tells me that all human beings are made in God's image and that therefore slavery and racism is wrong." I don't think you'll find one atheist here who will tell you they think slavery or racism is right and they can do that without having to believe human beings are made in god's image. Is your faith in that unprovable detail the only thing that stands between you and approbation of slavery and racism? Did you believe they were right before you believed in god? No atheist has a sacred text to guide him, but you do have one that raises uncomfortable questions on those very issues you name. If slavery were an abomination in the eyes of god, he wouldn't have given laws regulating their treatment, would he? It wasn't hard for those who favoured slavery to find chapter and verse backing them up. Racism is similar. The ancient Israelites were commanded to commit acts of genocide, being explicitly forbidden to leave anyone alive. Was the being who commanded those acts not exactly the same god that you believe in? And do you believe he could do something not morally perfect or make a mistake? If you are against slavery and racism, you must concede it is easier to do as an atheist, than as a Christian who has so many scriptural problems to overcome on the way.

"You really want me to keep that as a 'private' belief." Not in the sense that I think you should be forbidden to express it. I think you and I should have identical rights under the law. Both of us should be permitted free expression of our beliefs and ideas and neither should have the right to impose on the other. In the absence of proof of any god's existence, how can it be right to impose anything beyond the private right to unencumbered worship? Many people have beliefs they would like to see imposed on others. I daresay you would not wish to live under Sharia law. It seems to me the recipe for minimum conflict must be to ensure that the radius that beliefs can extend beyond the private individual who holds them is not so big that it bumps into someone else's private radius.

"atheists are not particulary silent and do want to impose their philosophy on the world around" That is very vague. I agree that atheists are now becoming more vocal and we have plenty against which to become vocal. I also don't see why a vocal atheist is more to be decried than a vocal believer. As for the second part, we can all give plenty of examples of religious coercion worldwide, but I am unaware of atheist coercion. What are your examples? I happen to be neither British or American, but have a little more personal experience of the British state of affairs. How about bishops in the House of Lords? Isn't that a clear and official bias in favour of the representatives of religion? Are atheists given that kind of automatic power?

"for you there is no debate. It is all self evident" No, DR. You and I both agree that the visible phenomenal world exists. What we perceive on a daily basis is pretty much identical. I put it to you that you do, in fact, completely accept the main basis for the way in which atheists view the world, form their beliefs and choose to live their lives. You, however, also have a great many additional beliefs which are anything but self-evident to us. None of them are on the level that can be proved with "Look, here it is" - "Yes, I see it, you're right." Many, in addition to lacking the degree of self-evidence that characterises what we (and you) do accept, also pose enormous philosophical problems that don't arise in their absence, as well as the knotty question of scripture either taken literally or cherry-picked. What I'm saying is that because you are adding something not self-evident to what both of us do take for granted, it's you, rather than us, who must do the convincing. If you believe in god, you apparently also believe that he created not only atheists (yes, we can resort to evolutionary explanations for the existence of believers; it is much, much easier than your task) but also a universe that would not contain proof that would convince them of the existence of god.

I asked: "Do you have the humility to say that the Christian teachings you avowedly follow might just be plain wrong?" and you said "Yes they could be." I'm pleased to hear this, because it is probably the most important prerequisite to your being able to tolerate those who don't share your beliefs. But please apply your concession to all that has been said above and cultivate the same degree of respect for those who think you are wrong as you think they ought to have for you. If following such a principle comes naturally, you are well on the way to being considered moral by all of us, with or without a bible and anything it may say about slavery or racism.

35. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #26874 by Stewart on March 22, 2007 at 5:20 am

But he will be back, at some point and in some form. He believes in the existence of a being who has commanded him to make that being's existence known to others. Letting us just get on with our lives as we see fit is - literally - against his religion.

36. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #26089 by Stewart on March 16, 2007 at 5:31 pm

DR may have opted out now, but I expect he's still reading. Not that that is of importance. I'd like to get right what I paraphrased from Sam Harris and comment on one other issue. Harris was saying (still a paraphrase, but refreshed), take a believing Christian and tell him his wife's cheating on him or that frozen yoghurt causes invisibility. He will accept neither without evidence and the kind he requires will differ depending on which of the two he's being asked to believe. By contrast, without any evidence he will believe that the bible lying by his bed was written by the creator of the universe.

The other issue is DR's trying to make himself look reasonable by distancing himself from those who reject all science not literally in tune with the word of Genesis. As if pretending compatibility between science and religion is reasonable. Religion makes endless claims about the physical state of the world: how it began and who began it, what animates our physical existence, what becomes of us after death (and much else). These explanations all date from a time when so little was really known that one could get away with making it all up. In the meantime, we've learned something. Not everything, but a lot. Enough to know that religion's version of the world is the product of ignorance, not any special kind of knowledge. And this process of learning by looking at and studying the world has been marked by religion's attempts to stifle enlightenment. Names like Galileo and Giordano Bruno spring to mind. If I think of a scientist being burned for heresy the analogy is clear; it's like someone being bumped off for "knowing too much" by a Mob that controls everything and uses intimidation and murder to make sure its secrets stay that way. Religion's dirty little (actually anything but little) secret is that they made everything up and none of it is actually true. In the last few centuries they've ended up having to concede some major points to science because it had become too glaringly obvious which side was right and which was wrong. Still they hang on tenaciously to any area science hasn't yet cracked, as well as a few it has where their followers will let them get away with claiming it's not conclusively settled. Nowadays some of them buddy up with science or pretend to be it (ID), which helps to obscure an important point: things have changed in only one direction. Religion has had to concede point after point to science. Never has it gone in the other direction, with science admitting "well, the church got it right on that one and we were barking up the wrong tree." The score is: all the church has conceded versus nothing science has had to concede. The church has dogma that might be modified (without any factual investigation being involved) once in a blue moon, while science corrects itself whenever necessary. Still, the hope that that might lead to science giving some credit to religion when its investigations have reached a sufficiently high level is unlikely to come true, for the simple reason that something purely made up is unlikely to tally with reality. All this makes things like "non-overlapping magisteria" ridiculous. It is futile to try to find an arrangement in which science and religion can co-exist without conflict. Imagine the legal profession trying to re-arrange court proceedings in such a way that true testimony and perjury no longer conflict (how would they do it and why should they even wish to try?). If DR thinks science is a good thing and has merit he's being hypocritical unless he gives up religion. The book he thinks is infallible is being proven wrong on count after count. He actually knows this, but fudges by saying we're the stupid ones for thinking that everything ought to be taken literally or not at all. How much longer will it take for it to be self-evident that a book that is so obviously wrong on the physical level is not the place to go looking for moral guidance either? That doesn't mean that physicists should be arranging our morality, but certainly those whose inerrant text is a book of ancient legends can claim far less authority on any level than any well-meaning person free of such horizon-constricting views.

37. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25810 by Stewart on March 15, 2007 at 8:53 am

Those nine points about hell - a lot of clear factual assertions there. I trawled through RD's contributions to this thread again to see what was about real issues, rather than who Hitler's note-taker was or why the FCMB was closed down. I've pulled out a few quotes that are more relevant to what we are really discussing (although, I can't help pointing out: if it's possible to argue so much about who took notes and who changed them when the subject is one of the most famous and powerful people who lived so recently - my father can still testify to seeing him in the flesh on three occasions - how can that square with total belief in every detail of four nearly two-thousand-year-old differing accounts of a man's life that include his performing supernatural miracles? - which in itself ought to count against the plausibility of any of the accounts).

"Jesus did not turf out the OT - as any reading of the Gospels makes clear."

So stoning to death for Sabbath desecration is still in? That's not god punishing us with hell, that's the "righteous" carrying out an execution in his name.

As for hell:

"But what if it's real? And what if God has sent someone to save us from it?"

Why a "what if" instead of an "it is and this is how I know"?

"If I announce that the world is flat or 6,000 years old you have every right to say I am wrong without being accused of being close minded."

You seem to agree that those two are preposterous nonsense (though most people could swallow both when the texts you consider to be the word of god were written). Can you honestly not conceive of someone sane and rational who thinks the same about hell or supernatural beings? You do believe in them and want to convince others? You must know what kind of evidence could convince them (us); we're not from Mars, after all. If you've got it, show it; if you haven't, give up and accept that we have a right to live as we choose. Not one of us is interested in curtailing your right to pray to or otherwise worship whatever you believe in.

But you don't leave it there:

"... they are condemned if they ingnore the internal and external evidence which tells them that they are a lot more than a coincidental speck of dust in the Universe and that they were created for relationship with one another and with God."

Now that does go further than just saying you think we're wrong. We don't go that far, but we do think you're wrong.

"You tell me I'm wrong about God. I have no problem with that."

It's your right to write and publish books arguing your point of view against ours. Just don't pretend that your need to write a book about it doesn't mean you have a problem with it. Richard Dawkins doesn't pretend he doesn't have a problem with religion, nor, despite his very assertive attack on religion, does he even hint at people not having a right to beliefs he considers irrational.

"I believe in a God for which there is plenty evidence. If you mean can I provide material proof for an immaterial God the answer is no."

And you're willing to settle for belief in its absence. Not all of us are that credulous, or agree that what you call evidence (of an immaterial kind) is, in fact, evidence at all. Maybe you are right and that's how credulous one ought to be. When we say we can't prove there's no god, we're not lying, but that's not enough for you. You accuse us of playing tricks and meaning we can prove it when we say we can't. If claiming that what the other side says isn't what it means counts in an argument, why bother engaging us in discussion in the first place? Atheists are not running around looking for believers to debate, we just want to live our lives without beliefs we don't share influencing those lives. We don't believe any supernatural being has ordered us to spread his word. You're chasing us, mate, not vice versa.

You speak of "the rather neat atheist trick of asking for evidence and then limiting greatly the evidence you will allow."

I'm reminded of Sam Harris and am wildly paraphrasing because I don't have "The End of Faith" next to me at this computer. He reminds us that we can believe things like our wife is cheating on us or that yoghurt cures cancer and will of course require completely different things as evidence in order to believe these things. It's not just some vague evidence (to be deduced, for example, from the existence of moral feelings or behaviours in us) of an immaterial god you would have to provide to win us over to your side. Your church believes the bible to be the word of god and therefore 100% true, doesn't it? There's a lot in there that goes way beyond merely the existence of an immaterial god. And many of his interventions have been decidedly material, haven't they? Anyone with any kind of assertion has to back it up with something if they expect to be believed. There is no assertion so "special" that it doesn't need to be backed up by anything.

"We all believe we are right. We all argue for truth and surely we all are also prepared to admit that none of us has the whole truth."

We should also be prepared to admit we may be very wrong if everything points in that direction.

"I have loads of questions - and there is lots about religion I don't like."

I expect that means your evidence for it is very strong indeed, if it overcomes all the questions and all the things you don't like. Not so strong that it convinces all the others who also have questions and who also see much in religion that they don't like.

I actually went through all that rereading to see if there was something I might have expected to find that I missed in the hurried skimming. But I didn't find it: although one of your main gripes against atheists seems to be their certainty and lack of doubt that they are right, nowhere in your contributions to this thread did I come across anything remotely like "it is appropriate to doubt claims made by the religious texts I follow and I acknowledge the possibility that, despite my earnest and sincerely held beliefs, I may simply be completely wrong."

I concede our side might be wrong, no matter how unlikely that seems to me. Do you do the same for your side? Do you have the humility to say that the Christian teachings you avowedly follow might just be plain wrong?

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

Comment #25778 by Stewart on March 15, 2007 at 5:31 am

One Congressman admits to not believing in god, the first in American history... if any of us had tried to pen a parody of an overreaction to that fact we wouldn't have come close to the hysteria of the genuine reaction. I certainly do hope their attempt to get everyone else to affirm their belief in god backfires by pushing a few more people out of the closet.

I'm trying to think what might compare to this insanity and the best I can come up with is a bunch of ice cream lovers lynching a man who declined to eat ice cream outdoors during a blizzard on the grounds that his behaviour was persecuting them. It's surreal, isn't it? But it's showing the true face of some people who think (or claim) they stand for what's right.

39. Non-believers can be bigoted too

Comment #25652 by Stewart on March 14, 2007 at 2:28 pm

"This, of course, suggests that the real problem is not religion as such but irrationalism in all its forms, whether secular or religious."

Right, let's not look at the possibility that it is possible to be rational or not if one is secular, while all religions embrace irrational elements, i.e. "religious" automatically includes the irrational, while this is not the case with "secular."

Can anyone give an example of a religion that has limited itself to the rational?

40. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25599 by Stewart on March 14, 2007 at 9:16 am

One needs go no further than "About Us" on the Free Church website to see that it "stands firmly in the tradition which accepts the Bible in its entirety as the Word of God." Everything, contradictions and all. I see nothing about doubt or uncertainty or serious investigation into whether or not a god exists. We're not strawmanning here - such loonies actually exist. If you do not accept the same premise, they're not about to discuss with an open mind which of you is actually right. Everything they believe is written down and was written down many centuries before most current human knowledge was acquired. And they actually have the gall to complain that rational people mock them!

41. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25565 by Stewart on March 14, 2007 at 5:52 am

I think the best thing we can do in a case like this is to assume that David is as intelligent as we are, can see the absurdity of what he is preaching and has therefore merely been pulling everyone's leg about all this religion business.

Nice one, David. Almost had me fooled you believed it yourself.

42. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25545 by Stewart on March 14, 2007 at 3:59 am

But Ewan, he isn't at all sure about hell. He says the teachings about it are not to be taken too literally - just the right amount - it is described variously and in ways that DR thinks are incompatible, says there are several views regarding eternity of suffering and that many Christians think it isn't actually eternal after all. I presume annihilation must be construed to mean that there are souls which are not eternal. I wouldn't worry about hell if I were you; after all, even David Robertson himself has a very hard time saying anything definite about it.

43. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25537 by Stewart on March 14, 2007 at 3:05 am

"1) People do not go to hell because of their lack of belief. The dead are judged according to what they have done."

That, to me, sounds like a very clear statement that someone with no religious belief who acts as morally as he can will not go to hell.

Thank you, David, for your sanctioning of the way I am already living my life. If I should end up in hell (whichever of the incompatible versions it turns out to be) I will be sure to give your name as a Christian reference who assured me I was doing everything I ought to avoid hell.

44. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25530 by Stewart on March 14, 2007 at 2:32 am

"The teaching about hell is not to be taken too literally"

"... there are several views. Many Christians think..."

Wait a moment, how does those match with your statement that ""ignorance is no excuse!"

Ignorance of what? Of things you know and can back up or things you think and believe and have to be wishy-washy about?

45. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25470 by Stewart on March 13, 2007 at 1:33 pm

Re: eternity, just a small addition to what Jessie wrote that came to me after I went on about it a few days ago. The kind of suffering involved is presumably of a kind to make anyone "learn their lesson" after just a few seconds. And yet, "learning a lesson" seems to play no part in all this. The most sincere recanting will do no one a whit of good. With eternity to play with, god supposedly gives us a tiny flash of time to get things right and those who don't get nothing but torment ever after. It can't be punishment as an educational tool, because there's no chance to use what you learn from it. The only thing that does make sense is that the idea (as we know, anyway) was developed by power-hungry humans who wanted as near as they could get to absolute obedience from people and used absolute fear to obtain it. Modifying your behaviour in "this life" can still be meaningful (regulating behaviour in the here and now was and is, after all, the whole point for those inventing and perpetuating all this bogeyman hell claptrap), but if you don't do it exactly the way "we" tell you now, nothing can help you later.

I echo, of course, the question: does DR (or any other believer) think it is a good and fitting fate for all the people in question (most human beings now alive, as far as DR is concerned) to go to hell for eternity with no possibility of getting out ever? I'm not asking whether or not it makes him sad; I'm asking whether the most apparently cruel acts mandated by his god could possibly be anything other than completely good and perfect.

46. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25450 by Stewart on March 13, 2007 at 7:11 am

It is extremely wearying to reply again, when I feel DR is doing so much mischaracterisation (see below), but there are nonetheless a couple of points.

"The kind of proof you ask for means that you will never accept anything."

I accept many things, but have yet to find a reason to accept what are called miracles. You seem to think that if a miracle is described in an ancient text it is more likely that it actually happened than that a myth was created and embellished. There are miracles in other religious traditions that you presumably don't accept. Does that mean you require the same level of proof for them that you think we are unreasonable in expecting for miracles claimed by any religion?

"Dawkins no more believes that there is the possibility of a God than there is the possibility of the tooth fairy."

Are you suggesting that such an attitude is unreasonable? All of us here are as open to real possibilities as observed reality justifies.

"you do have certain beliefs in common namely the view that you will answer to no one when you die, that the churches are irrelevant and wrong, that mankind is the highest evolved species, that the strong overcomes the weak, that euthanasia is right. Amongst others."

We don't think there is "anyone" to answer to when we die (but you seem to think there's something wrong with being that realistic or that that somehow impugns our possibilities for being moral in the one life we have). We do think all religions (not just the churches) are wrong and should not therefore be believed if they claim relevance on the strength of no evidence. As for those last three (ok, the middle one is just silly, but I expect you meant that we think it's somehow morally good if the strong overcomes the weak), I suggest that you find a forum where such views are actually held and fight that lot rather than erroneously accusing us of what you merely imagine we think. Sometimes I wonder whether your real aim isn't to convince us that we do hold the most reprehensible views that you fantasise are held by atheists. When you finally do give me a straight answer to an explicit question, your answer suggests you're hallucinating. For someone who's written a book about Dawkins, you seem not to have read him very well. How often has he stated that we have evolved to the extent that we are able to decide not to indulge in social Darwinism? I'm sorry, but it's becoming really tiresome to be attacked for views one doesn't hold. I thought you claim truth is important to you; at least familiarise yourself with the standpoint of the side to which you're opposed.

"The Third Reich did persecute Christians"

That's an assertion. May we please have chapter and verse of German legislation between 1933-45 that is anti-Christian. And something sweeping enough to count, please, something that specifically denies rights to someone if they are Christian. If all you're going to say is that the Nazis' victims included Christians, just don't bother.

"It does not mean that every religious person is a potential suicide bomber, nor does it mean that atheists cannot be suicide bombers."

Neither of which, to my knowledge, has ever been claimed by anybody, on this forum or anywhere else (it has been argued that blind belief can increase the risk and that moderate belief - tolerance of the idea that unevidenced faith is a virtue - provides a safe haven for radicalism to flourish). An extraordinarily high percentage of those who could be categorised as suicide bombers state explicitly that they are acting in the name of their religion. We are not wrongly accusing them; we are merely quoting them verbatim. Are they all liars - atheists doing their damndest to make religion look bad?

"they are condemned if they ingnore the internal and external evidence which tells them that they are a lot more than a coincidental speck of dust in the Universe and that they were created for relationship with one another and with God."

In other words, interpret reality the way I do or fry for eternity. That, as a bottom line to your argument, makes us all look like saints. You are telling us that our existence means what you and the books claimed as holy that you accept as holy say it does and "ignorance is no excuse!"

David Robertson, you are a very intolerant man.

47. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #25363 by Stewart on March 12, 2007 at 3:07 pm

While I agree with Flamula that most further posting will not be productive, I shall reply to DR's replies to me. I do not think he and I agree regarding what is and is not reasonable and I am replying more on the off-chance someone else may find something useful in my arguments. I can myself recall a time not too long ago when, although never a believer, I did not yet know how to counter some of the illogical but forcefully argued points I had thrown at me (the most important understanding since that time being that there is no onus upon me, but upon the believer).

"any religion which refuses to recognize the role of reason and the need for evidence is in conflict with science"

So, if you consider a 2,000-year-old text describing miracles that we know are violations of the laws of physics to be literally true, although you dismiss other texts of similar age and character as legend and myth, you must have evidence to back this up. And it must be evidence acceptable to those who have no a priori belief in the truth of your chosen text. Am I making sense?

"That may be true for you but it is certainly not true for the vast majority of believers on this site"

I note your use of the word "certainly." Most of the people on this site are dismissive of the idea of god, because there is no evidence for it. Many may be able to bring up arguments that they think are persuasive. Could you provide names and (non-sarcastic) direct quotes for anyone who claims certain (not almost certain, like Dawkins) knowledge that there is no god?

Hitler: nitpicking about quotes from him and whether they are fabricated or accurately translated is, I agree (with Flamula) not to the point. Yes, he was Catholic, yes, he saw religion as something to be replaced with his own occult mumbo-jumbo, yes, he claimed divine destiny was at work in his actions. It is much more wrong to attempt to tar atheists with a brush linking them somehow to Hitler, than it would be to attempt to link a moderate non-violent Christian today to the Inquisition. The core text serving both of the latter is, after all, identical. No such text or other belief can link Hitler to the average atheist. The Third Reich is not remembered for persecuting Christians, with the exception of Jehovah's Witnesses and individuals who were politically opposed to the Nazis. Being openly Christian under Hitler hardly put one at risk.

I don't see that you answered my specific question about secular suicide bombers: are you claiming that they are killing in the name of atheism? If so, some evidence please. If they happen to be dangerous and coincidentally secular, what is that supposed to prove?

Lastly, I would like to point out an enormous imbalance that I think is at work in all these exchanges with you. To the best of my knowledge, not one of the atheists arguing against you is of the opinion that you are inherently evil and depraved and that you are destined for hell. To the best of my knowledge, you believe that everyone is born a sinner and will go to hell unless they accept Christ as their personal saviour, meaning that you have beliefs about all your atheist interlocutors here that we consider manifestly false, certainly unproven, grossly prejudicial and hardly conducive to civilised discussion. How can we regard you as anything but severely handicapped in your ability to conduct a dialogue with those who do not share your beliefs, if one of your main beliefs is that we are utterly condemned by the mere fact of not sharing them?

48. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #24420 by Stewart on March 6, 2007 at 2:25 pm

"Eternal punishment. Does making a wrong choice on earth really necessitate that?"

That's from our point of view. Trying looking at it from god's point of view. Here are these beings he created. He gave them free will, but there's no aspect of them that can't be traced back to what he created. Neither any temptations to which they were exposed, nor anything about their abilities to react to them. All but a very few make mistakes that can never be forgiven. So, as the being bearing ultimate responsibility for all that exists, barring not even the tiniest component of any single atom, who can do absolutely anything except truthfully say "I didn't know" or "I didn't mean it" or "I did not intend it," what do you do? The obvious: you fry those creatures in "conscious torment" forever. No amount of their suffering will ever suffice to atone for what they did. The amount of their suffering you demand is - literally - infinite. At no point - ever - will you free a single one of those you consign to hell, whose mortal lives are in any case long behind them, from the existence you decided they must have. As time moves on, more and more will be added to this torture pit, but no one will ever leave. You do, of course, have the power to prevent all suffering, but you prefer to continue along the course already begun and, because you know everything, you also know that it is right. You are all-powerful, but you can still not do anything wrong. One of your creations, going by the nickname "Shrink," would have some very interesting things to say about you.

People say Dawkins was being mean, describing god as he did. I think he was being positively benign about him. If you think about it, that is, instead of just believing and accepting.

49. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #24383 by Stewart on March 6, 2007 at 9:59 am

I think we may all take heart; if the recent offerings by Dawkins, Dennett, Harris et al had as little merit as some of the criticism claims, they would simply be ignored. The fact that they are both selling well and prompting such a backlash is the best indication that they are being perceived as potentially as boat-rocking as we wish and our opponents fear.

50. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #24381 by Stewart on March 6, 2007 at 9:45 am

Jenny,

Ditto apologies for back-slapping, but that hasn't been pointed out enough.

You mention pessimism and of course it isn't pessimism, it's dogma. You can go through life and meet people you think treat their fellows better or worse, but to know for certain that all, without exception, are sinful by default, even as newborns, for that you need to meet no one in person, if you have it written in a book.