1. Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill

Comment #198102 by infidel_michael on June 23, 2008 at 8:01 am

Is the lack of sarcasm the only disorder caused by damage of "parahippocampal gyrus"? Do chimps have also this brain area? What happens to them?

Maybe sarcasm is only a side-effect without any evolutionary advantage. Such study should address also this possibility.

Consider this:
If you break your arm, you're not able to write. Therefore writing is an evolutionary adaptation. See the fallacy?

It's also easy to imagine how sarcasm might be selected over time as evolutionarily crucial. Imagine two ancient humans running across the savannah with a hungry lion in pursuit. One guy says to the other, "Are we having fun yet?" ...

At this point I have to agree with creationists, that some evolutionist (especially evolutionary psychologists) are making up just-so-stories without any explanatory value. I can imagine how the ability to write can save someone's life, but this doesn't make the "adaptation of writing" more plausible.

2. On this Day: Galileo Sentenced for Believing Sun Is Center of Universe

Comment #197716 by infidel_michael on June 22, 2008 at 2:25 pm

TeraBrat: "Do you ever wonder where we could be scientifically if Christianity never existed?"

I'm afraid people would invent another bullshit to control other people's minds. Maybe we were lucky that we didn't end up with something like Islam.

3. Should Strident British Atheist Richard Dawkins Dictate Education Policy to US States? Barbara Forrest Apparently Thinks So

Comment #197038 by infidel_michael on June 21, 2008 at 12:49 am

This bill is not about creationism or religion. That's a red herring from desperate Darwinists.

No, the "academic freedom bill" is a red herring from creationists. Here is the history:

1. Book of Genesis - pure religion
2. Creation science / Scientific creationism - argument against evolution based on 1.
3. Intelligent design - similar arguments as 2., but without reference to Bible and God (unknown "designer" used instead)
4. Teaching the "controversy" / Academic "freedom" - same arguments as 3., but without reference to ID

The same people, the same old tired arguments, only the trademark and marketing strategy is new.

4. Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

Comment #192208 by infidel_michael on June 12, 2008 at 2:46 pm

What I'm missing in such studies is statistics of other beliefs, not just religion. For example astrology, homeopathy, psychics, faith healers, UFO, conspiracy theories, etc.
Then it would be interesting to see the link between religiosity and irrationality in broader context. If religious people are also likely to have other irrational beliefs, then connection between faith and irrationality would be better supported.

5. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #190683 by infidel_michael on June 9, 2008 at 11:31 am

The youngest school child can tell you that a building does not build itself and that, by extension, neither does a universe. And this is the beauty of self evident truths.

6. Religion is a product of evolution, software suggests

Comment #185242 by infidel_michael on May 27, 2008 at 8:49 am

I think the biggest flaw in these "evolutionary explanations of religion" is, that spreading of religion doesn't explain the origin of religion. It's the same confusion as evolution and abiogenesis. You cannot explain how life began using darwinian evolution, because it assumes life existing. The same for origin of religion.


But I have a theory :) It has 2 assumptions:

1. People use analogies of what they already know to explain the unknown
2. First thing "which can do ACTIONS" you know is yourself and other people around -> persons, "somebodies"

So, when you know only yourself and the other people, and you see something unknown (e.g. lightning), no wonder that first thing which comes to your mind is a person doing it, because it is the closest analogy to what you know about actions in nature.
And where is a person, there is a purpose. And here we go - "please do that!", "please don't do that!", "please take this sheep and do the fucking rain!", "please help me kill the enemy!" and so on.

7. Religion is a product of evolution, software suggests

Comment #185170 by infidel_michael on May 27, 2008 at 6:18 am

What about genetic predispositions for telling jokes? I have a theory of origins of jokes. There was a small number of people with genetic predispositions of telling funny things and they attracted people who couldn't tell funny things. Then they had many funny children and that's how jokes evolved. Sounds plausible, doesn't it?

8. Religion is a product of evolution, software suggests

Comment #185162 by infidel_michael on May 27, 2008 at 6:06 am

The model assumes, in other words, that a small number of people have a genetic predisposition to communicate unverifiable information to others

What??? This model assumes that first there were rational people who communicated only verifiable facts and then came a small group of people with genetic gullibility disorder and dominated the world? Wasn't it vice versa? - People are gullible by default (communicate everything they hear, especially what they like to hear) and when they realized that there is too much contradicting information out there, they started to verify it. Which theory fits reality more?

9. God and Science Collide in Nation's Capital

Comment #181722 by infidel_michael on May 18, 2008 at 4:11 am

"new sense of a fully natural God as our chosen symbol for the ceaseless creativity in the natural universe."

Science hasn't necessarily made belief obsolete, "but you must find a science-friendly, science-compatible God,"

It would be perfectly fair for a science-savvy God to use nonlinear dynamics so that tiny fluctuations quickly build up to earthshaking results â€" the famous 'butterfly effect' of deterministic chaos theory.

10. Does science make belief in God obsolete?

Comment #170069 by infidel_michael on April 27, 2008 at 10:34 am

Does science make (insert anything unverifiable) obsolete?

Of course not, there will be always a "room for faith" -> for any nonsense people like to believe.

11. 'Darwin chip' brings evolution into the classroom

Comment #157736 by infidel_michael on April 9, 2008 at 1:37 pm

Would it be wrong to say that this chip is Intelligently Designed?

The chip IS intelligently designed, there is nothing wrong with that. But the process inside is darwinian evolution. Creationists will do their worst to confuse these two things to imply that when humans start darwinian evolution in lab, the result is intelligently designed.

Scientists should emphasize that the process inside is spontaneous and nobody knows the result before it is done. Design means plan - blueprint of the result, if you don't know how the result should look like, you don't design it. These scientist don't know how the resulting DNA will look like, therefore they don't design it.

Otherwise, if such DNA's should be considered as intelligently designed, then ID is consistent with theistic evolution and that's probably not what IDists want to achieve.

12. Police: Girl Dies After Parents Pray for Healing Instead of Seeking Medical Help

Comment #149765 by infidel_michael on March 26, 2008 at 8:06 am

"apparently they didn't have enough faith,"

Apparently they had it too much ..

13. Why do we believe in God? 2m study prays for answer

Comment #129623 by infidel_michael on February 19, 2008 at 11:43 am

One of the reasons why people believe in Gods is, that religion tells them what they want to hear. Just as they believe politicians. But politicians have one major disadvantage - you can verify their promises after some time. But nobody can verify whether you're really going to heaven after you die, therefore religious promises are risk-free. It's just a cheap trick on human psychology.

14. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #117515 by infidel_michael on January 29, 2008 at 2:45 am

According to Vox Day, growing number of atheist books and increase of their sales is a sign of desperation. WTF? Isn't it obvious who is the desperate one here?
Large majority of scientists in NAS are non-believers, clearly a sign of atheist irrationality!

However, I agree with VD in 1 thing: "the Creator Lord of the Universe can defend Himself". In other words, apologists are useless. Definitely.

15. Tony Blair: Mention God and you're a 'nutter'

Comment #90382 by infidel_michael on November 25, 2007 at 1:03 am

Mention God and you're a 'nutter'

Yes, mention that your political decisions come from unverifiable sources and you're a nutter. 'God' is a cheap trick for persuading the masses when you cannot find rational arguments for your decisions, but it ceases to work, apparently ..

16. Losing faith in Quebec

Comment #86302 by infidel_michael on November 9, 2007 at 12:36 am

Quebec City Archbishop Marc Cardinal Ouellet [...] accused the Education Department of imposing "a dictatorship of relativism."

And what is his alternative? "Freedom of absolutism"? = "Don't force kids to choose from many religions, let them freely believe in the one religion of their parents!" :)

17. What the New Atheists Don't See

Comment #84465 by infidel_michael on November 2, 2007 at 5:14 am

ADH: Western science is actually based on a Judeo-Christian world view. Copernicus, Galileo (who remained a Christian even after his clash with the Vatican), Kepler, Locke, Newton etc. etc. Need I go on?

No, it's enough. It is enough to see that you confuse 2 things:

1. science based on a judeo-christian world-view
2. science performed by people with judeo-christian world-view

There is nothing in scientific method that requires judeo-christian beliefs. Many scientists were Christian, and what? Their hypotheses were independent of their religion. Science is based on the observable, religion on the unobservable. Maybe their interpretations of their findings were religious, but the content of their scientific work definitely wasn't based on biblical beliefs.

18. What the New Atheists Don't See

Comment #84404 by infidel_michael on November 2, 2007 at 2:26 am

What the Theists Don't See: Western civilization is built on science. Religion is only a decoration.

19. The truth in religion

Comment #84242 by infidel_michael on November 1, 2007 at 1:48 pm

REVEREND: Science achieves its success by the modesty of its ambition, only considering impersonal experience open to repetition at will. Personal experience, let alone encounter with the transpersonal reality of God, does not fit within this limited protocol.

As usual, the apologist forgets that there are also religions other than Christianity, which have also their own "personal experiences". The question is, why all these personal experiences are so different and incompatible? Well, there is a simple answer - they are delusions. Different delusions can contradict each other, but different truths cannot.
There are people who claim to have personal experiences with E.T. Should we respect them because their "experiences" are not scientifically testable?

Btw. science is also based on personal experience. Scientific method starts and ends with observation, which in fact IS personal experience of scientists. The difference is, that Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist scientists have the same experience, not mutually contradicting.

20. The truth in religion

Comment #84224 by infidel_michael on November 1, 2007 at 12:49 pm

Dawkins invokes Bertrand Russell's parable of the teapot irrationally claimed to be in unobserved orbit in the solar system. Of course there are no grounds for belief in this piece of celestial crockery, but there are grounds offered for religious belief, though admittedly different people evaluate their persuasiveness differently.

Mr. Reverend completely misunderstood this argument. This is his version:

Celestial teapot is unobserved, therefore belief in it is irrational. Therefore religion is irrational, because God is unobserved as celestial teapot is.

But this is stupid, Russel didn't say that. The teapot argument wasn't meant as a argument against existence of God, but as a response to the "you cannot disprove God" argument. The celestial teapot is a counter-example against the intuitive notion that impossibility of disproving God is something in favor of existence of God. It is not.

21. I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist

Comment #84047 by infidel_michael on November 1, 2007 at 4:22 am

"I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist" is equal to "I have enough evidence to be a theist"

Ok, let's discuss your evidence ..

22. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!

Comment #81785 by infidel_michael on October 25, 2007 at 7:18 am

Response:

How ironic! Our arguments against religion apply also to Hitler/Stalin/Mao regimes - they were dogmatic, authoritarian and cult-like. We are against them from the same reasons as we are against religion. Their followers certainly weren't skeptics/freethinkers nor humanists, they were people of faith. So your attempts to link our philosophy to Hitler/Stalin/Mao is ridiculous and deliberately misleading.

23. Science can answer how questions but only religion can answer why questions

Comment #81761 by infidel_michael on October 25, 2007 at 6:24 am

"Science can answer how questions but only religion can answer why questions"

Tips for quick responses:

- Which religion? How can you distinguish true answer from fantasy?

- I can give you thousands of answers to "why" questions, just don't want any evidence from me ..

- Giving answers without any possibility to verify them doesn't make sense. It is so, because these answers can be arbitrary - and that's why there are so many different, mutually incompatible religious answers.

24. Science can answer how questions but only religion can answer why questions

Comment #81643 by infidel_michael on October 25, 2007 at 1:48 am

Science cannot answer the question whether we are alone in the universe, or not. But Steven Spielberg answered this question in "Independence Day". You see? Science is "limited" by logic and evidence, but science fiction isn't! Science fiction can give you answers which science cannot. Does it mean that science fiction is something "more" than science?
Of course not, science gives you answer + evidence. Science fiction or religion only answer. Giving evidence is something additional, extra, not something what limits your view.

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

Comment #81087 by infidel_michael on October 24, 2007 at 3:29 am

Hi mrmatt,

sure, these straw-men were rebutted many times, but mostly in books, not so much in public discussions and TV. And usually these questions are answered only in defensive ways ("their regimes weren't evil because of atheism"). I've never heard an atheist in TV to say that atheists are against Hitler/Stalin/Mao regimes from the same reason as against religion. I find it important to state it clearly and don't let apologists to put us into the same box with H/S/M, when in fact H/S/M regimes were closer to religion than to our position.

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

Comment #81065 by infidel_michael on October 24, 2007 at 2:01 am

When I see discussion like this, I start to agree with Harris that the word "atheism" is really unfortunate, especially because lots of people which we don't agree with fall into this category (e.g. communists). There are better words describing today's atheist position:

1. skeptics/freethinkers - as an attitude toward truth-seeking (rejection of dogmas, authorities and tradition)
2. humanists - as an attitude toward morality (based on empathy and solidarity, not on divine commands)

Hitler/Stalin/Mao certainly weren't skeptics/freethinkers nor humanists. Their followers weren't skeptics, they were dogmatically believing in Hitler/Stalin/Mao's authority and in their utopistic vision of the world. From our point of view, their regimes fall into the same category as religion. Today's atheist disagree with Hitler/Stalin/Mao from the same reason as they disagree with religion - because of dogmatism, blind faith in authority and violent elimination of any opposition.

It is really necessary to state our position clearly, because apologists can easily create these straw-men against us and ordinary people aren't very good at recognizing these fallacies.

When an apologist starts with "We've already seen atheistic regimes - Hitler/Stalin/Mao bla bla bla ..", we should reponse: "Their regimes were not evil because of 'atheism', but because they were dogmatic and religion-like, and that's why we are against them as well.".

27. Against the grain: There are questions that science cannot answer

Comment #71934 by infidel_michael on September 20, 2007 at 12:54 am

Questions science cannot answer, get only answers without evidence. That's why there are so many religions. Millions of different incompatible answers, zero evidence.

Questions science cannot answer, anybody can. That's the problem. You cannot rule out any nonsense, because faith can justify anything.

28. Good luck, Dawkins!

Comment #63806 by infidel_michael on August 16, 2007 at 12:58 am

This campaign should be considered as a last warning from scientists. If people don't understand that they are deluded and they stubbornly want to give money to charlatans, I think RDF should start to sell water as homeopathic remedy, take money from these stupid people and use them for scientific research and education. (Of course, it must be done under a different name, RD hasn't the right reputation to do this :)

29. Why Richard Dawkins is right on alternative medicine - but not when it comes to religion

Comment #62483 by infidel_michael on August 10, 2007 at 12:31 am

the modern Christian concept of Hell means little more than permanent separation from God

How can anything be separated from the omnipresent? Maybe it means you will be ignored by God forever. But who cares? This is so vague, that it actually doesn't mean anything. According to this definition it is possible, that we are already in Hell ..

30. Atheist 'Metaphysics' and Religious Equivocation

Comment #62058 by infidel_michael on August 8, 2007 at 3:48 am

stag:

No amount of scientific understanding on how the brain interprets audio signals will ever replicate the actual experience of listening to Beethoven's 9th

I agree, but the point IMHO is elsewhere.

Take the following situation: I don't believe that something is on this CD, because I don't hear anything when I play it. But there are people who say, that I'm kind of deaf, and there is actually a song. But one says it is Beethoven, the second says it is Metallica and the last says Eminem.

This is exactly the situation with God-experiences. Isn't it suspicious?

31. Atheist 'Metaphysics' and Religious Equivocation

Comment #62048 by infidel_michael on August 8, 2007 at 2:52 am

Stag:
scientific / engineering knowledge may enable you to construct a musical instrument, but they won't tell you much about composing a symphony.

Maybe, but nobody claims to have knowledge of the "only true way of composing a symphony", nobody tells you that if you don't like his symphony, you will suffer forever, etc. Art is not based on objective truth-claims, but on subjective emotions. "Knowledge" is not the right word in the context of art, "skill" is better one. Yes, you can say "I know how to write a nice symphony", but it doesn't mean that you know something to be true, but rather that you are able to do something.

32. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason

Comment #61838 by infidel_michael on August 7, 2007 at 5:07 am

This article is so stupid that it hurts, but at least it makes scientific prediction: According to Philips there should be a statistical coincidence between atheism and new-age beliefs (why not to do such statistics?).
I really doubt it, because all atheists I know are laughing at all this non-sense, and all christians I know believe at least homeopathy or faith healing, or they defend these charlatans because "science cannot explain everything".
However, many christians are rejecting some superstitions, but not because it is irrational, but because it is the work of devil :) Apparently you can reject irrationality due to irrational reasons too ..

33. They let anybody onto the faculty at Oxford nowadays

Comment #60989 by infidel_michael on August 3, 2007 at 8:51 am

I have 1 question for theologians:

When talking about things "outside the realm of science", like God, miracles, revelations etc. - How can we distinguish the truth from fiction? What is the criterion?

1. By observation?
- no, it would be science, what is in contradiction with the assumption

2. By pure logic?
- ok, but what if the lier tells us "this is a metaphore, don't take it literally (but believe it anyway!)" or "the logic is insufficient" or "human mind cannot grasp this mystery"? What then?

3. .. any ideas?

How can we distinguish truth from lie, when there is always an excuse (thanks to theological "methods") which the lier can make?

If the religion is outside of reason and science, it doesn't mean it is a lie, but that it is not recognizable from a lie. That is the point.

Tell me any metaphysical/transcendental/supernatural made-up bullshit and I'll write an apologetics for it.


I think, it doesn't make sense to attack religion and myths of ordinary people, they believe it only because authorities=theologians told them so. We must first attack theologians' crackpot apologetics and it's major weakness - it cannot distinguish truth from lie, because its methods are intentionally designed to blur everything into unverifiable/unfalsifiable empty words, which nobody understands (but everybody should believe).

34. The Conversion of the Casual Evolutionist - You can't spell love without evolve

Comment #44096 by infidel_michael on May 23, 2007 at 10:11 am

Dawkins convinced me that every attractive woman is really just a set of great genes stuffed into a pair of great jeans.

Yes, that's true, but who cares? We like them, they like us, scientific theories cannot stop us. Music is just a set of waves in the air, but we like the mental representations of them, that is important for us. We like our mental representations of women, not their genes/molecules/atoms/quarks/strings :)

It doesn't make sense to focus only on this level of description (self-replicating molecules) when you talk about relationships between people. It is something like thinking about software as "just a set of 0's and 1's" when talking about user-friendliness, effectiveness or correctness of programs. Just a wrong point of view, and useless. There is much more to say about it.

35. Freethinking Ruins All Things

Comment #42298 by infidel_michael on May 18, 2007 at 3:35 am

Yes, every inquiry starts with some assumptions and expectations about results, and the inquirer often believes that he will find the evidence supporting his idea. But the "free" inquiry means, that the inquirer is able to admit error and dismiss ideas which are not supported by evidence, or are proven wrong. The inquirer is free, when he is not a slave of an idea, which must be kept forever.

Religion is the exact opposite - when there is a contradicting evidence, theologians redefine words or make them so vague, that no further inquiry is possible. But the words must stay the same, that is the point - the Scripture must stay the same, must be believed, even if the words mean something completely different as 2000 years ago, or even when nobody knows what these words mean anymore.

Science uses the former methodology and we see that the same results work everywhere in the world, independently of what anybody wants to believe.

Religion uses the latter methodology and we see that everywhere in the world there are different mutually incompatible results, but each of them must be kept forever.

If freethinking destroys something, it is the manacle of dogmatism.

36. Jerry Falwell's Hit Parade

Comment #42237 by infidel_michael on May 18, 2007 at 1:00 am

Bizarro: God is not only the most convenient explanation, but rather is the only explanation.

No, God is the only explanation YOU can imagine. When humans didn't understand the lightning, Thor wasn't the only explanation. It was the only explanation which early people were able to imagine. You use the same outdated approach. Replace "lightning" with "big bang" and you'll see the power of theistic explanations.

37. In the beginning

Comment #34494 by infidel_michael on April 24, 2007 at 8:22 am

"The fact we are at the end of this marvellous process is something that glorifies us,"

Some remarks:
- Where is the end of a tree?
- How do you know, that evolution stopped?
- If evolution is at the end, why the human DNA still mutates?
- How can a fact "glorify" us (anything)? Only humans glorify humans.

38. The Video: Bill O'Reilly Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #34400 by infidel_michael on April 24, 2007 at 1:12 am

If Hitler, Stalin and Mao were Buddhists, they would never allow such atrocities. So who are you to criticize Buddhism?!!

I believe in friendly invisible E.T.'s from Proxima Centauri, which say "Humans must clean up their environment and recycle trash!". That is where our ecological thinking comes from. How can you explain it without E.T.'s from Proxima Centauri?!!
If you don't believe it, you are a dogmatic UFO denier, which wants to live in a world full of unrecycled junk!

39. 'The Day They Kicked God out of the Schools' & Rebuttal

Comment #34181 by infidel_michael on April 23, 2007 at 1:08 pm

This video makes a strong testable prediction! The scientific experiment could be following:

1. Allow God in schools
2. Try to shoot somebody in school

Result:
1. If miracle happens (for example, God stops the bullet in the air), God will be proven and everybody will be happy
2. If the bullet kills the test person, hypothesis "God allows student killings because he is not allowed in schools" will be falsified

Any volunteers? Author of 1st video?

40. Sam's Flea!

Comment #32666 by infidel_michael on April 18, 2007 at 12:53 am

Douglas Wilson ... has shown what life would be like if the world were consistent with atheistic assumptions.

Let me guess:
Everybody would be a communist or nazi and eugenicist, everybody would steal, rape and kill other people because nobody would be afraid of God. Everybody in hospitals would die, because nobody would pray for them. Every sport game would end draw, because no sportsman would pray for his victory. Artists would stop creating art, because without God, there is no beauty. And nobody would love other people, because without "Love everybody!!!"-command there cannot be love.
Am I right?

(oh, I forgot - everybody would commit a suicide, because without afterlife, this life is meaningless)

41. Atheism isn't the final word

Comment #32370 by infidel_michael on April 17, 2007 at 12:46 am

The books referenced above assert that the debate is over and that atheism has won

No, the debate won't stop until:

1. God reveals himself unambiguously to whole humankind and says clearly what he wants from/with us

or

2. Theists stop pretending that they know the answers to deepest philosophical questions

42. Pope says science too narrow to explain creation

Comment #31296 by infidel_michael on April 12, 2007 at 12:36 am

Yes, science cannot answer all questions. But when it answers something, it does it with evidence and explanation. Theology answers everything, but without evidence and without explanation (or only with "it is a big mystery" explanation).
I can make up hundreds of answers to deep philosophical questions, but without evidence all of them are useless.

People think that theology is something "more" than science, that theology begins where science ends. This is a big bullshit myth which must be destroyed. Provable claims are more valuable than philosophical climaxes without evidence and any possibility to test them.

43. Prophets of the new atheism

Comment #30479 by infidel_michael on April 8, 2007 at 6:49 am

Yes, atheism begins with a faith, namely that only material and physical (not spiritual) causes make the world run.

Ok, let's assume, that there is a non-material world. Does it imply the existence of God? No. Existence of non-spherical objects does not imply existence of a Cube. So, we don't need to start with a faith in materialism. There can be ghosts, there can be fairies, feel free to prove that. If you cannot, how can we distinguish it from your fantasy?

44. Answers To the Atheists

Comment #30302 by infidel_michael on April 7, 2007 at 1:14 pm

cheshirecat: Nice collection of straw-men, indeed.

"Religion is always an evil influence on society."
Not always, and not only religion.

"We have a monopoly and truth because we believe in reason."
Nobody can be 100% sure, but using reason we get much better results than using faith. That is not dogma, it is observable fact.

"Reason is what separates us from the religious."
I would like to see, how can you using reason come to a belief in resurrection of Jesus. I admit that many religious people are reasonable, but when it comes to their dogmas, wishful thinking prevails.

"Critical thoughts are to be suspended when reading Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris."
Who said that?

"Not believing in God makes me more moral than those that do."
Wrong - "doing good things" without believing in divine rewards/punishments is more moral. Doing good things because of rewards is a business.

"The religious must be stupid because they believe in God."
This is only playing a victim ..

45. Answers To the Atheists

Comment #30291 by infidel_michael on April 7, 2007 at 12:16 pm

Let there be the end of italic font!
And God saw the font, that it was good.

46. Answers To the Atheists

Comment #30277 by infidel_michael on April 7, 2007 at 11:34 am

"The problem with the neo-atheists is that they seem as dogmatic as the dogmatists they condemn."

Hey, saying "You atheists are so stupid as we are" is not enough. Tell us some of our dogmas, please!


"And it is a sad fact that secular forms of dogmatism have been at least as murderous as the religious kind."

If you're talking about communism, I agree. Let's get rid of all forms of dogmatism. But I'm sure, this is not what you want to achieve.

47. Religion useless to Dawkins

Comment #29341 by infidel_michael on April 2, 2007 at 3:38 pm

"one Sunday when I elected to listen to Dawkins on my iPod rather than go to church, I managed to fall into the swimming pool, thus rendering my iPod waterlogged and useless."

Yes, that is exactly what invisible pink unicorns do to people who deny them ..

48. Hell is real and eternal: Pope

Comment #28002 by infidel_michael on March 27, 2007 at 2:54 pm

"state of eternal separation from God"

What the hell does this mean?
Is there eternal suffering or only eternal boredom, or simply "we don't exist anymore" or what? This state is even consistent with non-existence of God -> godless reality is hell, by this definition.

This definition doesn't say anything what is the hell about. It is completely meaningless. But when they're talking about flames and burning souls, everybody laughs at them. So theologians decided to use meaningless abstract phrases, rather than concrete but ridiculous ones.

49. Peanut Butter, The Atheist's Nightmare!

Comment #27921 by infidel_michael on March 27, 2007 at 8:47 am

Peanut butter cannot produce oxygen, therefore photosynthesis is impossible!

50. UK Christians 'suffer for faith'

Comment #26378 by infidel_michael on March 19, 2007 at 2:36 am

Do they suffer "for faith" or "from faith"?