1. Why we evolved to be superstitious

Comment #245941 by MakingBelieve on September 11, 2008 at 2:53 pm

This seems correct. It would appear that the supernatural arises when agency is attributed to random chance, to the outcome of a series of contingencies or to explain events of unknown origin. This questionable practice is so common that some form a selection pressure is likely to have reinforced it over the generations.

2. Award-winning comedian George Carlin dies

Comment #197971 by MakingBelieve on June 23, 2008 at 2:41 am

This is sad. Clever, irreverent, thought-provoking, uniquely entertaining - he will be sorely missed.

3. Church of Scotland mediators to quell disputes

Comment #178296 by MakingBelieve on May 11, 2008 at 5:41 am

Not being familiar with Scotland or the churches there, when I read this article, I thought it was a late April Fool's joke. Parachuting mediators in to churches to quell infighting (caused by Richard Dawkins) before the aggression gets embedded in the genetic code of the congregation? That sounds like farce.

But by the comments of those in the know, this is all legitimate - amazing.

4. The List: The World's Worst Religious Leaders

Comment #159679 by MakingBelieve on April 12, 2008 at 7:31 pm

I agree that atheism isn't a belief or a view in itself but I do think that atheists as a community do seem to take remarkably consistent views on the many religiously-motivated interferences in science, education, personal liberties, etc. There is at least a correlation to notice here.

I would not say that atheism causes one to take on these views but rather that the same dedication to rationality, intellectual honesty and free thought that finds theistic claims unsupported (to be charitable) also inclines one to certain other views and perspectives in other areas.

The horsemen generally champion these issues forcefully as well. Atheism is nothing new. It is interference with the religious socio-political project that has gathered both the rising tide of supporters and the resulting fearful reactions of the religious.

5. Ancient serpent shows its leg

Comment #159412 by MakingBelieve on April 12, 2008 at 6:34 am

I don't know why but I love that avatar, Riki! A head-banger (-bobber?) cat is a transitional form isn't it?

6. The List: The World's Worst Religious Leaders

Comment #159409 by MakingBelieve on April 12, 2008 at 6:06 am

On the question of "atheist leaders", I consider Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, Dennett to be representative, de-facto leaders. To the extent that their views condense and articulate the views and arguments of many non-believers, they represent that community to a world-wide audience.

They have attained their positions by a process of public acclaim (largely due to book sales) - they have not been elected and there is no organizational structure, membership, etc.

Instead, rational non-believers have finally found these bold public voices that seem to resonate with their own perspectives. Were they to significantly diverge from this resonance, they would be dropped and marginalized very quickly.

As a practical matter, not every non-believer will be invited to appear in the press or media - nor should they. The horsemen are leaders in the sense that they are in the media, they have cogent, well-articulated views that a significant population of like-minded thinkers hold and they are legitimizing those views forcefully against a repressive religion-soaked world.

That's the most credit-worthy kind of leadership to my mind.

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

Comment #150372 by MakingBelieve on March 26, 2008 at 7:32 pm

Tragic, sad, offensive, pathetic, disgusting, depressing, scary, absurd, frustrating, frightening.. These only hint at the feelings this invokes in normal rational people.

And the WI law sanctions the negligent abuse of children by the religiously deluded. I will add another word - outrageous! Shame on WI lawmakers.

8. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #150280 by MakingBelieve on March 26, 2008 at 4:39 pm

Another trip around the sun! I'm glad to be on the voyage with you. All the best from Canada.

9. Help Counter the New Atheist Crusade to 'Evangelize' America!

Comment #80158 by MakingBelieve on October 20, 2007 at 9:35 am

Jesus said, "But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea" (Mark 9:42 NKJV).

But note that the quote doesn't advocate drowning someone, it simply poses a hypothetical situation which is less bad than the alternative.

Maybe but watch out for Christian charity - they do like to be helpful.

10. Review of Darwin's Angel

Comment #70380 by MakingBelieve on September 15, 2007 at 7:07 am

When I read Cornwell, Stanford, Vickers, etc. trying to defend religion, religious belief and faith, I end up thinking that they know full well that it is silly stories for the credulous. But, nod-nod-wink-wink, they must never admit that to each other or anyone else because they have a cynical 'ends-justifies-the-means' view of human sociology. The controlled become the controlling in a self-perpetuating web of fantasy.

For some people, the light-bulb eventually goes on and they 'lose their faith' - I would say 'gain their freedom'. There are powerful forces trying to keep that bulb dark.

11. Response to the God Delusion

Comment #58139 by MakingBelieve on July 23, 2007 at 4:09 pm

Seems Midgley is actively demonstrating my namesake concept - he uses rhetorical devices to trick his audience into accepting his assertions - no evidence, no logical argumentation, no substance.

There is something of theater in his sermon with careful pauses and an almost pleading tone.

Others have amply addressed the flimsiness of this rebuttal but notice how it almost 'seems reasonable' because it is cleverly crafted and delivered. It is more of the same nonsense but to those with the god-desire and let's say a limited commitment to critical thinking, it can be effective nonsense.

This is what were up against.

12. US TV Commercial for The God Delusion during Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Comment #26516 by MakingBelieve on March 20, 2007 at 4:11 am

Considering it is only 14 seconds long, it's very effective. Getting it widely aired is the key.

MB

13. The New Atheists

Comment #16376 by MakingBelieve on January 6, 2007 at 10:48 am

Certainly for most religious people anything goes for god. Quite simply, everything that happens (or doesn't) is god's plan and any discomfort, discontent, distress, etc. that it causes in his creatures is chocked up to their inability to comprehend that divine plan. That inability is also part of his plan.

Suffering and innocent death is only offensive to humans, not to god. God gives life and takes it away with equal aplomb. The message god sends with tsunamis, famine, collateral war damage, and abortions is that he is in charge and that ethics and morality do not apply to him.

I am not a theologian, apologist or evangelical, so I may not have this properly sorted out like they do ;). They would, I'm sure, have a more sophisticated story to tell themselves and their congregants about this and what it means as to how they and others should live their lives. We've all heard as much. It's great stuff for controlling others for fun and profit.

I suggest believers should take notice that their god acts in the world (with divine perfection) as if he is not there.

MB

14. The New Atheists

Comment #16356 by MakingBelieve on January 6, 2007 at 8:12 am

I don't think that that's necessarily the case; it may be possible for religious moderates/liberals to challenge their fundie/extremist coreligionists. But there is so little of that happening that one does have to wonder.

Religious moderates don't challenge the fundies because they are too vulnerable to the valid counterattack that their own beliefs, being faith-based, are no more defensible. In fact, it is a favourite (but vacuous) fundie defense to claim that atheists also have faith-based belief (e.g. that there is no god). Against fellow religious challengers, it's a solid defense.

If faith is an allowable basis of claims with effect in the natural world, then anything goes. They can't really argue with the fundies without undermining their own worldview.

I have seen some of Ken Miller's vigorous defense of evolution against the ID creationists and he is a practicing Roman Catholic. It is truly laudible. However, it is a defense of science, not a critique of religious dogmatism.

I'd be interested in his views on social issues like public funding of stem cell research, abortion rights or gay marriage. I don't see how Miller could counter fundies who oppose these on religious grounds. If he feels they go too far (I don't know his position) how can he oppose them if they play the faith card?

The best religionists can do is claim that their particular brand of faith leads them to a different, perhaps more tolerant, view but they are not in a position to claim it is more correct or true. In a debate between a fundie and a moderate on 'justifiable' societal strictures, I fear the fundie has a good chance of carrying the day and winning a convert especially when they step into the voting booth.

Mr. MB

15. The New Atheists

Comment #16330 by MakingBelieve on January 6, 2007 at 6:03 am

"Prof. COX: It always makes a comeback, I think, when religious people get too arrogant, when they begin to look as though or speak as though they know it all, when they begin to impose themselves in ways that are unwelcome to other people in the society. Then atheism is a kind of, for me, welcome critique of this arrogance."

This is just so ingenuous! If he was really concerned in any way with religious arrogance, pretention to knowledge and imposition on others, he would not be waiting for atheists to raise the issues.

It stuns me when these religionists say, in effect, "Well, yes, some of us (not me!) really do go too far with this but don't expect me to do anything about it. We'll have to leave that up to those (rotten) atheists. No point in getting our hands dirty."

The truth is that only atheists are in a position to fight faith-based societal offences - the religious have no footing, desire or credibility for the task.

MB

16. Sunday Sequence with William Crawley

Comment #12117 by MakingBelieve on December 10, 2006 at 4:29 pm

It is very, very sad listening to this. Blathering non-sensical unsubstaniated irrational God-talk only briefly interspersed with an occassional flicker of cogent sane erudition from Richard. I'm disgusted.

MB

17. Top court refuses to hear whether religion can be a murder defence

Comment #7981 by MakingBelieve on November 20, 2006 at 3:45 am

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who feels they understand or empathize with Humaid's actions or defence. It seems incomprehensible.

MB

18. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7525 by MakingBelieve on November 18, 2006 at 5:38 pm

Actually, this is something of a coup.

The good theologian asserts that "Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist" and that, in fact, about this god, he too is an atheist. He even acknowledges (vaguely and roundabout) that this version of the deity is in fact the version a great many christians believe in. It would appear he is even recommending they abandon this god and, if people need some help, to read TGD. One wonders where he himself has been all the while and if he is not more than a bit disingenuous leaving the 'dirty work' to the atheists.

Sadly though, he cannot release himself and his brethren from the grip of delusion. He retreats his god to the safety of theological obscurity where he hopes he will be safe from even his own powers of reason and, of course, invites believers to close ranks around this fragile deity. He relegates him to the few tasks he imagines are resistant to scientific knowledge: the source of morality, the phenomenon of free will and the 'primal energy' that initiated the universe.

Given that these are good scientific questions, one is dismayed to note that he offers no suggested line of inquiry nor evidence to be sought preferring only to stand on his own flimsy 'philosophical nonsense': "God did it." Mr. Bédoyère, you were so close!

MB

19. The Dawkins Delusion (Different Article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #5488 by MakingBelieve on November 9, 2006 at 5:02 pm

RD must be hitting very close to home to trigger a rebuttal book with such a blatantly ad hominem, unoriginal title, obviously calculated to sell, not on its own merits, but on the notoriety of TGD's success.

It's an astute strategy (his publisher I'm sure) for if the arguments in this new book will be as thin as outlined in this article, it would be the only way to move it off the shelves.

"The question of the future role of religion is far too important to leave to the fanatics, or to atheist fundamentalists."

While there certainly are religious 'fanatics', there are no 'atheist fundamentalists', only people who demand sufficient credible evidence for religion's claims about the universe. It may annoy those with lesser standards for belief but it is hardly fundamentalism.

McGrath claims that, without God, society will 'transcendentalize' values like 'liberty' or 'equality' which would be equally bad or worse. I doubt he can make this case but even if he can, he wants to imply that seeking and valuing 'truth' is in the same vein. That would be arguing for ignorance on its 'social merits'. At its core, this is fatalistic and disrespectful of human potential.

"There is a real need to deal with the ultimate causes of social division and exclusion."

Certainly so and RD is calling out one of the most divisive and pernicious causes ever constructed.

"Religion's in there, along with a myriad of other factors. Yet, it can cause problems."

That's a bumbling understatement.

"But it also has the capacity to transform, creating a deep sense of personal identity and value, and bringing social cohesion."

Yes. At its worst, a mindless, uncritical, intolerant in-group-identity bent on Borg-like assimilation of out-groups in the name of 'cohesion'.

"Let's skip the rhetoric, and cut to the reality. It's much less simple – but it might actually help us address the real social issue that we face in modern Britain."

I'm sorry, but before McGrath can invoke a call to reality, he needs to show as honest a commitment to it as Richard Dawkins.

20. Review of The God Delusion

Comment #4728 by MakingBelieve on November 5, 2006 at 3:49 pm

"Yet for all the championing of rational thought, it seems odd that there is not much attempt to understand why reason is so undervalued by humans, why atheism remains so unpopular in spite of the evidence."

To the contrary, Dawkins' key point about abusive labeling and indoctrination of children answers this directly - the systematic destruction of a child's nascent intellect and implantation of the religion virus ensures generations of anti-reasoning theists who see blind faith as a virtue.

"Clearly, many of us would rather relax into a beautiful lie than wrestle with a complex truth. Or maybe we're just not up to it."

Courage man. At one time women couldn't vote, slavery was natural and smoking was cool. The lie is not beautiful and the truth accessible to anyone with a passion to find it.

21. THANK GOODNESS!

Comment #4646 by MakingBelieve on November 5, 2006 at 4:37 am

Fantastic! I'm so glad this harrowing experience didn't change his brilliant clarity of thought and expression. I have made a donation to the Canadian Heart & Stroke Foundation in your honour.