51. Future generations will hear far more about God and politics

Comment #7899 by goddogit on November 19, 2006 at 8:59 pm

Sorry, but I missed THIS: "Michael Burleigh is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution"

Translation: he is a paid, professional stooge and shit!

52. Future generations will hear far more about God and politics

Comment #7898 by goddogit on November 19, 2006 at 8:54 pm

I'm not sure if I have ever knowingly read "The Telegraph" but I must say this article lives up to the usage this paper is put to by British satirists!

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

Comment #7827 by goddogit on November 19, 2006 at 2:45 pm

Mr. Bédoyère is a classic example, and this site collects various versions of them for study, of the illness called "religion". I see him as espousing a form of Twain's "pone-corn" philosophy: he believes what his superiors and common acquaintances believe and waves his hands a lot, since that is what his interests, rather than his eyes, tell him is the "wise" course.
Does he believe in the power of "holy water"? Does he believe the Virgin physically ascended to Heaven? Does he believe in the boatload of nonsense that a Catholic must believe?
What does he think of that Irish shite of a Catholic who "debated" Dawkins about TGD and simply and rudely ranted on and on about how the "selfish gene" (a book proving he was unable to read very well, if he really had read it at all - stupid or a liar he was) negates "free will" (the oddest of all notion to me for those who believe in a "loving God" since it makes life not meaningful but a particularly evil "got ya!" trick played out by doomed puppets)?)
He considers himself the crown of creation, but he's just another, if more than typically smug and sillily dishonest, homo sapien.

You are the one literally preaching to the choir, Mr. Bédoyère, and a it's a dirty bunch of nonsense you can claim credit for in the article which we are discussing.

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

Comment #7647 by goddogit on November 19, 2006 at 12:17 am

Boy, no one does the "convoluted silliness" bit better than a Catholic! Post-modern farce at its semi-hilarious nonsensical best!

55. The God Delusion? Part 1

Comment #7442 by goddogit on November 18, 2006 at 2:37 pm

Dr. Rene's defense of religion sounds exactly like "better a quack medicine than none" to me at least, but this "Dr." evidently believes that EVERYONE should be taking it ("What's the harm?") and that those who point out its complete ineffectiveness, and many, many deadly side-effects, be condemned.
What a stupid, yet dishonest and cynical, position to advance!

It is SO despicably, self-serving and ridiculous that I smell the proverbial rat.

Is that you DC?

56. I'm an atheist, BUT . . .

Comment #7438 by goddogit on November 18, 2006 at 2:25 pm

It is a pleasure to have someone like Richard Dawkins as "the stick that stirs the drink" in discussing the original fraud that goes under the trade name of "religion" since, even when I disagree with him (I practise and enjoy activities that he would rightly define as entirely superstitious nonsense, and which I believe he would perhaps prefer - but never directly or indirectly insist - I stopped due to that little bug for "purity" that atheist scientists seem to have), he has the most marvelous talent for putting pepper up the noses of people who insist upon imitating Barbary apes in their argument.
I think there are reasonable "buts" to be found in describing atheism. However, Prof. Dawkins has done us a service in starting a list of the silliest and most dishonest, upon which we can work together to root out the more insidious, which I am pretty sure we all at least latently possess.

A special note to self-defined "Alpha" Dom in Comment #7272: you clearly ain't so smart yourself. No-Zeus forbid a debate between politicians and pundits about a replacement!
There is a real danger in consciously deciding what will replace religion (more exactly, in having "leaders" "decide" [meta-stuff always needs so many darn quotation marks!]} since it will necessarily be a new pseudo-religion. No large scale replacement is possible, only the activities of very small groups working out local problems in their own ways.
Religion needs to be bled of its status and power, shown to have those fabled "feet of clay" at all times. People's real needs, which religions have used to gain form and power - mating rituals, coming-of-age, births and deaths customs, seasonal celebrations - can be slowly and naturally developed, but this time with the conscious instruction by the adults (the wisest of whom have always known this) that it is life and humanity that are being feted, not some supernatural being.
Despite the despairing efforts of the fundamentalists and the leeches who assist them in politics and the media, this is going on now in an uncanny imitation (I do wonder at the... coincidence?) of our current understanding of the evolutionary process.

57. My God Problem

Comment #7201 by goddogit on November 17, 2006 at 3:59 pm

Did someone mention "Born-again Christian Ethics"?

58. The God Delusion? Part 1

Comment #7200 by goddogit on November 17, 2006 at 3:55 pm

I went around and read some more of DC's "work" and those quotation marks may give a hint of my opinion. He really should be listed as a comic writer. He is perhaps the worst science commenter now being published (and I include people like Ken Ham, Casey Luskin, and Ken Hovind in that category).

Dull, transparently stupid, poorly written, etc., etc., etc.

Someone should get a cream pie in his I-am-the-savior-but-can't-mention-it face and post the video here. Whipped cream covered horse Manure would be the pie I would choose.

59. The God Delusion? Part 1

Comment #6870 by goddogit on November 16, 2006 at 12:17 am

I thought I'd check in on the thread and see what Enlightened Master DC's benighted slaves would say in his defense: 50 comments so far, and 50 people basically telling DC they wanted to wash their hands and gargle after being exposed to his piece.
I bet DC is the sort who, hearing of this, will sock-puppet onto the thread and bore us even sillier. However, he may show up using his own name. If so, expect him to hint in metaphysically obscure ways at exactly how big a wad his nonsense has stuck into his grimy, fishhook-filled pockets.

60. Science vs religion

Comment #6784 by goddogit on November 15, 2006 at 3:06 pm

Despite the poetry and tradition, the sun does not "rise," and as Bucky Fuller once explained, this can be simply demonstrated.
Now, I know you all (except the Ken Hammite Xians) "know" this, but you might have been clever enough to state it so.

61. The God Delusion? Part 1

Comment #6782 by goddogit on November 15, 2006 at 3:01 pm

I wondered when D.C. would weigh in, with all the force that a dog peeing against the Empire State building would have. A more useless critic has never been born with greater vanity.

62. Science vs religion

Comment #6778 by goddogit on November 15, 2006 at 2:57 pm

The most tired tricks are trotted out again and again by the theists - most especially super-naturalist Christians (I will simply ignore as non^entities the pseudo-religious, "born-again" Xians) - despite the fact that, without their bringing a "Porky's 2" mob with them to shout down any responses, no one falls for their fool's mate strategies.
This thread sees the most ancient fossil yet brought to light: "atheists are as dogmatic (meaning more dogmatic, meaning wring) than the god-believers!"
I mean, honestly (whoops! I didn't mean to use a word sure to offend the "religious" posting here!), ah, really, this silly obfuscation is, if anything is, beneath you!
Dear dogmatic, generally very childish and vain theists, provide us with the evidence, meaning non-anecdotal, objective evidence, that necessitates that most elusive of mythical characters you claim as real. You cannot, and the heat that the debate here sometimes reaches is exactly because you know quite well you cannot, but you demand others bow before your inner experience or, much worse, your brand of indoctrination.
As I believe any atheist would agree (how odd that is!) you may believe and live according to the wildest mythology you can find, even Scientology, but even if you have a working majority of votes the nature of reality is the same, even if you bring back stoning and burning, and the only god you will ever find will be those Prof. Dawkins already allows, Einstein's or highly-evolved aliens.
Science has explained very, very little in its young life, but despite the deepest wishes of many, and at one time all, of its practitioners, the supernatural, as "outside of nature", has been conclusively disproved.

Oh, the NEXT most tiresome saw on the tattered cheat sheet of the "believer" is the insistence that atheists have to "play nice" and turn the other cheek while being lied to, bullied, and insulted. Xians especially take joy in this one, but I believe every one of the negative reviews of TGD has included it, usually quite openly.

63. Science vs religion

Comment #6578 by goddogit on November 15, 2006 at 1:51 am

Since when has standard journalism NOT been about running with the most hackneyed stereotype as long as the public is willing to put up with it?

Never.

64. The Need to Believe

Comment #6575 by goddogit on November 15, 2006 at 1:22 am

Sorry to post again so soon, but I hadn't read this Martin C.'s comments, and wish to notify all that I have yet to see a more absurd set of tangled blathering less likely to make me revise my opinion that all but the smallest slice of theists, especially monotheists, believe in some sort of god that is but some vast, fun-house mirror of their own false pride, vanity, and fear (and fear especially of their certainty that anyone who bothers to glance at their beliefs sees right through the glass; not darkly either). Martin's god is a sillier, less probably, less worthy creature than the FSM, and his arguments are as coherent as pieces of a shredded encyclopedia are when found in the gutter by a hungover drunk on a cold New Year's Day morning.
This man needs, at least, a beginning creative writing class, and perhaps should seek some psychological counselling as well. I suggest he look into such.

Martin, you are ill at heart, and NOT just in mind! What you intend to be stout defenses and withering attacks are transparently trifling nonsense you type out to fool that gullible, childish part of yourself, not to convince others.
Do you have recurring dreams about your being in some crowded public place and finding yourself in the buff - birthday-suited - w/o clothes? I would assume so, given the excruciatingly naked awfulness of your fervent attempts at rhetoric here.
Indeed, this sort of horseshit could only be offered up on the Internet, since in person you'd be laughed out of a room. Tears start coming to my eyes at some of your thrusting and riposting silliness!
Pardon me for stating the impolitic obvious: you do not believe in one word of your ranting. Get yourself a less dangerous hobby than this sort of "religion", at the least, because this one will be the death of you.

65. The Need to Believe

Comment #6565 by goddogit on November 14, 2006 at 11:36 pm

Ooooh! Get it! It'S DAWKINS who is the evangelizer! He'S the one who espouses faith in an unproveable proposition!

Whoa! I get it now! (Hey! Someone get that elephant out of this room! The man was trying to make a point!)

66. Richard Dawkins and the "new atheists" come to America

Comment #6556 by goddogit on November 14, 2006 at 9:06 pm

AIG, and the suckers and suck-ups like Mr. Briggs above, do try to tell the truth as they see it. However, their powers of vision makes Mr。Magoo look like Ted Williams, and they have the odd habit of painting the world as they imagine it upon the goggles they wear, and are unable to distinguish between their cartoon-version of humanity and the universe and the reality we all share.

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

Comment #6320 by goddogit on November 13, 2006 at 3:55 pm

"I hereby formally offer/challenge Mr Dawkins to a debate anywhere he likes. Of course I realise he is a busy man and has a lot of books to sell. I also realise that he is preaching to the converted. And most of all I realise that I am a nobody in terms of public prestige etc - it would be a kind of David v. Goliath situation. But remember what happened there (allegedly!). Anyway here' teh [sic] challenge. I await his response!"

Dear Honesty! What a self-impressed ass you are, Mr. Robertson! I'd need to call in MP&TFC to properly lampoon your blazing, foundation-less vanity!
Here's an idea: pull a Leo Tolstoy and look into actually PRACTISING the Christian doctrine instead of "defending" it. THAT would impress people like me, although we would be able to - while working on real problems together -respectfully disagree about the whole "god/s" question.
Still, at least have the decency to, as we Americans say, get a job!

Enough, though, if boring me off this thread constitutes victory to your silly, small mind, you may claim it.

68. Ryan Tubridy interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #6305 by goddogit on November 13, 2006 at 2:45 pm

Well, Quinn at least proves that the Irish can be as rude, blathering, dishonest dicks as any American, to whom "truth" is whatever the fuck he says it is at any particular moment.

"Without God there can be no free will."
"You do not know where matter comes from!"
"I believe the very existence of matter is evidence that God exists, and remember that you're the one that doesn't believe in free will [blah fookin' blah]"


Give me a fookin' break! Any lingering respect for Catholics (whose biggest crimes are basically historical), as opposed to the new Fundamentalists, took a final count of ten for me with this arse, living in one of the prime examples of the idiocy and violent nature of religion but rattling on about a "free will" that always chose murder.

69. Reading of The God Delusion in Lynchburg, VA

Comment #6176 by goddogit on November 13, 2006 at 1:48 am

Would the Lokis please cut it out.

it aint funy for u too muck te igernant, it tire some.

70. Reading of The God Delusion in Lynchburg, VA

Comment #6103 by goddogit on November 12, 2006 at 4:14 pm

It was very nice that someone thought to put the plants on the stage, since the questions from the so-clever theists and "Liberty" students certainly needed a bush to beat endlessly around.

71. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #6095 by goddogit on November 12, 2006 at 2:51 pm

Although there are theists who actually engage in debate, and who have undeniably charming theories that include a God/gods, they are essentially arguing a complementary position to the reasonable "live and let live" brand of atheist.
They are absolutely not the hardcore theist control freaks that form nearly all the diseased "born-again" churches, at least in America (and apparently Britain), nor the brand of Islam that insists upon a form of Islamic law hundreds of years out-of-date. These are not theists, but social/political fanatics unable to come to terms with the life they have, and eager to retreat in a fantasy world where they become (or can imagine themselves) powerful and individually important. It is a sort of explosive mental cocktail of vanity, fear, impotence and ignorance.
Robertson is apparently not one of these, at least openly. His ploy is to pose as one of those "clever" theists who flatter their vanity by the pretense of debate with the atheist, and no doubt the scientist. It is a technique that gains the applause of a certain type of "wannabeliever" and is much less (though often still considerably) profitable than the fundy rabble-rouser, but it affords the practitioner additional protection from their own hypocrisy, since instead of denying the very existence of debate, they (falsely, and entirely so in Robertson's case) claim to have arrived at their conclusions based on some sort of evidence.
Robertson is, frankly, a rank amateur at this, and essentially finds himself in Miniver Cheevy's (did I spell that right? It's been years...) position. Like all of this breed (many obviously brilliant; others simply annoying braying asses) even a modesty perceptive person will see that all this cleverness is pre-Fall Humpty-Dumptyism: everything is as they SAY it is, and they are right because they SAY they are right.
Of course, many of Robertson's stripe would willingly call for the aid of the fundy element if they found themselves exposed (to themselves). Tolerance is something this sort of "believer" promotes only as long as they believe they call the shots.

72. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #5885 by goddogit on November 11, 2006 at 3:03 pm

David R. trots out more of the party line, evidently meant to impress himself (a difficult task, I do admit, since he could hardly seem to be more full of himself).

He pretty much lost me in his second reply, when he copped out with a classic: "The answer to that is depends what you mean by literally. That is not a cop out." Humpty Dumpty couldn't have said it much better.
And as for the "modesty" of his financial success in using superstition to earn a living, my reply is that the amount of success or failure is only a factor in deciding sentence, and does nothing to absolve the perpetrator of the crime, especially if they show no remorse, nor intend to reflect upon it.

He did get one point right, perhaps since I made it explicit: I have no respect for his posing, and whatever share his take is in the swag of religion, I have not the least respect for him or those foolish enough to accept his nonsense. He isn't even a good "bad Christian."

73. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #5777 by goddogit on November 11, 2006 at 2:59 am

Dear David R.,

Let's see your cards before discussing how reasonable any vitriol, as you so quaintly refer to it, is condemned wholesale. When people tell me that if I accept that legendary pile of manure the pony must certainly be nearby, and I find it not to be so, expletives are perhaps understandable, in the sense that Mark Twain described.

So, "Honest" Dave, let's get to it!

Do you accept that Jesus is your personal savior, who was the one and only son of God (of the OT) and was physically resurrected after death?

Do you believe that Mary was a virgin?

Is the Bible to be taken as literally true? As partially literally true? As entirely fictitious? Please explain on what basis your position can be defended.

Why is any supernatural being needed in order to accept the (occasional) wisdom in the Bible?

How is your belief in Jesus as the son-of-god any better than a Hindu's in Rama, etc., etc., etc.

(And a last, in the "when did you stop beating your wife" tradition)

When are you going to read TGD and admit you are unable to counter ANY of Prof. Dawkins' arguments, except by insult and smirking Xian slander?

Alas, all of these must remain rhetorical questions - real Christians have no need to engage them, except by smiling in agreement (they know the answer to Jesus' final question, My gos, why hast thou forsaken me?"), while boobs like yourself simply reach into their pants and plan how to extort their next dollar or pound.

74. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)

Comment #5709 by goddogit on November 10, 2006 at 3:08 pm

Mr. Robertson is another of the multitude of faux-"believers", but doesn't want to admit the fact, at least in public. Religion, except in the "might as well be an atheists" "social-bonding" sense, plays no obvious role in his life or thought, but he is of the sort of so-called conservative stripe that never admits something is broken. and further claims that nothing broken can ever be fixed.

TGD has provided me with invaluable proof that most "religious" people are nothing of the sort, and their arguments are as bluntly dishonest if not as baly written, as those of the typical creationist (and no more insulting can I be than that).
It is a relief to see them expose themselves like this, for such dishonesty taints every argument they make on any issue and I can simply focus on their real actions and the results obtained.

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

Comment #5706 by goddogit on November 10, 2006 at 2:55 pm

It is the length and depth of Prof. McGrath that left me speechless, since choking snickering makes it difficult to say anything.
He must have been some shallow atheist as well (they are surprisingly common, these "atheists" who are simply too self-absorbed in their own "uniqueness!).

Not that I give two twigs, but I suspect if I went back and examined this man's publications as "A former atheist himself, [who] has written extensively on atheism, particularly the ideas of Richard Dawkins, and their foundations in modern science" I would find ideas just as silly and pointless. And I very much think I would find a man whose "theism" is tightly linked to his pocketbook and career-ambitions - in plain words another hired flea sucking a living off of Dawkins' work.
Ack! I don't care, so long as he doesn't marry into the family.

76. Why there is no God

Comment #5148 by goddogit on November 7, 2006 at 3:05 pm

My final reply to literally all "I KNOW God exists" believers is that their lives show a very impressive lack of evidence that such a belief is more than superficial, since they watch TV, take accordion lessons, and enjoy BBQs like their atheist brothers & sisters instead of going some way equivalent to a monk/nun or hermit's life - my own would by necessity be devoted 24/7 to such a supreme being (and you can't kid me that their "personal god" is directing so much energy toward rooting for the Cowboys, or in stocking up on condiments).
Xian fundies really put the bizarro spin on the whole notion since, saved or not, very, very, very, very few of them make an effort to learn either Greek or Hebrew so as to get the word of God first hand (something Muslims and Jews allegedly do attempt). I put more effort into understanding baseball stats than they do about their imaginary immortal souls.
But of course all evidence shows that the Bu--sh-- Xian sees themself in such a distorted glass, are so "saved" they don't even bother to read the KJV themselves. These are people who get their science from Jack Chick and "Doc" Hovind - the laziest and craziest.

Except for the odd saints, immersed in a religion until the splendour of their poetic, humane insanity bursts forth to touch the ordinary, literally 99% of theists are either liars (most) or believers in belief (and just kidding themselves).

77. The New Unbelievers

Comment #4856 by goddogit on November 6, 2006 at 3:08 pm

What does it matter if the basic arguments cover new ground or not (although new evidence means that atheism is able to continually review and reform their ideas and claims), when it is absolutely clear that most "believers" have never been exposed to them, except from the most biased, often dishonest, perspective?

In the creationist attack against evolution (and cosmology, and science generally), Prof. Dawkins has continually noted that, when questioned by typical creationists, they simply have no idea about what evolution is, and astonished when clued into what the science is, has found, and can do.

78. The Language of Ignorance

Comment #4760 by goddogit on November 5, 2006 at 9:04 pm

Our Paul here is one of those "beweebaas" who notices one convert swimming against a tide of hundreds or thousands of new atheistics and agnostics. This IS the oldest trick in religion's playbook - a variation, only slight, of "heads I win, tails you lose" and similar to the Thought Policeman's claim - truth is what WE say it is, and what's important is what we decide is.

Bu--sh-- and the neocons have their entire, fucked-up "system" based on these unusable principles.

79. Ignorance is No Crime

Comment #4716 by goddogit on November 5, 2006 at 2:48 pm

So, Svend, now that your previously cloudily expressed opinions are in comprehensible English, let's stop pussyfooting around: do you believe in a personal god, and therefore "miracles" and supernatural (not merely yet-to-be-explained) events?


If not, you are simply someone who, In Dennett's phrase (if I recall it correctly) is childish enough to "believe in belief."

Oh, and "devance" is nuttier than a fuitcake and a box o' granola! And might think about taking a beginning Creative Writing class to help her/him rewrite dreck into either a beautiful or amusing form. Mental wanking like that really shouldn't be posted where others have to see it!

80. Ignorance is No Crime

Comment #4585 by goddogit on November 4, 2006 at 4:13 pm

Svend, would you re-phrase comment #7 so that it means something? And, sincerely NOT intending to insult you, are you a non-English speaker?

81. Ignorance is No Crime

Comment #4576 by goddogit on November 4, 2006 at 3:20 pm

Prof. Dawkins has already offered MANY reasons that reveal your question to be infatile in its wrongheadedness, but I doubt you have the gumption to read TGD (or anything else that doesn't offer up your chosen brand of pap).
Here are two, as interpreted by myself.

1. Which "God"? Is any god as good as any other? What is your claim to being supported by THE god, compared to the billions of others? Is it some "personal revelation" that just happens to be exactly the one you were either raised with or sought out? Why not Thor, or Shiva, or the FSM, all of whom are more worthy of the exercises of a human imagination than the Xian Jehovah? (Frankly, FSM has, as a deity, many advantages for the thinking person. Ramen!)

2. You claim you'd kill yourself because life would have no meaning without a being intelligent in terms comprehensible and identifiable to homo sapiens? Give me a fucking break! This is the flip side of the ass who claimed only "god" kept him from killing his neighbor. It's utter bullshit! If you were truly suicidal, you'd find SOME "reason" for it, and you would need psychiatric care, not belief in nonsense (although religion had, like dentists in the old days, a variety of "side-jobs" that included something like psychology.)

Start USING your brain, and have some courage. Inner experiences are profoundly important, and utterly unreal - as unreal as every "god" ever offered up by humanity(s imaginations, whether fevered or calculating. You need great belief AND great skepticism to gain enlightenment in Buddhism, but better no faith than no skepticism, so stop kiding yourself (and stop trying to jerk the ret of us around: we aren't falling for it.)

82. Dawkins' delusion is that science can determine the existence of God

Comment #4378 by goddogit on November 3, 2006 at 3:34 pm

Has someone else pointed out that this reviewer is repeating the same driveling, Piglet-like "O-HO!" that dozens of others before him have in their continuing defense of Heffalumps, ah, God?

Oh...

Another dishonest (ignored the entire argument presented in TGD, in Dawkins' lectures during the current tour, his position and reasoning about "God" since he began publishing) or ignorant (didn't bother to read TGD, or listen to any of Dawkins lectures during the current tour, or pay attention to his position and reasoning about "God" since he began publishing) - I'm not quite repeating myself - chump shilling for something as silly as Santa Claus, whose "religious beliefs" are nothing but comforting lies and candyfloss nostalgia.

Just a few notches further and this sorts of "reviewers" will be in the territory of Young Earth Creationism, where the YEC defender is alloted, at his or her own disgression, the title of "Humpty-Dumpty" when judging the validity of evidence and, well, everything else. To themselves.

83. God Loves My New Lexus

Comment #4172 by goddogit on November 2, 2006 at 2:47 pm

Not anywhere near his better columns (and even they are simply "amusing"), but you non-'mer'kins wouldn't understand anyway.

84. Dawkins v God - stop the fight

Comment #4170 by goddogit on November 2, 2006 at 2:39 pm

Gotta dig the dude (minus the "e", praps) with the too-damn-long tag who seems to think that religion is a solace to Mr. Human Condition to whom "the Universe only inspires terror."
As always, Prof. Dawkins has already, and repeated, answered the variations of this excuse to believe nonsense, refuting it from two very obvious angles. I sum these up in blue-collar terms as:
1. Tough cookies.
2. But I don't enjoy bullshitting myself or others
Ultimately, I don't see religion as a viral meme, but as a set of folktales and superstitions that "got out of hand," so to speak, in only very recent times (10,000 years or so). Before that religion WAS something like science in many ways: a set of beliefs modified by experience and experiment, with natural forces being anthropomorphized and what were originally metaphors being taken for descriptions (just as we do now, and all the time).

While Prof. Dawkins is finally a bit puritanical in his atheism (some people naturally are) and doesn't want to - or even understand - the artful nonsense that occurs when one mixes facts with fantasies, it doesn't mean he isn't right in every one of his claims in TGD, and that he may be right about even more than that.
At any rate, it's at least time to return religion to its origins, as a form of social bonding and entertainment alone.

85. Dawkins v God - stop the fight

Comment #4021 by goddogit on November 2, 2006 at 4:35 am

If I can understand anything about this parody of reasoned argument, it that whatever bizarre, ill-defined semi-supreme being he thinks has some vague "positive social purpose" is such a weakling that Prof. Dawkins and others shouldn't be picking on him/her/it.

Dawkins has answered EVERY ONE of his silly critics dozens of times over, but they still attack, like Napolean's troops at Waterloo, in the same old way, and being handily beaten back.

86. Surviving 'Jesus Camp'

Comment #3435 by goddogit on October 28, 2006 at 4:33 pm

Doug, your recipe for defining "madness" seems, well, not only entirely self-serving but entirely dishonest. If someone is raised in the faith of North Korean nationalism, would not you consider their beliefs a bit unreal, even "mad". If you go back to, say, ANY "Christian" war and listened to the "beliefs" of the majority as they gloried in slaughtering their "deviant" Christian opponents, wouldn't they be quite clearly "mad"? If you talked to Christian in Europe even a hundred years ago, and they fervently "believed" that Jews used the blood of Christians to make their bread, wouldn't you consider this a "madness" that needed the cure of rational debate, and even the need for government intervension?

Of course, Prof. Dawkins has answered your excuse and plea for exemption far more eloquently (though I really doubt you have the honesty and courage to listen to his lectures and arguments; many available at this site).
Your "religious majorities" own nearly all of their supposedly "Christian" virtues to the work of rationalists, or else to religious figures who grasped the arguments of the Enlightenment but saw the advantages of using their faith as a tool to implement the goals shared by each view.

As for your statements about the Bible, you deserve no respect whatsoever - without extremely selective editing and re-writing, the OT is EXACTLY as bad as Dawkins (among all others who read it for what it is) claims, while the NT is a soup arguing as much for atheism as for faith, to those who have noticed that "God the Father" does jack-all from the beginning to the end of Jesus's life.

87. I don't believe in Richard Dawkins

Comment #3350 by goddogit on October 27, 2006 at 4:04 pm

Like all socialization, religious indoctrination depends on a very barely modified form of "natural selection" to succeed. It doesn't matter that some few children prove "resilient" enoug to cast off their programming, wile others are able to isolate it: only enough fanatics need be produced to allow the religion to reproduce itself in the next generation, and religion is most "robust" when its fanatics are deluded, and just numerous, enough to use violence to "defend the hive."

The most valuable lesson this site has taught me is thatliterally EVERY objection and even reasoned argument against a basic atheism amounts, finally, to a charade, an evasion, by the defender of faith.
Religion as a cultural, social, and personal practice is (I believe!) a human trait that leads to insights not to be approached by the collective rigors of science. The comparison I would use is drug-usage (which obviously parrallels religion anyway). But these insights and experiances still have to be examined, most mercilessly. And they remain, however poetically influential, exclusively personal in their apparent reality.

88. Surviving 'Jesus Camp'

Comment #3225 by goddogit on October 26, 2006 at 3:32 pm

Xians ("anonymous? Give me a break!) and Xians or simple trolls ("Steven Colbert" Couldn't you be more obvious?) wearing cartoon-rationalist masks, evidently for Halloween, may be viewed - by those of you who are none too fastidious in their entertainment - in the appallingly stupid exchanges before this.

89. Surviving 'Jesus Camp'

Comment #3113 by goddogit on October 25, 2006 at 5:06 pm

An interesting definition of what Christianity is by self-declared Christians can be read above. I believe I am summerizing it correctly as: Christianity cannot be taught, directly in a "Jesus Camp" or through socialization, but only received through personal revelation.

To be cynical, this sounds to me like: Christianity (Religion) is a disease that is largely non-infectious, despite being more widespread and damaging than dental caries, unless one helps incubate the viral agent.

It's just more nice people, whom I would do nothing extra to dissuade from their preferred brand of foolishness, excusing their stupid, drunk relatives at some BBQ.

90. Atheists' delusions about God

Comment #2578 by goddogit on October 22, 2006 at 12:16 am

Mr. Frasier exhibits what I consider the very least persuasive, and perhaps the most dirtily deceitful, argument for belief in a "God": his "God" is exactly equal to Frasier's own conception of it - "God" is what he says it is, and he isn't taking any questions about it. It's a kind of egoistic fundamentalism that, while less obviously dangerous, is still as pointless and indefensible.

The reviews of this book remind me wonderfully of the original attacks on Darwin and the "Origin," in that EVERY argument and trick those who claim the power of the pulpit trump up has already been addressed, in finer and more modest language, by the book itself. Since those who, like Mr. Frasier, are self-confessedly NOT interested in the truth that can be found in the world, while Prof. Dawkins is, and therefore cannot engage in an honest debate, while he can, they hold views that, while perhaps profitable and surely compliment-attractive, will look absurd in a very few years indeed.

91. Alan Colmes Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #2519 by goddogit on October 21, 2006 at 4:01 pm

This was like watching some chess grandmaster playing $20 against-all-coomers match, swatting down "strategies" as fast as you or me can read.
Imagine an amateur being checkmated and saying, "No way! You are so wrong!" in such a situation? They'd be properly laughed out of the hall. Unfortunately, in Prof. Dawkins case, MORE THAN HALF the challengers are dingbats like this.