51. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #136845 by Saerain on March 1, 2008 at 9:04 pm

I quite like Maher when he is not wasting time on celebrity antics, although that seems to usually be filler material.

As far as the American media goes, he is one of the few closest to being on 'our side'. I think we can debate amongst ourselves on the other issues later. Right now we have religious tension across the globe like we have not seen in some time, and I'm content to find allies there first.

Besides, his views on medicine are not superstitious, they're just ill-founded. I get the distinct impression that he has never been formidably challenged on it. He doesn't strike me as the type who would remain unswayed by a good debate.

Then again, I am sometimes told that I have too much confidence in the human brain.

52. Earth's Final Sunset Predicted

Comment #136209 by Saerain on February 29, 2008 at 2:19 pm

36. Comment #135365 by Dr Nev on February 28, 2008 at 9:51 pm

Bugger! Round about this period of time religion will finally be eradicated and we will all be living in harmony and then we melt! Gee!

53. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #134401 by Saerain on February 27, 2008 at 6:09 pm

Who is this Gad fellow she keeps referring to?

54. The coming religious peace

Comment #131991 by Saerain on February 23, 2008 at 7:51 pm

Even our atheists are sometimes among the antiscientists. I met an atheist the other day who dismissed evolution as quackery, yet proposed no alternative, stating only:

'They never found the missing link, buddy!'

What is this, anyway? I get it all the time. Out of about 96 thousand transitional fossils, which two do they want to link, and with how many generations?

The only thing missing belongs in their skulls.

55. My Argument With God

Comment #131772 by Saerain on February 23, 2008 at 8:22 am

19. Comment #131644 by Slyer on February 22, 2008 at 8:52 pm

Even if you say that all the 20% that are unknown are all atheist and agnostics the statistics are still in our favour. 80% of answered were religious, 20% were atheist/agnostic/unknown.
America is 20% atheist/agnostic yes?

56. Fleabytes

Comment #130077 by Saerain on February 20, 2008 at 3:25 am

Absolutely marvellous. I have never seen this 'Wee Flea' around, however. Perhaps I am either too new or too inactive.

57. Atheists An Increasingly Outspoken Minority

Comment #129494 by Saerain on February 19, 2008 at 7:59 am

16. Comment #129290 by John Sands on February 19, 2008 at 12:52 am

Jodie Foster an Atheist? Well for a moment I thought that all actors were overpaid idiots!

58. Cutting Edge: Baby Bible Bashers

Comment #129441 by Saerain on February 19, 2008 at 6:23 am

'Hoi daddy whaen ye geddawn back brintheeink.'

I had to take a ten minute break after that.

59. Ayaan Hirsi Ali asks for protection

Comment #128505 by Saerain on February 17, 2008 at 9:01 am

Robotaholic, I have seen more typographical errors from you than those you are playing hothead against while snapping their typos back at them. Simply an observation. I have Grade-A irony detection.

12. Comment #128005 by Teratornis on February 15, 2008 at 9:22 pm

I believe the exact quote involved taking bullets.

60. Ben Stein Wins Intelligent Design Money

Comment #128054 by Saerain on February 16, 2008 at 1:12 am

28. Comment #127993 by KingofallSamurai on February 15, 2008 at 8:54 pm

If you watch the trailer (link in the above article to movie's website), they've been very naughty.

There's a clip of Richard Dawkins saying:
"As a scientist, I'm pretty hostile to a rival doctrine ..."

However, it is blatant from the way he sounds at that point, that they have cut off the end of his sentence - presumably explaining what sort of rival doctrine. Instead, they are trying to make it sound like he is opposed to the very concept of rival doctrines ...

61. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Madeline Bunting

Comment #127205 by Saerain on February 15, 2008 at 3:35 am

Poor Dawkins always gets into these types of situations.

62. Hitchens and Boteach Debate on God

Comment #125111 by Saerain on February 11, 2008 at 1:48 am

I skipped Boteach's arguments just like I do D'Souza's, until Gillman's two questions. I do not usually skip the opposition, but when it comes to D'Souza and Boteach I simply cannot listen to their screeching voices. If they had subtitled Boteach's words, I would have been able to mute and read, but listen to him I cannot.

By the way, I presume that everyone noticed, but Boteach didn't answer the first question from the audience. The question was, 'Is it possible to talk about the existence of God without asking the question "When you say "'God'", what do you mean?"' but he answered the question within the question, rather than the question itself.

And he dodged the second question by attacking Hitchens, when Hitchens didn't even ask it.

But I love that the audience laughed every time Gillman reacted to Boteach.

63. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115739 by Saerain on January 24, 2008 at 3:17 pm

The man Tony Compolo wants is Carleton Coon, not Charles Darwin.

The various racialist movements tend to actually hold something of a grudge against Darwin for not 'addressing' their points.

Also, Henri, I think your girlfriend is glad to have whatever kind of breasts she has, but I don't think she is proud of them.

Similarly, I am pleased by my pale complexion. It is something I enjoy the appearance and function of -- like my figure, my sexual endowment, or my youth in general. To say that I am 'proud' to be young would be strange, wouldn't it? Youth is not an accomplishment.

To be proud of an inherent feature is no different than being proud to have been born at all. One is not proud of being born. One is glad to have been born.

A bit semantic, perhaps, but it seems to me that the root of the disagreement between you and MPhil is due simply to two conflicting understandings of the word 'pride'.

64. Mother Nature is Not Our Friend

Comment #108009 by Saerain on January 5, 2008 at 8:18 pm

Diacanu astounded me on the first page of comments. Somehow an encouragement to stop being so taboo about 'veering from nature' became an endorsement of Nazism's blonde ideal. Go figure.

65. Beyond Belief 07: Enlightenment 2.0

Comment #103962 by Saerain on December 27, 2007 at 11:45 am

I don't think the smaller audience is necessarily due to Dawkins' absence, but rather because the subject is not an inherently confrontational one such as science versus religion.

66. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #103789 by Saerain on December 26, 2007 at 9:34 pm

I would definitely have liked to hear Dawkins and Hitchens go into the last disagreement that Hitchens was nudging into as they ran out of time.

67. Ayaan Hirsi Ali versus Timothy Garton Ash

Comment #98797 by Saerain on December 14, 2007 at 11:02 am

My thoughts precisely, on the title.

68. Ayaan Hirsi Ali versus Timothy Garton Ash

Comment #98792 by Saerain on December 14, 2007 at 10:37 am

To Mitchell Gilks: The short and ugly bit is a strange remark, but I do not see how it is smug.

He should have said that she would catch less attention, which is, unfortunately, true, and it seems that he would agree that it is a shame. But it is only a matter of first impression, after all, and an accepted social truth that has been stated over and over again about every attractive male or female public figure in existence.

So I think he was close to correct in saying it, while she was also quite right to be distressed by it.

To Summer Seale: I think not. Fear is the emotion of the producers who censored what was said and the host who squirmed uncomfortably while it was said. Timothy and Ayaan were appropriately staunch.

69. Ayaan Hirsi Ali versus Timothy Garton Ash

Comment #98787 by Saerain on December 14, 2007 at 10:20 am

I am unsure what people mean about him speaking slowly or being smug or 'wimpy' (quite a childish sentiment, is it not? Not to mention in contradiction with 'smug'). I thought he was a pleasure to listen to and made his points clearly and strongly.

Though I did find his disagreements with Ayaan ill-supported and frankly trivial. I came under the impression that he sought small points of mild disagreement simply to be able to call it a debate.

As long as we are criticising mannerisms, I suppose, only the host irritated me, if anyone. But that is also being trivial.

Let us stick to either disagreeing with them or being inspired by them to say something further.

70. Richard Dawkins on 'Have Your Say'

Comment #98200 by Saerain on December 13, 2007 at 8:49 am

What is that despicably evil, cartoonlike grin Morris gives after Dawkins' comment at about 29:40?

My word....

71. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97656 by Saerain on December 12, 2007 at 1:37 pm

It feels good to be in the southwest of Massachusetts at the moment. I kind of grew up as a Massacticutian. A Connectichusettsian.

I loved the, 'We believe that Christ is the reason for Christmas.' I laughed very hard. Either she was quoted far out of context or that is a non-sequitur I'll be giggling about for days.

72. Is Infant Male Circumcision An Abuse Of The Rights Of The Child?

Comment #97618 by Saerain on December 12, 2007 at 12:37 pm

I assume that English is not Pyota's first language, so I apologise if I have misunderstood him, but his apparent impression that the majority here are uncircumsised interests me. I would be surprised if that is true. I remember clearly that as a child in my health class a show of hands demonstrated that each boy was circumcised. None of them were Jewish and only one of them was even remotely religious (Christian).

In my own family, as well, every male is circumcised, even though the generation that is now dying out was the last religious generation (Roman Catholic paternally, Protestant maternally).

I am circumcised and don't care for it. Shaving our scalps reduces the risk of lice, while cleaning hair too much makes it brittle and unattractive, but most tend to not shave their heads because it's quite nice to have hair and we would rather understand the hygenic requirements and limits than have our heads look like a freshly circumcised penis.

The non-religious doctors I have spoken with (albeit briefly) about their opinion on circumcision have been rather neutral.

73. Girl, 16, dies after hijab dispute with father

Comment #97492 by Saerain on December 12, 2007 at 7:33 am

This is only partially on-topic, but the obsession the Western media has with the clothing of women in certain other countries irritates me.

'It's degrading! They won't let them show a bit of skin! It sends a message that the woman's body is shameful!'

Yeah, well, we have a similar attitude towards males in the West. Women are beautiful and sensual, men are hideous and brutish, and we encourage it to stay that way with a great deal of our culture, clothing not least of all. Of course, we don't criminalise any of it, it's just a bizarre expectation and perverse aspiration.

Growing up, I knew two girls who were assaulted (very mildly) by their fathers or mothers for 'dressing inappropriately' and a boy who received a good punch from his father for simply shaving his arms and legs. Funny how the most basic of expectations we place on females (the grooming of body hair) is one of the most severe deviations a male can commit. Especially bizarre because females barely grow enough hair naturally to usually warrant such grooming at all, whereas males are at least moderately hairy. You'd expect the latter to start bodily grooming first. My species baffles me.

Where was I going with this? Ah, yes. Madman kills daughter, possibly over a garment. Insanity. But not only does it disgust me that people commit violence over such trivial matters, it also irritates me when the Western media hypocritically laments sexual double-standards. That's all.

74. Fear of censure deflects The Golden Compas

Comment #93701 by Saerain on December 4, 2007 at 12:22 am

I do wish people would stop using 'anorexic' as a physical descriptor.

Anyway, yes, the literary character's name is Marisa Coulter.

75. 'Expelled' Movie: The Extended Trailer

Comment #88659 by Saerain on November 18, 2007 at 12:15 pm

Yes, my family struggles with whether to stay and fight or leave to take care of ourselves.