Comments by bitbutter

51. Most religious people are moderate, and don't hurt anybody

Comment #82341 by bitbutter on October 26, 2007 at 5:26 am

@eepist

Moderates are obviously going to defend their faith against atheists, and I don't have a problem with this. However, how do they do this and at the same time denounce the likes of the Phelps?

Precisely. And i think that what generally happens is that moderates do manage to simultaneously defend faith and denounce Phelps etc. But they do this by implying that Phelps' faith, or any faith that fuels hatred, can't be real faith--"it's a perversion of true faith". This approach means that faith itself is never held accountable.

52. Most religious people are moderate, and don't hurt anybody

Comment #82309 by bitbutter on October 26, 2007 at 3:14 am

@Bonzai

I have never heard any religious moderate saying point blank that all faiths have to be respected.

Then you've never entered this google search "all faiths should be respected" school

53. Most religious people are moderate, and don't hurt anybody

Comment #82301 by bitbutter on October 26, 2007 at 2:56 am

@Bonzai

Instead of reciting canned responses from Dawkins or Harris like religious incantations atheists should filter them through their brains first. Afterall we are supposed to be "free thinkers".

[rolls eyes] And a fellow 'free thinker' should be prepared to allow that people who cite Dawkins and others may well be thinking for themselves and may have decided that Dawkins is right, and that his formulation of the problem is the most succinct one they've come across.

Very often the most vocal criticisms of the fundamentalists come from moderates.

I don't know if this is true. It certainly doesn't match my experience. Edit: Now i think about it you might be right, but the criticism from moderates is almost always accompanied by an attempt to protect religion from criticism "The attacker was not a real X". By deflecting the blame from faith in this way it may be that they do more harm than if they had just stayed silent.

In any case, even if it's true that moderates strongly criticise fundamentalists it's irrelevant to what I wrote:

Religious moderates prepare the ground for new fundamentalists, and shield the existing ones from open criticism, when they insist that all faith should be respected.

54. Most religious people are moderate, and don't hurt anybody

Comment #82288 by bitbutter on October 26, 2007 at 2:21 am

Religious moderates prepare the ground for new fundamentalists, and shield the existing ones from open criticism, when they insist that all faith should be respected. While there is a taboo against criticising faith we can't adequately combat violent fundamentalism.

55. The God Delusion and Alister E McGrath

Comment #81849 by bitbutter on October 25, 2007 at 9:37 am

tribbles:

the point i'm trying to make is that i really seem to be wanting to say that i'm suggesting that i really, honestly tried to listen to the whole thing... i need a couple of coffees to recover.

lol! that's it, it's only a matter of time before a McGrath text generator appears online..

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

Comment #81805 by bitbutter on October 25, 2007 at 8:07 am

Science can't tell us why we're here or what is the meaning of our lives.

It's important to notice that some of the questions that science cannot answer are the wrong questions. For instance "why are we here?"

The question isn't wrong in the sense that it's impolite to ask because science can't answer it. The question is wrong because it makes some assumptions that aren't warranted.

'Why' is generally only an appropriate opening to a question if an agent (a person or thing that acts or has the power to act) is assumed to be responsible for the situation: "why did Jack leave his bike there?"

'Why' questions presuppose an agent unless they are actually 'how', or 'how come' questions in disguise. An example would be "why is the sky blue?" This question actually gets answered as though it had been "how come the sky is blue?".

Science is silent about the god-assuming question: "why are we here?" But if we instead ask "how did we come to be here?" then science fills libraries with its answer which becomes increasingly detailed and accurate for each generation that asks it.

(taken from my answer at http://tinyurl.com/2oz4eb, i think there are other good answers on this page too)

57. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #81715 by bitbutter on October 25, 2007 at 4:56 am

Great idea.

When ordering by rank, i don't get to see how much the order of posts i see is actually being affected by rank. eg. If only one post has received a vote, the 'list by rank' ordering of all the other posts doesn't reflect their ranking (since they have no votes). Perhaps an indicator of 'votes received' per post would help avoid this?

What might also be useful is if the top 10 (or whatever) ranked posts in a thread get a special 'medal' icon. As well as highlighting potentially interesting posts this would serve as a visual reminder to cast votes for posts.

It could look something like this:
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/3976/popularxz1.jpg

('Popular' in the mockup might be better substituted by 'Excellent' etc)

58. You can't prove that you love someone, so don't expect proof of God

Comment #81653 by bitbutter on October 25, 2007 at 2:13 am

As has been mentioned, it doesn't make sense to ask me to prove to myself that I'm experiencing a state of mind that I call love!

I've seen this argument expressed more often in something like this form: "Not all that we say we know is rooted in evidence. For instance how can you know that someone else loves you?"

But as Richard Dawkins and others have pointed out, if you're mentally healthy and you're fairly certain that someone else loves you, that certainty is completely based on an accumulation of evidence (evidences of the trustworthiness of the person, what the person has said to you, their body language, etc).

Some people really do believe that someone else loves them despite their being no real evidence for that belief but we identify this as a form of mental illness.

59. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #81636 by bitbutter on October 25, 2007 at 1:40 am

Atheism is self-refuting because it asserts that everything in the universe, including the atheist's own reasoning, came about as a result of non-rational forces. If that is indeed the case, every argument employed by the atheist is, according to his own assertions, incoherent and meaningless. Only the theist is able to claim coherence and true logic in his arguments because those arguments are founded on the notion of an all-knowing being.

Only by subscribing to a position that asserts the primacy of consciousness can one escape the idea that we came about through the action of non-rational forces.

But the primacy of consciousness always loses out to the primacy of existence. Since any consciousness (even a god's) has to exist, we have to conclude that existence is primary. This being so it follows that things (even gods) are, ultimately, contingent on non-rational forces.

The presuppositional theist fails to realise this and builds his 'claim to coherence' on an imaginary foundation.

60. Does fundamentalist religion cause the rejection of evolution? or is it the other way around?

Comment #80258 by bitbutter on October 21, 2007 at 2:43 am

Rob Brown kindly links to my Face Maker project at the end of his article. I think this kind of toy could act as a bridge for people who have conceptual difficulty with the idea of evolution. Here's the link in case you missed it (firefox only): http://facemaker.redshiftmedia.com

edit: oh he removed the link!

61. Call for major science campaign

Comment #77657 by bitbutter on October 10, 2007 at 2:53 am

I wish Dawkins' books had been part of the biology curriculum while I was at school.

62. Ayaan Hirsi Ali: abandoned to fanatics

Comment #77487 by bitbutter on October 9, 2007 at 12:15 pm

I signed the petition and clicked the 'i like it!' button on my stumbleupon toolbar. If you're interested in promoting the petition (and other good causes) it's well worth taking a couple of minutes to sign up to stumbleupon. http://www.stumbleupon.com/

Stumbleupon first came to my attention when it drove huge amounts of traffic to the site asktheatheists.com, it works very well.

63. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77334 by bitbutter on October 9, 2007 at 4:43 am

Thanks bartvdo and nighttripper for the background information. It seems that these articles have been written with less than the appropriate amount of care.

64. Teachers 'fear evolution lessons'

Comment #76545 by bitbutter on October 6, 2007 at 7:09 am

and give everyone the understanding to respect the views of others

What does this even mean? Of course we should respect others but the views of others never deserve respect.

65. The Atheists Interviews

Comment #69917 by bitbutter on September 13, 2007 at 7:09 am

I also got the sense that Dawkins would agree that technically he's agnostic.

zarcus

I think Richard D's arguments about Agnosticism and Atheism in TGD were quite silly and needlessly confused.

For me this was also one of the weakest parts of TGD. We needn't even choose between 'agnostic' and 'atheist' since agnosticism/gnosticism relate to the question of knowledge and theism/atheism relate to belief. Two separate vectors.

66. Young Muslims begin dangerous fight for the right to abandon faith

Comment #69384 by bitbutter on September 11, 2007 at 3:36 am

Another translation volunteer here also (Native english speaker living in the Netherlands), but i guess there are enough already!

This is excellent news.

67. Interview with Francis Collins

Comment #69267 by bitbutter on September 10, 2007 at 8:53 am

[morality] exists as a delusion; just as religion exists as a delusion.

Religion isn't a delusion in and of itself, although it might depend on one. Neither is morality.

68. Interview with Francis Collins

Comment #69231 by bitbutter on September 10, 2007 at 5:35 am

@henri

Morality is faith as well. It is a delusion.

What an odd thing to say. Morality isn't absolute of course, and ideas about what constitutes moral behavior vary from one human culture to the next (with significant overlap)--but it's very strange to conclude from this that it doesn't exist.

69. The smallest signs of retreat

Comment #68468 by bitbutter on September 7, 2007 at 8:14 am

reposted

Utter drivel. So many mistakes and misrepresentations.

"Dawkins ....he persists with a parody, a childlike perception of God and religion."

So do the vast majority of believers--Dawkins has repeatedly made it abundantly clear this is the kind of belief that is the primary target of TGD. If you aren't aware that Dawkins has always acknowledged that there are many moderate believers then you haven't been paying attention.

Where do you get the idea that Dawkins is blind to modern myths? Is it because he didn't mention these topics in a book written about something entirely different? Maybe you think the professor is blind to the problem of global warming too, after all i don't recall a chapter in 'The God Delusion' dealing with this very serious issue.

70. 'Jesus loves you' email

Comment #66129 by bitbutter on August 29, 2007 at 1:39 am

@detox: after reading The Jesus Puzzle it looks like the odds are good that the earthly Jesus as we know him was an invention of the anonymous author 'Mark', who drew on Paul's spirit realm 'son of man' and combined that idea with other threads of thought that were popular at the time.

71. Atheists and believers have got religion wrong

Comment #63648 by bitbutter on August 15, 2007 at 7:47 am

Weak stuff

Because it's not ideas that drive actions such as these, it's circumstances.

This is a false dichotomy. How are the ideas that a scripturally inspired murderer has about the universe _not_ part of his set of circumstances?

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

Comment #62524 by bitbutter on August 10, 2007 at 3:15 am

The point, however, is that it is the polar opposite of the concerns of the modern fads stigmatised by Professor Dawkins: they are all to do with how we should look after ourselves, not our neighbours. This self-centredness is what makes its followers and practitioners so unbelievably boring.

Has the author forgotten that the major religions rely on promises of punishment or reward to elicit obedient behaviour? They appeal to self-centeredness just as much as the new age fads do.

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

Comment #61824 by bitbutter on August 7, 2007 at 3:03 am

Here's the comment i posted over there:

----

For a thorough dissection of this confused nonsense check the response on the Richard Dawkins site: http://tinyurl.com/2h9tve

[Dawkins] breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution - which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection - also accounts for the origin of life itself.

Dawkins breaks no such 'rules'. He explains a set of rival darwinian theories of abiogenesis, the most plausible scenarios we have thought of for the origin of life.

if people say God could not have created the universe because this gives rise to the question "Who created God?" ...

People don't say that. They do say though that positing an incredibly complex creator does nothing to help explain the complexity in the universe. Please (re)read The God Delusion where this is explained very clearly.

74. The Out Campaign

Comment #60313 by bitbutter on August 1, 2007 at 2:51 pm

I'm not sure if google pays much attention to the comment threads here but in case it does here's a link to my post restating the OUT campaign information and links. http://www.bitbutter.com/the-out-campaign-be-counted/21

Anyone here who runs a website or blog, please consider pasting PZ Myers 'A' logo code in your sidebar somewhere.. or post a blog item about the campaign, or both! google will love you for it.

75. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59431 by bitbutter on July 29, 2007 at 3:28 am

I will be surprised if I see anyone wearing them in England. Not because they would be scared, but because it is not necessary. Here, atheism is the default position. One is assumed to be one, unless one states otherwise.

I don't think it's quite true that atheism is the default position in the UK, at least not if you look at how people choose to describe themselves. And I certainly disgree that promoting atheism isn't necessary in the UK.

Non-religious, agnostic, secular: I think most non-believing people in the UK wold use one of these terms to describe themselves rather than atheist. I think that identifying yourself as an atheist has a very different effect to describing yourself as merely non-religious. It suggests--at least to me--that you've thought carefully about the claims of religions (rather than not giving religion any thought at all) and are confident enough about your reasons to reject all of it to wear a big red 'A' on a teeshirt!

I think that wearing the A also signals that you think the existence of god(s) is an important question, that it actually matters whether a god exists or not, and that there is a truth to the matter.

Non-religious vs atheist is the difference between 'I don't think about gods' and 'Gods almost certainly don't exist'.

76. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59422 by bitbutter on July 29, 2007 at 2:50 am

Henri:

I would only wear any of these were I to need to show people that my person is part of a bigger, stronger group (so the person is, therefore, relatively weak).

If you would only wear the shirt to show people you belong to a group, then i agree that you probably shouldn't wear it.

I will be wearing the shirt because I want people to notice that an increasing number of people share a particular view of the world--I want people to think about what that view means, and to be reminded that atheism is an option. I hope that the wearing of the shirt shifts our discourse subtly towards the rational. This applies to secularised parts of Europe as well as America.

Like you I have an instinctive aversion to appearing to be part of any group, but my desire to promote rational thought trumps that discomfort. Your accusation of weakness misses the mark, and it's insulting.

The shirt isn't just a signifier of membership to a group, it's a promotion of atheism and I'm surprised you seem to have overlooked that.

77. Why I Believe Anti-Evangelism Is Wrong

Comment #57349 by bitbutter on July 19, 2007 at 2:07 am

Merely 'recognising the irony' doesn't diminish the fact that this article is doing exactly what it chastises others for doing: telling someone else how to behave.

I don't think there should be a 'ban' on telling others how to behave, our society depends on our ability to do just that. If you disagree then you're out of luck because the only consistent thing you can do with your conviction is to keep it to yourself.

The weakness of William's position is demonstrated when he implies that evangelism is actually okay as long as it's accompanied by the following disclaimer:

Simply take solace in that this is just an informative rant, and you are under no obligation to agree with what I say here. I'm not speaking as any Authority Figure. Just someone with a salient point of view. Okay?

78. Police plea on genital mutilation

Comment #55423 by bitbutter on July 11, 2007 at 4:12 am

"Islamic scholars say it has no justification in the Koran"

'Raised consciousness' alarm: The implication being that if clear Koranic justification could be found for this abuse then it would be acceptable.

I really hope that more people start to notice, and be alarmed by the subtexts of what the Islamic scholars say in cases like these.

Great to see the UK taking action on this.

79. For Muslim Extremists, Religion Matters

Comment #54295 by bitbutter on July 6, 2007 at 9:46 am

Re-interpreting doesn't mean re-writing. It means re-thinking words and practices that already exist--removing them from a seventh-century tribal time warp and introducing them to a twenty first-century pluralistic context.

"Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them."

how would a reformer 're-interpret' this i wonder? (rewriting, or deleting altogether seems a far more sensible choice)

80. Don't Mince Words: The London Car-Bomb Plot Was Designed to Kill Women

Comment #53939 by bitbutter on July 4, 2007 at 9:35 am

(apologies of the double post) @anyone living in the UK reading this: please consider registering at theyworkforyou.com and adding your comments next to the transcription on debate on Counter terrorism (which addresses these attacks) in the house of commons here: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2007-07-02a.671.0#g679.0

81. At a Theater Near You ...

Comment #53938 by bitbutter on July 4, 2007 at 9:34 am

@anyone living in the UK reading this: please consider registering at theyworkforyou.com and adding your comments next to the transcription on debate on Counter terrorism (which addresses these attacks) in the house of commons here: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2007-07-02a.671.0#g679.0

82. I believe that there is no God.

Comment #52884 by bitbutter on June 28, 2007 at 11:40 am

ChrisMcl: how about Materialism, Naturalism or Secular Humanism?

83. I believe that there is no God.

Comment #52866 by bitbutter on June 28, 2007 at 9:40 am

@Spinoza

Atheism is the claim that one KNOWS the following proposition:

a) It is the case that God does not exist.

Thats not MY atheism ;)

My bet is that most people identifying themselves as atheists would disagree with you--Russell's definition notwithstanding.

84. I believe that there is no God.

Comment #52830 by bitbutter on June 28, 2007 at 6:41 am

What's all the fuss about? I too believe that there is no God. I COULD be wrong but I'm pretty sure there's no God. I don't merely LACK a belief and I don't think this 'goes beyond Atheism' in some way. Surely the only people who MERELY lack belief are those people who have never heard of God and never considered the question.

The fuss, as i understand it, has to do with the burden of proof.

Strong atheism (which incorporates weak atheism too, incidentally) is a position which does carry the burden of proof--and on the face of it it seems like a more legitimate target for the criticism: 'atheism also needs faith'.

Weak atheism--the lack of belief--on it's own is pretty unassailable, it merely waits for sufficient evidence or a convincing argument--and the case for god falls at this first hurdle.

(Incidentally i'm working on a mini-site which talks about the distinction: if anyone has the chance to test it out and PM me with feedback/suggestions i'd be very grateful: http://www.asktheatheists.com/amianatheist )

85. I believe that there is no God.

Comment #52747 by bitbutter on June 28, 2007 at 1:44 am

@eggplantbren

This "lack of belief" argument is stupid. It was never atheism. Atheism is the belief that the most probable number of Gods is zero, and this has a fairly high probability.

I don't think you should dismiss it so easily. atheism as a negative--a 'lack of theistic belief'--is a definition many atheists subscribe to.

So even if this wasn't the original meaning (betrand russell seemed not to think so http://www.xmission.com/~cquinton/religon.html ), it is an important meaning of the word now.

86. Messiah

Comment #52572 by bitbutter on June 27, 2007 at 10:10 am

Fascinating stuff. All credit to him for using his skills to encourage skepticism rather than credulity.

87. In Defense of Witchcraft

Comment #52280 by bitbutter on June 26, 2007 at 4:00 pm

Good fun! though I think 'witchcraft denier' would work better than skeptic--we might hope that one day 'atheist' sounds just as absurd and redundant.

88. Germany imposes ban on Tom Cruise

Comment #52144 by bitbutter on June 26, 2007 at 10:17 am

@an_ant_under_a_penny thanks for your post.

Their argument is that scientology uses the same inhumane methods to keep its members under control that the Nazis employed, and that bits of the scientologists' warped ideology follow in the tradition of Nazism.

So perhaps the real objection is that it's just in bad taste for Cruise to be cast in the role, and not that the casting is incompatible with "the serious and authentic portrayal of the events of July 20, 1944 and Stauffenberg's person" (?)...

89. Germany imposes ban on Tom Cruise

Comment #52107 by bitbutter on June 26, 2007 at 7:27 am

Robert maynard:

On that note, bitbutter, Tom Cruise is the most aggressively scientologist celebrity around. He has essentially been dubbed Scientology's 'head prophet' by senior leaders in the organisation. He'll denounce psychiatry whenever someone is willing to let him drift off topic, and claim that things like drug addiction are solely caused by body thetans, which can be teased out through 'expert' auditing. The man is a menacing clown, which (I think we can all agree) is the worst kind. :P

I stand corrected.

From reuters:

Defense Ministry spokesman Harald Kammerbauer said the film makers "will not be allowed to film at German military sites if Count Stauffenberg is played by Tom Cruise, who has publicly professed to being a member of the Scientology cult".

"In general, the Bundeswehr (German military) has a special interest in the serious and authentic portrayal of the events of July 20, 1944 and Stauffenberg's person," Kammerbauer said.

Perhaps i'm being naive here but--questions about Cruise's skill as an actor aside--i'm confused about why his being a scientologist would have any bearing on whether or not he will give a 'serious and authentic' portrayal of Count Stauffenberg.

90. Germany imposes ban on Tom Cruise

Comment #52078 by bitbutter on June 26, 2007 at 5:28 am

It seems very odd to penalise a production company for the beliefs--no matter how absurd--of one of their actors, who as far as i know, isn't even aggressively promoting this aspect of his world view. This 'stand' sounds muddle-headed.

91. God Hates the World

Comment #52056 by bitbutter on June 26, 2007 at 3:59 am

The contrast between what people here say, and what David Robertson hears, is quite striking. Robert Maynard already highlighted this difference very well.

Roberton's summaries of what other people have written read like the output of some kind of Strawmanify wizard: Feed in sensible arguments and you'll get back hopelessly hyperbolic, indefensible approximations of them that you can knock down without breaking into a sweat. Amaze your friends with your new-found debating skills

Robertson's posts are tiresome and I generally skip them these days to avoid frustration but I'm enjoying reading the responses--thanks to everyone who has the patience.

92. In the name of the Father

Comment #51497 by bitbutter on June 23, 2007 at 6:16 am

this article has already been posted http://richarddawkins.net/article,1318,In-the-name-of-the-Father,Richard-Harries-Guardian

93. His word: Attacking religion can seem like breaking a butterfly on a wheel

Comment #51494 by bitbutter on June 23, 2007 at 5:55 am

This is a double article post http://richarddawkins.net/article,1319,His-word,David-Baddiel-Times-Online

94. 'Purity' ring case in High Court

Comment #51317 by bitbutter on June 22, 2007 at 10:33 am

Either: Children can wear what the hell they like to school

Or: They can only wear clothing prescribed by the school.

Quite. This kind of clarity would fix it--no exemptions for religious dress.

95. In the know

Comment #50245 by bitbutter on June 16, 2007 at 2:15 am

I think the pertinent points have already been made very well. My first reaction was that Vernon's argument fails because the answers to the following questions are far from obvious, and he doesn't provide them:

What is 'scientific dogma'?
In what sense does TGD offer certainty?--certainty about what?
Why is a world with more critical thinking and less superstitious belief necessarily a less humanistic world?

96. Atheism is pretentious and cowardly

Comment #48186 by bitbutter on June 7, 2007 at 2:02 am

A bunch of thinly camouflaged strawmen. I made a short summary of this article, trying to remove the waffle to be able to see what the points actually were.

--

I don't like discussion about militant atheism. I don't think the 'new atheists' deserve the column inches they're getting.

Hitchens has written a new book. Like the other militant atheists he's not nuanced enough when talking about religion.

Atheism pretends to know more than it does--what belief in god entails and what religion is. Atheists object to religion because its false and harmful--it is harmful because it is false. It is naive to think that spread of rationality, and disappearance of religion, will make the world a better place.

Some will say that atheism is really just a rejection of God or any supernatural power. But this is disingenuous because the militant atheists have a mission to eradicate religion.

Religion is difficult to define. The atheist's definition is inadequate.

There are aspects of the religious experience in all kinds of cultural arenas (like pop concerts, plays, sport, politics). Religion can't be separated from culture.

The atheist's objection is that the important issue is belief in the supernatural and subservience to a celestial being--which leads to immoral actions.

The relationship between religion and morality is very complex. Atheists make unwarranted generalisations about the detrimental effects of religion and insist that it is always harmful. Atheist have a faith that things will get better if we get rid of religion.

The militant atheist chooses to uphold a worldview of Animal Farm crudity: atheist good, believer bad.

--
I consider Hobson's desire to generalise about atheism to be a case of intellectual cowardice. Theo says nearly nothing. And what he does say is mostly unsubstantiated wining.

His picture of the 'Militant Atheist' seems to be completely based on Hitchens' outlook and the generalisation: 'religion poisons everything'. I think Hitchens does greatly overstate the case with this subtitle--unnecessarily handing ammunition to apologists.

97. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #46705 by bitbutter on June 1, 2007 at 8:02 am

An entertaining clip.

But infuriating too. There was a repeating pattern. Dawkins asks a very straight-forward question, mcgrath replies: "You've raised a very interesting question, What i would _want_ to say in reply is this..." and proceeds to answer something entirely different. This, because it happened so frequently, strikes me as dishonest.

98. If It Feels Good to Be Good, It Might Be Only Natural

Comment #46173 by bitbutter on May 30, 2007 at 12:49 pm

The results -- many of them published just in recent months -- are showing, unexpectedly, that many aspects of morality appear to be hard-wired in the brain, most likely the result of evolutionary processes that began in other species.

Why did this come as a surprise? didn't The Selfish Gene suggest the same thing thirty years ago?

99. Dawkins at the Hay Festival

Comment #45984 by bitbutter on May 30, 2007 at 12:57 am

I didn't think there was any backpedaling in evidence. I'd like to hear more of Richard's thoughts on cultural relativism.

100. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Robert Winston

Comment #45871 by bitbutter on May 29, 2007 at 12:35 pm

Winston thinks 'The god delusion' is an offensive title.

I agree with other posters here that if it didn't offend anyone it would have been impotent, a book not worth writing. But never mind the title, TGD would have caused _even less_ offense if it had never been published at all!

Causing offense though wasn't the point, merely an unavoidable side-effect of a book that makes no concessions to political correctness.

Winston also to indicates that TGD has somehow hurt the secular/religious discussion, setting it back several years. This only makes sense if Winston has already decided what the correct outcome of that discussion is, and has recognised that TGD doesn't help reach that conclusion.

Here's my point of view: The (enormously popular) TGD has contributed in an important way to the secular/religious discussion by being a catalyst that has helped atheists find their voice and represent themselves in that very discussion.