101. Muslims tell Christians: 'Make peace with us or survival of world is at stake'

Comment #78182 by GBile on October 12, 2007 at 4:14 am

Pappa Ratzi I know, but who are all these Beatitudes ?

Anyway, the 138 Muslim scholars will protect world peace better when they would write letters to their fellow muslims, explaining that 'love your neighbor' also extends to sunni/shia neighbors in Bagdad, or to Afghan boys with a dollar in their pocket. Start writing these letters to be read in every mosque on fridays, esteemed scholars, and after they take effect come back to us.

102. Dawkins - what can't he be blamed for?

Comment #75201 by GBile on October 2, 2007 at 3:23 am

What about : Come on in, the water is refreshing !

103. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72215 by GBile on September 20, 2007 at 2:34 pm

Ok, let us try this: EVERY God is a straw-god.

104. The Nonbelievers

Comment #71172 by GBile on September 18, 2007 at 1:36 am

Basically my community is 'all of mankind' (and a lot of animals too).

Do I long for 'a building', 'singing songs together', 'rituals' ? No, No and No.

On the other hand, I have a sporting community, a work community, a neighborhood community, and most likely most of us have.

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

Comment #69334 by GBile on September 10, 2007 at 11:47 pm

She [Loubna Berrada] said: "I don't wish to confront Islam itself. I only want to spread the message that Muslims should be allowed to leave Islam behind without being threatened."

106. Interview with Francis Collins

Comment #69213 by GBile on September 10, 2007 at 2:55 am

Reading through the comments I was struck by the 'back-and-forth' between Henry Bergson and others.
My feeling about Henry's comments gradually went into the 'irritating' direction. This was unexpectedly underscored about one of his own comments, which followed his

"Why are leaves green?"

Oxytocin,

Sorry if I sound arrogant. It's just that I'm right... ;-)

The leaves?

107. Interview with Francis Collins

Comment #68913 by GBile on September 9, 2007 at 4:41 am

I always have the following problem with the 'supernatural'.
My reasoning goes like this: we live basically in a natural world, and we have, with scientific methods, discovered a lot of things. We can describe many phenomena with simple 'laws' which appear 'constant' through space and time. We found our 'stuff' to originate from a Big Bang, which occurred a long time ago. Life somehow started and evolved into many species, one of which are we.

Thinking about his existence, someone started to ask seemingly 'important' questions concerning 'meaning' and the like. The answer: a 'creator', necessarily being 'supernatural'. Why supernatural? Apparently because then it is outside the realm of our science, meaning that it cannot be proved (Collins admits this) or disproved. So nobody can make an objection against this.

Now my problem is, once you hypothesize that unprovable things 'exist', where do you end.
I can easily imagine a hypernatural realm, where the creator of 'our' creator resides, we could call her C2. Now C2 could very well be really nice and modest, so why not worship her rather than C ? But then again, what about C3 in its paranatural dwellings ....

108. Real Out-of-Body Experiences

Comment #67823 by GBile on September 5, 2007 at 12:28 am

Do we know why we, normally, have an 'in-body' experience ?

109. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #66995 by GBile on September 1, 2007 at 9:18 am

Mrs Vickers is writing about the antiGod squad. There might be such a group of people, but I am not one of them. Count me in for belonging to the ??????????????????????????????????????God squad, also known as the noGod squad.

It gives me such an angelic feeling.

110. There is no God and Dawkins is his Prophet

Comment #66478 by GBile on August 30, 2007 at 5:05 am

As to the problem with the infinite regress, other thinkers have already come up with alternative solutions, which Dawkins does not seem to be aware of. One is that God is unique inasmuch as he is his own cause and that God therefore is the very solution of the regress problem

111. Sikh girl will convert for a place at Catholic school

Comment #64496 by GBile on August 20, 2007 at 9:24 am

Schooling should be the same for every child and should be done in one type of school, so that the children sit next to each other and learn and play together. If parents want their children to learn about bowling a yorker, or playing the flute, or religion, they may arrange something outside the school.

Is this too idealistic to contemplate ?

112. Democratic Candidates on a Personal God

Comment #64490 by GBile on August 20, 2007 at 8:56 am

Drivel, please don't loose it yet, I think things have been worse and are improving a little. I hear most of these 'candidates' (luckily they will never preside over me) actually telling that their deity is incapable (or worse: unwilling) to avert hurricanes and disasters. If they only would also acknowledge their overall delusion.
What they admit is that they 'talk to themselves' in order to boost their moral, strengthen their convictions and the like. They call this 'prayer'.
Whatever.

113. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63862 by GBile on August 16, 2007 at 12:55 pm

Danielos, where are you ? Darwin2 is calling.

114. Atheists and believers have got religion wrong

Comment #63591 by GBile on August 15, 2007 at 2:50 am

In fact everyone who ever lived up to about 1800, and most people since then have been stupid stupid stupid.

115. Church and State: Divided we stand

Comment #63575 by GBile on August 14, 2007 at 11:50 pm

What about 'separation of church from people' ? In Europe we have lots of that already.

116. These preachers of hate must be exposed

Comment #63470 by GBile on August 14, 2007 at 12:39 pm

Today a dutch Roman Catholic Bishop remarked that it might be a good idea to change the name of God to Allah ...

Off course not all religions should be considered 'the same'.

One religion could be unnecessary, stupid (just peek at what is presented at ChristianAnswers.Net) and ANNOYING, an other religion could be unnecessary, stupid and DANGEROUS.

117. The Bible's literary sins

Comment #63328 by GBile on August 14, 2007 at 12:10 am

Monoape,

If you doubt that Noah was incapable of stuffing all those animals into the ark (on time) just go to Christiananswers.net . God did it ! Beetles from Madagascar , kangoeroes from Australia, they all received miraculous travelling-powers to make it just before the rains started falling. And actually, before the flood there were no continents yet, so these creatures did not have to swim for thousands of miles.

Insert smilies into the above text, where-ever appropriate.

118. The vanishing jihad exposés

Comment #63203 by GBile on August 13, 2007 at 1:34 pm

This is scary stuff.
I tried to purchase an e-Book version from Books-on-Board (see comment #7 alpha695) but in the end no download was available (not good - money gone?). e-Books pulped too ??

Regarding the topic (sort off), I don't understand why western countries are allowing (big) mosques being built in their countries with Saudi money and accept that Saudi Arabia closes their border not only to churches, temples etc. but even to non-islamic religious literature (not only sale, but also possession). One-way multiculturalism indeed.

119. Atheist 'Metaphysics' and Religious Equivocation

Comment #62231 by GBile on August 9, 2007 at 2:19 am

I KNOW what an apple tastes like...

or even better:

I KNOW that my wife loves me.

DarkSun's article and many commentators have tried to describe their understanding of the four letter word 'KNOW' and sometimes I agreed, sometimes I disagreed, but was confused most of the time. Nevertheless I think that 'qualia/consciousness' is the way to go. Understanding these will dismiss what religion claims to be 'knowledge'.

I just KNOW!

120. They let anybody onto the faculty at Oxford nowadays

Comment #60897 by GBile on August 3, 2007 at 5:10 am

In the McGrath-interview I found the following

What I do think is enormously important is to mount a public defense of the Christian faith that shows it as reasonable, attractive and plausible.

121. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57621 by GBile on July 20, 2007 at 9:25 am

Danielos,

Your comment 1535 is intriguing stuff and certainly shows that Idealistic theism is lots of fun. Your description of Gods nanosecondly timed feeding of the right experience into the consciousness of the QM scientist made my brain go in overdrive (God did it again !) and a number of possible experiments popped up in my mind.

The first concerns TWO scientists observing the photons fly and the screen lighting up. These scientists decided beforehand that when one would choose the 'particle' solution the other would go for the 'wave' (and the other way around). Does God have a problem here ?

A second experiment might be to train a cat that slits would mean food and fuzziness a (mild) shock. Does God concerns himself with animal experiments ?

122. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57336 by GBile on July 19, 2007 at 1:12 am

Danielos,

I don't agree with what you said in 1511. The statement you quoted said : '... we are nice because we want to be liked ...'.
You responded with '... keep the money without anybody noticing ...' . This is impossible because you yourself will have noticed it. In my opinion: 'we are nice (among other reasons) because we want to be liked, also by ourselves'.
(Please do not accuse me of being anecdotal again on this one).

On a side note, I think that this comment thread is already more interesting than the original RD-McG talk (Apologies to these gentlemen).

123. Transcending God: An interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #55953 by GBile on July 13, 2007 at 2:52 am

CHWWer:

Did you say ANYTHING ??

124. Is Christianity Good for the World? A discussion between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson

Comment #55539 by GBile on July 11, 2007 at 1:26 pm

From the first contribution of mr Wilson:

If a professor takes credit for the student who mastered the material, aced his finals, and went on to a career that was a benefit to himself and the university he graduated from, the professor must (fairness dictates) be upbraided for the dope-smoking slacker that he kicked out of class in the second week.

[Pope] Innocent III was considered a vigorous opponent of heresy, and had campaigns to force the heretics to convert. Under his authority, measures were taken against those accused of being Manichean heretics and under the leadership of Simon de Montfort, against the Albigenses (Cathars), the Albigensian Crusade (1209–29). The latter, strongly supported by Innocent, was one of the most controversial moves of the medieval church, being mostly directed against other Christians and soon turning into a mere conquest campaign by the northern French barons against the more tolerant Midi. This was a prelude to the legitimization of the Inquisition in 1233, wherein heresy was said to be punished for the spiritual good of the individual as well as for the preservation of the Church. The pope supported two new holy orders: the Franciscans and the Dominicans, as well as smaller ones like the Holy Spirit Order.
And:
Arnaud, the abbot-commander, wrote to Pope Innocent III: "Today your Holiness, twenty thousand heretics were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex".[3] The population of Béziers was then probably no more than 15,000 but with local refugees seeking shelter within the city walls, the number claimed, 20,000, is possible.

125. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #55288 by GBile on July 10, 2007 at 1:12 pm

The dazzling production of Comments is confusing. Does mr. Georgoudis suggest that we are just episodes in Gods latest wet dream ??

126. Floods are judgment on society, say bishops

Comment #53592 by GBile on July 2, 2007 at 6:27 am

WOW, a funny grin, an outlandisch attire, some bling-bling and an oversized umbrella, and there you have it: 'a spritual leader'.

127. I believe that there is no God.

Comment #52731 by GBile on June 28, 2007 at 12:25 am

I might not believe that there is a god, but let's face it: When I am out in the open and the skies will part and a bearded face will command "Attention !!",
I will stand at attention ... for about three seconds and then I will turn around and try to sink my putt.

128. Science of the Soul? 'I Think, Therefore I Am' Is Losing Force

Comment #52723 by GBile on June 27, 2007 at 11:52 pm

The 'Made in His image' believers are by now floating in the air: all the legs of their favorite chair have been sawed off.

Let's welcome them with open arms when they eventually crash to the ground.

129. In Defense of Witchcraft

Comment #52448 by GBile on June 27, 2007 at 3:53 am

MIND REBEL back !!

Sorry mr. Harris, great article !

130. Egypt mufti says female circumcision forbidden

Comment #52205 by GBile on June 26, 2007 at 1:16 pm

Of course cutting of body parts for no medical reason is pointless. Some time ago somebody on this site proposed the 'gunk theory of circumcision'. How silly can it get.
Culturally or religiously motivated mutilation practices should stop, certainly for children.

Good move, Grand Mufti.

131. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #52060 by GBile on June 26, 2007 at 4:25 am

Mr. Georgoudis,

You chose to ignore my question to you in comment #808 so far, but nevertheless I like to give my opinion to what you wrote in a later comment:

Suppose that in that desert island there is some potable water but no food whatsoever and no possibility of catching any food. After a week or so of waiting for a passing boat you are both becoming weak. The best strategy for one's own survival is to kill the other person in his sleep and eat him to keep alive until a boat hopefully passes (while making sure to leave no evidence of the murder that the rescue party could discover). Of course the above is a very nasty course of action. The question at hand now is who is the one more likely to seriously consider or even resort to this course of action: the naturalist who believes that death is the definitive end, or the theist who believes that death is just a door to the next life in which our actions in this life will have relevance?

132. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51851 by GBile on June 25, 2007 at 10:37 am

M. Georgoudis,

A worldview may result in a lifestyle.
Does the existence of your marvelously intelligent God makes you pray 5 times a day on a rug, makes you reluctant to eat certain species of shellfish, causes you to worry about the 'sinner inside', expects you to be with him in 'a loving embrace (Andrew Sullivan-style) after you die ?
What do you do as a result of your worldview ?

133. In the name of the Father

Comment #51509 by GBile on June 23, 2007 at 7:16 am

Again 'the man is a sinner' myth:

But even if religion did disappear, which of course it won't, we human beings would still be here, organised in groups of various kinds, still beset by the same lack of self-knowledge, viciousness and moral weakness.

134. In the name of the Father

Comment #51507 by GBile on June 23, 2007 at 7:05 am

Again 'the man is a sinner' myth:

But even if religion did disappear, which of course it won't, we human beings would still be here, organised in groups of various kinds, still beset by the same lack of self-knowledge, viciousness and moral weakness.

135. In the know

Comment #50254 by GBile on June 16, 2007 at 4:06 am

Mr. Vernon may have been good in assisting his flock fondling their spiritual genitals every sunday, but he apparently doesn't have a clue what life is like when you consider that the possibility that a god or gods exist is negligible and therefore call yourself an atheist.
He likes to impress us with statements like:

But we are also far from wise like the angels

136. A Compass That Can Clash With Modern Life

Comment #49579 by GBile on June 12, 2007 at 12:42 pm

There are no comments on this article.

137. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49427 by GBile on June 12, 2007 at 12:20 am

Dianelos Georgoudis:

An other believer, an other God ...

138. Manliness is next to godliness

Comment #49204 by GBile on June 11, 2007 at 2:20 am

Disgusting.

Let us double our efforts to get rid of the reli-madness.

Just a thought: What would mr. Prager do when he saw 10 of these guys coming from a bible-class ?

139. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #48759 by GBile on June 9, 2007 at 2:16 am

For the great strength of religion is that it creates communities, and its great weakness is that it divides communities

140. Atheism is pretentious and cowardly

Comment #48076 by GBile on June 6, 2007 at 1:44 pm

Is this 'the arguement from ignorance' :

Nobody can say what religion precisely is ... so it must be true ??

141. What I Think About Evolution

Comment #46779 by GBile on June 1, 2007 at 2:35 pm

Darwin 2,
If consciousness continues after death, we might then learn that:

We all spent our eternity in the Hell of Popocatetettel, whom mankind forgot to follow 22000 years ago.

We have to work, for eternity, in the celestial Fast food chain of Angel Hut (many vacancies) feeding obese winged beings.

There are no virgins over there.

We are alone ...

E^(i*pi) = - 2

Is there anything that you know that points to what is true , not true, probable, improbable ?

142. Photos of The God Delusion Event in Second Life

Comment #46761 by GBile on June 1, 2007 at 12:31 pm

What about Third Life, or Fourth ??

143. What I Think About Evolution

Comment #46760 by GBile on June 1, 2007 at 12:24 pm

Mr. Brownback thinks he is able to become 'President of the USA'. Wow.

I firmly believe that each human person, regardless of circumstance, was willed into being and made for a purpose

144. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46190 by GBile on May 30, 2007 at 1:56 pm

What a terrible, black, depressed mind mr. Prager shows to the world. This is exemplified by his 'conviction' that every man, woman and child is basically evil. Goodness must be rammed down their throats and it takes a God to do the ramming.
Likely mr. Prager is also of the Rick Warren school of 'the moment I stop believing, I will stop being altruistic'.

No, mr. Prager, mankind is not like that. 'Man the sinner' is a lie, thought up by men (of course 'men') with compacted minds and sinister agenda's. Please shut up and let mankind cast away its religious shackles and regain its natural way to goodness and happiness.

145. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #45869 by GBile on May 29, 2007 at 12:34 pm

I recently equaled "quasi-religious" to "engaging in spiritual masturbation". Masturbation, treating yourself to a nice feeling, is perfectly acceptable.
Would it be a good thing to to separate these quasi-religious people from their hobby? Would the 'houses of worship' become as sparsely populated as a desert when they discover that genuine 'nice feelings' do not require imaginary friends or mirages of 'eternal places', but that the world around them offers all they need?
My answer would be Yes and Yes.

146. I'm Sure God is Scared

Comment #45773 by GBile on May 29, 2007 at 7:25 am

Bonzai,

I don't have any problem with masturbation. People going to a church to have a 'soothing feeling' in the groin, oops, make that 'in the head', are Ok with me. But certainly these feelings can also be had on a trip to the zoo, reading a book or having dinner with 8 friends. Nothing supernatural required.

147. I'm Sure God is Scared

Comment #44789 by GBile on May 25, 2007 at 9:38 am

I just love lite religion. Soothe your conscience by sitting on a pew for an hour a week,...

148. Heliocentrism is an Atheist Doctrine

Comment #44686 by GBile on May 25, 2007 at 7:18 am

An planet, star, or other celestial object at a distance of X m(eter) from the earth, that would be rotating AROUND the earth, would move 2*Pi*X m in 24 hour = 86400 seconds. The fastest speed that can be achieved is the speed of light = 300.000.000 m/s. In one day light travels (3*10^8) * (8.64*10^4) = 25.92*10^12 m. A circle with that circumference has a radius X = (25.92*10^12)/(2*Pi) m = (25.92*10^12)/(6.2832) m = 4.13*10^12 m = 4.13 billion kilometer.
Sounds impressive ? The sun is 150 million km away, our sister planet Neptune is 4.5 billion km away, so it must already be moving faster than the speed of light if the 'geocentrists' have their way.

'Inerrancy of the bible', doesn't science spoil everything ?

149. Christopher Hitchens Is a Treasure

Comment #43380 by GBile on May 21, 2007 at 8:06 am

Gee,

An other believer, an other God. This time :

Suppose that God is not a Rationalist, a Logician, a straight-line Geometer-of-the-skies

150. The Fastest-Growing Religion

Comment #42426 by GBile on May 18, 2007 at 7:29 am

Uzi,
Spirituality is a word with some dubious meanings, but I can understand your use of it with regard to your 'rock-climbing'.

On the other hand 'worshipping' is a word I don't like in whatever context. It is an ugly, degrading word, no one should have to use it, ever.