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Comments by notsobad


201. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Madeline Bunting

Comment #127531 by notsobad on February 15, 2008 at 11:27 am

Another debate turned into an endless and meaningless semantic argument.

How about we tried to debate the issues religion causes that actually bother us?
Or is this it? Is a semantic dispute really the worst thing religion causes?

202. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #127523 by notsobad on February 15, 2008 at 11:20 am

The Reverend Dark,
good points but remember that nuclear energy is the most expensive source of electricity!
People need to learn that cheapest and zero emission energy is energy we do not produce and use in the first place.

203. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Madeline Bunting

Comment #127222 by notsobad on February 15, 2008 at 4:12 am

Madeline Bunting:
I feel good among my religious friends.
Therefore god exists.

Belief in belief, indeed

And when someone labels themselves as a Roman catholic, they buy into hatred against homosexuals supported by the Church, opposition against contraception, which leads to human tragedies in the third world and into opposition to sexual education, which leads to sexual frustration and other cultural garbage among a large portion of population in Western countries. Sure they may not personally support this, but that won't stop the clergy.

These are the issues that should be mentioned instead of a virgin birth, which does not directly influence everyone's life on a daily basis.

204. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #126326 by notsobad on February 13, 2008 at 1:46 am

Maybe while we are dismissing modern medicine..

Stop misinterpreting arguments because of a black and white view.

205. Murder plot against Danish cartoonist

Comment #126172 by notsobad on February 12, 2008 at 2:28 pm

agn said:

Torture the bastards

That wouldn't be a good move strategically anyway.

206. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #126012 by notsobad on February 12, 2008 at 11:30 am

toddaa:
Bill Maher denies Germ Theory. Stop holding him up as a paragon of rationality. He's as bat shit insane as Tom Cruise.

Evidence?
jakelovatto:
Ye there is no real reason to it just seems pompous to describe oneself as an apatheist.

Even not giving a damn is now pompous?

207. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #125830 by notsobad on February 12, 2008 at 6:00 am

Bill Maher is a deist, not an atheist. He has explicitly said that he is not an atheist and that he believes that there is a single god.

No, he is not. He says he doesn't know and labels himself as an "apatheist".

As for medicine, he is right when he says that we should focus on strengthening our immune system and on removing harmful substances from our environment (pesticides and so on). Today, most doctors will just prescribe you medicaments after a few minutes they spend on you and consider their job done. And unfortunately, this includes child doctors, who do not dare suggest that the child needs to change their unhealthy lifestyle fast. After all, their parents are used to being prescribed drugs all the time.
On the other hand, vaccination and antibiotics - once you get something like syphilis - are indeed helpful. So are antiseptics and painkillers but I would take the latter with care and only when really needed.

208. Sharia fiasco

Comment #125554 by notsobad on February 11, 2008 at 3:25 pm

...that is, if it's supposed to be funny simply because these are 'shocking' statements - that's something I really do not understand. In that case it would be akin to a group of minors giggling about using swear-words or laughing about the stupid excrement-related 'gags' in various very low-brow movies.
But somehow I doubt that's all there is to Carlin's statements of this kind. His other stuff is sometimes quite insightful - that's why it puzzles me.

I'll cite from one of his stand-ups as a hint:
Sometimes an announcer comes on television and says, ‘Six thousand people were killed in an explosion today.’ You say, ‘Where, where?’ He says, ‘In Pakistan.’ You say, ‘Aww, fuck Pakistan. Too far away to be fun.’ But if he says it happened in your hometown, you say, ‘Whooa, hot shit, Dave! C’mon! Let’s go down and look at the bodies.’

209. Exorcism undergoes a revival across Europe

Comment #125541 by notsobad on February 11, 2008 at 3:01 pm

Reading the article, I kept thinking how nice it must be to have these fantasies, to believe you're some kind of soldier in a secret war between humans and demons, that you have spiritual powers, and then to be given millions of dollars to set up your new ultra-top-secret facility for conducting your campaign, all without the broader public being aware of what's going on, of course, in their lives. It sounds like your typical anime plotline, really. These people are basically children.

It's like Pan's Labyrinth except these guys are not 11 any more.

210. The Passion of 'Anonymous'

Comment #125380 by notsobad on February 11, 2008 at 9:43 am

There could be a conflict of deities here.

priceless
'v for vendetta' Faulkesian masks

Someone forgot to tell them that Guy Fawkes was a religious fanatic...

211. Exorcism undergoes a revival across Europe

Comment #125331 by notsobad on February 11, 2008 at 8:44 am

Across Europe?
Poland is known for being religiously backwards. At least they kicked the Catholic zealots out in the last election.

212. What would Darwin have made of the Human Genome Project?

Comment #125328 by notsobad on February 11, 2008 at 8:39 am

JFHalsey,
speech communication to start with.

213. Hitchens and Boteach Debate on God

Comment #125280 by notsobad on February 11, 2008 at 7:17 am

"Where are all those billions of fossils...?"
You burn them every day driving, moron.

214. Sharia fiasco

Comment #125010 by notsobad on February 10, 2008 at 5:23 pm

but the man scares me when get's all "don't you wish more people would die, - I give a shit about other people suffering and dying". Though I hope he's not being serious when he says such things.

You still don't understand the very basics of his comedy style.

215. Sharia fiasco

Comment #124987 by notsobad on February 10, 2008 at 3:13 pm

Dr. Steve & Diacanu: George Carlin has been a master of it over the years...please forgive me if I think he has lost a little off his fastball these days.

No, he hasn't. http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/24/george-carlin-on-countdown-true-comic-standing/

Also, add Bill Maher to the group:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKvOyyqKaZ0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IcUumWzue4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6pb5YcymL8
etc.

216. Conservative Rabbis to Vote on Resolution Criticizing Pope's Revision of Prayer

Comment #124978 by notsobad on February 10, 2008 at 2:56 pm

Adults arguing about whose version of a fairy-tale matters...

217. Inventor Doesn't Dare Say 'Perpetual Motion Machine'

Comment #124279 by notsobad on February 9, 2008 at 2:31 am

I have a bridge for sale...

218. Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'

Comment #123831 by notsobad on February 7, 2008 at 5:22 pm

These conmen can't stop trying to fuck people over.

Cui bono in this case?

219. Richard Dawkins talks about The God Delusion

Comment #123438 by notsobad on February 7, 2008 at 7:03 am


I thought it was an advocacy of the view that belief in gods is irrational. Admittedly it's been a while since I read it. Does TGD actually contain any positive statement that there is no god? The opening line of the video seems very odd to me.

Yes, I found it strange too and contrary to what Dawkins normally says.

220. Help Build The Reason Project Archive!

Comment #123380 by notsobad on February 7, 2008 at 4:22 am

Well that's what I thought would be the purpose of the staff. To inquire owners of the copyright if they wanted their material included in the the portal.

BTW: Isn't google doing the same thing in a way? Downloading huge amounts of data from various sites into their database and providing its content to the end users?

This site also copies whole articles without asking for permission I guess.
They may claim fair use as long as they provide a link to the original and acknowledge the author/s and rely on the fact that the worst thing that can happen is a cease and desist letter.

221. Help Build The Reason Project Archive!

Comment #123331 by notsobad on February 7, 2008 at 1:49 am

My concern is that the decay rate of internet links is quite fast. I have lost great many videos and good articles because of that already.. It would be nice to have a site that would archive these materials in case the originals are no longer available..

copyright issues

222. Richard Dawkins talks about The God Delusion

Comment #123242 by notsobad on February 6, 2008 at 4:59 pm

Shmeezers,
it's quite funny when you conclude what Darwinism can or cannot do when it seems that you don't even know what fitness means in biology.

223. Ad 'likely to offend gay people'

Comment #123181 by notsobad on February 6, 2008 at 2:52 pm

Let them run the ad so that free speech is preserved and people can see how intolerant and backwards these people are.

224. The New Atheist Movement

Comment #123173 by notsobad on February 6, 2008 at 2:35 pm

I like how they come right out and say "use child indoctrination or else christianity is going to fall".

Important point to be remembered.

Anyway, here is the Colbert Report: Sam Harris video from the clip.

225. Richard Dawkins talks about The God Delusion

Comment #122813 by notsobad on February 6, 2008 at 6:16 am

All you need to knock down the ridiculous statements about morality and altruism coming from religion is to show statistics and remind everybody that the world's two biggest philanthropists, Gates and Buffett, are agnostics.

226. Admitting that you have no religion is not politically correct

Comment #122003 by notsobad on February 4, 2008 at 1:32 pm

Is that a state-administered university?
If so, please write a complaint to the Ministry of Education and specifically highlight that they label themselves as "technically a secular institution."

Can you give us an e-mail where we can write a complaint to the university?

227. Putting Candidates' Religion to the Test

Comment #121735 by notsobad on February 4, 2008 at 3:53 am

Where is Mike Gravel?
Mike Gravel on the Oppressive Nature of Religion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYh5NUYCYsM

228. Pope says some science shatters human dignity

Comment #121538 by notsobad on February 3, 2008 at 3:18 pm

The topics the Church is least qualified to talk about, sexual behaviour and science, seem to be the only topics it actually talks about.

229. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #120141 by notsobad on February 1, 2008 at 9:40 am

al-rawandi, that's why I explicitly said translating TGD would not be a very useful move. A new hand book is needed that would promote secularism and emancipation of women with overall stance against dogma instead of focusing on atheism that much.

230. Hitchens V. Boteach

Comment #120130 by notsobad on February 1, 2008 at 9:32 am

Other rabbis probably too shake their heads when they hear Boteach speak.

231. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #119994 by notsobad on February 1, 2008 at 4:28 am

Darwin's shitsu,
al-Khwarizm was a Muslim. The Islamic Golden Age brought a lot of improvements. Accidentally, it ended when Christian Europe started to develop, also thanks to the Islamic discoveries and inventions. Of course, these people had to take god out of the equation to move on.

232. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119982 by notsobad on February 1, 2008 at 4:19 am

Thinking we can or should bring "freedom and democracy" to Afghanistan and Iraq is a state of delusion--they want their sick theocracy and that's what they're going to get.
Read about Ataturk and his reforms. The Ottoman Empire was no more modern or "civilized" than Afghanistan is today.

There has been a debate on a few occasion about translating TGD into Arabic and offering it for free download. I think that would be too clumsy and "complex" a start. Maybe the 4 horsemen and Hirsi Ali should write a pocket book with a positive message aimed specifically at Muslims and have it translated into Arabic, Urdu and Indonesian.
I'd donate to that effort.

233. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119508 by notsobad on January 31, 2008 at 4:34 pm

All these countries need their own Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
How are we going to help the process? So far, all the rulers installed and supported by the US in that area are no more than dictators, who are there to serve corporations.

234. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #119207 by notsobad on January 31, 2008 at 11:51 am

Communist,
yes, it's Ancient Greek democracy evolved.

Anyway, the EU Parliament condemned segregated education-systems for the Roma people while ignoring the segregated schools based on religion. Talk about double standards.

235. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119103 by notsobad on January 31, 2008 at 10:22 am

I mean, obviously, I think something needs to be done about fundamental Islam, but what? There are people on here who advocate violence and those that advocate diplomacy and it seems impossible to know which one is appropriate.

We have been fighting there for 5 years and this is happening.
The answer is obvious.

236. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #118907 by notsobad on January 31, 2008 at 6:43 am

Emancipation of women is the only humane and effective way to stop overpopulation and in the end improve lives of people in the third world.

Attempts promoting emancipation should be supported.

237. MySpace: No place for Atheists?

Comment #118813 by notsobad on January 31, 2008 at 2:49 am

Have the good Christians that are complaining or working at MySpace forgotten the Word of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?

Luke 6:27-31
27 But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

We don't hate them, nor mistreat them so it doesn't apply here.

238. What should a scientist think about religion?

Comment #118483 by notsobad on January 30, 2008 at 5:32 pm

"undogmatic religious faith"
oxymoron

239. What should a scientist think about religion?

Comment #118472 by notsobad on January 30, 2008 at 5:22 pm


Clay Shirky on Religion and Science:


I've now changed my mind, for the obvious reason: I was wrong. The idea that religious scientists prove that religion and science are compatible is ridiculous, and I'm embarrassed that I ever believed it. Having believed for so long, however, I understand its attraction, and its fatal weaknesses.

240. MySpace: No place for Atheists?

Comment #118468 by notsobad on January 30, 2008 at 5:19 pm

Vote with your wallets and move elsewhere.

This is a good example to be used when some apologist starts that one about love and tolerance promoted by religions.

241. Atheism and Violence

Comment #118329 by notsobad on January 30, 2008 at 3:41 pm

You guys keep feeding the troll. He is not gonna debate anything.
He will laugh and post another ridiculous comment in the next article and again leave without defending his bullshit.

242. Atheism and Violence

Comment #118003 by notsobad on January 30, 2008 at 7:42 am

Firstly, despite repeated attempts by many people, I still haven't heard an answer to the Hitler and Stalin argument that makes me go, "Ahhhh, yes! That's it! At last the killer refutation."

Which one? The one saying that Stalin was evil because he didn't believe in gods? That case cannot even be made for Hitler, who was interested in mysticism and paganism.

243. Richard Dawkins on The Big Debate

Comment #117969 by notsobad on January 30, 2008 at 5:15 am

What was the point of asking those kids from faith schools whether they feel separated and ignorant? Of course, they'd say they don't; that's the nature of delusion.
The moderator should have tested their answer immediately by asking what they think of homosexuals, atheists, pre-marriage sex, contraception, free speech, etc.

244. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #117962 by notsobad on January 30, 2008 at 4:43 am

Darwin's shitsu,
that may be true, but I have heard people giving credit to Christianity for things it actually oppressed.

245. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #117950 by notsobad on January 30, 2008 at 3:46 am

I disagree with this. The so-called democracy of the ancient Greeks is totally hyped up. The massive suppression of slaves and women was a matter of course to the 'democratic' ancient Greeks. There is evidence that certain Roman emperors such as Domitian did more for women and slaves than the leaders of Athens ever did.

Modern pluralistic democracy is a superstructure on top of the capitalist economy. It is a product of the progressive struggle of the middle class from about 1700 and onwards, and the working class from about 1820 and onwards.

You disagree and then confirm what I said. The Greek democracy was first. The Romans and later Europeans used it and improved it. Without Ancient Greece there would probably never be democracy in the world on a larger scale than a tribe.

And Christianity probably played a part. In Christianity, god became man of flesh and blood in Jesus. This translates into a respect for the material world (and for work as a virtue) that you don't see in for instance Islam.

This part was played only after the Renaissance started, inspired by Greek and Muslim writings as I already stated.
BTW, Islam was much more progressive than Christianity before the Renaissance. Muslim scholars adopted Indian decimal system and came up with advanced mathematics. It was later imported into Europe, which was still using the Roman numerals inadequate for advanced mathematics.
I am not a Christian, but I regard Christianity as probably the most progressive religion, because it resembles secularism and atheism most closely.

The latest god-is-love Christianity may resemble secularism but it's not because of Christianity. And there still are many denominations, dogmas and particular believers who are as silly and ignorant as always.

246. Atheism and Violence

Comment #117942 by notsobad on January 30, 2008 at 3:21 am

Edward T. Oakes,
learn what 'fittest' means in biology before you want to write books.

247. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #117939 by notsobad on January 30, 2008 at 3:11 am

Several people are upset at Day's claim that Dawkins said raising a child religiously is worse than child sexual abuse. Several have said that Dawkins never said that.

From page 317 of The God Delusion (which I have in front of me) second paragraph, second sentence beginning in the middle of the third line of text for said paragraph "I replied that, horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place."

So yes Dawkins did in fact say what Day claimed he said get the book and check for yourself, I did, it's easy). The thing I find funny is how so many of you want to accuse Day of not checking his facts, when apparently you can't even be bothered to read the book of your 'champion'.

That was a particular case of two people. It does not apply generally.
There are levels of religious upbringing just like there are levels of sexual abuse.
Day generalizes and deals in absolutes here.

248. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #117799 by notsobad on January 29, 2008 at 5:00 pm

Well, the one thing I didn't like was when Prof. Dawkins agreed with Lord Carey that the freedoms and liberties of "western" societies is a basically a product of Christianity... definitely not!

I concur. Thanks go to the Ancient Greeks. The only nation in the world that invented democracy.
And the Italians came with the Renaissance after translating classic Greek writings and Muslim writings.

249. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #117711 by notsobad on January 29, 2008 at 12:27 pm

Their identity and bank account is at stake, after all (the actual "truth value" of religion is irrelevant).

Good point. He has written a series of Christian Fantasy novels.

250. Belief in Belief

Comment #117683 by notsobad on January 29, 2008 at 11:24 am

Maybe I'm just one of the weak or ignorant people that can't get by without one, but it's caused me some serious and profound distress just in the last few weeks trying to deal with my new almost certainty that there is NOTHING after death. I haven't gotten over it yet and I wonder if I ever will.

Isn't that actually comforting?

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