201. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174202 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 9:13 pm

Comment #174201 by Bonzai on May 1, 2008 at 9:06 pm

Well, my dear faith-confused Bonzai (couldn't resist, you worm!), it is the ever increasingly beautiful Emma Watson.

Hermione in Harry Potter.

Best,
Styrer

202. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174190 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 8:35 pm

What I meant was that witnessing something first hand is emotionally different from witnessing it from afar.

I have never doubted the immense power of empathy. But I have - I admit - failed to phrase the above thought correctly. It is a psychological fact that closeness and remoteness are a significant factor. That is what I meant.

I have misspoken, phrasing my thought in a way that has connotations and implications which underrate the empathetic capabilities of others... and for that I apologize.

I do hope you will withdraw the "contemptible"-judgment however

Thanks for the clarification. You had me worried there.

I withdraw the adjective, and am grateful to you that I can.

On this issue my feelings run extremely high, and I should have perhaps asked you to clarify words which I found offensive.

Best,
Styrer

203. Pat Condell: Anthology DVD available now!

Comment #174182 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 8:13 pm

I think it is contemptible that Pat's vociferous words, his intelligence in composing them, his agility in making them potent, his unerringly precise pin-pointing of religion's glaring crater-sized holes, and the devastatingly inviting manner he combines anger with humour, are being belittled by those here who would have us all whispering, ever so quietly and carefully, our condemnation of the pious, dangerous shit which is leading us ever closer to the anti-reason abyss.

You should re-visit your evident notions of yourselves as 'intellectual', if those notions remain such that you will dismiss as unimportant a man who can lay claim to fighting the war against superstitious supernaturalism more emphatically, more memorably and more engagingly than any of you naysaying lot have ever shown yourselves capable of doing on this site.

Styrer

204. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174169 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 7:48 pm

Comment #174146 by MPhil on May 1, 2008 at 6:40 pm

I cannot imagine the emotional significance can be felt by anyone who has only heard of it from afar.

A contemptible comment, MPhil, which I hope you will withdraw.

I was standing, in Wadham College in November 1989, in JCR with more than one hundred other of my fellow undergraduates, with tears streaking down faces, whoops of joy identifying those happiest, outright sobbing identifying those seated, twisted with a kind of grateful and long-overdue release of sorrow making way for the noise of one of my fellow linguists saying 'I'm gonna get over there, my Dad will heli me over' (Her Dad was a high-up guy for a leading newspaper at the time.)

The rest of that night was spent pissed up, happy, enjoying the fact that the boundaries between freedom and another trodden-down, under-valued country had been ripped down, for all to see.

Kindly re-calibrate your own imagination in this matter.

Best,
Styrer

205. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174160 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 7:22 pm

Comment #174155 by Diacanu on May 1, 2008 at 6:59 pm

Rudey Rude McRudington!!

That twat gets around. Had a drink with him last night and he was surprisingly polite.

Bastard. Even said he hates my idea of irony.

Smacked the fucker.

Best,
Styrer

206. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174135 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 6:07 pm

Comment #173359 by Steve Zara on April 30, 2008 at 4:58 pm

I don't have the energy or motivation to post or debate here any more. I am fed up with ID nuts posting the same old nonsense, and religious sympathisers like Bonzai posting the same old apologetics.

My next blog entry will be a bumper sticker about how to avoid over-cooking fried rice.

I shall continue to support rationality on various blogs......

You have been an apologist for what you call "moderate" religion here for some time. You have been saying that those who claim moderate religion provides cover for fundamentalists are wrong.

We are dealing with people one at a time when there are millions out there. I don't know what the answer is, but spending time responding to people like seeker_of_truth here isn't part of it, I feel.

Thus spake Zara, thrustingly.

Steve, get your fucking head out of your arse, get back here and continue your bashing, or at least leave this site for the right fucking reason.

The right reason would be that Dawkins (to whom you offered on your hoity-toity departure not a single word of thanks for providing you a platform for so long to spout, challenge, educate and bloody well enjoy yourself since you joined) has decided that this open, world-famous and accessible site of condemnation of anti-rational theists everywhere should be fucking shut down and that the faithheads have finally won.

But no. You, Steve - you are huffily heading off to achieve what Dawkins is trying to achieve through his setting up of this now world-accessible site by...er, contributing to some 'various blogs', and all because 'I am fed up with ID nuts posting the same old nonsense'. And - did you intend this horrible echo of typical theistic departures from this site? - because 'you have better things to do'.

Well, if that is about the measure of you, then do, indeed, piss off.

But I suspect you're just pissed off at having to listen to faithheads here offering not the slightest sign whatsoever that your usually wise words make any impact whatsoever on them. At having to listen to the disgraceful, propitiatory Bonzaian bullshit about faith not being ultimately to blame for faith-drenched notions of self-immolation and murder seeking paradise as reward for their very enactment. And, perhaps, at the apparent futility of it all.

You are not alone. But offering the very best of yourself on this superb, willing, beautiful and educative site is one of your very best chances of even making a start on putting all the above crap to rights.

Return and bash.

If none of the above persuades, I refer you to Cartomancer's kind offer to re-instate his previous avatar. If even that holds no sway, then fuck you, you miserable git. And just stay away from FCOS, ok?

Best,
Styrer

207. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #172219 by Styrer- on April 29, 2008 at 10:59 am

Hi Paula

Thanks for your comments and sorry for the delay in responding - been away for work for a few days.

I note that your rebuke of my strong language is reflected by some others here - even the superb 'fuck' maestro Diacanu himself - and so I do give it serious consideration.

You may well be right that my stridency was premature, though I am by no means convinced. If it has damaged any of my fellow atheists' taking our latest crop of deluded theists to task, then I am genuinely more sorry for that than for any offence caused to the real target of my words here.

The first offence is, and as you seem to imply, made by the very ideas these deluded people hold. Not only are they not content, arrogantly and smugly, or even arrogantly and pityingly, to know from a distance and for a fact that the likes of me, you and others here are destined to spend all of eternity burning in hell, but some of them then seem set on visiting this atheistic site with the intention of committing a second offence by rubbing our fucking faces in it. There may be exceptions - theists visiting in a genuine spirit of inquiry, perhaps with a preparedness to be finally doubtful about the veracity of their despicable claims - but I see precious few, and would note that most simply maintain that we are all lost, forever to spend a torturous eternity in the absence of their deity.

Dr Benway possibly wisely says 'pick your battles' - but my take is that I now perceive just one, long, continuous battle where the theists, no matter how successfully they may cloak their language in courteous language, can never cloak sufficiently well the disgusting, de-humanising, hugely offensive claims at the root of their mad beliefs to hide them indefinitely.

And hidden they often are, and even unwittingly by those whom one would expect to be fearless in exposing them. A recent case in Ireland of a JW woman requiring a blood transfusion after huge blood loss from giving birth to her (healthy) baby boy is a case in point. This woman sued the hospital for saving her life (and so preventing her son from growing up motherless) - nothing new here - but what struck me as being perverse in the extreme was the way in which the media ubiquitously reported on the case with not the slightest sign of outrage, of anger or of censure of this woman's mad ideas.

No. No more tolerance, no more sucking it up, and plenty more pre-emptive 'fucktards' before they begin to spout their genuinely sickeningly perverse shit.

Having just finished off McGrath's 'Dawkins Delusion', I am especially sensitive to the whole idea of seemingly 'respectable' and 'polite' theists really showing their true, vicious and unpleasant colours. Between meanspirited and downright offensive criticisms of Dawkins - and so badly written too - McGrath has absolutely nothing more to say (a point your review made extremely well) beyond the most hysterical and desperate appeals to cling to the horrible ideas at the core of his far from harmless faith. Quite how the shameful goon managed to persuade Oxford to grant him a Professorship utterly defies me.

But here - I will repeat I may have been premature, if not so much in the condemnation of yet another mad theist with truly warped ideas, then in not allowing more patient folk here to deal final rational blows to the mad and typically shitty ideas being put forward as absolute fact as usual.

Best,
Styrer

208. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169840 by Styrer- on April 27, 2008 at 12:12 am

Checking in to see if that cunt Robertson has answered my question yet?

Nope? Didn't think so.

Here I go for the non-reading Bollokertson.

David Robertson - your last stint on this site, with your poorly-lettered address to Dawkins, showed you as a desperate, petty-minded, ignorant, untrustworthy, sad and inconsequential man.

Your sad, undemocratic and nigh-on incompetently-run 'site', on my visiting it, seems to cling to even more negative adjectives than I have been able to bring to your faith-drenched and irrational door above.

Should you ever pop your duplicitous little head into this site, under any of the very many sneaky little names you have created for yourself, I shall hound you for an answer to my many-times repeated question of you.

Your long-wished for absence from this site will prove either an ignominious admission of defeat in the face of the very many more intelligent people here than yourself; or a tacit expression of your cowardly, distasteful and most unpleasant admission that you have been speaking unbelievable bollocks all the while that you've been soiling your pants in our presence here.

Over to you, my dear chap, to choose as you wish.

Styrer

209. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169831 by Styrer- on April 26, 2008 at 11:04 pm

melissajoy1234

New tack, Mel.

Provide evidence without quoting your pathetic bible fairytale that your particular god exists.

Do so, and earn respect.

Do not, and fuck off, you absolute shame and horror of humanity.

While you continue to fuck off with alacrity, pick up a fucking book to educate yourself, you ignorant shit. 'The Blind Watchmaker' would be a fucking good start to your learning something, and thereby discovering that your wanking sadness here has been wholly inappropriate, offensive, unproductive and a total waste of your and our fucking time.

Styrer

210. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169822 by Styrer- on April 26, 2008 at 10:41 pm

Comment #169796 by melissajoy1234 on April 26, 2008 at 8:35 pm

Why the bloody hell, melissajoy1234, are your and nearly all of your fellow faithheads' contributions on this site so fucking long?

Do you really need so many fucking words to make your point?

Do you really have to drag all of us through the fucking dictionary once again for you to even approximate an idea that you may feel is worth imparting to us ignorant gobshite immoral atheists?

Or is the sheer loquacity of your outpourings not simply a stab up our ass to remember that you fuckers never have any new argument to present to us which we can delight in taking apart?

Do answer. Concisely.

Styrer

211. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169813 by Styrer- on April 26, 2008 at 10:19 pm

Comment #169799 by Cartomancer on April 26, 2008 at 8:46 pm

Superb, sir, as is your wont.

But I must own to a probably illogical concern about the comings-on of your D.Phil in the face of your ongoing and devastating denunciations of the pitiful theists on this site, for I don't really know you but for this medium.

Trusting your mind is capacious enough to give mind to both, may I ask if your doctorate thesis is in any way taking in notions of atheism as to be evident in your final piece? Or will your final D.Phil success indicate no such atheistic ideas as you hold?

Let me know if you would.

Best,
Styrer

212. Interview with Dan Dennett

Comment #169803 by Styrer- on April 26, 2008 at 9:19 pm

One of the more worthy pieces offered by Josh and team for our collective interest.

I must rid myself of one bugbear by saying it is the absence of Cristina Howells in this debate, my tutor in French at Wadham, Oxford years ago, now Professor of French at the university, whose speciality remains Sartre, which struck me as most requiring a stiff drink and a good pinch of salt on listening to the rather dubious ideas proffered by Jones, 'Sartrerian expert' of the day chosen to speak here.

Dan did well, despite the apparently confused requirement to link him to Sartrerian ideas; but I would urge him to henceforth write as clearly as he spoke here. I will not, though, hold my breath.

As for the whole tenor of the conversation, it was a real pleasure for me to note that, in terms of the religious content, there was absolutely fuck all that Dawkins has not touched on himself, and clarified infinitely better than this shower tried to do.

Best,
Styrer

213. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166280 by Styrer- on April 23, 2008 at 4:51 am

Comment #166265 by phatbat on April 23, 2008 at 4:22 am

If a student stands up in a class and tells the science teacher he has got something wrong and then proceeds to demonstrate his lack of education on the matter, then he has displayed a level of arrogance that should be called out by the teacher and anyone else that feels like chipping in. We shouldn't be encouraging this kind of talk, as it seems you want to do Styrer.

No, Phatbat, that was not what I was talking about. My own student example was provided to show that this was precisely not the issue.

Best,
Styrer

214. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #166258 by Styrer- on April 23, 2008 at 4:09 am

Comment #166255 by jaytee_555 on April 23, 2008 at 3:52 am

"In reality, both religion and science are expressions of man's uncertainty".

This is absolutely true. One of the two does its best to enlighten man's uncertainty, and has been spectacularly successful. The other one actively perpetuates ignorance by dreaming up absurd explanations which are accepted only by fools.

Is there any 'uncertainty' about which is which?

Not sure about that. Will get back to you (maybe).

Best,
Styrer

215. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166252 by Styrer- on April 23, 2008 at 3:47 am

Comment #166239 by Steve Zara on April 23, 2008 at 3:19 am

Thank you very much for your clarification, Steve.

Now, can we start bashing some fucking theists, for Christ's sake?

Best,
Styrer

216. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166232 by Styrer- on April 23, 2008 at 2:57 am

Comment #166218 by Steve Zara on April 23, 2008 at 2:34 am

We desperately need to educate people about science.

If I may respond to your post to Bonzai - you make sound points, Steve, about the knowledge required by those who hold our civilisation in their technological hands.

But was this ever the issue? Nope. Goal-post changing, Steve, does not become you.

The issue was education and the ability of those without the huge acumen that you have garnered along your way to think about and express - in public, if they wish, despite your desired delimitation - their own ideas of the origin of the universe.

Styrer

ps. ft77 - fuck off, you obnoxious cunting troll.

217. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166210 by Styrer- on April 23, 2008 at 2:20 am

Comment #166189 by Tagred on April 23, 2008 at 1:36 am

Sorry, just my laymans rant

Do not dare apologise. Your words rather moved me. Especially:

We have our elites, and that's perfectly acceptable, but everyone should be allowed to speculate, even if they know very little, after all isnt that the whole point of science? Dont scientists always begin by asking the most basic questions when embarking on a new theory or new evidence? Isn't that how scientists became scientists?

You seem more than very intelligent to at least this stupid old fucker.

Thank you for such a thoughtful post.

Best,
Styrer

218. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #166199 by Styrer- on April 23, 2008 at 1:55 am

I know Dennett only from 'Breaking the Spell', which I found a long-winded and unengaging read, and the same qualities of writing are more or less evident here. Glad to see that he's at least stopped sucking up to Muslims with talk of their 'great faith', but he's no match for a Dawk or a Hitch, in person or in print.

Gobshite Winston might as well be McGrath for all his metaphorical reliance on dubious textual readings to pose as the reality of his chosen cult.

Hands-down winner is, of course, Dennett, not for reasons of felicity of language or of idea, but because...well, against Gobshite, he couldn't really lose, could he?

Unimpressive.

Best,
Styrer

219. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166152 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 9:34 pm

Comment #166144 by ft77 on April 22, 2008 at 8:18 pm

When did you turn into a troll Styrer?
I seem to remember you as a sincere poster at one point.

Troll? The only reason I can see your terming me such is that I have disagreed with Steve Zara.

Is that it? If not, let me know. I note that you yourself have added fuck all in the last few months, you little piss-ant, and so I challenge you to disagree with my assertion that any trolling does not rather belong to your own sorry ass.

On the basis that it is my encounter with Steve that has so inflamed your righteous trolling antennae, let me remind you that the great Zara has offered in this thread:

- an initial statement of dismissal for those who would dare offer ideas on the origins of the universe without being suitably academically qualified in both cosmology and physics

- a response on being termed unfair and arrogant of 'I don't much care about seeming elitist'

- a twisting denial that he ever meant any of the above

- a swift departure

It is precisely self-inflating, elitist scientists such as Zara who are, every single day, inflicting enormous damage on the work that the likes of Dawkins are trying to achieve in making science, and the scientific method, more accessible and more engaging to ordinary people everywhere.

You may wish to note that a major ambition of this site and of many of its pissed-off-with-religion members is to present a rational idea of how to live, encouraged by the idea that science is a pretty good guide by which to do so. If Zara's despicably elitest and dismissive comments about science's range of impact are to be taken seriously (and I see no reason why I should not take everything Zara offers here seriously) then I cannot see any further point in Dawkins writing another sodding book.

Elitest scientists like Zara bring science, in my opinion, into sad and lonely mists, accessing no-one other than their own little egos and their fellow ego-driven scientist pals; real scientists like Dawkins offer light to those countless unscientific people out there who, when the day is done with all its crap, still want to know.

Got it?

Post something worthwhile yourself, you little fucker, before I troll you.

Styrer

220. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166101 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 6:36 pm

Comment #166078 by Double Bass Atheist on April 22, 2008 at 6:02 pm

Comment #165983 by Steve Zara

If people feel excluded, the answer is to get educated and to ask questions. Someone untrained would not seriously try and tell a pilot how to fly, or a surgeon how to operate. They feel no injustice about being excluded from those areas, yet somehow everyone is entitled to push their opinions on cosmology and biology.

Brilliant Steve!

Before you do yourself an injury in your ecstatic approbation of Steve's unashamed endorsement of elitism in the discussion of things scientific, do recall that the great Richard Feynman offered the same notion of elitism as Steve has done here. One qualification - Feynman said that it is impossible to reach a high level in understanding of what this world and universe are really about without understanding, to a very high degree, mathematics. He went on to clarify that only a mathematical understanding could possibly give an idea of what this universe is really about. He did, though, give a delightfully cheeky nod to the ideas of love and sex.

I wonder what Steve (biologist extraordinaire) would have to say about this apparently elitist concept?

I hope Steve's maths is up to par to agree with a posthumous Feynman to be able to maintain his dubious view of who should and should not indulge in 'speculation about the origin of the universe. '

By Feynman's reckoning, Steve must preclude himself from further scientific debate over the nature and origins of this universe. Perhaps Dawkins too, while we're at it.

Best,
Styrer

221. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166081 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 6:05 pm

Quite apart from the fact that Remnant's squeaky protestations here could include intevention from the 10,000 other gods we've managed to find for ourselves at one point or another over time - has that cunt Robertson answered my metaphor question yet?

I'll expect no replies.

Best,
Styrer

222. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166060 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 5:35 pm

Comment #166049 by Steve Zara on April 22, 2008 at 5:26 pm

And so the mask of courtesy falls.

Eloquently rebutted.

Steve, remind me to throw blockquotes so courteously at you next time we're having a non-elitest, science-for-all love-in of a discussion.

I suspect I can be even more courteous than you have been here.

Styrer

223. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166045 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 5:22 pm

Comment #166029 by Steve Zara on April 22, 2008 at 5:12 pm

But the notion you insist on clinging to is a positive denial to those who do not understand the intricate mechanisms, by which maths, physics, biology etc. earn their findings, to even 'speculate' on the way this world and universe have come about.


I don't know why you are writing this when I clearly stated this was not what I was saying.

This is what you said in post 5 at the start of this thread and it is what you have been defending thoughout.

Your qualifications in post 21 and post 25 gave more emphasis to the 'I don't care seeming elitist' idea for which I have been trying to take you to task.

Is this not correct?

Best,
Styrer

224. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166018 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 5:04 pm

Comment #165983 by Steve Zara on April 22, 2008 at 4:34 pm

Well argued. But nope.

I am not asking you to 'frame' science a la PZ so as to 'discourage' or 'not to offend'.

But the notion you insist on clinging to is a positive denial to those who do not understand the intricate mechanisms, by which maths, physics, biology etc. earn their findings, to even 'speculate' on the way this world and universe have come about.

This is not the same as one of my students saying to me 'I think the third conditional of modal verbs belongs to an idea harking back to the all but dead English subjunctive'; it is precisely the same as her statement: 'the English language was once the same as Italian, not German'. Teeth and evidence out. And so education begins to take place.

Your stance, Steve, provides not only no answer, but a retardation in the questioner's education, and an unnecessary extension of the distance between the public and its understanding, and fondness, of science.

Unhelpful and unproductive, at best, I suggest. Elitest and disenfranchising at worst.

Best,
Styrer

225. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #165974 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 4:28 pm

Comment #165957 by Steve Zara on April 22, 2008 at 4:12 pm

I am still not quite sure.

Part of the problem seems to me to be people willing enough to proffer ideas - or 'any kind of argument in public' based on those ideas - which have inevitably been formed precisely because they think themselves excluded from participating in the cosmological and physics-based discourse which could stop their inane rantings.

As such, your elitist injunction that those without sufficient qualification be silent in this matter is a single and real manifestation of a perennial problem in the public education of science.

Best,
Styrer

226. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #165945 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 4:01 pm

Comment #165913 by Steve Zara on April 22, 2008 at 3:14 pm

I do wish people would leave speculation about the origin of the universe to those who have an understanding of cosmology and physics. "Folk wisdom" is totally inappropriate here.

May I say that I think this is spectacularly unfair and arrogant. Even small children are fascinated by 'what's up there?' and 'where do we come from?' We all are, I think, similarly fascinated, regardless of our expertise in cosmology and physics.

To ask for such speculation to remain the sole domain of the cosmologists and of the physicists is to immediately preclude their findings access - a la Dawkins Professorship of the Public Understanding of Science - to those who want to know but who know next to nothing about the mechanisms which discovered such findings.

Best,
Styrer

227. If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?

Comment #165926 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 3:39 pm

And now there are enough posts for me to say it.

After reading so many disparate posts, I would not want to spend one fucking minute in a semi-confined space, named 'church' or not, with the damn contrarian lot of you.

Take this as a compliment, folks.

Please return the compliment. You beautifully independent fuckers.

Best,
Styrer

228. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #165919 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 3:22 pm

Josh, I sometimes think that you toss out these utterly puerile, shit-filled pieces of nonsense masquerading as 'thought' in order to drag us away from a thread(s) where our teeth are getting rather too used to the ample amounts of fresh meat available here recently.

If so, for shame, sir. But I'll play along.

Richard, the above comments are entirely your doing and you must answer for them.

That you could ever have had the temerity, the audacity, the sheer brass balls to submit religion to the very same criticism that is applied to football, haute cuisine, fine art and politics says far more about you than it does about religion.

While you may be successfully 'raising consciousness' to entirely new and unexpected levels, I trust that you will take full responsibility for your utterings and be prepared to, er, well - say it all again as soon as you can.

Best,
Styrer

229. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165856 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 1:19 pm

Comment #165854 by Steve Zara on April 22, 2008 at 1:14 pm

Oh, I see, Steve. Thanks for clarifying.

Be assured I will not make the same mistake with you.

Styrer

230. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165848 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 1:10 pm

Comment #165835 by Steve Zara on April 22, 2008 at 12:53 pm

Oh, without doubt. Kudos to Kardo for that, at least.

But you would likewise surely not wish to prohibit another member here from stating that more kudos should be given to you, when your performance has proven both more robust and respectable than your antagonist's.

If I am wrong to have offered my support to you here, do let me know.

Best,
Styrer

231. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165828 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 12:36 pm

Comment #165805 by Steve Zara on April 22, 2008 at 11:40 am

For those as ignorant of science as I am, and who have perhaps not tried as hard as I have to follow the debate between Steve and Kardo, please do know that Steve's potted re-cap here is extremely accurate.

Lest it go unsaid - I also have to say that Steve has shown far more class, courtesy and intellectual honesty throughout this little entanglement than Kardo has been able to do, despite his efforts.

Kardo - I know that your arse being handed to you repeatedly (the mind boggles, in terms of arse-size) by Steve must be irksome, and I know that Steve can seem a real fucking know-it-all.

The trouble is, my dear Kardo, that Steve does, for all intents and for nearly all purposes, and to at least this member's admiration, indeed know it all.

Careful how you proceed, fella.

Best,
Styrer

232. If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?

Comment #165812 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 12:01 pm

Comment #165803 by qomak on April 22, 2008 at 11:28 am

I do not understand what is so hard to grasp here.

Atheism = without theism. No belief in gods.

From there, you may wish to postulate something more affirmative e.g. dis-belief in gods. The weight of evidence would be on your side. Go further still, if you wish, keeping to the idea of gods, and proclaim that you despise the whole idea of celestial dictatorships - call yourself an anti-theist.

But as for further beliefs, values and principles not involving the existence or not of deities - totally up to you, but they are no more tied to atheism etc. than they are tied to your being a sinistralist, a Tory or a one-balled lily-preferring daffodil-hating gardener called Jim.

Best,
Styrer

233. If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?

Comment #165795 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 10:50 am

Comment #165763 by irate_atheist on April 22, 2008 at 8:59 am

You're fortunate, Irate. Haven't even seen the badger's arse, though its snout is about 2/3rds into view.

Bigger servers needed, not bigger fucking churches.

Best,
Styrer

234. If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?

Comment #165745 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 8:06 am

The New York Magazine must really be going downhill to accept and print such a long-winded, non-article whose infantile question is 'do atheists need churches?'

Can't even utter the words 'good effort' for trying to create some dubious interest by indicating, verbosely of course, that - SHOCK, HORROR! - atheists don't always agree.

Puerile guff, payment for which should be withheld.

(Granting an undeserved nod to the question, I answer 'nope'.)

Best,
Styrer

235. Flea of the week

Comment #163828 by Styrer- on April 19, 2008 at 6:01 am

Comment #163763 by Paula Kirby on April 19, 2008 at 2:14 am

If you make me groan again like that, I'll troll your sorry behind.
Er, I think what Styrer meant was "Welcome to RD.net, ilchymis" ! :-)

Welcomes come in all shapes and sizes!

But a welcome for a pun like that? Go on, then - hello, ilchymis (I did enjoy it, actually, and if it was unintentional, all the more so!)

Enjoy the site!

Best,
Styrer

236. Flea of the week

Comment #163752 by Styrer- on April 19, 2008 at 1:27 am

Comment #163751 by ilchymis on April 19, 2008 at 1:21 am

I'd been scratching my head about that term

If you make me groan again like that, I'll troll your sorry behind.

Best,
Styrer

237. Flea of the week

Comment #163743 by Styrer- on April 19, 2008 at 12:31 am

Comment #163708 by Mr. Grape on April 18, 2008 at 8:37 pm

The market for these book are spread very thin. The profit spread across 25 books must suck.

Ah, my chance! Thank you! Couldn't easily get this in.

Well, it was a real disappointment for me when I visited Dublin's top bookshops during the week in hot pursuit of David Robertson's book, unable to find it anywhere at all. I was feeling masochistic, but my needs were not to be met. They were not sold out, in case there is any doubt.

The best moment was in a smaller bookshop where, on my detailing Robertson's book, nowhere to be seen on any shelf, I was told 'No, sorry, but we have The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, if you are interested.'

I withdrew without purchase, but with more than a touch of a smile on my face.

Best,
Styrer

238. I'm gonna be a MOVIE STAR

Comment #163734 by Styrer- on April 18, 2008 at 11:34 pm

Comment #163726 by Radesq on April 18, 2008 at 10:10 pm

You may have retracted the claws for the moment, but it won't last.
Best,
Radesq

Oh, it had better be fucking believed.

I am sick and I am tired, and have been for a while, of arseholes.

But our new member above has at least been given a chance.

Best,
Styrer

239. The Child Preachers

Comment #163732 by Styrer- on April 18, 2008 at 10:57 pm

Comment #163727 by Santi Tafarella on April 18, 2008 at 10:13 pm

Well, I thank you for finally supplying a reply.

I think you underestimate, in your view of things, the power the state already has to keep you from doing others harm, especially children. I think you also underestimate the enormous psychological damage that can result from pernicious doctrines being imposed on children, affecting the rest of their lives. I think you are entirely wrong to posit that they are 'more resilient than we tend to give them credit for'. They are not, and you have no right to grant them a strength which you wish them to have but which is entirely hope-based on your part.

You are completely underestimating the damage that 'faith', inculcated into children as something desirable, can have in deforming the rest of their lives. Your bizarre last post, citing all of the advantages you can see in being a 'child preacher', might as well have presented a list of orthopaedic and 'getting to know yourself' advantages happily resulting from being stretched, gradually and alone, on the fucking rack.

I urge you to think on, rapidly, before you completely marginalise yourself here.

Styrer

240. The Child Preachers

Comment #163720 by Styrer- on April 18, 2008 at 9:41 pm

Comment #163714 by Santi Tafarella on April 18, 2008 at 9:09 pm

Santi

No confirmation that you understand the difference, then, despite the kind request to reply one way or the other?

Never mind.

As for your latest post:

Bizarre.

Thank you for playing.

(You may wish to re-think 'oral speech' as a human faculty, for future references.)

Best,
Styrer

241. I'm gonna be a MOVIE STAR

Comment #163713 by Styrer- on April 18, 2008 at 9:00 pm

And hello to you, Wiley.

Would you please properly explain the difference between creationism and Intelligent Design?

I know you tried, by insisting that 'ID does not use a holy book or any religious writings to base their science on. They [sic] just claim that evolution can not adequately explain all aspects of life', but I am afraid this won't quite do.

You haven't said who or what is the Intelligent Designer behind Intelligent Design. Would you care to elaborate?

I must say that your first venture onto this site seems a trifle brusque. Would you not rather try some courtesy, together with some probingly incisive questions, to make your real mark here?

Well, never mind. It is entirely your choice. Should you find a substantive question in all of your apparent indignation, then you will find many people here ready to help you. Should you decide to stick, rather, with your sullen, pouting stance, then I fear that you will not benefit from being here beyond learning some fantastically colourful expletives.

In which latter case, I shall be more than willing to assist.

Go on, sit down, have a cup of tea and have a think about which option you would like to choose.

Don't mess it up, now, ok?

Styrer

242. Gods and earthlings

Comment #163709 by Styrer- on April 18, 2008 at 8:40 pm

Comment #163705 by Frankus1122 on April 18, 2008 at 8:20 pm

I really want to know by what path could I come to believe the same thing, because right now I cannot understand it at all.

Unless you're just about to do a Richard Morgan on us, I feel safe to say there is no such path.

For either of us!

Crack on.

Best,
Styrer

243. The Child Preachers

Comment #163704 by Styrer- on April 18, 2008 at 8:18 pm

Comment #163688 by Russell Blackford on April 18, 2008 at 7:22 pm

Russell

While I see your point, the US Child Protective Services body does have some legal recourse when it comes to 'psychological abuse' of children, though its range is limited (state-wise).

To include religion-invoked child abuse under its 'psychological abuse' remit may be a leap for such a body to make legally, but such leaps are the stuff of precedents.

We should, as you say, continue to condemn as much as possible as individual citizens, but I think the law may provide for rather more than you assume, if the issue were pushed by sufficiently adventurous counsel, prepared to argue that the establishment clause is in no way at odds with protecting children from religiously-invoked 'psychological abuse'.

The floodgates could, as they should, open.

Best,
Styrer

244. Gods and earthlings

Comment #163692 by Styrer- on April 18, 2008 at 7:35 pm

Comment #163691 by Frankus1122 on April 18, 2008 at 7:25 pm

But I do want you to understand that this is what your position can be boiled down to. When I wrote it, it was with a mocking intention.

I would be quite interested in seeing how this boiled-down position looks when written without a mocking tone.

Best,
Styrer

245. The Child Preachers

Comment #163685 by Styrer- on April 18, 2008 at 7:13 pm

Comment #163679 by Karlsson on April 18, 2008 at 6:58 pm

He was metaphorically 30, you goon.

Fuck's sake.

Best,
Styrer

246. The Child Preachers

Comment #163669 by Styrer- on April 18, 2008 at 6:36 pm

Comment #163661 by Santi Tafarella on April 18, 2008 at 6:15 pm

Styrer,

I am at a computer without a speaker, so I cannot (at this moment) hear the audio. I'll listen later tonight. But while I'm waiting, what rights do you think parents should have? What constitutes indoctrination, in your view? Can parents teach their children about hell--or is that abuse?

I think teaching a child about hell is abusive, but I wouldn't take children from parents who teach their children about hell--or threaten them with hell.

Would you?

Also, I may be jumping the gun on the audio before I've heard it, but I surmise that there are some parents turning their eight year olds into little fire-breathing preachers. Is that the gist? And if so, would you also prevent parents from putting their little girls in beauty contests ala "Little Miss Sunshine?"

Santi


Please confirm to me that you understand the huge difference between teaching a child about the concept of hell - which is not abuse - and teaching same child that s/he will suffer eternal agony in hell if certain codes are not followed, which certainly is.

The former is education, the latter indoctrination, and abuse.

Have a listen, when you can, to this piece and then decide for yourself.

Best,
Styrer

247. The Child Preachers

Comment #163638 by Styrer- on April 18, 2008 at 5:04 pm

Richard's repeated condemnation of the religious indoctrination of children as child abuse is sometimes itself condemned as being too strong, too intolerant and too strident. I defy any thinking human to listen to this piece and not conclude that Richard can never go too far in his condemnation of the absolute cunts claiming to be parents who are destroying their children's lives in this way.

When will the fucking law step in, in cases like this, and take the children into care?

As for 'Bob Pull' (?) - on what possible ground can this faithhead really stake his claim that this kind of child abuse is wrong? Can he not see that he, as much as he may care for a child preacher's safety on the streets, is, like every other lily-livered, moderately pious faithnut, precisely part of the fucking problem from the outset?

And I certainly wonder what kind of 'devout atheist' the here-in mother must have been to hear the media-encouraged utterings about 'god' of her 4-year old daughter and to then stomp around hill and dale, from religion to religion, before being 'born again' as an atheist.

With parents like this, the poor little fuckers never stood a chance anyway.

This despicable shit cannot be permitted to continue.

Styrer

248. Gods and earthlings

Comment #163622 by Styrer- on April 18, 2008 at 4:20 pm

Extremely well done, Richard.

A nutshell for the nutcases.

You missed a trick, though, by not mentioning the name of the 'movie scheduled to open this week'.

Name it and shame it. The more viewers it has, the more impact the ensuing global denunciation of it by rationalists everywhere will have.

I trust you will be leading from the front.

Best,
Styrer

249. Flea of the week

Comment #163602 by Styrer- on April 18, 2008 at 3:43 pm

Paula: I had to come up for air between them, and read (or re-read, in some cases) Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Dan Dennett and Christopher Hitchens - and the difference in atmosphere in these books was absolutely staggering: the sheer relief of finding a genuine spirit of truth-seeking, of realism, of humanity, of generosity combined with realism, of sheer, downright intelligence and reason.

Diacanu: Go ahead and try that one, fuckers.

Not sure about the rest of you, but I would simply love to see a collaborative flea-biting effort by both of these worthy members.

Perhaps Hawaii would prove conducive for both of them to formulate a plan of attack...

What a joy the resultant book would be to read.:)

Best,
Styrer

250. Victims: Pope Benedict Protects Accused Pedophile Bishops

Comment #163564 by Styrer- on April 18, 2008 at 2:21 pm

Comment #163469 by MPhil on April 18, 2008 at 11:45 am

MPhil

Seriously, no offence whatsoever taken personally.

Surprised you thought there was - I was rather enjoying it, actually. Ah well.

I know you stick to your interpretation, and I hope you're right. But the Catholic Church and its ethos have for so long been indoctrinating its high priest followers with pernicious, skewed bullshit that I doubt both their motives and the attachment they claim to hold with current standards of morality.

I remain surprised that you grant them, if not a 'free' pass, then at least an 'inexpensive' one!

Thanks for the replies, in any case.



MrTicketyBoo

A vital part of the rational process you claim is lacking here is checking your facts. I invite you to do so here and in future.

Since 2001, arrests have been made, guilt assigned, jail sentences handed down, and over 2 billion dollars paid out by the Catholic Church in 'reparations' for the pain and suffering caused to the molested involved.

Do check your facts before you spout.

Styrer