Comments by epeeist

Comment #84105 by epeeist on November 1, 2007 at 7:14 am

A quotation from "Informal Logic" by Douglas Walton.

'One context of dialogue is the personal quarrel, characterized by aggressive personal attack, heightened appeal to emotions, and a desire to win the argument at all costs. The quarrel is characterized by bitter recriminations, a loss of balanced perspective, and, afterwards, most often a regret for excessive personal attacks that were not meant or deserved. The personal quarrel is no friend to logic and represents argument at its worst. The goal of the quarrel is for each arguer to attack or "hit" his opponent at all costs, using any means, whether reasonable, fair or not.'

2752. AAI 07

Comment #84049 by epeeist on November 1, 2007 at 4:33 am

Comment #84048 by scooternyc

333. Comment #83746 by Comets

Hey - how come you respond to Comets but not to me? See comment #82915

2753. Jury Awards Father $11M in Funeral Case

Comment #84018 by epeeist on November 1, 2007 at 2:52 am

Comment #84015 by Tim Marsh

But epeeist, surely you're not suggesting that an amount of distress has been measured (somehow) that is worth something in the area of 11 million dollars?

Personally I wouldn't, but there again I don't live in a country that is (quite) as litigious as the States.

And I also agree with you about measurement of distress and the difference between physical and emotional abuse (but not the word fascism) and the slippery slope this could go down.

All the same, I do think this family have suffered rather more than the woman who sued McDonald's for not telling her that the coffee she bought was hot.

2754. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #84011 by epeeist on November 1, 2007 at 2:18 am

Comment #83984 by Dianelos Georgoudis

So I take it you judge Paul's study to be scientifically valid. Fine. I on the contrary judge it to be nothing more than a glorified version of the harebrained "look at how good people in atheist Sweden are" which apart from being selective evidence also grossly overlooks the various factors that apart from ontological beliefs also affect human behavior.

Wow, this must be a first. I produce a long (nearly 1500 words) response to a DG post including what I thought was a reasonable if short analysis of the Brooks and Paul paper and I get a 100 word dismissive response back.

It is almost as though we had switched roles.

2755. Jury Awards Father $11M in Funeral Case

Comment #84010 by epeeist on November 1, 2007 at 2:10 am

Comment #84008 by Robert Maynard

Right, except they were protesting in a public space, outside the cemetery. So ..we're supposed to remove them from the public space? What's your next move, Mussolini? :P

This is a fairly tricky one to get right. To some extent I think this court case might be the closest.

By all means allow the freedom of speech but "the freedom to swing your fist stops at my nose", if this causes measurable distress then you pay for the distress you caused.

2756. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #84003 by epeeist on November 1, 2007 at 1:42 am

Comment #83996 by Dianelos Georgoudis

You are conflating phenomenal reality and objective reality. The distinction should be clear to anyone who knows the first thing about ontology.

I wandered into Manchester over the weekend. Bought myself Bach's "The Art of Fugue", then went into Blackwell's to pick up the copy of "Philosophy of Logics" that I had ordered. I also bought Alasdair Macintyre's "After Virtue" and just for fun Nigel Warburton's "Thinking from A to Z".

The latter is a splendid little book just to browse through. Lots of things to amuse, for instance he defines the word "Humptydumptying", something that I hadn't come across before but strikes an immediate chord.

2757. AAI 07

Comment #83876 by epeeist on October 31, 2007 at 2:06 pm

Comment #83852 by notsobad

Ironically, the posted examples of Enron and Bhopal were supposed to be arguments against capitalism while, in fact, they are pro capitalism.
Both companies and their management cheated and didn't respect others' freedom and rights, which destroyed them and they didn't get away with it. If anything, that's a signal for everybody else to follow the rules.

I couldn't give a flying fuck that the companies were destroyed.

What I do care about is the fact that the Bhopal disaster killed up to 20,000 people and that this was mainly due to the way Union Carbide operated its business.

In a similar way I am concerned at the number of people killed in industrial accidents in China, many of which are caused by a mixture of lack of concern for health and safety and a pursuance of profit to the detriment of everything else.

You have derided theists in these posts - you might like to have a look at a poem by one theist, John Donne, you may know one line of it "No man is an island entire of itself."

2758. AAI 07

Comment #83832 by epeeist on October 31, 2007 at 12:32 pm

Comment #83819 by notsobad

Weak comparison, epeeist. Capitalism does not advocate anarchism.

I'm not sure which post of mine that you are referring to, could you put some context in future posts.

This isn't like defending your virginity you know, you can admit that perhaps a bit more spending here, a bit more regulation there might be useful. You can admit that just occasionally that capitalism doesn't work quite as well as it could do. Nobody will think the less of you.

You have obviously picked up the point that I am, shall we say, a bit more left wing than you. Now I am quite happy to admit that I don't think the welfare system in the UK is working as well as it should. It needs some rebalancing to make people take some more personal responsibility. Looking back it would seem to me to that there are a whole stack of factors that have led to this, including a poor state education system and a welfare system that doesn't give people sufficient incentive to look for work.

But it also includes employers who won't spend money on training, over concentration on a particular industry sector (financial services) to the detriment of anything else, a completely risk averse private sector, venture capitalism that insists on a return on capital within 12-18 months.

2759. AAI 07

Comment #83815 by epeeist on October 31, 2007 at 11:35 am

Comment #83807 by notsobad

epeeist,
that's not capitalism; that's a criminal act.

That's not my ~~god~~ capitalism that you are talking about.

2760. AAI 07

Comment #83799 by epeeist on October 31, 2007 at 10:15 am

Comment #83778 by notsobad

That's not a rational capitalist act. Capitalism does not exist without respect for human and property rights.

Oh bollocks - just look at Bhopal for a view of what companies will do if they can get away with it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster).

Look at companies like Microsoft and the tactics they have used to simply crush their competitors.

Capitalism is at best amoral.

Adam Smith recognised that when one of first things that will happen when two business men get together is they will try to rig the market.

2761. AAI 07

Comment #83789 by epeeist on October 31, 2007 at 9:40 am

Comment #83786 by notsobad

And if the "Shareholders are a fairly weak group and very narrowly focused" (hasty generalization there already) it's up to them, since it's their property.

It might have been better if Brian had said "individual shareholders". For most large companies this is true since the major shareholdings tend to be held by the likes of insurance companies.

And personally, though I work for a company by no means am I the property of that company.

2762. Pope's 'morning after pill' speech criticized

Comment #83757 by epeeist on October 31, 2007 at 6:32 am

Comment #83756 by BillySands

Are any of the regular nutters on any threads at the moment?

Well Dianelos is about at the moment, there doesn't seem to be a thread without him to decrying atheist morals.

Err sorry, that should be lack of morals.

2763. Pope's 'morning after pill' speech criticized

Comment #83744 by epeeist on October 31, 2007 at 5:57 am

Comment #83734 by irate_atheist

27. Comment #83728 by Matt7895 -

The Pope can go to hell.

Whether we're right, or he's right, technically he can't.

Not according to Dante, if you read the "Inferno" you will find Nicholas III down in circle 8 of hell.

2764. Lessons in hate found at leading mosques

Comment #83743 by epeeist on October 31, 2007 at 5:46 am

Comment #83740 by stevencarrwork

Do you hear Muslims complaining about the books openly on sale in Britain which claim that Muhammad had sex with a 9 year old girl, or that Muhammad ordered the assassination of opponents?

Certainly what I found when working in Bradford here in the UK was that it was the Asian newsagents that sold the least salubrious of the top shelf magazines (not that I bought any you understand).

2765. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #83737 by epeeist on October 31, 2007 at 4:55 am

Comment #83729 by Dianelos Georgoudis

Misrepresenting other people to such a degree does not speak well of your intellectual honesty Epeeist. I anybody wants to know what I have said about ancient peoples' beliefs being as valid as mine, as well as that I do believe there is an objective reality, read comment #83524 I posted to Epeeist only yesterday.

But I thought you believed that reality flows from god who is a person. As far as I understand that makes reality subjective.

As for the ancient peoples beliefs I leave it to everyone else to view the post you reference and make up their own mind.

2766. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #83720 by epeeist on October 31, 2007 at 3:35 am

Comment #83714 by steve99

We have had enough of this nonsense on other threads. Sorry Dianelos, but if you are going to simply keep switching threads and posting rubbish like this which has been clearly contradicted in past posts again and again over months, you are going to end up flagged as a troll.

Agreed - the only differences I can see between DG and the likes of devolved is that he is obviously better educated and that he doesn't do the standard creationist cut and run trick.

Instead he posts the same points as he started with in the Dawkins/McGrath thread many months ago.

And for all of you who haven't seen DG before - he is an idealist theist who believes that the mythos of the Norse gods, the matriarchal triune goddess and the Celtic Cernunnos is as valid as his belief in Jesus, that there is an objective morality that derives from theism but that there is no objective reality.

2767. AAI 07

Comment #83547 by epeeist on October 30, 2007 at 11:32 am

Comment #83540 by notsobad

Free trade is what the EU (and preceding organizations) were primarily about from the beginning.

Agreed, but don't confuse free trade and free markets.

The markets in the EU are well regulated and have a social aspect to them, e.g. maximum working hours.

2768. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #83535 by epeeist on October 30, 2007 at 10:40 am

Comment #83524 by Dianelos Georgoudis

But, anyway, yes: I consider everybody's beliefs as "valid" as my own as far as personal beliefs go, for everyone tries to do the best they can to understand the world.

Come all you Wiccans, followers of the Aesir, believers in Cernunnos and hear.

DG believes your beliefs are as valid as his (which of course they are).

2769. Why do we ignore the plight of ex-Muslims?

Comment #83452 by epeeist on October 30, 2007 at 4:19 am

Comment #83447 by briancoughlanworldcitizen

Should such material be banned, it's possession considered a criminal offence?

Personally I wouldn't ban it, it would just go underground.

What I would do is prosecute at least the authors (assuming they actually live here in the UK) and make sure there was a lot of publicity about why the prosecution was being made.

The one thing I do agree with Fanusi about is the equivocation shown by the "moderate" organisations and their spokesman. What they spout is just a variant on the "not my god" argument. They need to be placed in a position where they cannot equivocate, where they have to come out and say that what is being said in their name is both morally wrong and illegal, i.e. that they accept that the mores and laws of the country they live in are paramount.

2770. Why do we ignore the plight of ex-Muslims?

Comment #83449 by epeeist on October 30, 2007 at 4:13 am

Comment #83443 by GoatBoy36

Wow, try downloading the full document from that Adobe link earlier on, and go down to page 31 and start reading ...

Yes - loathsome, but I don't think anybody is disputing that, nor are they disputing that something needs to be done about it.

Nor I suspect do we want to be quiet about the fact that this is simply not acceptable. Lifting up the stone and exposing the nastiness underneath to the daylight is to be encouraged.

Where Brian and I differ from Fanusi (and I assume Brian will correction me if I get his position wrong) is in the action that needs to be taken. As far as I am concerned it needs tackling at the political, diplomatic and educational levels.

The King of Saudi Arabia is visiting the UK at the moment. Personally I am not in favour of the visit, but now he is here it needs to be made clear to him that the funding of extremists by his government is unacceptable, that the funding of mosques and madrassas will not be allowed, nor will Wahabi imams be allowed into the country.

2771. Tests of faith over 'The Golden Compass'

Comment #83434 by epeeist on October 30, 2007 at 3:07 am

Comment #83428 by NefrubyrFrom the Snopes link:

Bill Donohue, president of The Catholic League, has condemned The Golden Compass as a "pernicious" effort to indoctrinate children into anti-Christian beliefs....

Bill: it's fiction.

Of course it is, err sorry what we were talking about, the film of Pullman's book or Catholicism?

2772. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #83412 by epeeist on October 30, 2007 at 1:25 am

Comment #82954 by epeeist

The god concept that interests me is not the one believed by ancient peoples, but the one that best explains the whole of my experience of life.

So you aren't dismissing the beliefs of ancient peoples, you accept that they are as valid as your own

Are you ever going to answer this?

2773. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #83411 by epeeist on October 30, 2007 at 1:22 am

Comment #83150 by Dianelos Georgoudis

OK. You like being cryptic, but as you quote this study I assume you agree with it. So let me comment on it.

Did I say I agree with it? A major supposition on your behalf.

Let's deal with me first:

I am not a statistician (though I suspect since you only seemed to discover the null hypothesis a few weeks back I probably know more statistics than you)

I used to work with the statistics department of a research company. I put together the data collection mechanisms and worked with the statisticians to analyse the data

I have worked with statisticians since, but not for some while

I had already stated this set of caveats before, you seemed to have missed them.

OK, now let us look at the Brooks paper that I referenced.

Firstly, you will note that I did not make an ad hominem attack on the author, claiming confirmational bias on his behalf because he was a Catholic, and incompetence because he took a degree in economics not statistics

To expand a little on my lack of comfort with his analysis:
- His basic idea of partitioning his respondents into religious and secular is wrong. What he is doing is dividing his respondents into church going and non-church going.
- He is pre-supposing his conclusions by doing this. Rather he ought to treat the data as a continuous spectrum, the number of church visits per month might be a good variable to use.
- As I have said (with caveats), the statisticians I knew would not have used a generalised linear model to analyse this kind of data, especially using a model that seems to mainly be used for LD50 data
- There would seem (to me at least) a whole set of variables that should be taken into account - age, income, social class, location, education, political affiliation, gender at a minimum
- Presuming he did this kind of analysis then where is the correlation matrix and the regression coefficients?
- Why does he present only simple statistics to show the confirmation of his hypothesis, where is the rest of the analysis? The lack of this analysis undermines the credibility of the report.

All the criticisms of the Gregory Paul paper could equally be applied to the Brooks paper

Now to look at you "analysis" of the Paul paper

And who is Gregory Paul? Well, he is not a social scientist as one would have expected, but a free-lance paleontologist who, as far as I could ascertain, does not even hold an academic degree. So here we have one study by a non-specialist pitted against a whole series of studies by various academic researchers. Now I know all about the appeal to authority fallacy, but clearly under the circumstances one should be a little more careful with this "scientific" study. But let's take a critical look at it on its own merits:

Complete ad hominem. This alone is sufficient as far as I am concerned to undermine anything you say from here onwards. However, we will continue.

We have been discussing the relationship between religiosity and moral behavior. Paul's study only measures homicide and suicide frequencies in "prosperous democracies". Suicide frequencies do not result in any correlation, so his whole argument rests on homicide rates. Now two issues should immediately raise our suspicion:

First of all why only use data from these few "prosperous democracies"? There are data for many more countries than that, and indeed, contrary to what he claims, pretty reliable data (both basic religiosity and homicide rates as relatively easy to measure). So why not use that information too? Because had he used it the correlation between religiosity and homicide rate he was clearly looking for would probably disappear. (Other of the many methodological errors of Paul's study are documented in this paper written by academic researchers: http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2006/2006-1.html ) Paul did not even include the various quite developed ex-Soviet countries, which, having both a relative high homicide rate and low religiosity, would be sufficient to mar his statistics. The use of selective evidence appears to be a popular tool of New Atheism and this speaks volumes about the strength of its intellectual underpinning.

He states that he used data which was considered reliable. You obviously have a better idea than he what constitutes reliable data.

He actually states that "Youth suicide is an exception to the general trend because there is not a significant relationship between it and religious or secular factors."

Secondly, why not use crime statistics (including white crime) in general instead of just homicide rates? My guess is that had he done that the correlation he was looking for would have disappeared also. After all it is a well-known fact that homicide rates correlate especially strongly with other factors, and in particular with the availability of hand-guns, whereas crime in general is more independent.

Again - it is easier to get reliable data and reliable data is easier to analyse and produces results which have better significance.

Beyond his obvious cooking of the numbers, let's discuss some basic statistical principles.

Another ad hominem, again this renders virtually anything you say worthless. But we will continue.

At the beginning of his paper he downgrades several other studies, which contradict his, by pointing out their "smaller sample sizes" whereas his sample was "800 million" adults.

Misreading by you (deliberate?). This is the population of the areas covered in his meta-analysis. In paragraph 10 for example he quotes 23,000 as a combine figure for two sets of data.

In fact factors such as availability of guns, non-availability of social safety net, non-availability of good education, poverty, and unfair distribution of wealth, are all important factors when one studies crime in general or homicide rates in particular. And Paul's star witness, the US, fails in four out of these five factors when compared to the rest of his sample (namely Western Europe and Japan). As for his secondary star witness, Portugal, it's the poorest country in Western Europe.

Well yes, so why aren't criticising the Brooks study in exactly the same way?

In other words even if a good scientific study were to show a positive correlation between religiosity and homicide (or crime in general) in various countries this would not amount to a causal link between religiosity and immoral behavior, simply because there are many other factors to take into account which probably correlate stronger and hence are better explanations. Compare Paul's results to the results I quoted in post 432 or #81155 above: that a religious family earning the same amount of money and living in the same society (and thus the strongest outside factors are eliminated from the sample) on average gives significantly more money to charity, gives more blood, and gives more time to help others, than a non-religious family.

So the Paul study might reveal correlation between religiosity and immorality, but not causality. So are you then saying that the Brooks study shows that religiosity is a causal for morality. If so, how do reconcile the two views.

The rest of Paul's study discusses issues of health (child mortality, life expectancy, STDs, teen abortions), but here, obviously, factors such as the quality and availability of medical services and of education are the main explanatory factors. And when such factors are normalized, several other studies show a positive correlation between religiosity and physical and mental health.

Let us see the analysis that allows you to come to this conclusion.

I am rather disappointed with atheists' lack of critical thought; I mean how could anyone even a little versed in statistics take this study seriously? You Epeeist like to use long words when discussing statistical issues, but it seems you were nonetheless suckered by Paul's study. Luckily, the question of whether religiosity is conducive to moral behavior (or alternatively whether non-religiosity is conducive to immoral behavior) is a plainly scientific question, which can and I think will be properly investigated until a conclusive result is reached � especially now that new atheists are making so many waves.

I am rather disappointed with your despicable set of ad hominems in this particular post and in the paragraph above in particular.

2774. AAI 07

Comment #83214 by epeeist on October 29, 2007 at 9:37 am

Comment #83211 by notsobad

Since you mentioned it, there are other socialist policy that shows how they can pretend to be humane but in fact they have the opposite effect - farm subsidies and trade barriers.

I don't agree that these are socialist policies, but yes they are bad. The CAP is one of the things that definitely needs reform.

You might care to look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy to see which other countries subsidise their agricultural industries.

2775. AAI 07

Comment #83195 by epeeist on October 29, 2007 at 8:43 am

Comment #83184 by notsobad

Also, the fact that the US is doing poorly does not excuse what the European countries are doing

Looking back through your posts I can't determine what you thing European countries are doing that is so bad. Could you elucidate?

2776. AAI 07

Comment #83172 by epeeist on October 29, 2007 at 6:39 am

Comment #83037 by notsobad

Have a look at how much the USA borrows compared to Europe and then justify that statement.

Non sequitur, two wrongs don't make a right...

If you are talking about logic then the fallacy would actually be a tu quoque. Assuming it was a fallacy that is.

What I was trying to point out was that in some respects the States is weaker economically than the EU. Backed up by today's' figures on exchange rates - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7067111.stm

2777. Why do we ignore the plight of ex-Muslims?

Comment #83170 by epeeist on October 29, 2007 at 6:33 am

Comment #83156 by Fanusi Khiyal

We have seen almost ten thousand terrorist attacks since 9/11

I have just had a poke around to see what the figures are for the USA. The best figures I can get are from the CDC. They cover the years 2001 to 2004

Deaths from terrorism - 2927
Deaths from road accidents - 179,608
Deaths caused by guns - 119,520

2778. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #83098 by epeeist on October 29, 2007 at 12:18 am

Comment #83032 by Dr Benway

My perfect cock will survive.

Along with the humour and erudition I hope.

2779. AAI 07

Comment #82962 by epeeist on October 28, 2007 at 11:14 am

Comment #82955 by USA_Limey

As a Libertarian, (a dirty word here?), I see just as much danger in the power of big government as I do in religion.

I suspect few of us would argue against that premise.

Unfortunately concentration on that particular axis of power lets others in whom you have little or no control over. There is a nice quote from G.K. Chesterton's "The Man Who was Thursday" - "The poor have occasionally objected to being governed badly, the rich have always objected to being governed at all."

There is a complex balance to be struck between personal responsibility and the pooling of that responsibility to allow things to happen that one couldn't do oneself. You could argue that in the UK we have it wrong, we provide too much and allow people to leech off the state. But from this side of the big pond I think we can argue that the deep suspicion of authority leads to a society that is significantly short on empathy both for itself and for the outside world.

2780. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #82954 by epeeist on October 28, 2007 at 10:51 am

Comment #82938 by Dianelos Georgoudis

Epeeist (post 506, or #82387):

I really want to know how you can dismiss the gods of one bronze age people for that of another bronze age people.

The god concept that interests me is not the one believed by ancient peoples, but the one that best explains the whole of my experience of life.

So you aren't dismissing the beliefs of ancient peoples, you accept that they are as valid as your own.

2781. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #82943 by epeeist on October 28, 2007 at 10:16 am

Comment #82940 by Dianelos Georgoudis

But yes, one should pay one's fair share towards building a civic society since man is by nature a political animal.

Right. So my question remains: On what logical grounds would an atheist do the right thing in this case?

I gave you one - right there in the open, but you missed it.

2782. AAI 07

Comment #82916 by epeeist on October 28, 2007 at 8:43 am

Comment #82913 by Mango

scooternyc. What about the WIC (women, infants, and children) program that we have here in the States? I assume you'd say it's the woman's fault for having a child when she's not financially able to care for it, so the gov't shouldn't ensure that the child is fed?

Presumably it wouldn't have much of a life. Why not just, you know, dispose of it.

2783. AAI 07

Comment #82915 by epeeist on October 28, 2007 at 8:40 am

Comment #82909 by scooternyc

epeeist - you don't say what decisions your paternal grandfather made to begin with which would have led him to NOT having financial resources or insurance by which to take care of himself. Nor your father.

No to your first four questions. My grandfather, unusually for the era, didn't smoke. Until he had his first heart attack my father did smoke, as did about two thirds of the population at that time.

Higher education wasn't easily available to people of my grandparents class at that time. It was something that my parents were passionate about, having not had the opportunity themselves. Which is why I have a Ph.D.

Now, I have answered your questions. How about some considered answers to mine?

2784. AAI 07

Comment #82878 by epeeist on October 28, 2007 at 5:33 am

I can only reply to scooternyc by giving some personal experience.

After the first world war both my grandfathers went to work in the mines of South Yorkshire. In the early 40s my maternal grandfather developed silicosis. No chance of a cure and no NHS to support him, he gassed himself rather than be a burden on his wife and family.

My paternal grandfather worked almost until retirement age and then had an accident which cost him his leg. He was treated at no cost to himself and lived for another four years.

When I was 16 my father had a heart attack. He was again treated at no cost to himself and went back to work. He lived for another 3 years before he had a fatal heart attack. (And for notsobad's benefit, he was a Trotskyist, had read much of Marx and Engels though he wasn't particularly well educated).

I presume that since my maternal grandfather had no cash to pay for his treatment you would approve of him taking that particular way out.

I presume that you would have consigned my paternal grandfather to the scrap heap. At the end of his working life, no economic benefit to be gained from him.

What would your decision on my father be? Would you have treated him the first time? He was a factory worker who would not have been able to pay the going rate for his treatment. As I said, I was 16 at the time, my brother was 13, I presume that since we would have been even less well off than before it would have been our fault. Would you have treated him the second time? After all he had been working for nearly three years after the initial attack and so presumably had benefited his employers and society to some extent.

Incidentally, he also benefited from a reasonable period of recuperation at no direct cost to himself. This was at convalescent home run by the union he was a member of. Would this lack of self-sufficiency also merit your disapprobation?

2785. Face to faith

Comment #82838 by epeeist on October 28, 2007 at 2:20 am

Comment #82837 by Diacanu

Geez, a lot of diarrhea sure pours out of that there Guardian.
Is there anything good about it?
You limeys must be so embarrassed.

I am sure a lot of it is just recycled from the "On Faith" column in the Washington Post ;-)

2786. AAI 07

Comment #82825 by epeeist on October 28, 2007 at 12:36 am

Comment #82811 by socratzsche

Scooternyc, responsibility has no causal consistency with one's health. And how does your "morality" apply to children--infants? scooternyc: a victim of Ronald Reagan's socialist medicine LP

We had it over here in the UK with one of our Prime Ministers, you may remember her. The classic one liner from her was "There is no such thing as society".

Personally, I will settle for an economy that is run for the benefit of society, rather than the other way around.

2787. AAI 07

Comment #82824 by epeeist on October 28, 2007 at 12:20 am

Comment #82786 by notsobad

I knew I should have expanded my answer because someone would come with a sound-bite saying this :)

China has a communist, totalitarian government.

Totalitarian I can go with. Communist is false.

You really need to do some reading to know what the basis of communism is and what kind of society it proposes.

Regarding socialism, the level it reached in Europe is sick and cannot support itself.

Have a look at how much the USA borrows compared to Europe and then justify that statement.

2788. AAI 07

Comment #82759 by epeeist on October 27, 2007 at 1:30 pm

Comment #82689 by notsobad

China is communist

No it isn't

2789. Why do we ignore the plight of ex-Muslims?

Comment #82613 by epeeist on October 27, 2007 at 12:42 am

Comment #82611 by briancoughlanworldcitizen

It would be tragically ironic if theists became a sort of oppressed minority. Still it's a fine line though, what happens when law begins to make inroads into religious upbringing?

It is into religious education rather than upbringing that I would want a first foray.

I find the current enthusiasm for faith schools in the UK appalling. While the "bog standard comprehensive" is not allowed to select at all, religious schools are freely allowed to do so. Now if they put their own money into this it wouldn't be quite so bad, but the very large majority of funding for such schools comes from the state.

2790. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #82607 by epeeist on October 27, 2007 at 12:21 am

Comment #82495 by HumanisticJones

"This science book is only 10 years old and is already out of date. However, the Bible is over 2000 years old and is still relevant today."

In ten years science has learnt many new things. In 2000 years we have not learnt anything at all.

2791. Why do we ignore the plight of ex-Muslims?

Comment #82606 by epeeist on October 27, 2007 at 12:18 am

Comment #82519 by briancoughlanworldcitizen

Muslims must wean themselves off their "kill the apostate" approach to criticism, and we have got to do more to support real moderates and especially apostates.

Just to show I am am my own man and not your "fellow".

I disagree with you on this. I think the time has come to rid society of the automatic deference it shows to religion of any kind, Christian or Islam, moderate or extreme.

This means it gets the same rights and privileges as any other organisation, the same tax breaks for education, the same representation in parliament, the same attention and criticality paid to its views by the media.

2792. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #82605 by epeeist on October 27, 2007 at 12:10 am

Comment #81620 by Goldy

Brooks's book does make a more detailed breakdown of the figures in fact. It turns out that religious people donate more than nonreligious people even to secular charities. They donate more of their blood. And so on.

Care to quote some of these stats?

Now if I was an unethical atheist I would just post the following link with no comment - http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2005/2005-11.html

However, it was actually posted in another thread by kraut, it just seemed apposite.

2793. Why do we ignore the plight of ex-Muslims?

Comment #82482 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 12:36 pm

Comment #82470 by Fanusi Khiyal

Your fellow 'epeeist' characterises me as 'hysterical' while utterly failing to deal with my arguments. As per usual.

Three things. Firstly, I am not Brian's "fellow", I speak completely for myself. Secondly, I didn't call you hysterical. Thirdly, I gave what I thought was the answer to the problem - ethically based diplomacy.

2794. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #82475 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 12:15 pm

Comment #82461 by steve99

Mazda:

* Mazda Motor, a Japanese automobile manufacturer
* Ahura Mazda, the transcendental and universal God of Zoroastrianism
* Mazda (light bulb), a trademarked name used on incandescent light bulbs

I assume you mean the third? :)

V. was actually coupling the second and third together, but the third (the holy spirit?) in particular. A total aside - did you know that Odin went by the names of High, Just as High and Third?

I made a mistake in using Zeus as an example. I should have used Dionysus, it would have been rather more obvious what I was trying to indicate.

2795. Why do we ignore the plight of ex-Muslims?

Comment #82464 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 11:39 am

Comment #82455 by briancoughlanworldcitizen

I'd be interested to hear from other parties. Am I overstating the case? If I've lost objectivity on this, I'll apologise, but first lets hear from a few neutral parties.

No, I find Fanusi's comments to be at best hysterical and simplistic. Having said that I find the actions of many politicians on Islam hypocritical, they either take the money and assume the position or they see a distorted reflection of their own faith and don't criticise. Essentially they are selling out their own culture.

There are other methods of dealing, unfortunately from what I can see it involves governments deciding that their foreign policy isn't purely a matter of "interests" but must have an ethical basis as well.

Total supposition on my part, but I believe Robin Cook actually saw this but was undermined by the likes of the DTI, DoD and the Treasury aided and abetted by that supreme faith holder the Prime Minister at the time.

2796. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #82457 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 11:23 am

Comment #82454 by Lauregon

As for the "Green man" and the "triple goddess" I don't know what you mean by that. - Dianelos

Which enhances my suspicion that you're a run of the mill creationist poseur.

Since Veronique isn't coming here any more, could I announce this as a Mazda moment on her behalf.

2797. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #82399 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 8:22 am

Comment #82357 by steve99

I think we need to do both. I think we need to be able to quickly fend off attacks in order to get past them to a stage where we can talk about benefits.

It sounds as though we have a slight disagreement on timing. Could we try for doing both at the same time?

2798. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #82395 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 8:18 am

Comment #82376 by Dianelos Georgoudis

Or let's take a less inflammatory and more realistic case. Suppose you own a company and your accountant proposes to use a perfectly legal loophole in order to avoid paying taxes. I think you'll agree that to do so is immoral, because even if it's not against the letter of law, it feels clearly wrong to avoid paying one's fair share in society.

A little bit of equivocation here - you are conflating avoidance and evasion. Avoidance is legal, evasion is illegal.

But yes, one should pay one's fair share towards building a civic society since man is by nature a political animal. And this applies to everyone, not just atheists. One could question whether using charitable donations from tax breaks in order to proselytise is moral, or whether misusing donations in order to foster a particular lifestyle is moral. Can you say Kent Hovind?

2799. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #82387 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 8:10 am

Comment #82368 by Dianelos Georgoudis

You mean your question in post 461 (#81776) above? I thought that post were meant as humor, and found it quite good too;

No, it wasn't meant as humour. I really want to know how you can dismiss the gods of one bronze age people for that of another bronze age people. I want to know how you can dismiss a triune goddess that is much older than your triune god. I really want to know why the myths of a middle eastern people should override that of those of Northern Europe (or the Aztecs, or anywhere else come to that).

By the way, given your Greek background I am amazed that you are not aware of the matriarchal society and its mythos that preceded Zeus and his pantheon.

2800. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #82348 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 5:55 am

Comment #81738 by USA_Limey

I am not a fan of this approach as it always seems to put us on the defensive. Answering their questions. Letting them on our turf.

I have to say I agree with this. Essentially it puts us on the back foot (hope you remember your cricket USA_Limey).

Rather than simply responding to attacks on the atheist position (whatever that is) we ought to be extolling the benefits.

I would also say that a frontal approach is probably doomed to fail, we need to be subtle about it. In fencing terms, making a second intention attack.