301. Two More Fleas

Comment #142887 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 7:20 am

Adding to my above post: that is exactly why the very first thing religion does is destroy people's self respect by planting the idea of sin in their heads. Nothing destroys the mindfuck more thoroughly than an honest, self-respecting mind.
edit: I'll go and do the copy pasta here of a guy's posts I saw these days. I think it's a very important account for us to read.

302. Two More Fleas

Comment #142883 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 7:15 am

I'm not sure about the deconversion thing. I've read several accounts from former theists on various sites who needed several years to overcome their delusion, but it only happened because someone asked them the right questions. One of them used to go 'witnessing' on the streets and actually realized he was consciously telling the people lies. He had the self-respect to admit it to himself, started thinking about his faith more and finally dropped it - dicovering freedom and peace of mind for the first time in his life.
You can easily guess how the theists reacted when they'd read his account: 'you were never a christian, you didn't have true faith, you didn't really think it through, you must repent, etc.'. Not a single one of them realized that they thought exactly the things he had thought of unbelievers himself when he had been a faith-head. I'm sure some of them will come to their senses, even if it takes a few more years of doubt and growing pains.
Another great example is Matt Dillahunty of the Atheist Community of Austin. He was a fundamentalist Baptist preacher for 20 years until he realized how much bollocks it all was.

303. The ethics of mixing science and religion

Comment #142853 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 6:31 am

I've just read some more about Heller. He'll give the money to theology, so basically he's wasting it on manufacturing more imaginary clothes for the emperor. Apparently he's devoted his work to debunking the God of the Gaps by explaining how gaps are not gaps.
http://www.obi.opoka.org/heller/mhpubl/ lists 95 peer reviewed publications.
I find it sad that he thinks theology deserves the money more than his own field. As long as people respect theology, the idiocy won't end. I agree with you from that viewpoint. I really don't know what to think about him. He is a very deluded man in one half of his thinking and a productive scientist in the other.

304. Special Guest: Richard Dawkins

Comment #142831 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 6:07 am

It challenge any neutral to listen to Richard Dawkins, Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor and conclude that atheists are .... angry, militant, aggressive etc.

Have they changed the definition of 'militant' to: 'repeatedly saying things we don't like to hear' yet?

305. The ethics of mixing science and religion

Comment #142814 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 5:53 am

Those of you who wouldn't take the money, show some rationality and keep it real. As long as the recipient does proper science and gets scientific results, 'spiritual reality' remains an empty phrase. The emperor will still be naked. If that guy wants to see evidence where there is none, that's his problem, not ours. If he finds god somewhere in a singularity, he'll provide the evidence, and that's a good thing.

306. Two More Fleas

Comment #142780 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 5:13 am

Exactly, black wolf. I tend to think of the "new atheist" (not my phrase) books as being akin to the Olympic rings; they occasionally overlap, but largely stand on their own. Dawkins' argument would not be significantly diminished if he removed Hitchens, Dennett et al from within his book.

Correct. The 'fleas' use an argumentation that is by and large disingenuous. They try to impress readers by saying 'hey look, Dawkins ignored the following...', about something that has been covered by Hitchens for instance. Then, 'look how Hitchens didn't mention...', about something Dennett wrote about.
I think this comes from their attachment to scripture. They are accustomed to thinking all answers have to be in one book. They can't accept any arguments that are not from 'THE PRIMARY HOLY BOOK NR.1' or relate to it.
And that's exactly why people need to learn how to think independantly, how to come up with a worldview that does not rely on something ignoramuses wrote millenia ago. They are afraid of the disconnection from believing that humanity has been told absolute truths through an imaginary spiritual sense of desert people. There are no such truths.

307. Beauty ad banned after Christian outcry

Comment #142766 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 4:58 am

Once you've centered your life around something that has no impact on reality and does not work outside of your own mind, the only way left to interact with reality is to get offended.

308. Two More Fleas

Comment #142750 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 4:38 am

Yes, calling a book a 'flea' book is fair when it meets certain criteria, like having a big DAWKINS on the cover, or imitating the cover layout. The book may even have a few weak 'newish' arguments, so what, then it's still a flea, if even a not-all-bad one.
When asking, 'why are atheist books not being called flea books?', you are missing a very crucial point. The atheist books do not contain more than a few quotes from Dawkins, if any at all. They make their own arguments, and if those happen to be somewhat similar to those of Dawkins, it's because religionists haven't come up with any new arguments for decades. Placing God in a different gap than last time science made a discovery is not a new argument. Ignoring ancient pre-Christian moral philosophy is not a new argument. Rephrasing old strawmen is not a new argument. Yes, many of the points Dawkins made in his book have been around for a long time before that, and Dawkins acknowledges that fact by quoting and footnoting sources. The difference in the 'flea' books is that they quote old sources and imitate each other only to regurgitate arguments that have already been covered, debunked and refuted by the atheist books.

309. Lords Approve Abolition Of Blasphemy

Comment #139935 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 7:02 pm

Is the religious education in Deutschland done with a historical slant or with intent to make "believers" out of the children? I think more of a religious history approach to things may have some positive aspects... maybe that religious education is related someway to your society being highly secular?

It's supposed to be historical and give every major religion and several smaller ones equal representation. On the downside, the teachers get trained and selected by the churches in almost every case, but most of them are rather neutral. My wife told me how she once got a replacement teacher for RE who tried to implement an introductory prayer every period, but he got basically laughed out of the clasroom. I attended a bilingual school, and one of our American teachers very subtly worked at making us moderate Christians by giving out crosses as a prize for good participation, but he was really pleasant so I didn't think much of it then.

310. Hebrew University researcher: Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai

Comment #139906 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 4:58 pm

There was a study a while ago about how addictive incense really is. The amounts they spread in churches during mass can cause a light addiction.

311. Lords Approve Abolition Of Blasphemy

Comment #139905 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 4:55 pm

As we were on a bit abot Arabic, I might as well post this sad news here:
Eight killed at Jerusalem school
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7282269.stm
"School has played a major role in ideology and theology of Israeli religious settlement movement
Key figures linked to the school were strongly opposed to Israeli pull-out from Gaza"
"The Palestinian Islamist group, Hamas, praised the attack, calling it "heroic", but did not claim responsibility. There was also celebratory gunfire in Gaza."
"In the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, gunmen fired into the air after news broke about the attack. A loudspeaker in Gaza City reportedly broadcast the message: "This is God's vengeance"."

312. Fleabytes

Comment #139874 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 3:36 pm

Must have been YouTube or something, I heard a hippie stoner ramble on about how he'd just created himself...

313. Fleabytes

Comment #139865 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 3:27 pm

We need an acronym...

314. Fleabytes

Comment #139863 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 3:24 pm

Diacanu -

He got drunk the minute he realized what a blunder the quark-machine was, and hasn't sobered up since then, so he forgot how to take out the extra parts. Explains the Bible too.
The Previously Stoned and Shitty Then Drunk Compulsive Gambler Designer Theory
Just sayin'

315. Fleabytes

Comment #139860 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 3:19 pm

So the shitty designer theory is completely compatible with the bible and scientific evidence.

Absolutely. And isn't it very typical of shitty designers to boast around of it and demand respect and reverence? Methinks we found proof, George.

316. Lords Approve Abolition Of Blasphemy

Comment #139795 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 1:58 pm

I hear Wafa Sultan was a bit outspoken on Al Jazeera :-) Sounded good on the BBC World Service as I drove into work this morning. Made my day in fact and certainly made this sun shiney Friday a lot brighter!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lYB4pG3kHIY&feature=related

Is it just me, or does Arabic sound like a beautiful language when someone who's not an Islamist uses it?

And the guy debating against her actually uses the 'Hitler killed 50 million' argument against her! Hypocrisy isn't nearly strong enough to describe these Holocaust-denying scumbags. By his line of reasoning, it's just a matter of adding death tolls to wash Islam clean. In other words, he wants to wait until WWIII is over before deciding that Islam may not be the religion of peace.
Wow, that woman has her history down to the detail, amazing. The professor is on the verge of crying.
I retract the last statement. She says America is not to blame for the killing of natives after 1776, she's wrong there.

317. Lords Approve Abolition Of Blasphemy

Comment #139791 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 1:51 pm

Lady O'Cathain maintained that abolition of blasphemy would unleash a torrent of abuse towards Christians.

Wut? To paraphrase: "They're taking our second-best tool of blackmail away, WAAAAAAAHHH!"

LibDem PWNZ feudalism
about time^^

Now, on to the bishops. 3yrs2months to go by my calculation^^

By his words, Lord Elystan-Morgan is a very respectable person. A believer who puts his own opinion below popular opinion and the expressed will of the citizens, in spite of his own strong feelings but nevertheless acknowledging that his God must no be belittled to need human protection.
Lord Elton: A dishonest reactionary. Must he be reminded that the death penalty, laws outlawing homosexuality and the Norther Ireland Penal Law also used to 'clutter the statute book'?
Lord Neill: "Even the learned Professor Dawkins does not say what a scandal these laws are or that they must be repealed immediately." O RLY?

318. Crossing the Divide

Comment #139774 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 1:32 pm

This article is a great contribution to the site and the internet as a whole. It could help much if creationists who have even slight doubts read it. However, many would reject it as a full fabrication or a distortion of some unknown mysterious secret document, especially when they believe that rd.net is a complete deceit. I wouldn't put it beneath many of them to even spread that lie across the web, as that is a strategy they frequently follow, even regarding their own sources (see Wedge).

319. What's the Point of the Archbishop of Canterbury?

Comment #139578 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 6:10 am

I'm just writing up a simple summary of some thoughts and research here.
Authority by representation of a group is superficially a valid concept. However, secular democracies are not and never should be governed by a circle of authorities who enter the circle automatically, but by those who have been elected to perform this function. The key point is, generally anyone has the right to take part in the election process. In a democracy, it is consensus that political parties serve as an intermediate 'filter' to select those individuals who are most capable of representing the opinions of the people. When these representatives or the people change their minds, there
is always an opportunity to replace the representative. Members of religious groups have the right to vote just like anyone else. They can elect any individual directly or indirectly who represents their religious worldview. If their religious worldview is held by a minority which can't gather enough votes to put an individual into an authoritative position, they can (or should legally be entitled to) attempt that at the next election.
Many democracies have established a system to bypass the elective process by granting representative of different popular groups direct access to councils at different levels of the decision making process, from communal committees
to youth protection authority (Germany) to counseling ministers and secretaries and the head of government directly, or granting them parliamentary membership (UK). This means that members of certain religious groups may have additional representation, basically granting every single adherent of a certain religion a disproportionally strong voice in the decision making process. This overrepresentation may be relatively low in most systems, but as we know sometimes a few or even a single vote in a legislative process make a decisive difference.
Criticism of this system points to the fact that every person whose opinion counts directly in the legislative process, by presenting written statements and drafts, can and usually will be asked to present evidence supporting his opinion. These can be statistics or other scientific studies, historical examples, representative poll results etc. The democratic process does not accept holy scripture or divine revelation as evidence, but nevertheless reckognizes and selectively respects the opinion of people who form their view from non-evidence.
I understand how many view modern democracy as a direct result of Christianity, but the asserted causality escapes me. Christianity's clergy had supported authoritarian rule for centuries, stifled free speech, free opinion, even free thought by what we now reckognize as psychological blackmailing. They did their best to control scientific progress, accepting
what suited their needs, praising it as a result of 'God-given' thought as often as possible. Everything deemed unsuitable was either destroyed or taken to publicly unaccessible archives. Study of these materials was only allowed to monks and persons who were rigorously questioned about their conformity. Free publication of dissenting opinion and scientific papers became possible only after clerical power structures had been broken by brave individuals who succeeded in channeling subversive writings and printings to wider circles of readers, enlightening the public in small and precarious steps, constantly at risk of being prosecuted and punished, often their lives at stake (sic). Most of today's Christians like to believe that it was the Christian worldview and assertedly scriptural morality which encouraged these brave people of the past to overcome the threshold of putting thought into action, and present arbitrary cherry-picked verses and historical opinion pieces as evidence for the influence Christianity had on the Enlightenment.
But is this true? De Condorcet wrote in 1795: "Disdain for the humane sciences was one of the first characteristics of Christianity. It had to avenge itself against the outrages of philosophy, and it feared that spirit of doubt and inquiry, that confidence in one's own reason which is the bane of all religious beliefs." To the present day, many of Christianity's leading voices pour scorn on "secular humanism", asserting that it is the road to chaos and immorality, unadmittingly revealing that it is their own loss of authority that motivates their constant slander. Whether playing out clever semantic
'reasoning' (pope Benedict), or blunt mudslinging from the Christian Right of the United States, it is a self-centered desire for regaining the power that once held the western world in its mind-suffocating claws. The unwarranted
influence present day societies grant faith based opinions can never be enough to satisfy their lust for power. Proponents of the view that faith-based opinion must play a major role in modern society turn to scripture to give their voice a semblance of importance. "...we might do well to consider that our sense of disenchantment did not suddenly begin in the eighteenth century. Instead, its origin might arguably be found as far back as that moment when, according to the Book of Genesis, God gave Adam dominion over the earth. A world subject to human dominion was not just something to be wondered at and venerated as God's divine creation, but also to be understood and turned to human use. Therefore enchantment and disenchantment, religious belief and disenchantment, appear to have been simultaneously built into our perceptions of the world almost from the moment when our remote ancestors began reflecting about their place in
it."(When Science and Christianity Meet, Lindberg/Numbers 2003).
While it is true that most of the prominent figures of the accelerating enlightenment were Christians, it is a fallacious rationalization to assert that they were truly motivated by scriptural inspiration. Constructing this argument by asserting that holy scripture was a representation of deep insight into human nature, and that this insight was in turn a triggering factor for the beginning of scientific examination of nature, is a non sequitur. Remove scripture from this argument, and you reckognize natural human curiosity and the desire to communicate observations at the bottom of it all, which is fully explained by the process of biological evolution. The complete ignorance of this process that great minds like those of Voltaire and Newton were in does in no reasonable way invalidate its presence. In other words, had humanity never imagined a God-shaped hole to fill the abyss of ignorance, the desire for investigating the universe would not have been diminished one iota. Indeed the formulation of the principles behind observed reality would have been realized countless generations earlier. The widely propagated assertion that full reliance on critically examined opinion
and testable observation must lead to a chaos of relativism and amorality is completely baseless in its dependance on circular argumentation. Observed reality is naturally relative, and imposing imaginary concepts of logically
self-contradicting absolute standards personalized in divine intelligence as a simultaneously guiding influence and to-be understood destination point is nothing but unnecessary. It never was.

320. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #138962 by black wolf on March 5, 2008 at 1:49 am

...and will take comfort.

Would that be Ray?

321. God, power and money

Comment #138945 by black wolf on March 5, 2008 at 1:20 am

If she wanted to take it further, a letter to a newspaper would be more civil.

I agree. The public information media are more effective in the long run.

322. Bulldozers tear down giant religious teapot

Comment #138941 by black wolf on March 5, 2008 at 1:10 am

I just sent my embassy in Malysia and their representation in Germany a strong message.

323. God, power and money

Comment #138924 by black wolf on March 5, 2008 at 12:34 am

Does anyone know whether children under drinking age are allowed to drink communion wine?

They are allowed, as there is no other way and no exception for children from the communion.
- in New Zealand, the Catholic Church recently appealed to the government to allow the consumption of communion wine for jail inmates, where alcohol is otherwise strictly forbidden. the government ordered the jail direction to reconsider the ban. "after all our goal is a reintegration of inmates into society and Church", said state secretary O'Connor.
- during the prohibition, production and consumption of communion wine was exempt from the alcohol ban in the US
- the Mormons, through rigorous scientific research found out that Jesus had no alcohol in his blood, therefore they allow grape juice

324. God, power and money

Comment #138792 by black wolf on March 4, 2008 at 7:34 pm

This annoyed the minister and the other church-goers, so the minister decided to try again. This time he pushed much harder, and my friend once again tried to take a step back in order to avoid falling. But when she did so someone stuck out their leg and tripped her(!), so she had to fall.

I haven't studied law, but that's a physical attack, or harassment. I think she could have successfully sued. By stepping back the first time she clearly communicated that she didn't want to fall. Pushing harder and tripping her just because she didn't leave after the first time is no excuse.

325. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #138781 by black wolf on March 4, 2008 at 7:21 pm

Why fury? What would that be for?^^

Consider that all mass is energy, all thought and mind (and spirit) is energy and energy can neither be created or destroyed - what is to say that my energy is not recycled into another being?

It is correct that mass is energy, but the crucial point is that mass doesn't change from being mass by a destructive event such as death, just as an irrepairably damaged computer can't really be called a computer anymore. The energy that the brain uses to form a mind isn't a mass-independent 'substance', it requires hardware to process thoughts and emotions. Any type of reincarnation would require a medium to store information, and that doesn't happen if the hardware ceases to function. I do think it's theoretically posssible to discover a way to transfer these informations onto a 'blank' medium, such as a bio-engineered brain within a new body, but we don't know yet how dependant the information is upon the exact configuration of the medium, if we would need an exact copy of the hardware for that.

326. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #138768 by black wolf on March 4, 2008 at 7:11 pm

al-rawandi and P. Kelsey

I agree to both of you. (oh boy, we start sounding like people on a Ray Comfort blog^^).
Of course religion loves to take over existing conflicts, not as a conscious force, but carried by those who think it should spread its influence. Every conflict is slightly different, and changes over time. I have no doubt that some people involve in any conflict will have different reasons for participating from the people who originally startet the whole mess. Just like people will take or claim different degrees of responsibility when a conflict finally resolves. One guy will say, I protected my family and my homeland and I'm glad I can go home now. The other guy will be happy that he or his leaders have gained political power. Yet another will have been in it for his faith or religion all along. As we know, it's never enough for anyone except the first guy. Religions don't want to win, they want to win more. Sometimes they do their own thing, sometimes they use politicians, sometimes politicians think they can use them. That's a large part of religion's staying power. In peace it asserts to promote 'values' and 'morality'. But I think no religion can survive a long time free of conflict or in a desperation-free zone.

327. What's the Point of the Archbishop of Canterbury?

Comment #138739 by black wolf on March 4, 2008 at 6:36 pm

I don't actually think they're about money. They are afraid of death and punishment, it's all about guilt and sin, and they just can't shake it. They believe that they need authority and power to save humanity from an imaginary concept. They've implanted the meme that 'spiritual persons' need to be generally respected and listended to into society, that they have some mysterious access to truth and wisdom beyond the material, that children need to continue completely unsupported ideas generation by generation.
These people need to be confronted much more often and much more inquisitevely. Whenever a society runs into actual or perceived problems, it turns to these priests, bishops, reverends or whatever. And still nobody asks them why they should be the ones to communicate values or morality. I want to see them being asked, every single time they publicly make some statement, where do you get this wisdom from. Why are we supposed to accept that as wisdom at all if you can't give any evidence towards its truth value. Define spiritual knowledge. Do you hear a god speaking to you. Why do you hold titles and privileged positions when you're not more than any educated philosopher.
No matter of the answer (I expect those to be the usual nebulous obfuscation), these questions will sink in, and people will start thinking.

328. Hebrew University researcher: Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai

Comment #138729 by black wolf on March 4, 2008 at 6:28 pm

I think the most plausible way to explain the stories is that they convoluted different legends into a single epic one to make it more convincing, probrably not even deliberately. It's silly to pretend that any tall tale must be real when we know how even short term witness accounts get distorted in our memory. A charismatic slave here, a tribe leader there, rumours of a slave escape, and all that plus generations to retell the stories. This going on in a superstitious world where nomad tribes meet and exchange their myths.
Even more silly is the way of 'modern' theological thinking, knowing about cultural anthropology, psychology, neurology and then still claiming that all that exists but that your special myth is somehow different. As long as people can claim that there's a supernatural realm that somehow interacts with our minds, souls, spiritual knowledge, and these people don't get laughed out of the house right away but get respect instead, any uneducated irrational person can easily gain authority. We live in a world where religion and conspiracy theories run rampant; they're a political force unrivalled, repeatedly and relentlessly drawing humanity backwards over and over again. The deluded and insane people vote their politicians, and get their respect in return. That must end.

329. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #138314 by black wolf on March 4, 2008 at 7:30 am

Somedays its awful, lost my finished post again. Just too preoccupied with trying to come up with coherent English to save in between ;)

Perhaps this is not the place ... but does the last sentence follow from the rest?

A better place than any other, as far as I'm concerned.^^
My sentence was a bit imprecise. Gottlieb juxtaposes Hitchens' statement and Harris, and states that he finds Hitchens more plausible, without actually explaining why that is the case. Hitchens mentioned a number of conflict areas he had visited, Belfast among them, and where in every single case, religion had been "an enormous multiplier of tribal suspicion and hatred", whereas Harris describes religion as the cause for the 'Troubles'. I think they're both right, and my research has turned up no evidence that land was a factor before religion played any part, while Gottlieb focuses solely on the land issue as the trigger. It's a small difference, but I figured it should be mentioned when hello asked for our thoughts on the article.
Be patient with me, I'm a German with a decent language education, but some phrases just escape me. ;)
If you or anyone else has done more research, i.e. has more evidence that my view might be incorrect or insufficiently differentiated, please post that. I'd love to learn more than I've looked into so far.

330. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #138037 by black wolf on March 3, 2008 at 7:26 pm

- the actual role of the Anglican Church in ending Apartheid you assert Hitchens omits, Mr. Gottlieb? I'll tell you: just about none. There were a few or a few handful of clerics (Tutu f.i.) who joined or founded groups opposed to the government, and were often violently suppressed. The Anglican Church didn't even figure as an organization until after Apartheid had been abolished. The system fell because of unrest, bombings and international economic sanctions. In comparison, the AC was a no-show. Do some research next time please, Mr. Gottlieb.

-""On the True Doctrine: A Discourse Against the Christians" was written in 178 A.D. by Celsus, an eclectic follower of Plato. The Christian deity, Celsus proclaimed, is a contradictory invention. He "keeps his purposes to himself for ages, and watches with indifference as wickedness triumphs over good," and only after a long time decides to intervene and send his son: "Did he not care before?"" An intelligent and accurate statement by an early critic, Mr. Gottlieb, after you throw another pointless "militant atheist" at the modern authors.

- Hume refutes the Watchmaker analogy, and he didn't like dogmatists and intolerant zealots, ok. "Hume never tried to topple all the supporting pillars of religion at once." Gottlieb would prefer no such attempts be made today either. Newsflash for Mr. Gottlieb: The world's knowledge has increased tremendously since Humes' time, and the actual and potential threat from religious zealotry has also. Should we be tolerant of the intolerant? Mr. Gottlieb apparently implies that since logic doesn't faze the religious, we shouldn't bother trying that or anything else until they go away. But Gottlieb doesn't want them to go away at all.

- look how those militant atheists ignore the tremendous religious resistance to the Nazis. Well actually, ignoring something that is laudable but insignificant isn't that much of a misrepresentation, especially when compared to the false assertions you are throwing around paragraph by paragraph, Mr. Gottlieb. Critics of Church history have found that religious resistance to the Nazis was marked by adaptation and agreement to Nazi policy.
The quote Gottlieb brings up to assert the contrary, ""It is striking how many protests against and acts of resistance to atrocity have . . . come from principled religious commitment."" by Glover, is an interesting one. As I don't know the book, I have researched to find the full quote and context. I have found this:

http://www.boundless.org/2000/features/a0000386.html
Focus on the Family
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/arn/pearcey/np_centuryofcruelty1299.htm
Discovery Institute
http://www.sydney.catholic.org.au/Archbishop/Addresses/2005921_1181.shtml
Archdiocese of Sydney

Every single time someone brings this quote up, it is on an apologetic and blatantly obviously biased site. Furthermore, commenters on similar sites use this quote without citation marks - plagiarism. Curiously, the omitted part in the middle of the quote is never included by any of them. This should raise some suspicions in the mind of the observant reader. I don't need to point out that the DI or the CC are not exactly renowned for their honesty in the past, do I? Oh, just did. By the way, the Archdiocese deletes the omission marks completely, thus misrepresenting an already mined quote. Did you copy and paste that quote, or did you dig the shaft yourself, Mr. Gottlieb?

- I have no idea what the last paragraphs of the article are for. Yes, atheists have different views depending on their professions, an inclinination to faith may or may not be hard-wired into the brain, and atheism may or may not be spreading globally. The last bits come across as somewhat condescending, implying naiveté on the atheist's side, which would be in tune with the previous parts of the article, so that's what I suppose it is.

331. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #138036 by black wolf on March 3, 2008 at 7:26 pm

Have a look at this article for a more balanced view of the state of things.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/05/21/070521crbo_books_gottlieb

Pretty unimpressive. I wrote a long review of the article, but failed to save it before my browser crashed. *sigh*
Here's the short version:
-Gottlieb repeatedly uses the word 'militant' describing the outspoken 'new' atheists, deliberately as a derogative term to implicitly lump them in with terrorists or violent zealots

- what Gottlieb omits is that the circumcision study he mentions summarizes its results by stating "Despite the encouraging new statistics, Auvert, the study leader, warns that his report is far from the final word. "It's too early to say male circumcision should be integrated in a plan to fight the spread of HIV, because the study has only been done in one place."", "Health experts also worry that many men might think circumcision will completely protect them from AIDS, causing them to take increased risks in their sex lives."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0726_050726_circumcision_2.html
"But Tom Elkins, Senior Policy Officer at the National AIDS Trust warned: "There is a real danger in sending out a message that circumcision can protect against HIV. This is not the case and could lead to an increase in unprotected sex."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6176209.stm

- Gottlieb is also ignorant of the causes of the Northern Ireland conflict. Contrary to what he asserts, the groups and individuals who first started the violence were religious and did so because they were segregated by settlement into denominational areas. The Penal Laws first and foremost restricted religious minority rights in order to enforce Anglican rule. The fault lines of the ensuing conflict ran exclusively along religious divisions. Harris and Hitchens are correct; religion causes divisions and encourages other divisions subsequently.

- regarding Harris: "...if he is right, why did Al Qaeda not arise, say, three hundred years ago, when the Koran said exactly what it says now?"
A breathtakingly stupid rhetorical question from Gottlieb. There were suicide attacks throughout the history of warfare and assassination, but only today can terrorists possess weapons capable of inflicting losses on a ratio of 1:200 or more. From Samson to the Crusades to the Belgian Revolution, Gottlieb favors to ignore all this in favor of scoring a cheap point and misses. Additionally, regarding the same statement, he ignores the fact that 300 years ago, Islam was economically and scientifically about on par with the West, and since then has continuously lost ground. It is losing out on its central promise, World Domination and paradise on earth as a consequence of that - a fact that hugely increases the likelihood of drastic measures.

-"But, in 1998, a fifth of non-Christians in America told a poll for Newsweek that they, too, expected Jesus to return. What does Harris make of that?" Why should Harris care. This is irrelevant to his point, namely that it is the fundamentalists, not the non-Christians, who look forward to this event and the promised carnage and genocide that follows

- "And there's a dreamy incoherence in their conviction that moderate forms of religion somehow enable fundamentalist zeal and violence to survive. Are we really going to tame the fervor of an extremist imam's mosque in Waziristan by weakening the plush-toy creed of a nondenominational church in Chappaqua?" Incoherent dreamery? Yes, on your part, Mr. Gottlieb. You are the one who dreams that throwing another ridiculous rhetorical question at your readers is an argument. And then you even answer your bogus question correctly: "If there were no religion, it's true, neither house of worship would exist." What was your point again? Oh yes, that Harris and Dawkins are wrong in asserting that without religion, religion wouldn't cause fanaticism. WTF?

332. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #137885 by black wolf on March 3, 2008 at 2:43 pm

Are you sure Buddhists don't have anything like fatwa's for cartoons that mock their mediative tradition?? ;-)

I'm sure there's some way to project some bad karma their way, if you meditate hard enough.

333. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #137877 by black wolf on March 3, 2008 at 2:40 pm

since there isn't a word for addressing more than one person directly.

Have you heard of "Hey, everyone"? :)

TL;DW
short for 'too, long, don't write' in teh internets

I think the two terms can be used with the same level of bigotry and malice, or at least could, especially in your country.

not as well as *shudder* Liberal

334. Darwin's dangerous idea

Comment #137533 by black wolf on March 3, 2008 at 5:19 am

Religious people breeding profusely 'for Jezus or Allah' will eventually mean less science, less advanced technology, prayer instead of medicine and so on.

You did miss something. In the world today, prosperous and scientifically / technically advanced nations will always subsidize those who are underdeveloped. Educationally challenged and less enlightened countries will always receive the fruits of reason and rational thinking basically for free, because certain nutjobs are willing to let their own population starve just to let their ideology survive. Which then survives because the population gets food and medicine from outside the country for free, and is too weak to revolt for all the foreseeable future.

335. Darwin's dangerous idea

Comment #137530 by black wolf on March 3, 2008 at 5:12 am

Unless, of course, the margin of ignorance between the US and Bulgaria and Slovenia widens, which isn't impossible: in 1993, the Iron Curtain had recently fallen and both were former Communist countries. Now, both are members of the EU and (in all likelihood) benefiting from EU structural and cohesion funds, which could plausibly lead to better education in these countries. I don't see much that encourages me to believe that education might have improved in the US since 1993.

A decline of communism as a governing ideology has lead to an increased influence of religion in every country affected. I can't tell how large the effect actually is, but there are recurring news where churches and religious groups do attempt to influence public opinion, legislation and freedom of speech and expression in most former communist block countries.
However, from what I see in former East Germany, the restrictions on religious expression and activity under Communism have lead to a steep decline in interest for religious matters in the population. Churches are struggling to survive everywhere; not to be confused with the physical buildings of historical value.
I'm very glad that we have a scientist as chancellor, and many scientists in political office.

336. Fleabytes

Comment #135662 by black wolf on February 29, 2008 at 7:35 am

But, as you and I are well aware, the book itself is factually incorrect and self-contradictory. Hardly suggests the prior requirements are going to be met, does it?

But can't you see it must contradict itself and be false occasionally? If it were all 100% correct, how would we have the choice of refuting the wrong parts and picking the nice cherries? Without the choice, we can't have free will. The more errors we can find in the book, the more it proves how much God loves us.
Got it now?
Or do we need to call in the Inquisition?

337. Fleabytes

Comment #135431 by black wolf on February 29, 2008 at 12:37 am

Will someone please fill me in on the Christian response to this because I have no idea really what their answer would be.

I really don't either - I looked at a multitude of theology sites and sermons, and just about every answer is different. Basically, the idea is that man needed to be sinful in order to understand good and evil (they assert that man knew better from worse before that). Because God wants love for everything, but man needs to be free (because God loves him so) to choose, he needs the ultimate choice to redeem himself, by accepting Christ. That's all. The interpretative and contradicting bits in between are left to faith and individual understanding. Adam and Eve, by the allegorical account, were just the easiest way those desert people could imagine to explain this stuff.

338. Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts

Comment #135162 by black wolf on February 28, 2008 at 3:50 pm

from Goldy's link:
"No," one of the boys replied, "because honour matters even more than religion."
and
One Muslim community leader told me that if he could talk to those boys, I met at the shopping mall, he would explain to them in no uncertain terms that killing one's own sister - or anyone for that matter - has nothing to do with being a good Muslim.

Apparently some people are missing the point. The only concept these youth answer to is archaic honor and respect. These themes are incidentally very common in German rap music by immigrant descendants. As that one guy says, it's the only thing they've got left. They don't care for religion much, except where it confirms their view without restricting their lifestyle. They don't care for the law either, because the law takes their right to hang around wherever they wish, publically humiliate girls and women, graffiti, drug dealing and petty crime. I know many of these allegations sound like bigotry, but that is how very many of these guys spend their days, and what I know from personal experience.
What they do respect are stronger guys (that's why very many are into martial arts), elder brothers, fathers. Many can't speak or write proper German or Turkish, so once they start dropping out of school early, more follow and there's no turning back. Some can be hopefully brought to a decent education and job training individually, but that takes weeks and months of effort, and the youth offices just don't have the budget or personnel to accomplish that with all of them.
Seemingly also more and more Germans from the condo areas join them in their perception of Ghetto Glory and 'us vs. everyone else' idealization.

339. The Giant Tortoise's Tale

Comment #134005 by black wolf on February 27, 2008 at 6:15 am

'now that is a very good question, please come back when you have a good answer, i'd be interested to know, maybe you could ask your pastor, just why would god make such an ugly creature??'

Pastor's answer: "...mumblemumble...mysterious ways... mumblemumble... school board phone number..."

340. Add another flea to the list...

Comment #132958 by black wolf on February 25, 2008 at 12:59 pm

As we predicted several weeks (months?) ago, the interest of the 'Flea book' authors is not to bring new arguments to the table, but to cash in on the market. Each one of them pretends to be the best, if not first, one to actually refute atheisms validity. They don't care if they succeed, as long as they can make gullible readers and customers delude themselves to think they have. Evidence of this are visitors to this site and others who have typically recently read one of these books and start posting, seriously believing they've got some novel and irrefutable butthole-logic to deliver. At least a few of them are willing and able to listen long enough to at least learn something.

341. Church is paying a high price for its celibacy rule

Comment #132800 by black wolf on February 25, 2008 at 8:05 am

As recently as last week, a German Catholic archbishop criticized celibacy as outdated and scripturally unnecessary. So far, I haven't read of any call from Rome to retract this statement.

342. The coming religious peace

Comment #132278 by black wolf on February 24, 2008 at 2:41 pm

I will be fine with religion when it adapts to the point where it is indistinguishable from rationalism.

343. Fleabytes

Comment #132253 by black wolf on February 24, 2008 at 2:14 pm

How is an official religious war defined? Enquiring minds want to know!

Yes indeed. Apparently theist argumentation centrally employs the notion that they, meaning the opinionator and his agreeants, get to define it as follows: a war that is in accordance with the scripture central to the branch of the religion of our choice, and the interpretation thereof which we choose to be the correct one.
Thereby, a religious war to be labeled as (one-sidedly) waged by Catholics must be in accordance with the teachings of JC, every single participant must believe in the Resurrection and Virgin Birth, and follow direct orders from the Pope, who in turn must follow the above set principles.
Ergo, religious war does not exist, say the religious, when large portions of combattants are employed mercenaries or the war is allegedly being waged for reasons other than spreading or enforcing dominance of a religion or diminishing dominance of another. By separating the 'true' religion from the gaining of dominance through warfare of proponents of that religion, implicitly defining the religion of choice as un-political per se, one can easily pull off that sleight-of-hand, simply and conveniently ignoring and falsely invalidating when armies yell 'for God and Country' or 'Allahu Akbar' at the top of their lungs constantly.
It's always about something else, always a mere scapegoating of poor old 'true' religion.
The proper definition should IMO be something like, a war in which a significant portion of combattants and involved political leaders are religious, profess their faith, and find the respective act of, and reasons for warfare agreeable to and in written or verbalized form in statements and interpretations thereof within and of their faith.
Religion is always personal. War does not exist without persons.

344. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #131654 by black wolf on February 22, 2008 at 11:50 pm

@138
Actually, they already put it into practice: look at how Hamas did in Gaza and see what happened recently. They tested every single one of the points you suggested and failed.
Now imagine that on a world-wide level. A rampage of billions of people forcing their way across the borders, looting everything remotely useful.
Civilization will completely disappear.
Until someone comes up with a method to develop more and better food, medicine, heating, clothing, a method based on logic and reason...

345. Huckabee Wants A 'Faith-based' Constitution

Comment #111907 by black wolf on January 16, 2008 at 1:31 am

...they behave (or will behave) like bulls in the china shop...

Isn't it funny that in Germany the same proverb states 'like elephants in the china shop'?

346. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #106409 by black wolf on January 2, 2008 at 9:13 pm

Sin Sin Sin Sin
Wonderful Sin
Atooooooooonement!
JesusJesusJesusJesus
Siiiiiiiiin!

The most ludicrous merry-go-round ever built.

347. Submission, 'Part 1'

Comment #105607 by black wolf on January 1, 2008 at 7:59 am

Before I signed the petition with an informed comment on what is actually forbidden by Koran and Hadiths (any depiction of humans or animals), I was careful to observe that the petition's goal was to get 10,000 signatures. As it had long achieved that goal, dropping a little education in their midst was the best I could do.

348. A War On Science

Comment #105603 by black wolf on January 1, 2008 at 7:41 am

FXR wrote:

and then made up the man and the rib woman and then drove them out of paradice for eating an apple how did they multiply?

It seems a lot of incest would have to be involved. Is that why "brother and sister" are such popular terms with preachers?

I assume that many preachers, who are either scientifically ignorant or deliberately lying, stick to a literal interpretation of the Eden story.
I've been told and have read that the modern version somehow reads the story as metaphor for anthropological and cultural change from the hunter/gatherer basis to civilization. Don't ask me to explain how that interpretation is valid in the light of the fact that the writers of these passages hadn't the slightest idea about anthropology. But that's how 'reasonable' christians view it.

349. Submission, 'Part 1'

Comment #105198 by black wolf on December 30, 2007 at 9:22 pm

This is the comment I left in their petition:
"Allama Muhammad Munir (of Damascus) has clearly stated that the photos of the modern age fall under the category of pictures. He says: 'The words of the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) that every maker of the photo would be tormented on the Day of Resurrection, include every artist whether he makes pictures with the help of his hand (with pencil or with the help of colour paint) or with the help of camera.
Please remove all pictures, drawings, paintings and photographs of people and animals from Wikipedia, just as every follower of true Islam knows it is forbidden and will not make any or keep any at home or in his books."

Thanks for the great idea, theantitheist.
I guess we're going to hell. Oh, well.

350. Richard Dawkins on 'Have Your Say'

Comment #105186 by black wolf on December 30, 2007 at 8:43 pm

I looked up the Emoto water thingy. His results have been scientifically tested multiple times and failed every time. They were never reproducible. Emoto himself has graduated in political sciences, so he's not even remotely a natural scientist. He has no scientific publications.
But his pictures and books sell. He knows how to sell woo-woo - he's an 'alternative physician'.