301. Honest Mistakes or Willful Mendacity

Comment #68239 by Northern Bright on September 6, 2007 at 1:21 pm

Just got in from work. I've been seething all day since listening to the Today programme this morning. I was so angry I hit my hand with a hammer and have the blood blister to prove it!

To judge from your avatar, Gordon, it's still bleeding ;-)

302. Bible Belter

Comment #68237 by Northern Bright on September 6, 2007 at 1:11 pm

I'm going to come clean and say from the outset that I haven't read "God is Not Great" and so I'm not qualified to comment on it (although I gather that, so far as the Sunday Times is concerned, that would make me the ideal reviewer ;-) )

I can't tell you how often I've picked it up in Borders, or put it into my basket with Amazon, only to put it down again.

For one thing, each time I flick through it, it just seems to be a litany of bad things that people have done in the name of their religion. Well, I don't need persuading of that but, equally, to me it's irrelevant to the central question, which is - is there a god at all? I am as convinced as I feel it's possible or reasonable to be that there isn't BUT the fact that people behave abominably in the name of religion doesn't of itself prove that there isn't a god. There may be a god that doesn't give a damn, for instance, or a god that positively enjoys watching people blow one another up in his/her/its name. Would I like or worship such a god? No - but I don't need to read a book to clarify my thinking on that point.

The other thing that puts me off is that I spent quite a long time last week watching Christopher Hitchens very carefully in the videos on the BuildUpThatWall website. In the first one he enthralled me - that intelligence, that wit, that style, that voice, that arrogance. It was a heady brew and I was fascinated.

Video 2, I discovered, contained the same answers expressed in a different setting. And so did video 3. Video 4 - yup, same again. And so it continued. Although I found him very compelling and very enjoyable to listen to, and I thought the points he made were very good, I increasingly had the sense that he had a pre-prepared set of responses and that asking him a question was a bit like putting money in a juke box and watching the machinery select the chosen song. At times, I even noticed him twisting the question in order to be able to give one of his pre-prepared answers. Although his delivery was very natural and SOUNDED as if he was actively thinking of his answer as he spoke, the words he used, the intonation, the pauses, the gestures, were all identical to the last time I'd heard him answer that question.

None of this in any way detracts from the excellence of those answers. It's just that, having heard them delivered in maybe 6 different contexts, I already know them by heart and don't feel the need to read them too.

I have another gripe with him, which is that, although he is undoubtedly capable of great courtesy, he is all too often gratuitously rude. I have no problem whatsoever with forthright or direct or uncompromising, but I cringe when I see him shouting his opponents down and simply talking over other people and refusing to abide by any of the rules of debate. And please don't say he only does it when others are doing it to him, because that wouldn't be true. He did it when he was on Question Time, and he did it particularly offensively when he and someone else were both being interviewed on a US TV show. I can't remember the details, unfortunately, and the clip wasn't there when I looked just now, but it culminated in the anchorman apologising to the audience for the chaos that had just broken out and promising that CH would never be invited onto the show again. And, much as I support what CH is trying to achieve, I really didn't blame the anchorman at all.

At his best, there's no doubt that Christopher Hitchens is formidably good - but at his worst, he comes across (to me, at least) as a bit of a brat.

303. Bible Belter

Comment #68227 by Northern Bright on September 6, 2007 at 12:30 pm

I encourage all to drop the capital "G" diety so your readers will get the real message.

"God" is both a noun and a proper noun, and the distinction between "god" and "God" carries meaning. Christians have given their god the name "God". When referring specifically to the Christian god by name, it's simply a matter of orthographical correctness to capitalise the G in the same way as you'd capitalise the P in Peter. It doesn't imply belief or respect - unlike the capitalisation of the letter H in Him, which I would avoid, for that very reason.

Conversely, though, omitting the capital G when it should correctly be applied causes such offence to Christians that I suspect it's a bit of an own goal. I know that if someone opened a discussion with me by gratuitously offending me, it would take a superhuman effort on my part to listen to the rest of their comments with an open mind.

304. Honest Mistakes or Willful Mendacity

Comment #68208 by Northern Bright on September 6, 2007 at 11:03 am

Why the Latinate periphrasis? Just call him a liar. Since he demostrably is a liar, to do so should be quite lawyer-proof.

Mendacity is a magnificently contemptuous word. It makes "lying" sounds almost honourable by comparison.

305. Honest Mistakes or Willful Mendacity

Comment #68195 by Northern Bright on September 6, 2007 at 10:23 am

@jonecc

When religious people think, particularly the less literal kind that we often label moderates, they don't seem to analyse as such. Instead, they weave dense webs of allusion in which anything can mean virtually anything else, and the experience of saying it or thinking it is of more interest than its truth value.

I think that is an incredibly perceptive post, jonecc. That makes perfect sense to me (a former Christian). Christians claim to base their understanding of God on how he reveals himself in the Bible; but, of course, they all interpret that "revelation" in different ways, and at the end of the filtering process they all manage to be left with the bits that best accord with whatever image of God they started out with anyway.

This is why Christians can (with unimpeachable sincerity in many cases) use the Bible to prove anything at all: that God is loving, that God is angry, that God is endlessly forgiving, that God is vengeful and jealous and not the sort of guy you'd want to bump into in a dark alley; that there is a hell; that there isn't a hell; that salvation only comes through faith; that salvation comes through faith + works; that God longs to punish us; that God longs to forgive us ...

Each individual Christian makes God in his or her own image, and then naturally homes in on the passages in the Bible that reinforce that image, and relegates any contradictory passages to the mental filing cabinet labelled "metaphor".

So yes: when they read TGD, they are performing the same kind of (quite possibly subconscious) filtering. A mind that has mastered the art of transforming "I command you to slaughter every last one of them ..." into "God is all-good and loving" is in a good position to perform a kind of reverse alchemy on "Labelling children by the religious affiliations of their parents is a form of abuse."

Hmm, you've given me a lot to think about there ...

(None of this is intended to let Cornwell off the hook, mind you - as a journalist and historian, you may be sure he knows EXACTLY what he's doing where words are concerned.)

306. Honest Mistakes or Willful Mendacity

Comment #68180 by Northern Bright on September 6, 2007 at 9:49 am

Someone on another thread (sorry - can't remember who) has already flagged up the parallel with the wonderful Far Side cartoon:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/larson_what_dogs_hear.jpg

It's beautifully apt. My dog, too, has the knack of selective (mis)understanding. "Poppy, come here" when I've just put my boots on to take her for a walk can be depended upon, it would seem, to be instantly comprehensible. Yet the same words spoken towards the end of her walk regularly result in a look of suspiciously innocent bafflement, which is clearly meant to convey the notion of, "No, sorry, the words seem vaguely familiar, but I can't quite place their meaning just now. It might come to me if I just go and chase this rabbit."

I agree, Richard - John Cornwell does not appear to be either illiterate or particularly stupid, and you write in terms that are not remotely confusing or ambiguous, so it does not seem possible for his version of your arguments to be the result of sincere misunderstanding.

Some of his comments this morning struck me as having gone even further than other misrepresentations I have heard: the implication that you were advocating the sort of persecution last seen in 20s and 30s Germany; the direct accusation that you were inspiring religious hatred; and the impression that religionists should fear for their safety if the sort of secular society advocated by you were ever to come into being. It seemed to me that these comments were coming very close to the point where you would have to challenge them formally.

When I get my copy of Cornwell's book, I'm planning to go through it line by line and cross-reference it to what's really written in TGD. Two columns: "What Dawkins wrote" and "What Cornwell claims Dawkins wrote", and post it on this forum for reference.

I've just re-read Salley Vickers' review in the light of Cornwell's performance this morning, and I have to say it now seems even more bizarre. Did he display "featherlight footwork"? [EDIT: Sorry Geraint - I hadn't seen your remark when I wrote mine.] Did he come across as "deliciously wise, witty and intellectually sharp into the bargain"? Can we imagine him in the guise of a "gracefully admonishing seraph"? Or being entitled to protest at the use of "violently biased language"?

There's more than one way of being deluded, it would seem.

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

Comment #68123 by Northern Bright on September 6, 2007 at 7:46 am

Did I say anything about paying for it?

LOL! No, but I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming no one disliked you enough to give you a copy for your birthday! :-)

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

Comment #68120 by Northern Bright on September 6, 2007 at 7:30 am

I'll just have to redouble my efforts to find a copy of Cornwell's book, won't I?

According to Amazon, it hasn't been published yet, and the estimated delivery date for the copy I've pre-ordered is 3 November.

I don't know what the uninitiated would have made of it either. It's very hard when you hear one person make a series of categorical claims with great conviction, only for a second person to deny them equally categorically and with equal conviction.

It would be nice to think that the ENORMOUS gulf between RD and JC (can his initials really be mere coincidence, do you think? ;-)) might prompt a few people to check out TGD for themselves. Here's hoping.

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

Comment #68110 by Northern Bright on September 6, 2007 at 6:40 am

Did anyone here the interview between RD and John Cornwell this morning on BBC Radio 4?

Yes, and I thought Cornwell's representation of RD's views was truly despicable. "Everybody who has read The God Delusion knows that Dawkins thinks there's no such thing as moderate religion" - apparently. Also, "RD says religion is worse than paedophilia" and "RD doesn't think religionists have any kind of role to play in a pluralistic society under secular auspices".

And all this whilst modestly claiming his book has a "lightness of touch".

There's a new thread on this very subject in the Forum, by the way, if anyone's interested.

310. In God we doubt

Comment #67995 by Northern Bright on September 5, 2007 at 2:20 pm

Fundamentalists: believe 2+2 =5 because It Is Written. Somewhere. They have a lot of trouble on their tax returns.

"Moderate" believers: live their lives on the basis that 2+2=4, but go regularly to church to be told that 2+2 once made 5, or will one day make 5, or in a very real and spiritual sense should make 5.

"Moderate" atheists: know that 2+2 =4 but think it impolite to say so too loudly as people who think 2+2=5 might be offended.

"Militant" atheists: "Oh for pity's sake. HERE. Two pebbles. Two more pebbles. FOUR pebbles. What is WRONG with you people?"

Quine, that is brilliant! Love it! Thanks for posting it here.

311. The Sacrifice of Reason

Comment #67902 by Northern Bright on September 5, 2007 at 5:14 am

From today's BBC News website:
Goats sacrificed to fix Nepal jet.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6979292.stm

Personally I prefer to fly with airlines that employ engineers and mechanics, but I guess that's just scientism for you ... ;-)

312. The God Delusion One-Year Countdown

Comment #67832 by Northern Bright on September 5, 2007 at 1:10 am

A fatwa of fundamentalists?

A fatuousness of fundamentalists?

Ok, ok, I'll stop now.

313. The God Delusion One-Year Countdown

Comment #67831 by Northern Bright on September 5, 2007 at 1:08 am

A farrago of fundamentalists?

314. The God Delusion One-Year Countdown

Comment #67830 by Northern Bright on September 5, 2007 at 1:07 am

A fulmination of fundamentalists?

315. In God we doubt

Comment #67827 by Northern Bright on September 5, 2007 at 12:48 am

97. Comment #67801 by alovrin on September 4, 2007 at 9:25 pm

Changing ones beliefs is often a painful and long process, and thats just one individual ... But atheism cant be in the business of conversion...agreeing to disagree is always a good place to start.

You make a very valid point, alovrin, and, re-reading my comment about sales skills after a night's sleep, I agree it sounds too simplistic. You're also right when you say that the process of changing one's beliefs can be slow and painful. I'd add that I believe it's also something that is likely emerge slowly from within, as the result of an introspective process, rather than through any single external event; and I'd further add that embarking on this process requires a considerable amount of honesty and courage on the part of someone for whom belief in the supernatural has formed a major part of their life.

So maybe the best we can hope for is that something that's said or written about atheism (or science) may help to create the willingness to embark on that process. Given that the process is likely to feel scary, though, I'm all the more drawn to the thought that encouragement on our part will be more effective than scorn.

Should we give up on the idea of conversion? I'm not sure I'm quite ready to that yet!! ;-) But maybe it would be the logical conclusion from what I've just written. Maybe our goal on this forum should just be to sow the seeds of doubt about religion, and then give them the right conditions in which to grow - which means not trampling all over them!

Bearing the fearful child analogy in mind, we need to ensure that we don't make what is already a pretty daunting undertaking feel more scary than it has to be.

Do we have that sort of time frame? is an extinction event more likely?

We don't know, of course. But if it just does take 2 hours to cook a casserole, there's not much point turning the heat up and hoping it will be done in 20 minutes instead.

I'm also with you AND Russell Blackford on the need to keep up the more assertive approach too. Russell, the forum would be a poorer place without your limericks (and everyone else's) and without the sense of fun that pervades it, and I'm certainly not suggesting that we should stop any of that. Witty irreverence is fine by me. (You're also absolutely right to point out that Richard Dawkins himself never displays the kind of intolerance I've been talking about, despite being accused of it over and over again. But if believers are so sensitive on this subject that even his extremely courteous remarks are felt to be aggressive and intolerant, how must genuinely aggressive and intolerant comments strike them?)

Maybe we need a kind of pincer movement: a vociferous, no-holds-barred, urgent approach to the issue of the influence of religion in general; combined with a less strident approach toward individual believers who venture onto this forum and may or may not be open to re-considering their beliefs provided we don't beat them into a pulp first (I'm writing metaphorically, I hasten to add!)

Michael, I think you make a very important point when you suggest that we should perhaps take believers more seriously when they say "That's not my God you're rejecting". In the same way that many believers have not heard what we've really been saying, despite the fact we've been saying it with great clarity, maybe we haven't heard what they've been saying clearly either. Having a conversation involves listening as much as speaking. (At the risk of upsetting Alovrin again, selling does too!)

And finally, BAEOZ - trust me, Russell may well be patient, but I'm most certainly not! Very much the reverse, as any of my colleagues would tell you! But I do try to be rational, and if my impatience is actually impeding what I'm trying to achieve ...

316. In God we doubt

Comment #67750 by Northern Bright on September 4, 2007 at 3:57 pm

77. Comment #67517 by detox on September 3, 2007 at 4:49 pm

@ Northern Bright. Excellently reasoned original post. Just one quibble: you stopped just at the good bit. How do we get through to the unconvinced?

There was a good bit?!?!? ;-)

Thank you to everyone who has commented. Some interesting additional points have emerged already: the power of communal reinforcement (Dr Benway), the angry response of those who aren't familiar with non-emotional arguments (Steve99), the challenge of the missing security blanket (601), and the unhelpful way that science tends to be conveyed by the media (mmurray).

If we add those to my conclusion from last night, which was that, when truth isn't necessarily an important factor in determining people's beliefs, maybe we shouldn't expect it to be an infallible weapon in challenging those beliefs, what emerges?

Well, first and foremost I should repeat that I see the ideas going round my head as being supplementary to the Truth-battle, and certainly not a replacement for it. Some religious people will be swayed through an appeal to truth and reason, and it's absolutely central to our case.

However, to revert to the analogy of the young child who is terrified of facing the night ahead without her teddy-bear to cuddle. How would we deal with that child (assuming she wasn't SO young that her terror was understandable)?

I'm not a parent and children are not my specialist subject, but it seems to me that we'd do it by trying to reassure her and by building up her confidence. We may try to show her that there's nothing to be scared of (I remember my own father making me laugh at my fears when I was little by conducting an exaggerated search through my cupboards and in my chest of drawers and under my bed and behind the curtains and beneath my book etc - to prove to me that there was no one there.) More than anything, we would take her fears seriously, we wouldn't belittle her for having them, and we would be tolerant of the fact that she wouldn't just lose them all at once - it would take time and patience.

If my analogy works, it should be fairly clear how this approach might be adapted for a believer who is afraid of having to live her life without God. We are all well practised at demonstrating that she's wrong and that she's living her life without God already since he doesn't exist, that her arguments don't stack up and that she really must be some kind of idiot to fall for that Sky Fairy nonsense - but I'm suggesting that this approach might have the effect of leaving her clutching her metaphorical teddy-bear all the more tightly, whereas if we approached her more gently, with more patience and more understanding, we may stand more chance of achieving the desired effect.

If she's afraid that life without God would be meaningless, maybe we could talk about the sort of things that we feel give our lives meaning. If she's afraid of the prospect of death, maybe we could talk about our own feelings on the subject. (Of course, she may not realise that her faith is really rooted in fear; and if we create a hostile atmosphere in our interaction with her, then she may feel too threatened to even begin to reflect on what her real motivation is - she'll just retreat behind her "faith" and our opportunity for real conversation will have gone.)

If part of the problem is that we're coming across as too confident in ourselves, not emotional enough, not warm enough, not human enough - well, maybe we need to reveal these aspects of our characters more. I'm not suggesting we should pretend to be something we're not. My point is that, actually, I'm quite sure most of us are lovely people who wouldn't come across as remotely scary or aggressive or off-putting if believers were to encounter us in any other context. Maybe we could let that shine through sometimes?

Being (by and large) people to whom truth and facts and evidence are important, I suspect that we often talk in terms that are alienating to people for whom feelings and sensitivity carry more weight. Maybe we could afford to say "I don't know" a bit more often. Maybe we could try to find at least one point in a believer's post that we agree on, before launching into the things we don't agree on. Maybe we could try to create more of a discussion and less of a battlefield. Maybe we could dare to reveal our vulnerable side from time to time.

To someone who clings to their faith because they are terrified of death, what is likely to be more persuasive: "Well, tough - you'd better get used to the idea, kid" or "Yes, it's not a very nice thought, is it? But …."?

If I'm right about some believers finding atheists terrifying because they see our calm acceptance of the reality of death as almost sub-human, it may be helpful if we were to reveal our own insecurities from time to time rather than simply sweeping fears away as irrational, which can make us seem scarily unemotional. As an example - I used to help out on a soup run for the homeless. On my very first night a seriously ugly fight broke out and I was absolutely rigid with fear. At first I felt utterly inadequate and not up to the role at all - but then I looked more closely at the other, far more experienced volunteers and saw that they were every bit as shaken and scared as I was. I can't tell you how reassuring that was! They weren't a different breed from me, after all, I wasn't a wimp for feeling scared, and there was no reason to think I wouldn't be able to cope with the role I'd taken on. I also reckoned that, if the experienced volunteers were as shaken as I was, this kind of thing couldn't happen very often (otherwise they would have got used to it), and that was reassuring too. One thing is absolutely certain: if the other volunteers had been blasé about the incident or unsympathetic to my fear, I would never have gone back.

One of the things that led me to abandon my Christianity some years ago was the growing realisation that, with one or two exceptions, the kindest, warmest, most generous, most tolerant, most good-humoured, sanest, most balanced people I knew were not Christians. By comparison, many of the Christians I knew seemed rather petty, neurotic, spiteful, judgemental, back-biting, mean-spirited and just plain silly. I have to say that drew me up with a jolt: how could that be? Surely if there were an all-loving God, then people who spent a considerable proportion of their lives opening themselves up to him should be filled with a peace and love that shone through everything they did and said? Yet that was patently not the case. I still think that's a really powerful argument, and by and large I still think it's a true assessment. Might it be fair to suggest, though, that a visitor to this site wouldn't necessarily always get that impression?

One of the things I just love about this forum is the level of intelligence, wit and mental agility on it. It's a very welcome oasis of IQ, and I'd hate that to change. At the same time, though, we should be aware that intelligence, wit and mental agility can be very off-putting and alienating, especially to those who don't share them. But it's possible to be intelligent AND kind; witty AND tolerant; mentally agile AND pleasant. I am not arguing that we should "respect belief" - I think we should challenge irrational belief every way we can; but simply that we should remember that we're dealing with real people with real feelings, and that it may be easier for them to hear our arguments if we haven't first activated their resistance and resentment by treating them with hostility.

It comes down to basic sales skills, really - "people buy from people they like".

Oh dear, I've rambled on again. Worse, I'm sounding preachy and you are all no doubt expecting me to announce the next hymn. So I'll wind up now by just saying that, whilst I've focused on the way that we all interact with believers on this forum, I can think of 3 ways in which the media might be harnessed to help too:

1. A book or TV series or website or SOMETHING about people who have either abandoned their religious beliefs or never had them - something that focuses on what they see as giving their lives meaning in the absence of religious belief, and something that would show very clearly that it is perfectly possible to live a good, kind, productive, caring, exciting, moral, full life without religion. Not something that majors on the evidence for and against belief - but simply how it feels to live without it.

2. Separate from the above, but clearly related to it, I'd like to see a book (or TV programme) on "Journeys out of Faith" - with people's stories of how they came to doubt their religion, what was the deciding factor for them, how it happened, and how they feel about their lives now. I think this may get believers thinking about the issues raised and it would also help to provide the communal reassurance that Dr Benway referred to. Plus it would have the very real benefit of showing atheists as real, rounded human beings and not just brains on legs.

3. I've already mentioned that I think it would be great if Richard Dawkins were to create a TV series exploring science and the way it works. I think this could go a long way to challenging the prevailing culture, which is to fear science and disparage it, and it would be a good way of introducing people to the art of analytical thinking too.

And with that, I'm really going to stop. (Detox, I bet you're wishing you'd never asked.) Good night! :-)

317. In God we doubt

Comment #67699 by Northern Bright on September 4, 2007 at 12:17 pm

@ Quine

IMHO it is an unfortunate accident of language that the generally pejorative term "materialistic" leaks over on anyone who admits to "materialism."

Yes, I agree. Personally I like to think of myself as an unmaterialistic materialist, but you're quite right - to many people (though not on this forum, thank goodness!) that would sound improbable, to say the least.

318. The God Delusion One-Year Countdown

Comment #67698 by Northern Bright on September 4, 2007 at 12:03 pm

3. Comment #67501 by LordSummerisle on September 3, 2007 at 3:51 pm

If TGD does manage this momentous task, it will no doubt be atrributable to the fundamentalists, eager to "know their enemy".

I've got this wonderful image in my mind of bookshops across the US bursting at the seams with fundamentalists returning their copies of TGD and demanding their money back, in a frenzied effort to prevent it reaching this landmark! ;-)

(Could that be a new collective noun, btw - a frenzy of fundamentalists?)

319. In God we doubt

Comment #67476 by Northern Bright on September 3, 2007 at 2:40 pm

67. Comment #67473 by steve99 on September 3, 2007 at 2:30 pm
I couldn't agree with you more, Steve. Many people will respond with their gut until and unless they're taught how to respond with their head. Sadly, the notion has taken hold of late that a gut-driven response is as reliable as a head-driven response, which I find both infuriating and very sad.

I've mentioned in a thread on the Forum that I'd love to see Richard Dawkins (and others) present some TV programmes introducing science next - including one on exactly how science works, what the scientific method is, the kinds of questions science asks and how it sets about finding the answers, why scientific knowledge changes at what can sometimes seem like frequent intervals, why scientists often disagree with each other - that kind of thing.

320. In God we doubt

Comment #67471 by Northern Bright on September 3, 2007 at 2:25 pm

@Quine

Please be careful with the term "materialism." It seems from your quote you were talking about what is sometimes called "economic materialism" which is characterized by being materialistic, as opposed to the general (from early philosophy) term meaning not believing in the supernatural. (see the defs at: http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/materialism.htm )

Yes, you're quite right, that is what I was talking about. But "materialism" carries both meanings, doesn't it (in fact I've just checked my dictionary and it gives the "material possessions" meaning as the primary definition and the philosophical one as the secondary). Glad you worked out which one I meant from the context anyway! :-)

321. In God we doubt

Comment #67444 by Northern Bright on September 3, 2007 at 1:10 pm

I hope you'll forgive me if I indulge in a little "thinking out loud" here (this is going to be a horribly long post), but I have been haunted these last few days by the way that atheists, theists and even agnostics seem utterly unable to communicate with one another on these subjects, and I've been trying to work out why it might be.

Again and again, we rationalists believe that our position has been expressed clearly and cannot possibly be misunderstood, yet again and again we find that it is and that it arouses a degree of hostility that takes us by surprise and makes some of us despair of ever getting the message across. The God Delusion, for instance, is written with a courteous yet unmistakeable clarity; it addresses all the issues that opponents could possibly bring up against it; and it is a beacon of both reason and reasonableness. How could anyone misinterpret it? How could anyone mistake it for a hysterical and bigoted rant? It seems impossible. And yet, as we all know, it IS misinterpreted - grossly so. I have been inclined up until now to interpret this rather cynically - as being the believers' way of rejecting it without having to engage with its arguments. But I'm beginning to wonder now. I still think the response is a way of rejecting it without having to engage with its arguments - but I'm beginning to think that this reaction has its roots in something other than cynical deviousness on the part of the theists - and that the real cause is fear. If you'll bear with me, I'll develop this thought in a moment.

It first struck me forcibly the other week, with the reactions to The Enemies of Reason. I was quite taken aback at the hostility that was expressed, even by the sort of people I would have expected to form our natural constituency (I'm thinking here of the Open University's Science Chat forum, where many of the comments have been depressingly favourable to homeopathy and acupuncture). The comments have all taken a similar form: first, the claim that RD was "shooting fish in a barrel", that he'd taken extreme examples, and that they were easy targets. Having established (in the commentator's mind, at least) that RD's criticism was over the top, the complainant then "comes out" as a bit of a fan of alternative medicine, or the idea of it at least, and before we know it, we have a full-blown case of "science is scary, don't touch it with a bargepole". The really bizarre thing, though, is that, having thus demonstrated to my satisfaction that they are EXACTLY the sort of person that the programme was trying to enlighten - they choose to pretend that it was REALLY just aimed at complete and utter nutcases who believe in Atlantean DNA, and that RD could really have saved his breath, since no one takes any notice of them anyway. They certainly don't think that they were the sort of people RD had in mind.

Is this not precisely the same kind of reaction as we see on the part of the religious? "Oh, Richard Dawkins just sees the fanatics - but I'm not one of them so his comments don't apply to my kind of religion." "Oh yes, well, we ALL wish the religious fundies would crawl away and keep quiet - you don't need to be an atheist for that." And, just as with the alternative therapy fans, the next stage, having pretended that RD's comments don't apply to them, they move on to the "But my religion is a force for good ..." and off they go…

In both cases I am struck by how utterly indifferent they are to the fact that their beliefs have been shown - clearly, unmistakeably, courteously - to be unsubstantiated by anything resembling proper evidence.

Most of us, I would suggest, are atheists because we can find no evidence to support belief in a god or gods. Most of us, I would further suggest, would revise our position if such evidence were to be found. To us, what matters is the TRUTH or otherwise of the claims made by believers. And, naturally enough, we base our arguments on precisely these issues. I don't believe in God because there is no evidence to suggest that such a being exists; I don't go to "alternative therapists", because there is no evidence to suggest that they do any good. What matters to me is not what I'd like to be true - but, quite simply, what IS true. Yet, like a scene in a horror movie, we hurl these rational arguments - the best weapons we have - at the advancing phalanx of believers and watch in horrified disbelief as they bounce straight off again with no effect whatsoever, like paper planes bouncing off a charging rhino.

Has the time come, maybe, for us to review our weaponry? So far we've been majoring on the weapon - TRUTH - that seems most effective to us. But we're not the ones the weapon has to be effective on. What to us seems like the only question in town is apparently pretty secondary to many others. Whether or not alternative therapies actually do anything, many people find them more cuddly than scientific therapies. Whether or not there really is a god, many people do not want to have to cope with their lives without the hope that there is.

More and more, I'm beginning to think that it's not necessarily that people really, truly, genuinely believe that there's a God, let alone the God of the bible; but that it's more a case that they HOPE there is, that they would find life an intolerable burden without such a hope. There's no evidence to support that hope? So what? They don't care. That's not the point for them. They believe in God for the same reason that they buy a lottery ticket: do they really, deep down, believe they're going to win the jackpot this weekend? No, of course they don't. But nevertheless, just knowing that they might is often enough to keep them going through a week that may be pretty dire in all kinds of ways. Are they remotely put off by our pointing out that their chances of winning the lottery are so infinitesimal that, to all intents and purposes, they're zero? No, of course not. Because that lottery ticket in their purse gives them a glimmer of hope, something to daydream about, something that offers just the slightest chance of an escape from whatever it is in their lives that grinds them down, without them having to do anything to bring it about themselves.

Religion serves the same purpose in many people's lives, surely? Looking at the recent articles by Salley Vickers, John Humphrys and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, and many others of the same ilk, the response isn't a calm exposition of why they believe the claims of religion to be true. (In Humphrys' case, he doesn't even believe that they are.) Their arguments really boil down to how much harder life would be without that belief to cling to. The truth or otherwise of the various claims of the religions is irrelevant. To us that seems bizarre, preposterous, obscene almost. But just look at the shrillness of their response. It reminds me of nothing more than the piercing shrieks of a small child who's sent to bed alone without her favourite teddy bear. It's more than protest: it's sheer terror.

I know plenty of Christians who are most definitely not stupid and not fundamentalists. So why do they believe? Well, when I ask them, their answers tend to be things like: "Well, there's got to be some point to it all, hasn't there?" or "How could there be any meaning to life if there wasn't a God?" or "When you think how short the human lifespan is, that can't be everything, it just doesn't make sense" or "I just can't get my head round the idea of everything just stopping when I die - all that experience, all that knowledge: it can't all just disappear, it can't all be for nothing." I also get a fair smattering of "It gives me so much strength, I don't know how people get through life without a faith."

To those of us who pride ourselves on facing up to the truth and getting on with life anyway, this seems pretty extraordinary. I can honestly say that I don't have a great horror of death - it seems to me to be such a natural part of life. In fact, I'd find the prospect of eternal life (even the heavenly version) far more demoralising than the prospect of eternal nothingness. Equally, I don't feel remotely put out that my life doesn't have any cosmic purpose. Its purpose is what I make of it. And I find that liberating - I decide what's important in my life and how I want to spend it - I don't need any ancient texts or frisky vicars to point me in what they consider to be the right direction. BUT - those of us who feel able to look life in the eye and say "bring it on" are maybe kidding ourselves if we think that everyone would be able to do the same, if only they'd just open their eyes to the truth.

Many people cling to their beliefs however eloquently we argue against them for the same reason that many people will stay in abusive relationships: because they are scared of having to face life on their own. The fear of life without ultimate meaning, or of life that's ended by death, is so great and so deep-rooted in so many people that when we try to point out - truthfully - that life HAS no ultimate meaning and it DOES end with death - they regard us as some kind of aberration, some kind of robotic monster. Of COURSE atheists seem scary to them: if we can face the prospect of our own demise so calmly, why should we care about theirs? How can someone who can cope calmly with the reality of mortality be in possession of the full range of human emotions, like love and joy and compassion (and fear)?

We know that we can and that their fears are utterly unfounded - bizarre, even. But just look at the responses to The God Delusion and see whether you can't detect something of what I'm suggesting in them.

(As a complete aside: it's become the norm for theists and agnostics to claim that atheism must result in materialism and that it is only faith that prevents us from valuing possessions too highly. I disagree: it seems to me that materialism is simply another form of displacement activity, designed to keep the mind off uncomfortable thoughts. In this respect, excessively materialistic people have more in common with the faithful than the faith-free, I would suggest. However, I digress, and in a post that's already shamelessly long.)

This leads to the Big Question: if people reject atheism because they're SCARED of it, rather than because they're not convinced by its arguments, how DO we get the message across? It's tempting, I know, to just tell them to grow up and get real, but no one ever grew up and gained more confidence in their ability to deal with life through having someone order them to do so. Nor did any stupid person ever become wiser through having their stupidity rudely pointed out to them. (Richard Dawkins doesn't do either of these things, I hasten to add, but many of us - myself included - have been known to do so in our different ways!)

Of course there are some people who will abandon religion if they suddenly come to see it's not true - so there's definitely a place for arguments based on fact and science and evidence and rationality and everything we've been doing up until now.

But I'm equally convinced that there are many people out there who will never be reached in this way. How do we reach them? I have some ideas: but I've hogged enough space and time here with this splurge, so I think I'll just leave it there for now and see if anyone else has any thoughts.

My apologies for being so l-o-n-g. Believe it or not, I have actually edited it down!! :-)

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

Comment #67272 by Northern Bright on September 3, 2007 at 2:03 am

I didn't realise she was not religious. That blows my thesis out of the water.

I have no difficulty accepting that she's not Christian etc - her writing is far too vague and airy-fairy to have its source in anything as fixed in its theories as that.

But I'd put money - quite a lot of money - on her claiming to be "spiritual". That seems to be the catch-all phrase used by people these days to denote that they don't want to forego the comforts of thinking the universe cares about them, but nor do they want to be constrained by the onerous duties and restrictions on their freedom imposed by the mainstream religions.

It seems to me to be the least honest and least consistent with integrity of all the possible stances on such questions.

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

Comment #67258 by Northern Bright on September 3, 2007 at 1:36 am

disciples irritates me no end

Me too, but I'm quite sure it is wielded with the intention of irritating us. The same as when the opposing camp say things like "They're so, um, unscientific" or "Dawkins is almost religious in his convictions" or "The God Delusion has become the holy book for atheists" or any other variation on the theme.

For me the irritation is tempered by amusement at the thought that each person using this technique is clearly quite convinced that they're the first to do so and that they're terribly clever to have thought of it!

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

Comment #67179 by Northern Bright on September 2, 2007 at 1:22 pm

Veronique's question to Salley:

Have you actually read The God Delusion?

Salley's reply to Veronique:

And I have read Dawkins – and admire some of his earlier books.

Ahem. What was that about sleight of hand, Salley? :-)

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

Comment #67162 by Northern Bright on September 2, 2007 at 9:40 am

But "100% Femininzed" must be flattering, no?

Hmm, dunno. Is it just me, or does it make it sound like I've had a sex change operation? :-(

PS. If I start smoking cannabis will I think "femininzed" is a real word, by the way?!!!

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

Comment #67161 by Northern Bright on September 2, 2007 at 9:35 am

And angels are time honoured images used by artists and writers over the centuries to communicate subtle and formless states. There is nothing irrational about that.

Hey, this woman's actually SEEN angels in pictures! How much more proof of their existence could you possibly require?

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

Comment #67159 by Northern Bright on September 2, 2007 at 9:24 am

181. Comment #67157 by Mango on September 2, 2007 at 9:14 am

Northern Bright as a handle always seemed innocent enough, that is, until I received my weekly catalog of Dutch cannabis seeds:
http://www.buydutchseeds.com/product_info.php?ref=812&cPath=25&products_id=73

Huh. "Northern bright has relatively small leaves and long stretchy buds", indeed! The cheek of it! :-)

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

Comment #67154 by Northern Bright on September 2, 2007 at 8:43 am

171. Comment #67143 by Russell Blackford on September 2, 2007 at 7:09 am

Brilliant verse, Russell - you are clearly the Alexander Pope de nos jours. I am expecting you to launch yourself at any moment onto the "Fallen Pastor Seeks Aid to Pursue Studies" thread with a spot-on parody entitled "The Rape of the Flock" ...

:-)

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

Comment #67152 by Northern Bright on September 2, 2007 at 8:34 am

175. Comment #67147 by Dr Benway on September 2, 2007 at 7:38 am

Mounting the Devil's Chaplain
Climbing Gene's Improbable Root

Hmm. I prefer to leave that sort of thing to Ted Haggard, if it's all the same to you. ;-)

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

Comment #67141 by Northern Bright on September 2, 2007 at 6:35 am

I thought I'd check the comments before I toddle off to bed with Victor Stenger, of whom I am becoming fond.

Tch. These atheists. No morals.

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

Comment #67136 by Northern Bright on September 2, 2007 at 5:56 am

Richard Morgan, you clearly have an eye on your place in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey when the time comes, but be warned: competition for such an honour is fierce. Salley Vickers has staked her claim with the following poem, which I believe does genuinely reflect the quality of her life's work:

There was a young woman called Salley
Whose foes said her words didn't tally.
When asked what she thought
Of this violent onslaught,
She said, "I blame that Richard Dawkins."

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

Comment #67125 by Northern Bright on September 2, 2007 at 3:37 am

139. Comment #67078 by Dr Benway on September 1, 2007 at 5:43 pm

Editor: Salley, where to start.... Perhaps we ought to move you over to the food section.

Uh-oh. Thanks to my 12 strands of Atlantean DNA, I have seen the future, and it isn't pretty:

Next week's edition:
SALLEY VICKERS, FOOD REVIEWER, ON THE ANGELIC DELIGHTS OF ROAST CHICKEN
This meal is a piece of SHeer heaven. IT kicks meals that are not roast chicken into touch and, like me, is deliciously delicious, juicy and tender into the bargain.

The creator of this dish clearly believes, as I do, that chickens were never intended by the invisible realities to be wispy, winged things, but crispy, singed things and that this unfortunate but common misunderstanding would never have arisen if it hadn't been for that pesky Richard Dawkins and his even peskier book, Unweaving the Selfish Watchmaker's Delusion Tale.

Furthermore, roast chicken knocks spots off Richard Calls-Himself-A-Scientist Dawkins' favourite dish which, I am reliably informed by my guardian seraph, is Welsh Rarebit. Loads of people say (and that's evidence enough for me) that eating rare bits is unethical in these days of heightened concern about the Earth's limited resources. Honestly, it just goes to show what those of us in communion with the ethereal other-worldlies have known since the very first of our incarnations, which is that science and scientists are BAD, EVIL and SHOULD BE STOPPED!

And not just that! Oh no! Not satisfied with just eating any old rare bits, Dawkins specifically picks on Welsh ones. What has the mad Professor got against the Welsh, I'd like to know? Has he stopped to consider how it would sound if he said his favourite dish was "Jewish Rarebit" or "Black Rarebit"? Even Hitler didn't go around trying to exterminate the Welsh. And Stalin, too, may have sent his opponents to the gulags, but he drew the line at eating their rare bits. Dawkins evidently tends towards genocide on a scale greater even than his atheistic role-models.

There is only one possible explanation for this outrageous persecution of a minority race: Dawkins is clearly consumed by his hatred of the religious and is picking on the Welsh because of their strong historical ties to Methodism.

Not that any of this is likely to alter the minds of the anti God squad. They "know" that eating the rare bits of believers is right - that least scientific of attitudes since it precludes changes of heart or openness of mind. If only Professor Dawkins and Co would remember that Socrates was deemed the wisest of men because he "knew that he didn't know". Those who think that not knowing is safer and more attractive than its opposite should treat themselves to a nice helping of roast chicken.

Roast chicken is best served hot, with a nice glass of chardonnay and a side dish of Miss Garnet's Angel (available from all good booksellers at the bargain price of £7.99)

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

Comment #67031 by Northern Bright on September 1, 2007 at 12:13 pm

117. Comment #67027 by Greybishop on September 1, 2007 at 11:59 am

When I posted my comment on this review (I actually just commented about how poor the actual review was and stayed away from the reviewer's obvious bias against Dr. Dawkins) there were 9 posted comments. Then 10, 11 and at one point 12, including Northern Bright's comment. Then 11. Now 6. Neither Dr. Dawkin's comment nor any of the other comments by the posters from here (except for a brief moment when Northern Bright's comment showed up) have seen the light of day and now there are even fewer posted. I wonder what gives?

I looked in earlier and recognised a number of the comments from this site- Veronique's, Epeeist's plus one or two others.

To be fair, ALL the comments I've seen have been totally negative about Vickers' review - not a single one from the other perspective. Perhaps they haven't received any?!

But I do agree that it's extraordinary of them not to have included Richard Dawkins' comment. There's no justification for lambasting someone in print and then not giving them the right of reply.

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

Comment #67020 by Northern Bright on September 1, 2007 at 10:59 am

Ms Vickers clearly doesn't complicate her opinions through familiarity with the books she's reviewing. - that is the best line in response to this review that I've read.

Thank you, Robotaholic, but I feel I should confess to having borrowed it from Bill Bryson for the occasion. Bill - if you're reading this, hope you don't mind ;-)

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

Comment #66949 by Northern Bright on September 1, 2007 at 4:50 am

67. Comment #66945 by Eamonn Shute on September 1, 2007 at 4:33 am

Still no sign of Richard's comment, or any other comments for several hours. Are they witholding them to save Vickers' embarrassment?

Shouldn't think so. If they wanted to spare Vickers the embarrassment of looking foolish, they wouldn't have published her review in the first place, surely?

(Or maybe the editor of The Times reads his paper's book reviews with the same level of attention with which his book reviewers read their books ....)

Richard Morgan - great limerick! :-)

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

Comment #66922 by Northern Bright on September 1, 2007 at 2:16 am

What we have here is someone who has drunk deeply from the postmodernist tankard and can't stop belching.

Corylus - what a wonderful turn of phrase. I openly announce here and now that I am going to plagiarise it shamelessly!

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

Comment #66921 by Northern Bright on September 1, 2007 at 2:13 am

Veronique:

Oh fuck, can someone here please tell me what Pythagorus is talking about? Is he being satirical or ridiculous?

I don't understand what he is posting. Is he another twit or not?

Of COURSE he's being satirical. Just beause Sally Vickers has lost the power of reading unhysterically, there's no need for us to follow suit!

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

Comment #66916 by Northern Bright on September 1, 2007 at 1:58 am

I, too, have posted a comment at TimesOnLine:

Tell me, is it no longer a requirement for book reviewers to actually read the books that they plan to write off publicly as disingenuous, uninformed, dangerous rubbish?

Reading The God Delusion came as one of the more pleasant surprises I've had recently, on the basis that it didn't even remotely resemble the hysterical, arrogant, bigoted rant portrayed by reviewers such as Ms Vickers.

Cornwell's book may well be a "piece of sheer heaven", as claimed in this review. Unfortunately, since Ms Vickers clearly doesn't complicate her opinions through familiarity with the books she's reviewing, I can see little reason why her assessment of Cornwell's book should be any more reliable than that of The God Delusion.

339. Fruit fly parasite's gene invasion raises questions over evolution

Comment #66759 by Northern Bright on August 31, 2007 at 8:37 am

"Raising new questions over how evolution works" is not quite the same as "raises questions over evolution", as I'm sure the Guardian science editor is perfectly aware.

2. Comment #66750 by kelphis on August 31, 2007 at 7:59 am

you all know what this means? the creationist loons will jump on this to show how wrong evolution is.

Sigh. They certainly will (since they always do). Though I think they'll struggle to claim that Creationism accounts for this phenomenon any better! :-)

340. The Sacrifice of Reason

Comment #66751 by Northern Bright on August 31, 2007 at 8:08 am

90. Comment #66745 by Friend Giskard on August 31, 2007 at 7:49 am

Does this shed any light? From: http://www.vanishingtattoo.com/borneo_tattoos_1.htm

According to the beliefs of the Iban, one of the souls of a person resides in their head and by taking someone else's you capture their soul as well as their status, strength, skill and power. Thus, it is not surprising that human heads, once taken and preserved, were respected in ritual; their spirits became adopted members of the group that took them and were persuaded to aid their captors in many ways.

Most Dayak, living their lives in strict accordance to the divine norms and commandments by which the gods and ancestors had lived their lives, relied upon human sacrifice to propitiate the good will of their masters. Headhunting, the ritual component, served to maintain the prosperity of the group by ensuring agricultural and community fertility. In the eyes of the gods and ancestors, the taking of fresh heads was not only pleasing - it was duly rewarded with many gifts. For example, the divine indicated locations in the forest where fields should be cleared and planted; they protected the rice fields against crop failure; they lent their diagnosis in illness; and they accompanied men in war or on the headhunt to insure success. Headhunting was therefore an institution believed to maintain balance and harmony in the Dayak cosmos and oftentimes a man's status was not established until he had proven success in headhunting itself.

341. Orthodox Call on Sinners To Give Chickens a Fairer Shake

Comment #66746 by Northern Bright on August 31, 2007 at 7:52 am

Someone please remind me what century we're living in?

For crying out loud - humans can guide a vessel through space to land on a precise spot on Mars (and then send back photos), we can transplant organs from one body to another, we can fly through the air, we can travel under the oceans, we can communicate instantaneously with people on the other side of the world, we can eradicate diseases that used to wipe people out in their millions, and we can make uncannily accurate quantum predictions (on which topic - LOVE the avatar, Richard Morgan!!) ... and yet there are still people out there who think that swinging a live animal round their head will remove their sins ... and even more who think we should respect that view.

Give me strength. Honestly - makes you want to weep, doesn't it?

342. Another view

Comment #66270 by Northern Bright on August 29, 2007 at 2:28 pm

Yes, but they all focus on the "theory" of acupuncture instead of its practice.

Que? No they don't! Look again!(Sorry - really am going to bed, but I couldn't let that pass, because it's so far from the truth.)

343. Another view

Comment #66269 by Northern Bright on August 29, 2007 at 2:26 pm

But the main point I made is that "scientific medicine" is not really that "scientific" afterall when many practitioners are just matching symptoms with pills seemingly without any proper theoretical understanding of what goes on.

No, I wouldn't suggest that GPs are scientists. But that doesn't mean that the medicines at their disposal aren't scientifically produced and scientifically tested and scientifically verified.

And, by the way, there's nothing inherently unscientific about trial and error!

At least all the treatments they may try on you have been properly tested and there is real reason to think that they'll work. Scientific meds are only licensed for use in appropriate conditions anyway (well, in the UK they are anyway - don't know about anywhere else.)

Too tired to discuss any more now. And we really are just repeating a discussion that's been had elsewhere! Good night.

344. Another view

Comment #66266 by Northern Bright on August 29, 2007 at 2:13 pm

59. Comment #66263 by Bonzai on August 29, 2007 at 1:50 pm

We should be more open minded about things like acupuncture. Afterall it is not magic and I don't see how it contradicts the laws of physics.

A Google search on "acupuncture meta-analysis" will answer this point for you. Or look in the thread on the Forum, where the results of such a search have already been discussed.

Open-mindedness is contra-indicated by the evidence, unfortunately.

345. Another view

Comment #66264 by Northern Bright on August 29, 2007 at 2:06 pm

56. Comment #66259 by Bonzai on August 29, 2007 at 1:31 pm

In my experience it seems that many doctors are acting like pill dispensing machines. If one pill doesn't work try another, then another.

And that's a problem because ....?

I sometimes get the feeling that the people who are so critical of scientific medicine have rather unrealistic expectations of it. I so often hear comments like, "Well, scientific medicine can't cure everything either." (Er, no. Did it ever say it could?) Or, "Well, my friend got an allergic reaction to a medication given her by her doctor." (Sorry to hear that, but your point is ....?) "It took my doctor 4 attempts before he found something that worked for me." (Would you have preferred him to have given up after 3?)

No sensible person would ever claim that scientific medicine can cure everything (let alone always at the first attempt). It can't. It never will. Nor would any sensible person claim that science understands everything about how the body works. It doesn't. But this doesn't invalidate what it DOES know, and it doesn't invalidate treatments that have been shown in properly controlled tests to work in most patients.

Scientific medicine has transformed our experience of disease and our chances of surviving it. I thought TEoR made the point very well that, in a sense, scientific medicine is the victim of its own success - it has been so successful in tackling disease that many of us no longer understand how great a threat disease still poses and therefore feel safe in rejecting vaccinations for our children and so on.


And when your doctor seems to try one pill after another, she's not just plucking something at random out of the ether - there's a reason for trying pill B (as opposed to pill L) if pill A hasn't worked.

Nothing about the current shortcomings in scientific medicine adds one iota to the evidence FOR alternative therapies.

Look at the claims made on the websites of clinics offering "alternative therapies" and now do a Google search on "[name of alternative therapy] meta-analysis" and see whether those claims are substantiated at all. It's a sobering exercise.

Scientific medicine may not be perfect - but this doesn't alter the fact that there is NO proper evidence for the efficacy of alternative therapies.

346. Another view

Comment #66260 by Northern Bright on August 29, 2007 at 1:33 pm

Wendelin

There's been a long discussion (for which read "raging argument") in the Forum on the subject of acupuncture. It's in the Richard Dawkins secton, the "Dawkins on TV - The Enemies of Reason Aug 13/20" thread, starting from about page 28.

As one of the combatants there, I don't think I have the energy to go through it all again here! But you might be interested to take a look. It includes a brief look at some of the evidence too.

347. Another view

Comment #66258 by Northern Bright on August 29, 2007 at 1:25 pm

49. Comment #66252 by Bonzai on August 29, 2007 at 1:14 pm

There are "qualified" practitioners who had no clue what they are doing

Of course there are - why shouldn't there be? Can you think of a single profession where no one ever mistakes a mistake, or where it is 100% guaranteed that the wrong person will never be appointed? I certainly can't.

The roads are full of qualified drivers doing stupid things. I'd still prefer the 10-ton truck heading in my direction to be being driven by someone with the appropriate training and licence.

348. Another view

Comment #66249 by Northern Bright on August 29, 2007 at 12:54 pm

mcadamsdj,

Good grief, that's scary. I had an overactive thyroid for years and was really quite ill with it - it's a potentially very serious condition. To think that people are dosing themselves with the very stuff that causes it - or are being "prescribed" it by unqualified practitioners - is horrendous.

349. Another view

Comment #66236 by Northern Bright on August 29, 2007 at 12:13 pm

Tell that to the homeopath who gave one of my patients thyroid hormone replacement just because they felt "sluggish..." uh, without checking the thyroid hormone level!

My patient came in with a heart arrhythmia which she wouldn't otherwise have had, but at least she wasn't sluggish anymore...

I don't understand that, mcadamsdj - hormone replacement therapy isn't homeopathic. How could a homeopath prescribe it? (I'm not doubting your truthfulness, by the way - I'm just puzzled!)

350. Another view

Comment #66192 by Northern Bright on August 29, 2007 at 8:04 am

[Dawkins]suffers from existential insecurity ...
Dawkins must be very unhappy in himself.

Ah, if only I'd spent the last 20 years selling diluted water to people who aren't idiots, I might have that kind of uncanny insight into people's innermost beings too.

Those of us who insist on evidence before we'll believe crazy claims are clearly just out of step with the 21st century. (Which, now I come to think of it, pretty much sums up Richard Dawkins' point too ...)

Richard, if you happen to be reading this, I'm so sorry to learn from this article of your inner turmoil and distress. But don't be alarmed (it's bad for your chakras): I'm sending you some cosmic healing, so you'll be as sane and balanced as Mr Russell before you know it. I'm sure you'll find that a reassuring prospect.