1. Comment #433421 by Richard Dawkins on November 20, 2009 at 12:09 pm

How BORING that the Pope Ratzinger is notching up the most votes. I'm not sure who I'd vote for, but I'd surely choose a less obvious candidate than the pope.

Richard

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2. Comment #433423 by thesavage on November 20, 2009 at 12:23 pm

As with last year, I've gone for Adnan Oktar, aka Harun Yahya as my standout global God bothering nut job.

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3. Comment #433424 by AllanW on November 20, 2009 at 12:26 pm

Richard; Darth Ratzinger is the obvious choice for many people because of the sheer scale of the horror he causes. If he doesn't get the award what does that say about our humanitarian concerns versus petty political points?

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4. Comment #433425 by John Locke on November 20, 2009 at 12:27 pm

i see your point richard, after all it is less fun - but as the worst offender i think he deserves the gong.

i think people are voting for him because he is a genuine serious target for criticism and his comments and actions go beyond the light hearted nature of the poll. even if it is a (relatively) meaningless online poll.

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5. Comment #433426 by bruceeverett on November 20, 2009 at 12:28 pm

I'm undecided between Tony "Atheists are The Enemy" Blair, and Cormac "Atheists are sub-human" Murphy O'Connor. What unreconstructed bigots they are, and a real litmus test of anyone who courts them.

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6. Comment #433428 by Thurston on November 20, 2009 at 12:37 pm

The unlikely pairing of Eagleton and Armstrong get my vote, just because they don't have anything to say that can be argued with. At least creationists have the courage of their convictions and say they really believe what they do.

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7. Comment #433429 by Paula Kirby on November 20, 2009 at 12:41 pm

Talk about stuck for choice! Any one of them would make a worthy winner. In the end I went for Tony Blair, on the basis that it’s not realistic to expect any better of the others but I do think we have a right to expect our statesmen to make their decisions based on solid evidence and rational thinking rather than floaty feelings and scary voices in their heads. Add to that his sheer clout on the international stage, and his irrationality becomes a very serious matter indeed.

The Pope’s is too, of course, but on that basis he could win it every year. So for my money we might as well take the Pope's dangerous irrationality as read, and highlight the dangers posed by other irrationalists instead.

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8. Comment #433430 by Opisthokont on November 20, 2009 at 12:48 pm

I suspect that Ratzinger and Oktar are each individually responsible for more damage against the humanist cause than all the remaining candidates combined. For instance, Aherne's blasphemy law will likely be only symbolic until it is overturned in the courts (which is only a matter of time, although I will not hold my breath until that happens), and Murphy-O'Connor is on the list merely for one quote (albeit the sort of stupid, insulting, and patently wrong quote that we get branded as "shrill" and "strident" for objecting to). Granted, the latter has participated in a number of other serious affronts to humanity, but the majority (if not all) of those are just business as usual in the Catholic church, which is ultimately Ratzinger's responsibility. Ratzinger is probably the most influntial of the lot, while Oktar's fostering of Islamic creationism and aiding of Turkish antisecularism is likely to be the hardest to undo.

So the question comes down to what the Bad Faith award is actually supposed to highlight. If it is individual acts of faith-based idiocy, then for certain all (except perhaps the BCA) are qualified without question; if it is more of a reflection on career achievements, Oktar and Ratzinger are going to be hard to top.

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9. Comment #433431 by Twatsworth on November 20, 2009 at 12:49 pm

Vote for either Tony Blair or the British Chiropractic Association.

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10. Comment #433432 by George Lennan on November 20, 2009 at 12:51 pm

I would have voted for Saint Tony, but now his ambitions to have Europe marching on for jesus have been scuppered (yeehah - champers anyone), I think he's more or less had his last crack of the whip and won't be bothering us any more.

I went for Armstrong / Eagleton, well, Armstrong after her recent hilarious 'god doesn't exist which is why we must believe in him' vaudeville. Bad faith in every way.

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11. Comment #433434 by irate_atheist on November 20, 2009 at 12:59 pm

After some reflection on the points made by Allan and Paula, and despite my visceral contempt for Tony, I have plumped for Nazinger.

He may seem like the obvious choice, Richard, but the damage he and his organisation does to peoples lives is far greater than the others. And that, IMHO, trumps any personal feelings of disgust. Unless a certain Scottish clergyman ever appears on the list, of course. In which case - like him - it would be a no-brainer.

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12. Comment #433437 by Mark Jones on November 20, 2009 at 1:00 pm

Very tough call, but I've gone for Eagleton/Armstrong, or EagleStrong, as the kids are calling them.

Although to my mind Armstrong is less culpable than Eagleton, who seems to have created his own special blend of malice and cant. Armstrong is a capable writer whose beliefs have run away from her, so she's ended up writing nonsense like The Case for God, full of sentiments which don't add up to anything.

Eagleton; well, he's just an awful writer with a chip on his shoulder, IMO.

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13. Comment #433439 by hungarianelephant on November 20, 2009 at 1:02 pm

I toyed with the idea of picking Dermot Ahern, only to find that instead some chap called Dermot Aherne is listed. Who he?

Ahearne is the only one who has managed a concrete reversal in a progressive country. But in the end, I don't believe this nonsense is religiously motivated. Furthermore, there were 165 other TDs who were given an opportunity to vote it down, 159 of whom didn't turn up at all, and the other five of whom didn't get off their superannuated arses to stop it. Singling out Diarmaid O'Hurne amongst such a pathetic bunch of losers seems rather unfair.

So I went for Tony Blair, for basically the same reasons as Paula Kirby (433429).

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14. Comment #433442 by Peacebeuponme on November 20, 2009 at 1:07 pm

Surely John Denham must be in with a shout now?

[EDIT: Obviously he's not on the list. It's Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor for me, the man who said that atheists are something less than human and said of The Da Vinci code: "There is a real danger that people will start to believe this fairly story.]

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15. Comment #433444 by Nisus Wettus on November 20, 2009 at 1:15 pm

BCA, because the more bad publicity they get the better for everyone.

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16. Comment #433460 by Bormotun on November 20, 2009 at 1:45 pm

But why shouldn't it be Ratzinger?! I was very surprised to hear this from the author of "The God Delusion"!

After all, the aim of the poll is formulated as determining "the person deemed to have made the most outstanding contribution to the cause of unreason."

I know there could be more people on this list, but still: can there really be found any single person who did more for unreason than the Pope? We are talking about direct influence on over a billion people on the global scale here!

Various muslim and other fanatics may be doing more immediate harm, but their harm is much more localised...

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17. Comment #433462 by Bribase on November 20, 2009 at 1:47 pm

Had to be Harun Yahya for me. His particular brand of misinformation has this breathtaking transparency to it. I'm a little tired of creationists searching for tiny fissures in the theory of evolution to inject their corrosive babble. Their cause really needed Oktar to act like a giant traction engine, trundling over the pithy details like taxonomy, phylogeny and whether or not the examples are made of plastic.

No one can do denial like he can

B

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18. Comment #433475 by daftness on November 20, 2009 at 2:25 pm

I was tempted sorely to plump for Conman Numpty O'Nutter but opted instead for the smiling malevolence that is Phoney B-Liar

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19. Comment #433476 by serendipity1 on November 20, 2009 at 2:27 pm

Bad Faith Award, presented each year to the person deemed to have made the most outstanding contribution to the cause of unreason

Given that this is an annual award, presumably your nominee should have made a particular, outstanding contribution to the cause of unreason within the past year.

I'm sure we could all agree on a shortlist (or perhaps a not-so-shortlist) of potential recipients based on their historical, accumulated demonstrations of a lack of, or opposition to, reason. However, as I see it, this is an opportunity to draw attention to those who have perpetrated particularly outrageous happyslap attacks on reason during the course of this past year.

Given that I’m Irish, I am veering strongly towards nominating Thierry Henry ……. no, sorry, I mean Dermot Ahern ……….

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20. Comment #433484 by Peacebeuponme on November 20, 2009 at 2:52 pm

serendipity1

Thierry Henry

This man has performed so much magic for Arsenal that I can't lose respect for him. However, he seems to be on some sort of gentlemanly time-delay.

He tells the referee and Richard Dunne that, yes, he did handball, just after the goal is awarded and match ended.

He say that, yes, a reply would be fair, just after FIFA unequivocally rule it out.

He's a fair guy who's watch has stopped, it seems. Cynics may suggest otherwise.

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21. Comment #433490 by halbard101 on November 20, 2009 at 3:02 pm

Damn, I can’t vote from work as the page is blocked for some reason 

I’ll be definitely casting my vote for Tony Blair though, I can’t stand this man. Not only do we have troops stuck in the Middle East on bogus reasons because of him, but we now have faith schools. When did segregating people by religion ever make anything better£ These are a time bomb…

But at least muslim girls will receive the correct “training” so their Dad’s won’t have to kill them to restore “honour”.

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22. Comment #433491 by lordpasternack on November 20, 2009 at 3:03 pm

1. Comment #433421 by Richard Dawkins:

I'm not sure who I'd vote for, but I'd surely choose a less obvious candidate than the pope.

I personally would vote for the candidate who most fully fulfilled the outlined criteria - obvious and boring or not.

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23. Comment #433493 by Tyler Durden on November 20, 2009 at 3:08 pm

@Peace-

I don't mean to derail this thread but Thievery Henry has admitted it was "ball-to-hand" i.e. accidental.

He did not admit to handball.

But video evidence clearly shows him nudging the ball into play after it had hit his hand i.e. deliberate.

FIFA won't change its minds but the French Federation could ban Henry for two matches (unsportsmanlike conduct) thereby missing games during the World Cup 2012.

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24. Comment #433496 by Peacebeuponme on November 20, 2009 at 3:18 pm

Tyler - I'm the tree across the track, sorry.

Henry has recently said he handled the ball 'instinctively'. It's rather like when Marc Overmars 'instinctively' ran 30 yards and smashed the ball into the net during a cup tie against Sheffield United a few years ago. That match did actually get replayed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/8370764.stm

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25. Comment #433497 by root2squared on November 20, 2009 at 3:19 pm

Blair for me. Not too hard. Even the pope is a saint compared to Bush's puppy dog.

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26. Comment #433499 by mixmastergaz on November 20, 2009 at 3:22 pm

Obvious and boring is rather missing the point of the Bad Faith Awards; it's unlikely the winner will turn up to collect his or her prize! A vote for the Pope makes us New Humanists (and I'm a subscriber) look humourless and predictable. Voting for Pope Palpatine is about as funny as a "You Don't Have To Be Mad To Work Here..." sign. The publication which gave us "God Trumps" deserves better than the obvious and boring choice.

Of course I agree that the Catholic Church in general, and Pope Benedict in particular, are very far from being positive influences in the world, but these aren't the "Who's The Biggest Bad Guy" awards...

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27. Comment #433501 by Tyler Durden on November 20, 2009 at 3:33 pm

Sorry Peace, Henry says "the ball hit my hand..." but he never admits to the second touch where he controlled the ball with his hand.

Henry is blaming the ref, anyone but himself.

I admired Wenger for that gesture against Sheffield United a few years ago.

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28. Comment #433502 by Mr. Davies on November 20, 2009 at 3:33 pm

I had to go with Bush for using his creationist 'Zoo" to poison the minds of the young.

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29. Comment #433506 by Fuzzy Duck on November 20, 2009 at 3:41 pm

I voted Adnan Oktar, a.k.a. Harun Yahya.

Strangely, there was a fairly large stockpile of copies of "Atlas of Creation" at my college, Bard, earlier this semester. In what in Allah's name is going on?...


Kevin

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30. Comment #433508 by OlavRokne on November 20, 2009 at 3:47 pm

I have to vote for the Chiropractors.

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31. Comment #433511 by Spinoza on November 20, 2009 at 3:55 pm

Eagleton and Armstrong... they should know better.

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32. Comment #433521 by blakjack on November 20, 2009 at 4:22 pm

Not on the voting paper I know, but Mark Thompson, BBC Director General would be a good each-way bet if he were.

Jack

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33. Comment #433527 by Corylus on November 20, 2009 at 4:44 pm

I was torn between several, but remembering this pushed me over the edge on Tony Blair.

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34. Comment #433533 by KRKBAB on November 20, 2009 at 5:05 pm

I have to agree with R.D.- this website's namesake- this is something more for fun than seriousness. The pope (small "p") is too boring a choice. I go for the tag team of Eagleton/Armstrong. I'm sorry, but "Loving the universe into existence " is way too funny to pass up. Would it in any way involve a trajectory ejaculation by God himself of proportions even way beyond the biblical?

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35. Comment #433537 by DocWebster on November 20, 2009 at 5:08 pm

As a colonist here in the America's I would have to go with Damian Thompson. Anyone who would wish harm, even in effigy, on Stephen Fry deserves whatever hell he purports to believe in.

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36. Comment #433539 by effymeral on November 20, 2009 at 5:19 pm

armstrong and eagleton. their ignorance was more headache-inducing than laughable

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37. Comment #433542 by Rosbif on November 20, 2009 at 5:22 pm

I'd vote for anyone who is religious.
By provding both financial and moral support they are providing credibilty for the their leaders to seek profit (financial, glorific, notorific, etc) from their fact denying, unreasoned behaviour.

Without the supporters, there would be no reason to continue the myths.
Without 1.2bn catholics, the Pope would just be a silly old man, without creationists Mr Comfort would just be the village idiot, without crackpot, pint sized actors, Xanu would just be a fictional character in a book .. oh, wait, he is ......

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38. Comment #433546 by zengardener on November 20, 2009 at 5:41 pm

I really wanted to vote for Adnan Oktar, aka Harun Yahya, but in the end I thought that he would be a more appropriate candidate for the "bad Science Award"

All hail, Darth Ratzinger!!!

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39. Comment #433547 by stptrck75 on November 20, 2009 at 5:41 pm

I voted for Ratzinger. He and his flock of robed goons are hurting so many people through their lies.

A great many people take him seriously and consequently will not use condoms, and end up spreading diseases and having unwanted children.

That alone is just abhorrent and despicable of him.

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40. Comment #433549 by mordacious1 on November 20, 2009 at 5:47 pm

I'd like a write-in choice, I can think of a couple...although they may not be well known in the UK. Maybe a special Psycho-religious award for Fred Phelps, et al.

Sorry to disagree with Richard, but out of the list the obvious choice is the one I'd have to go with. Currently the catholics are sticking their obnoxious noses into the Health Care Reform Bill in the U.S. According to them, there should be no health care for the poor, if it includes provisions for abortion. Since when is an abortion not related to your health?

My vote goes for the Ratz.

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41. Comment #433552 by TIKI AL on November 20, 2009 at 5:52 pm

Sorry Richard, but I have to go Pope all the way.
Selfish reasons. He makes my many Catholic neighbors behave like idiots, and they in turn drive me crazy. (One has a glass jar with a saint's picture in it hanging from a tree to try to bring it back to life. I suggested putting the tree in a cave and sealing it with a large rock.)

PS Thanks (Richard Dawkins @ 1) for avoiding the seemingly irresistible urge for some bloggers to type "I'M FIRST POST! I'M FIRST POST!"

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42. Comment #433553 by Stonyground on November 20, 2009 at 5:52 pm

I voted for Eagleton and Armstrong, As Spinoza said they should know better. Also they are so full of crap, inventing their own brand of etherial wispy religion and then panning us for bashing the real thing.

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43. Comment #433557 by Bonzai on November 20, 2009 at 6:10 pm

Speaking of the Pope I had a dream last night that he kicked the bucket. Seriously.

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44. Comment #433559 by RightWingAtheist on November 20, 2009 at 6:11 pm

Since the criteria is contributing to unreason, I picked Eagleton/Armstrong.

The others are all either stupid or evil, which are great qualifications, but they are at least pretending to be reasonable. These two, by doing the lame kiss-up when they themselves know better than to believe it, are almost saying that it is good to be stupid. That seems worse than merely being stupid on your own.

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45. Comment #433561 by Crazycharlie on November 20, 2009 at 6:13 pm

I voted for Eagleton & Armstrong.

Pope Ratzi is to easy a target.

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46. Comment #433566 by DamnDirtyApe on November 20, 2009 at 6:35 pm

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Uploads/Graphics/056-0817112155-benedict_xvi-769613.jpg

As much as I wish Blair - Yes.

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47. Comment #433567 by abesilberstein on November 20, 2009 at 6:36 pm

"How BORING that the Pope Ratzinger is notching up the most votes. I'm not sure who I'd vote for, but I'd surely choose a less obvious candidate than the pope."


I think the condoms comment did it. I voted for Oktar though. At least the Pope is not trying to silence speech.

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48. Comment #433579 by Mr DArcy on November 20, 2009 at 7:33 pm

Bennys from Heaven for me. Just the sheer scale of ignorance propagated by the RCC, of which he's boss, is enough reason.

It's a shame we can't award a Lifetime's Achievement award for people like Alister McGrath or Dinesh D' Souza, for the art of saying nothing in 10,000 different ways.

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49. Comment #433582 by lvpl78 on November 20, 2009 at 7:39 pm

How BORING that the Pope Ratzinger is notching up the most votes. I'm not sure who I'd vote for, but I'd surely choose a less obvious candidate than the pope

How about Oprah Winfrey for a controversial choice?

She did help elect Barack Obama, and we should thank her, but she's also peddled a huge amount of new earth, new age, psycho babble, clap trap nonsense on her show, which is the most watched talk show in the world's most powerful country.

I say vote Oprah!

Edit: Ok I just realised she's not on the shortlist. She should be though.

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50. Comment #433586 by Steve Zara on November 20, 2009 at 8:05 pm

I'm not sure about voting for Blair. At least he realised he had to listen to Alistair "We don't do God" Campbell. His government also pushed through some good human rights legislation against pressure from religious groups. Free from the responsibilities of government, he seems to have gone rather nutty though.

But I would certainly not rate him as anything like the Pope in terms of evilness.

However, as this poll seems light-hearted, I had to vote for Armstrong and Eagleton. Their vacuous nonsense is just so painful.

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