1. Anger over 'blasphemous' balls

Comment #66052 by I'mNotAlone on August 28, 2007 at 5:33 am

Like Tumara and Veronique, I also think that America sometimes shoots itself in the foot with it's lack of understanding of other cultures.
It's not that the offense taken by Muslims is rational. It's that the American military were doing this as a morale booster - only now they've made things even worse. Doh!

2. Rational Atheism

Comment #64864 by I'mNotAlone on August 22, 2007 at 5:49 am

I'm with Thor and Dr Benway on this. I'm an atheist, not an anti-religionist, and when I discuss it with people I put the emphasis on positive, i.e. why atheism is the course for me.
Of course some of the stronger-opinioned believers will get me wound up to the point of picking out the clear inconsistencies, but most of the time I'm talking to either very loose Xtians (there must be something up there) or very polite Xtians. Occassionally I try to drop in some of these inconsistencies but the emphasis is very much on the positive.

3. Sleights of Mind

Comment #64641 by I'mNotAlone on August 21, 2007 at 5:28 am

Yes. The first comment!!
I always thought that 'magicians' were tacky.
But people like Penn and Teller, James Randi and Derren Brown have given me a new respect - partly because I guess they give the audience some respect.

4. Good luck, Dawkins!

Comment #64502 by I'mNotAlone on August 20, 2007 at 9:41 am

sane 1: "If you value truth and honesty, and insist upon it from your kids, I wonder how you can wait until they are 6...If you wait that long, they'll know you lied to them. Just my opinion..."

I know what you mean. But my wife insists that as young kids, they should have fairy tales, and that telling them the stark truth would be abuse in itself! At least once they get to school, I can say it's because other kids will find out and i dont want them to be teased!
And anyway, havent all parents lied to their kids at some point?? (Sorry son, they didnt have any cakes left!) At least Santa is a once a year lie, not an everyday one.

5. Sikh girl will convert for a place at Catholic school

Comment #64481 by I'mNotAlone on August 20, 2007 at 7:49 am

I'm with Notsobad on this one. If the only reason they want her to go to this school is because "she is upset and wants to remain with her friends" then that is weak parenting.
Given that she is only 4 and has only known her 'friends' for two years, then she'll get over it quickly and make new friends.
And anyway, what happens if her best friend then goes on to a 'protestant' secondary school? Will she change again??

However, I would love this to become a widespread trend. Imagine loads of parents changing their kids religions purely to get in a particular school! Wouldnt that just expose the whole flipping hypocrisy of it all!!

6. The Out Campaign: Interview with Josh Timonen

Comment #64193 by I'mNotAlone on August 18, 2007 at 2:54 pm

Josh,
Before you get carried away with all this praise, how comes I keep getting only half the home page loading?
Oh, of course - goddidit!
Seriously though, your contribution to my education is as great as almost any teacher I've had - in fact I could say that to a number of contributors as well!
Thanks
Simon

7. Good luck, Dawkins!

Comment #64189 by I'mNotAlone on August 18, 2007 at 2:29 pm

Just wanted to add to the posts about children and santa. I have a 4 yr old girl and a 2 yr old boy. At the moment, my wife is teaching our daughter about santa. Given the comments by sane1 and others, I've pencilled in her 6th birthday as the time to start correcting things!

8. Amnesty to defy Catholic church over rape victims' abortion rights

Comment #63100 by I'mNotAlone on August 13, 2007 at 5:37 am

This is just another example of Religion's bias against women. Women are just a vessel, nothing more.
Religions that are anchored in societal and moral values of thousands of years ago are never going to protect women.
The bit that got to me most was the woman in Dafur who talked about the multiple rapings, then said "My husband could not forgive me after this. He disowned me." The more I learn, the angrier and more vocal I become!

9. Curriculum for Baptist School

Comment #62558 by I'mNotAlone on August 10, 2007 at 5:47 am

Since he is interested in beauty and pleased with art, does that mean he also likes pictures of naked women?

10. Reporter's Religion Beat Leads to Faith Crisis

Comment #59065 by I'mNotAlone on July 27, 2007 at 6:27 am

If hasty toweling is correct (and I havent seen the full article) then Mr Lobdell is probably a theist.
However the most interesting thing about this is that full exposure to religious institutions and books has promoted a disillusionment with it all.
As has been said many times, the vast majority of western religious folk know next to nothing about their religion.
Knowledge seems to be the key to shrugging off the constraints of religion. That is why the fight about schools is so important, and why we have to try and help educate the rest of the world. Not about that 'God' doesnt exist. Just about how the world and the universe appear to work. And the methodology behind it. Then leave people to start asking their own questions.

11. Floods are judgment on society, say bishops

Comment #53451 by I'mNotAlone on July 1, 2007 at 1:58 pm

There may well be a connection between society's morals and the weather. But the connection isnt God - it's climate change.
Just like Planeten Paultje I think it is an excuse for the Church to try to influence people.

There's life in them there old 'orse - keep flogging!!

12. Doctors' beliefs can hinder patient care

Comment #51840 by I'mNotAlone on June 25, 2007 at 9:12 am

Not sure if anyone else has already asked this, but how does the religion of doctors affect their treatment of patients of other religions?
If they can be prejudicial against women like this, then couldnt they use the same 'God' trump card (or as in Monopoly, a get out of jail card)to refuse treatment and information to other faiths?

13. Religion and Child Abuse

Comment #47592 by I'mNotAlone on June 5, 2007 at 3:30 am

As an atheist, I hope my two children (four and two) learn about religion at school. However I hope that they learn about ALL religions, rather than the religious education I had where a Xtian 'taught' me about the Bible. Here in the UK, I'm horrified by the Govnts decision to allow faith schools. The one thing that children shouldn't have to learn by example is about division - whether that be by religion, colour, race, sex or anything else. By all means make them aware of the division in the outside world, but dont bring that divide into the classroom (or practised at the school gate).

As for the right of the state to monitor the values that parents instill in their children (re: Bizarro) - of course they have a right. If my next door neighbour is teaching his kids that my family are bad or evil, and that we should be killed, just because of our colour, race, religion (or lack thereof)or any other reason, then I hope the state WOULD step in. To pick an extreme and contentious example, suppose Bizarro lived in the same street as a family of Muslims who were teaching their children that Xtians were evil infidel and that anyone who killed Xtians was a martyr? The state's purpose is surely to look at the good of society as a whole and, if absolutely necessary, interfere with an individual where to not do so would be detrimental to that society?
One area in which Bizarro is quite correct is that religion is not the only belief system that teaches 'corrupt' values. If new values are drawn up then they need to ensure that all indoctrinations are banned.
The one thing that did rather puzzle me was Kcjerith in comment 18 who said "I think the key is getting the government out of the business of education." What, lets make it a free for all??
The reason for making sure that education IS govnt run is to make sure that the 'crazy religious' dont have carte blanche to enforce the in group/out group mentality.

14. Bible drawn into Hong Kong sex publication row

Comment #42362 by I'mNotAlone on May 18, 2007 at 5:40 am

This seems to be such a fantastic opportunity to
a) point out all the horrid bits of the books that most people dont know about (and religious people tend to hide) and
b) point out the hypocrisy of religious leaders who harp on about sex and violence.

I might just start a petition on the No10 website (here in Britain) to get religious books classified. I dont see why books with this much sex and violence should be accessible to children.
....then there's the teaching of hell and damnation to children. That could be considered to be psychologically harming to children.....

15. Ask Richard!

Comment #41805 by I'mNotAlone on May 17, 2007 at 5:04 am

We've got two kids of 4 and 2. We've also got a 16 year old cat and my wife has grandparents of 90 and 87. So I guess the issue of death will come up at some point soon. I'd never thought about how I was going to address it until I read this thread. I think I want to just tell them the truth, but like CDG I worry about how they will deal with it. I might just go with the agnostic line - I dont know where we go when we die - which I guess at the end of the day IS true.
To return to the original point of this thread, having told all my friends about how much I was enjoying TGD, they have bought me The Dawkins Delusion and The Selfish Gene. I cant decide which I should read first. TDD is a small book so I could get it out of the way, but I fear that it will fog my mind up! TSG looks interesting, but I am no scientist and think that I need to be in an inquisitive frame of mind before I take it on.
Does anyone have any recommendations?

16. Apocalypse Of The Honeybees

Comment #39586 by I'mNotAlone on May 11, 2007 at 8:13 am

I agree with the article's writer, Mr Morford, that it will be something that seems to inconsequential, like this story about the honey bees, that will sneak up and bite us in the bum.
The disaster films and programmes of recent years always show huge storms, tornados, earthquakes and the like as the things that we need to deal with. We need to spot the danger signs a lot earlier than that!
Of course, if I was religious I could just say that God moves in mysterious ways, and anyway what's the point in trying to live when heaven is so wonderful?

17. Atheist offers to send letters post-Rapture

Comment #38830 by I'mNotAlone on May 9, 2007 at 9:14 am

Whoever thought that a website devoted to aetheism could give me so much enjoyment!
When I read TGD I kept laughing out loud. It confused the hell out of my wife who thought I was reading some dry, dusty tome. Now I read the forums and get some much amusement out of some of the entries - of which this is the latest!
According to popular folklore here in Britain, America (and a few other countries) doesnt understand sarcasm. Mr Witter has just driven a coach and horses through that idea!! Wonderful!

18. Your favorite book in the last 25 years?

Comment #37333 by I'mNotAlone on May 4, 2007 at 5:43 am

Crikey!
I'd seen mention of some of these books before, but this is a veritable smorsgasbord of interesting books! I might have to print out this thread just to line up my book purchases for the next 10 years!
My personal favourites would have to be:

Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon
An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan
two of the most fantastic books at getting inside someone's head.
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
if you've got kids, get them to read the trilogy.
The God Delusion by RD
(I realise that it might not be his 'best' book but it galvanised me and led me to this forum)
Soldier Ask Not by Gordon R Dickson
However I may change my mind by the time I get through some of the books that you guys recommend!

19. How multiculturalism is betraying women

Comment #37009 by I'mNotAlone on May 3, 2007 at 6:08 am

Reading Veronique's posting (Comment35) made me think about where the boundaries are for this.
In countries like Germany (possibly most of Europe)the predominant culture has been predominant for many centuries. So like Veronique said, a Muslim coming to that country should abide by that countries rule of law (i.e. equality of women). In countries like America and Australia, where the predominent culture is a recent imported one, it must be very difficult to tell people of the original culture (Indians and Aboriginals) that they must obey the invading, dominant culture.
I'm afraid that in other countries, it is impossible to enforce our cultural norms. That is why modern, invading countries (of which America is the most obvious example) always end up in an impossible situation - like Iraq.
In cases like that, all us more enlightened countries can do is to offer sanctuary for people who want it, and to limit our dealings with these countries. If the first-world electorate wasnt so hypocritical, self-centred and financially greedy then politicians could stop trading with places like Saudi Arabia.
Here in Britain, I believe a review of an arms deal with the Saudis has been dropped by the Govnt because it would 'prejudice our relationship with them'.
If we (read: Govnts: read electorate) werent so hypocritical in are attitude to these countries then the moral battle would be a lot easier.

20. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #36764 by I'mNotAlone on May 2, 2007 at 8:13 am

Even if it could be established that Hitchins was drunk, we have no way of establishing whether he would have given a better interview sober unless we could duplicate the situation (parallel universes, anyone?)
I'm glad he is an aetheist, but I disagree with his war stance. Taking William's comment (no44)that "it is necessary, for the U.S. to remove dictators from power" I look forward to the U.S. and my own U.K. invading China to establish democracy. They are certainly bigger and nastier dictators than little old Saddam.
Oh, I get it. We're going to do it the sneaky way by using MacDonalds, Coke, Microsoft and Google!
As I said, I'm glad Hitchins is an aetheist, and I'll probably get round to buying his book one day, but that doesnt mean I like the rest of him.

21. The God Delusion

Comment #36728 by I'mNotAlone on May 2, 2007 at 5:36 am

I've just read the article at gristmill posted by arre (Comment no22). This reminds me of an article I saw that said that the enviromental campaign was being hijacked by people who hated the capitalist society and, since the discrediting of the communist movement, were using the enviromental movement to push their own 'all big business is bad' agenda.
That struck me as being a distinctly reasonable hypothosis, so I'm careful to dissect 'green' agendas nowadays.
However, it seems that some of the Objectivists, like you find in all movements - including are own aethiest one - like to simplify things into a binary view (either all good or all bad), so now all environmentalism is bad.
My own view is more of a Venn diagram one, and so both the Objectivists and the Environmentalists 'fields' overlap into my own by varying degrees.
I just need to be careful that people who like the binary view (it's such a simple way to live!)dont distort my Venn in other people's eyes!

22. 4 Sermon for Matins: 'Dawkins and The God Delusion'

Comment #36691 by I'mNotAlone on May 2, 2007 at 3:03 am

To those people who always raise the issue of evil by aethiests (e.g. Hitler, Stalin, China).
These people werent aethiests because they'd thought it through, looked at the facts and knowledge available and come to the conclusion that there couldnt be a God.
They were megalomaniacs, who were jealous of the power that the local religious movement had. That is why they prosecuted believers! They wanted no opposition to their own power!

23. Pundit Christopher Hitchens picks a fight in book, 'God is Not Great'

Comment #36042 by I'mNotAlone on April 30, 2007 at 3:28 am

I was going to read through all the posts before making my own - in case anyone else had already made it. But I've run out of patience!
Denoir's point in Comment 15 about the binary view on people (they are either all good or all bad), as opposed to the venn diagram view (on this issue I agree with them)was what sparked my thinking.
I dont agree with Hitchin's view on the Iraq war (who next - China anyone??)but I shall probably buy his book for two reasons:
1. I want to educate myself for discussions I have with people around me.
2. I want to help get aethiest viewpoints into the mainstream - and getting a book into the bestseller lists will help that.
But I'm also interested in the fact that a person who is supposedly aligned with the neo-cons in America has now written a book against religion. How will they take it? I would think that a lot of them are of the binary type of mindset. How will they deal with Hitchins and this book?
To use the war analogy (unfortunate perhaps, but there you go!)we're taking pot shots at them from across no-mans land. But Hitchins is in 'their' trench. And when that great mass of people, who are stuck in the middle of all this, see him fighting for us it will surely influence some of them?

And finally, regarding It_Zippy2's comment about where bookshops store these aethiest 'bibles' (sorry!). Wouldnt it be a fantastic idea to 'help' these stores by doing a bit of surreptitious re-organizing? Grab a copy of Hitchins, Dawkins, Harris, Dennett et al, walk round the store doing some browsing, then slip them into the religious section! I can imagine some of these large chains wouldnt discover the change for weeks, if at all!

24. Medicine without Evolution Make Sense?

Comment #32745 by I'mNotAlone on April 18, 2007 at 6:54 am

Given how difficult it can be to see a doctor in the UK nowadays (cant book in advance, can only book on the day - leading to the phone lines being jammed from the moment the surgery opens)I'm concerned that the quality of my diagnosis could be effected by the doctor's religious belief! Imagine if my records show that I am an infi....sorry, aetheist!

25. Medical 'Miracles' Not Supported by Evidence

Comment #32475 by I'mNotAlone on April 17, 2007 at 6:14 am

It's nice to see Chamber in this forum. If you'll excuse the pun - it's no good spending all our time preaching to the converted. It would be great if we could get more people like Chamber to post in these forums and stimulate the debates.
Personally, my journey to aetheism was probably easy because I believe my father's family were not very religious (whether my grandfather was aetheist or agnostic, I dont know - one of the many conversations I should have had with him whilst he was alive).
But the one thing that drove me towards non-belief was that 'God' was too easy an answer.
I've been accused in the past of being too much of a thinker and not enough of a doer. But I always wanted to learn about things - not necessarily do them.
And that is what I see is the difference between 'Us' and 'Them'.
When 'We' see something that we dont understand, we seek to understand it, or at least read or speak to someone who does understand it.
'They' tend to take everything they dont understand and assign it to a supernatural being.
The article above is a good case.
Even experts in their field (in this case doctors, but the argument applies to anything)dont know everything. So when something happens that even the experts dont understand, there are two options:
1. Experiment, Test, Monitor (seek to understand)
2. Assign it to 'God' (dont try to understand)

The latter approach seems lazy and too easy, and as such I cannot align with it. Too often religion has held onto a view (stars and sun go around the earth?) until it is impossible to deny it, then just modified their view around this new data.
I sometimes envy religious people their certainty
with life. And the complexity of the universe and my own inconsequentialness is scary. BUT, I cannot stop trying. Trying to comprehend, trying to question things.
Among my questions about religion, the foremost is about why there are so many different religions. Maybe Chamber could give his opinion on that?