1. Pelosi, Reid shunning Ten Commandments?

Comment #181371 by pholt on May 17, 2008 at 3:59 am

It has been said many times on this site that there are better books - some also fiction, like Shakespeare's plays

I fixed that for you, Monosilabbiq

One god, no idols, don't swear, keep the Sabbath, honour your father (and mother), don't kill, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't bear false witness, don't covert.

Unless you are a catholic, in which case you drop the second of those and split the last into two separate ones. So much for inerrancy.

2. Pelosi, Reid shunning Ten Commandments?

Comment #181345 by pholt on May 17, 2008 at 2:02 am

Its been shown again and again that the vast majority of practising christians dont know what the ten commandments are.

For example, Stephen Colbert interviewing Congressman Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1562658289653706925

3. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #99104 by pholt on December 15, 2007 at 3:02 pm

(before reflecting telescopes meant they could be much shorter and see further)

The reflecting or Newtonian telescope was another contribution of Sir Isaac Newton.

4. I didn't know the FLEA CIRCUS was back in town!

Comment #85122 by pholt on November 5, 2007 at 3:33 am

Actually that is a great idea, and if we can get access to a wiki-site devoted to this we can use the wisdom of the reasoned masses to quickly compile the sound rebuttals. Maybe an enterprising web developer/blogger among our number will take on the challenge as a night time diversion. ;)

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

No sooner said than done :) Actually, it's been around for a while.

5. Believe it or not, courtesy counts

Comment #84006 by pholt on November 1, 2007 at 2:02 am

In all but exceptional cases, today's secularists are biblically illiterate.

I would change this to: "In all but exceptional cases, today's theists are biblically illiterate."

For evidence, I would present US congressman Lynn Westmoreland, last year sponsor of a 10 commandments related bill. When interviewed by Steven Colbert and asked to name the commandments, the display of which he apparently thought vital to the moral health of the nation, he couldn't.

6. Face to faith

Comment #82889 by pholt on October 28, 2007 at 6:34 am

This is exactly the same argument that the militant philosophers Magikthise and Vroomfondel make in "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". They, too, want "rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty".

The difference, of course, is that the immortal Adams was writing comedy whereas this Vernon twit is serious.

7. In God we doubt

Comment #67323 by pholt on September 3, 2007 at 4:07 am

He may have many useful and persuasive things to say but there is something deeply mistaken about thinking love is simply reducible to the chemistry of the brain.

Why do these people never feel the need to back up assertions like this with evidence.

Then he gets truly bizarre. First he attributes this opinion to the 'militant atheists'

2. The few clever ones are pathetic because they need a crutch to get them through life.

Then, a bit further down, he says the following on his own behalf. I don't see how this differs materially from the previous quote.

I suspect that on the most primitive level it is not all that different from the little scrap of blanket that so many small children rely on. They need it whenever they get tired or life looks a bit threatening.

Perhaps it's supposed to be ruder to call something a crutch than to call it a security blanket. I get the feeling Humphreys doesn't really know what he thinks. He just knows that you should be nice to believers in case you hurt their feelings.

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

Comment #67224 by pholt on September 2, 2007 at 7:41 pm

A book of atheist verse would be a wondrous thing indeed

Here is such a book

Rhymes for the Irreverent by Yip Harburg

9. Christopher Hitchens on Religion

Comment #39790 by pholt on May 11, 2007 at 11:57 pm

If you would like it as a downloadable mp3, it's available here:

http://odeo.com/show/11363153/4/download/ChristopherHitchensOnReligion.mp3

and here is Christopher discussing "God is not Great" on ABC Australia with Phillip Adams:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2007/1919949.htm

In 1985, Phillip Adams wrote a book, one of his many, entitled "Adams versus God". Here is an excerpt from it, it's a good read.

http://www.doctort.org/andrew/OK%20Adams.htm

10. The Human Body as an Evolutionary Patchwork

Comment #31137 by pholt on April 11, 2007 at 5:37 am

The audio of these Princeton lectures are also available as podcasts here:

http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/podcasts/

The Alan Walker lecture is:

The Human Body as an Evolutionary Patchwork

11. Faith

Comment #23022 by pholt on February 25, 2007 at 11:47 pm

I'm not sure its a good idea for folks to call themselves "militant aheists" as it suggests an extremism that few atheists have.

The only people who use that expression are faithheads attempting to discredit atheists, particularly high-profile, effective ones like Dawkins.

This is a thought taken up by Azzim Tamimi, director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought. "I refer to secular fundamentalism. The problem is that these people believe that they have the absolute truth.

And the religious don't? Do me a bloody favour! Continuing the quote:

That means you have no room to talk to others so you end up having a physical fight. They want to close the door and ignore religion, but this will provoke a violent religiosity. If someone seeks to deny my existence, I will fight to assert it."

more:

They also parallel the chilling remarks of Richard Chartres, Bishop of London: "If you exile religious communities to the margins, then they will start to speak the words of fire among consenting adults, and the threat to public order and the public arena, I think, will grow and grow."

The idiot Jeffries spends all this time bashing atheists but completely glosses over the fact that these people are threatening violence if they are not allowed to continue impose their delusions on the rest of us.

Jeffries, show us an example of secularists making threats like this. You can't, because the only 'weapon' in our arsenal is reason.

The final nail in the coffin is Jeffries quoting the laughable McGrath.

This entire article is a perfect example of moderate religiosity enabling the fundamentalist variety.

12. The questions science cannot answer

Comment #21713 by pholt on February 10, 2007 at 6:17 pm

The point still stands that evidence exists that must be taken into account, even if the exacxt quantity was incorrect, which I respectfully withdraw, I feel you are skirting the issue however.

What evidence? Provide some citations of what you feel must be "taken into account". I very much doubt that you have any idea. You had read your initial assertion in some bit of christian literature and believed it.

13. The questions science cannot answer

Comment #21697 by pholt on February 10, 2007 at 4:46 pm

there is more documental evidence for the existance of Christ than for that of Julius Caesar.

This is an oft-claimed "fact". It is untrue. There is NO contemporary documentary evidence for the existence of Jesus. None. Zero. Not even the bible is contemporary.

What little extra-biblical evidence there is dates from well after the supposed time of Jesus and is of doubtful provenance. Much has been dismissed by biblical scholars as either embellishment of earlier writings or complete forgeries by christian apologists.

I would suggest to the poster that, if you wish to be an apologist for christianity, a small amount of research would avoid the embarrassment of making such ludicrous claims.

14. Interview with Alister McGrath, author of 'The Dawkins Delusion?'

Comment #20883 by pholt on February 6, 2007 at 10:41 pm

I traced some links from Prof. McGrath's site linked above and ended up here:

http://www.cis.org.uk/centralsouth/

There are video and audio files of various lectures by this "Christians in Science" group, including one by Prof. McGrath. The only one I listened to was the introduction to a session on "Intelligent Design". That was enough. This, BTW, is a UK group, in the Southhampton area.

The very fact that they think there is something to seriously discuss in ID, and they do, should give a clue to the level of intellectual honesty and scientific rigour displayed.

However, the moderator did say something with which I have to agree. That is that anybody who believes that that the universe was created by an intelligent super-being is, by definition, a creationist. The only area of disagreement is when it was created.

15. Interview with Alister McGrath, author of 'The Dawkins Delusion?'

Comment #20878 by pholt on February 6, 2007 at 10:15 pm

Sancus, no apology required.

We make the point that religion can lead to violence and one of the things we need to work at very hard is to eliminate religious violence - but that means the reformation, not the abolition, of religion.

Well, when are they going to start? After two thousand years, isn't it about time they pulled their collective fingers out and DID something.

Maybe instead of this ridiculous piece of apologia, they could have produced something to make a contribution to that reformation.

16. Interview with Alister McGrath, author of 'The Dawkins Delusion?'

Comment #20838 by pholt on February 6, 2007 at 6:08 pm

I don't understand why this is capitalized, but I like how it appeals to my sense of whimsy.

"The Troubles" is a colloquial term for the conflict in Northern Ireland. It is definitely not whimsical.

17. Atheist Rap: Extian, The Verse from Atheist Nation Pt III

Comment #20706 by pholt on February 6, 2007 at 4:05 am

This is the first time i've witnessed the athiestic sentiment put to music.

It's not rap but try here: http://ffrf.org/shop/music/


And here: http://ffrf.org/timely/


There's a couple of links on that second page to mp3s for downloading.

18. No exemption from gay rights law

Comment #19807 by pholt on January 30, 2007 at 2:52 am

Why should n't the Catholic church be able to provide a service to the public which is in line with their own beliefs.
(Although I would agree that it should be privately funded if they do)

This is exactly the point. The services to which this refers are publicly funded. The churches could fund their own services but they aren't prepared to. If they can't get public money, they won't provide the service.

If I wish to be a bigot it is my choice no one elses.

But you can't expect public funding to support your bigotry. Again, these services are run by the churches but funded by public money.

19. Young, British Muslims 'getting more radical'

Comment #19726 by pholt on January 29, 2007 at 2:27 pm

Turning to issues of faith, 36 per cent of the young people questioned said they believed that a Muslim who converts to another religion should be "punished by death." Among the over 55s, the figure is only 19 per cent.

It was interesting that this didn't rate a mention in the 'more balanced' BBC report. Perhaps because it's hard to put a positive spin on it?

20. Blasphemy Challenge on FOX

Comment #19640 by pholt on January 29, 2007 at 4:06 am

Granted, Fox's Mr. Murdoch is an Aussie

He's now an US citizen, has been for some years, so I'm afraid he's all yours.

21. Radical cleric sparks fury in Australia

Comment #18187 by pholt on January 18, 2007 at 11:07 pm

I think this was sparked by this UK documentary:

http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=2668560761490749816&q=uk+mosque

I noted that this guy was Australian when I saw it.

I thought that this response was interesting:

Keysar Trad, the president of the Islamic Friendship Association, said the remarks were not helpful for Muslims in Australia.

I think it is very telling that the strongest condemnation that this representative of the Australian Muslim community can come up with is 'not helpful'.

22. God-less

Comment #16442 by pholt on January 6, 2007 at 3:36 pm

I would turn this debate on it's head and ask on what basis does a believer know that murder, rape or theft is wrong?

On many occasions in the Bible, God commands his followers to commit precisely these acts, so therefore they must be moral. If the believer's response is "Oh, we don't follow those parts", I would ask "Why not? On what basis do you reject them?"

23. Blaming 'The God Delusion'

Comment #13134 by pholt on December 15, 2006 at 7:42 pm

>>pholt, I have not actually seen anyone try to defend postmodernism from anyone, much less Richard Dawkins. If you ever find any such instances, I'd love to see them.<<

What prompted my thought was the particularly vitriolic attack by Mark Dooley, who is described here:

http://www3.villanova.edu/ReligionAndPostmodernism/Dooley.html

as a theologist and postmodernist. It's the one that started "I have always disliked (...) Richard Dawkins". I wondered whether this dislike is only due to Prof. Dawkins writings on religion.

24. Blaming 'The God Delusion'

Comment #13021 by pholt on December 15, 2006 at 4:47 am

I would speculate that the liberal left's attitude to Prof. Dawkins stems as much from his views on postmodernism as from his views on religion.

If you haven't read him on the subject, try 'A Devil's Chaplin'. He is as scathing about PM as he is about religion.