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

Comment #133973 by detox on February 27, 2008 at 5:22 am

On the subject of the article - if the Church of Ireland is anything like the Church of England then the adherents do not believe in transubstantiation.

Regardless of whether you wanted to get married or not you would have to be a fairly massive hypocrite to say one day that you firmly believed the bread and wine became the body and blood of christ at the eucharist and the next day say that they did not.

2. Council pays psychic for exorcism

Comment #126714 by detox on February 14, 2008 at 2:48 am

Playing devil's advocate for a moment...

I've had enough experience of religion and god to dismiss them as inconsistent and irrational, hence I am an atheist.

I have no personal experience of, for want of a better word, the 'paranormal'. Despite reading about other people's experiences, I have no personal frame of reference and find that I cannot necessarily dismiss the concept of paranormal activity out of hand.

I am aware of quantum mechanics and string theory and I suppose if I did enough studying of the available literature I may gain an understanding of them and realise that they exist and are real.

Could the obverse be said of the paranormal? I am aware of it, potentially, but if I read the available data would I come to see that it does not exist and is not real?

If nothing else, quantum theory illustrates the breathtaking complexity of the universe, leading to the possibility of multiverses. Given that our understanding appears miniscule doesn't that suggest that there is a possibility that we may be missing something as far as the paranormal is concerned?

I don't know so I seem to be sitting up here on my fence, an agnostic, if you will. Feel free to give me a push in either direction.

3. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #111601 by detox on January 15, 2008 at 5:46 am

Congratulations on the C d G and a life well spent.

All luck and best from East Anglia.

4. Two Ex-Jehovah Witnesses to Tell Why They Became Atheists

Comment #109982 by detox on January 10, 2008 at 8:40 am

fireface

JW's come round my house and wake me up on a Saturday morning which is mildly irritating at worst and mildly entertaining at best as I chuckle to myself while letting them quote passages from the bible.

Your situation sounds anything but mild. It's distressing to think that you have to maintain a charade for the sake of your livelihood - though understandable.

Being true to yourself, of course, you should confront your parents, outline their delusion and seek another job if they are not convinced by the argument. Easier said than done especially with your family and home to consider.

Apart from offering my support across the ether I could suggest you drop in here to drink from the oasis from time to time to combat the nonsense poured in your ear at your meetings. Take comfort in the freedom from irrationailty here and in your siblings. And, assuming you have to take your kids, try your best not to let them succumb to the gibberish. Best of luck.

5. Huckabee: Guns, God and rock'n'roll

Comment #107075 by detox on January 4, 2008 at 3:24 am

quill

I'm not sure whether it is just wishful thinking but I doubt Huckabee will become president. If I were you I wouldn't be making an plans to leave - just yet.

What I am certain about is that one day the American empire will go the way of all empires: sic transit gloria mundi.

6. For the Love of Christ

Comment #102817 by detox on December 23, 2007 at 5:33 pm

Granted, the abuse of children is inexcusable - but - I can't help feeling just a little sorry for this guy.

For a start his level of education and intelligence appear to be below par. Secondly he suffers from a virulent case of god delusion. Thirdly, and most unfortunately, he abjures the pleasures of Proud Mary and her four daughters.

As I say, but for the abuse, just a sad specimen.

7. Mitt Romney's Faith In America address (as prepared for delivery)

Comment #95013 by detox on December 7, 2007 at 7:09 am

Religious fuckwittery I can put up with but the delusion of American Narcissism is nauseating.

"Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government. No people in the history of the world have sacrificed as much for liberty. The lives of hundreds of thousands of America's sons and daughters were laid down during the last century to preserve freedom, for us and for freedom loving people throughout the world. America took nothing from that century's terrible wars - no land from Germany or Japan or Korea; no treasure; no oath of fealty. America's resolve in the defense of liberty has been tested time and again. It has not been found wanting, nor must it ever be. America must never falter in holding high the banner of freedom."

8. The absurd world of Martin Amis

Comment #91033 by detox on November 27, 2007 at 3:08 am

I was prompted to comment on this article because Chris Morris had the misfortune to have received his indoctrination at the same Jesuit boarding school that is, apparently, my alma mater.

As always, I read the article, form an opinion and then read the subsequent debate for further enlightenment / clarification.

In this case, as in many others on this site, I find a tedious spat conducted between contributors who seem to want to display their knowledge of the koran and all things 'Islam'. Which would be fine if it was a) relevant and b) even vaguely interesting. I struggle to wade through the turgid arguments and sigh at the endless references such as "How about Bukhari, volume 4, verse 269" and I can't help thinking: "So what?" and "Who are they trying to impress?"

To illustrate the point: Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, went on the offensive last week about the issue of IVF and lesbian parenting. Now if he had been studying research that suggested that a father figure had been shown to be beneficial to the development of a child then that would have been worthy of consideration. Since his position is derived from the ramblings found in an ancient text that apparently forbids homosexuality on the basis that god doesn't like it then I can quite happily disregard his pronouncements as being irrelevant.

You take my point? Just because you fancy yourself the ultimate font of knowledge on all things islamic it doesn't make you any more relevant than the person who claims to know all things biblical. It would be fatuous in the extreme to try to derive authority from the bible and more so to try to palm it off on the members of this site. And if not authority then legitimacy. Even before I became an atheist I knew that using biblical texts as the basis for an argument was pointless: I can quote chapter 1 verse 1 to fortify my argument and you can counter with the contrary argument taken from chapter 2 verse 2. Utterly futile and completely irrelevant. There aren't many absolutes but I thought this was a given.

Why then do we have to put up with the same illogicality when the bible is substituted for the koran?

I'm not suggesting we should ignore the question of the problem of islam. I'm merely advocating the use of clear thinking and evidence based discussions that don't revert to discredited texts.

9. The New Atheism rocks

Comment #86110 by detox on November 8, 2007 at 6:56 am

The article by Lori Lipman Brown on this site also goes some way towards answering my question from a US perspective but it seems somewhat low key.

10. The New Atheism rocks

Comment #86088 by detox on November 8, 2007 at 5:23 am

Thanks Dr B. Didn't know the Secular Party of Australia existed. Glad it does. Now all it needs is a few members of the House of Representatives (hopefully in the elections in a couple of weeks time) but it answers my question, at least in Aus.

11. The New Atheism rocks

Comment #86078 by detox on November 8, 2007 at 4:43 am

Russell, I enjoyed your essay.

My first reaction was you were being overly conciliatory and the language wasn't robust enough for my taste. But then I suppose that was part of your argument about atheism being too strident and as such understandable.

Secondly, your four points had the flavour of a nascent atheist manifesto. It seems to me that however devoutly we may wish for the separation of church and state, rational argument, such as you define, is not going to achieve the desired eventuality - on its own. At some stage a politician is going to have to endorse the argument and put it on to the political agenda.

Which brings me to the question: what are we going to do about it?

As monkey2 points out the existence of bishops in the House of Lords, here in the UK, is a direct example of the union of church and state. For the reasons you suggest it is to be opposed but other than writing articles and publishing books bemoaning the fact, I reiterate my question: what are we going to do about it?

Sorry if I'm being shrill and I appreciate that if I pose the question I shouldn't rely on you to come up with an answer without positing my own first but - if the 'New Atheism rocks', it is doing it in its parent's garage and we need it to be doing a stadium tour.

12. Rome playing politics

Comment #84734 by detox on November 3, 2007 at 11:32 am

My first reaction on hearing this a few days ago was to scoff at the crassness of the catholic church. That's too easy though so I thought I'd do some research on beatification and it is enlightening because there appear to be a set of complex rules that have been altered and upgraded over the centuries.

The one constant seems to be that the rules are all necessarily man-made. Does anyone know where the theological basis for these rules can be found?

I assume that the laws are derived from the infallibility of the pope who makes the rules on the basis that he talks to god and the big fella tells him how it should be done.

I suppose I'm hoping for a biblical reference that can be debunked. It just seems more valid to make an effort to shine the light of reason on something specific rather than just sigh resignedly and shake your head.

Or am I just wasting my time?

13. American kids, dumber than dirt: Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history

Comment #82352 by detox on October 26, 2007 at 6:09 am

Despite raising an eyebrow at the apparent inability to use a ruler I wasn't going to comment on this article till I just came across this news item on Yahoo:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/20071026/html

Miami Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder has admitted not knowing people speak English in London.

He's black, so I'm sure he's not from London.

14. Catholic condom ban helping AIDS spread in Latam: U.N.

Comment #81085 by detox on October 24, 2007 at 3:24 am

Repost:
I used to live in Teguc years ago. Lovely people, lovely place but depressing as you like. Given the pisspoor standard of living of the majority of the population it isn't surprising that they spent their time looking for a way out.

For the politicians they looked to the north and were rewarded with (among others) USAid, a front as far as I could see, for Virginia farmboys to keep an eye on their back door while doing bugger all of any pratical use.

For the people they looked to the church to deliver them from the misery of their daily lives. It isn't hard to imagine why a dirt poor slum-dweller would want to go somewhere where they told you that however miserable you are in this life at least in the next you will be in paradise.

The catholic church's obsession with the 'every sperm is sacred' line is just a way of subjugating the poorest and least well educated - in fact, the subjugated.

I forget while I'm perusing the arguments against religion on these pages how easy it is for me to reject god and carry on my normal life. For someone scavenging on a rubbish dump for their food, clothes and shelter I'm not sure if even Hitch or RD could persuade them that they are deluding themselves in believing in the 'world to come'. For them, the delusion is bliss.

15. Downward, Christian soldier

Comment #80778 by detox on October 23, 2007 at 2:47 am

irate_atheist

Was in a production years ago of 'Oh, What a lovely war' and this verse, from your source, always seemed disturbingly apposite:

Us and them
and after all we're only ordinary men
me and you
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do
forward he cried from the rear
and the front rank died
and the General sat, and the lines on the map
moved from side to side

16. Atheists aren't a bad lot

Comment #80506 by detox on October 22, 2007 at 2:53 am

Hitchens points out in AAI 07 that the notion that Moses ascended Mount Sinai and brought back the tablets of stone that somehow established the moral authority of religion is ludicrous. 'Thou shalt not kill' is a moral concept that could only derive from god? The twelve tribes are sitting there and go 'Wow, hadn't thought of that, better stop killing eachother'? (Actually that's a poor example because the revelation of god's words didn't seem to do much to quench their thirst for bloodshed. Substitute 'steal' or 'covet'.)

Call it evolutionary biology / psychology, the golden rule or morality. In my quotidian existence I like to think of it as common sense. I don't defecate on my neighbour's lawn because I wouldn't want to have to clear up the mess when he did it on mine. Pure logic is far more potent as a guide to societal cohesion than any values theoretically imposed from a book of random stories.

And while I'm in a solipsistic vein, having achieved emancipation from the yoke of religion after 40 years, shouldn't my moral compass be necessarily skewed now that I no longer have any religious lodestar? Needless to say, it isn't.

17. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79515 by detox on October 17, 2007 at 2:05 pm

Comment #79483 by Quine:

"Cleese's got a friend in Cheese's." Spiffing, old chap. Factoring in Cleese's original surname adds a delicious piquancy. Bravo.

Back on topic - briefly - my mind wondered in the second tranche of McGrath's second meditation on a theme of bullshit and the image of the guy holding up the paper in the opening credits of 'Cheers' popped into my head: "WE WIN".

Apologies for repetition / lack of originality etc.

18. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79181 by detox on October 16, 2007 at 11:52 am

Half way through. Have to take a break. Hitch opens in stellar fashion: Homo Sapiens has been on the planet for (at least) 100,000 years and god decides to intervene after 98,000 years. McGrath comes back with,"I would want to make this point...". Aargh.

McGrath's rebuttal so far is:

"Religion has done damage but is this typical or is this a fringe element?"
And:
"What is the fringe? What is the centre?"

He goes on to claim that "Jesus refuses to do violence". If I remember my scriptures Jesus drove the money lenders out of the temple. What do he use? A tickle stick?

In the interests of balance I'm going to trudge my way through the rest of McGrath's verbal diarrhea.

19. We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Brothers

Comment #76705 by detox on October 6, 2007 at 8:16 pm

Scooternyc and 3legcat: whether Dennett's point about Gitmo was silly or not the real answer to the question of what to do with them is to try them for a crime in a recognised court of law and if guilty, imprison them, if not guilty, release them. Holding them without justification (as decided in a court of law) is the most brutal violation of human rights imaginable and whatever wrongs you perceive they may have done to your country, unless you can prove that they have actually committed a crime then you cannot, in all conscience, detain them.

Since your government doesn't subscribe to the authority of the World Court (ICC or ICJ) then it isn't entirely surprising that it sees fit to deny fundamental human rights.

You say:

I care about our humanity as a people supporting those, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali (a brilliant individual and a more emotional welcoming she could not have had at the conference) being given EVERY opportunity at freedom/democracy that we can give.

Well, you're premise here, is seeing the criminal law model, as the appropriate 'tool' in this scenario. You clearly, for some reason, see as inappropriate, the 'tool' the US is employing. This is a variation of the Prisoner Of War model; commensurate with the fact that these Jihadis don't fit into the category of legal combatants in terms of the Geneva conventions, to which the US is party.

I don't have much interest in getting into that debate here.

20. Letters: Theology has no place in a university

Comment #75241 by detox on October 2, 2007 at 5:56 am

Roel - I see where you are coming from but my argument does not include the continued insistence on the study of theology, per se, scientific or otherwise.

I did say "the existence of god is sufficiently significant to warrant a field of study". Substitute the word 'god' in that sentence for 'leprechauns' and the same does not hold true. To argue the point would be to dissemble.

I think that taking faith and belief out of the equation leaves a legitimate area of study though I readily concede that under the present circumstances the chances of achieving that eventuality are slim. Perhaps that concession undermines my own argument........

As an aside, could I respectfully ask Robert_OBrien to take the unhelpful flamewar somewhere it will be appreciated? Ta.

21. Dawkins - what can't he be blamed for?

Comment #75234 by detox on October 2, 2007 at 5:00 am

Like Tom Sutcliffe and IceFreak2000, I too was listening to Start The Week yesterday and spat a mouthful of coffee at the radio when I heard the bleating of La Armstrong. Forgot to swallow, you see, before I swore.

Stop sniggering at the back there.

22. Letters: Theology has no place in a university

Comment #75223 by detox on October 2, 2007 at 4:36 am

I may be accused of sophistry but....Bertrand Russell dies and ends up at the pearly gates where god asks him why he didn't believe, to which the philosopher answers, "Not enough evidence". This seems to be the fundamental tenet of the atheist position: not that there defintely is no god but that there really isn't enough evidence to assert the proposition.

If you pose the question, "Is there a god?", then you should make an attempt to research the subject before supplying the answer. One place to start any research is in the available texts. Let's see what the bible says, the koran, torah etc.

It isn't necessary to believe what the texts tell us but it is important to investigate them before accepting or rejecting their contentions.

Theology, it seems, puts the cart before the horse. The study of god starts from the point of view that there is a god and then extracts information from the texts that suits the hypothesis. First principles suggest that we don't know the answer to the question till we have finished the research.

My argument is that the question of the existence of god is sufficiently significant to warrant a field of study and one that is at sufficiently elevated a level to warrant a university department.

Now before you all start jumping down my throat, three things. Firstly it should be made expressly clear that the fact of the existence of god is in dispute and the research will not draw any conclusion until there is a definitive and provable assertion, one way or the other, i.e no faith required.

Secondly, the research should consider all available sources of information. Ancient texts, while necessary, should not be considered as enlightening as modern, scientific research methods that take into account biology, physics, astronomy, quantum theory etc.

Thirdly, while the evidence for the existence of god is nugatory at best it doesn't mean to say that we should abandon the search. To do so would be to invite the rejoinder to Russell "You didn't look hard enough".

23. The Rise of Atheist America

Comment #69209 by detox on September 10, 2007 at 2:31 am

@ Spartan88

"God-denier". Pantyhose for the religious?

24. The Rise of Atheist America

Comment #68911 by detox on September 9, 2007 at 4:36 am

Being of an English persuasion I have to admit to being slightly confused (by the article....).

Despite my old English teacher's admonishment not to broadcast my ignorance - could someone explain the agenda here? Is WND trying to subvert atheism from the inside or is it just another display of wilful ignorance?

25. The Fleas Are Multiplying!

Comment #68633 by detox on September 8, 2007 at 1:02 am

A review from Amazon:

"Thomas Crean's reply is a Masterpiece, combining Theology, Philosophy, Historical accuracy and wisdom which comprehensively dismantles the materialist position in a detailed rational argument against the inadequacies and, at times, glaring inadequacies and misrepresentations of Prof Dawkins.I would strongly urge anyone who has been persuaded by the Dawkins/Darwinist camp to read this in an honest attempt to answer the perennial questions that arise in the human mind in the pursuit of Truth.
This is highly illuminating and replete with such profound logic it makes you wonder where Dawkins goes from here."

With apologies to Monty Python: RUN AWAY!

26. Bible Belter

Comment #68149 by detox on September 6, 2007 at 8:54 am

Read the book in a day when it came out. Re-read it slower and still loved it so I am biased. This seems like a fair review but I do agree with the criticism of 'no child's behind left'. But, a single lapse into crassness is hardly enough to negate the excellent arguments put forward and the downright readability of what in another person's hands might have been a very dry subject.

27. Interview with BHA President Polly Toynbee

Comment #67961 by detox on September 5, 2007 at 11:48 am

Very restrained, very insightful. Never thought about the euthanasia issue before: another one of those things that makes you grate your teeth.

28. In God we doubt

Comment #67937 by detox on September 5, 2007 at 8:50 am

@NorthernBright. Thanks so much for sharing your ideas about bringing the light of reason to those languishing in the depths of belief. I'm glad I asked. ;-)

It seems to me that your posts demonstrate the lucid, non-threatening approach that you advocate that might allow someone blinded by religion to approach the possibility of an alternative. Shouting at the scared child, as you suggest, is hardly likely to reassure them.

Which brings me back to my original post on the subject of John Humphrys: he's a reasonable guy trying to figure things out for himself. By dismissing him and telling him he is plain wrong in his conclusions isn't going to get him to 'come over to our side'. Gentle persuasion, reading books by the four horsemen and perhaps the TV programmes you outlined may do the job.

There is a time and a place for shouting but if it comes down to the 'We're right, you're wrong' variety it achieves nothing. It's not for nothing that a Sergeant Major screams at his new recruits - he wants them to obey without question and without having to think for themselves. This is surely not what we are trying to achieve. We don't want people to become atheists because they take our word for it because we have shouted loudest. We want them to come to their own conclusion about god after careful consideration of the argument.

Don't get me wrong. I'm mad as hell about the way religion has screwed up my life and my planet. I want to burn down the church, the synagogue, the mosque and the temple. But, if I do, I am no better than the people I am railing against.

Instead I would like to think that I/ we can rise above that level of thoughtlessness and provoke a change through a more reasoned approach. Which is why I say we should not give up. V, don't go. Just by being here we can create our own gravitational pull, drawing in the curious and helping to enlighten them.

The piano in the corner stops playing as the atheism meme pushes through the swing doors of the saloon.

29. In God we doubt

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?

I mentioned that my brother is reading TGD and has yet 'to see the light' (taking on board the_assayer's comment) and I would love to know how to open his eyes. If you have the ideas, please share.

As an aside, the timing is fairly critical because he wants me to be his son's godfather and the christening is in October - I need to persuade him that he is making a mistake fairly sharpish. If he goes through with it, it could get pretty ugly when I start rejecting satan on the basis that he almost certainly doesn't exist. And, before you say it, I appreciate the irony of being an atheist and a godfather.

30. In God we doubt

Comment #67408 by detox on September 3, 2007 at 10:46 am

Humphrys is intelligent and articulate (as listeners to the Today programme will attest). The fact that he read TGD and wasn't convinced is unfortunate but not the end of the world. He is entitled to his own opinion and if we disagree then we should just take comfort in our own non-belief. This type of article is merely the man expressing his own opinion after careful consideration. He isn't proselytising and he is hardly supporting the faith-heads.

The fact that he has missed the point doesn't diminish him as a man. My own brother is reading TGD and despite being apparently intelligent hasn't come to the conclusion that god doesn't exist. These agnostics and fence-sitters can look after themselves - it's the truly misguided champions of monotheism that we need to worry about.

31. There is no God and Dawkins is his Prophet

Comment #66803 by detox on August 31, 2007 at 1:45 pm

Whilst I agree with the majority of posts here saying that the guy has drawn the wrong conclusions in his review, I am at least encouraged by the fact that a representative of the catholic church has bothered to read the book.

Sure, he trots out all the hackneyed cliches but I would suggest that unless the faith-heads read the Dawkins argument then it is impossible to have a meaningful debate.

It has to be preferable to engage them in a debate where they know our side rather than have them stick their fingers in their ears, going, 'Waa, waa, waa.'

32. 'Jesus loves you' email

Comment #66505 by detox on August 30, 2007 at 6:44 am

CruciFiction: just when I was getting the hang of this atheism malarkey you have to go and post a link that has me questioning my non-belief.

Damn you to hell. Oh....

33. 'Jesus loves you' email

Comment #66125 by detox on August 29, 2007 at 1:19 am

Take heart. The answer is simple: Jezus was a god delusionist. Not the first, definitely not the last. Just a mixed up kid who got in trouble with the law. The fact that he spawned an army of other god delusionists is unfortunate but, hey, we're working on them.

34. Anger over 'blasphemous' balls

Comment #66078 by detox on August 28, 2007 at 11:25 am

It seems to me from the posts here that there are two reactions to this article. Either the Afghanis are being too sensitive or the Americans were being too insensitive. I have a certain amount of sympathy with both arguments.

However, put yourself in the shoes of an Afghan in Khost Province. For 25 years, first one, then another superpower has been blowing the shit out of your country to the point where there is no legitimate, functioning government, little infrastructure, no prospect of viable employment and when you get together to bury your dead the chances are you'll get bombed out of your village.
Then a big American helicopter comes along and drops some footballs for the kids to play with.
The Afghan looks up and says, 'Oh, that's allright then'.

America-bashing is easy if you want to vent your spleen but it has no apparent effect and becomes redundant. The fact is it wasn't the smartest move to make by the Americans. By the same token the Afghanis are being overly sensitive.

Perhaps instead of deploring dumb Americans and spikey Muslims we could try to suggest an alternative.

35. Good luck, Dawkins!

Comment #63951 by detox on August 17, 2007 at 1:43 am

Watching 'Enemies of Reason', I couldn't help thinking that RD has the patience of a saint. (Why are saints 'patient'?). Every whack-job he interviews continues to believe in the nonsense they are peddling even in the face of the logic applied by Dawkins and in some cases even after they have spectacularly failed to prove their powers (the dowsers). One guy said, I failed because 'God likes a joke'.

The frustration almost brings me to tears. But then I remember that I am a Sagittarian and as Billy Connolly said: "I'm half man, half horse. Licensed to shit in the street."

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

Comment #63158 by detox on August 13, 2007 at 9:40 am

What is the Catholic objection to abortion? Is it the whole 'murdering a baby' issue? If so, doesn't RD point out that the large minority of pregnancies end in miscarriage anyway? Is god supposed to distinguish between the unconscious decision of the mother's body to abort the foetus (in miscarriage) and the conscious decision of the mother to have someone else abort the foetus? Is god an ethicist?

Alternatively there's the unbaptised baby not being granted access to heaven because they were dumb enough to die before they could be saved.

Seeing as how the Ratmeister General is now hedging his bets about Limbo (contrary to Catholic teaching for centuries) then unborn foetus' souls now go straight to heaven.

Call me a bleeding-heart liberal but the suffering the Catholic church is prepared to foist on 50% of the population who might be unfortunate enough to find themselves in this predicament is an outrage.
It is an outrage against humanity and it should be opposed. To misappropriate a line from someone more eloquent than myself: "to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them."

37. Why Richard Dawkins is right on alternative medicine - but not when it comes to religion

Comment #62516 by detox on August 10, 2007 at 2:58 am

Can someone help me out here? I took great comfort in the debunking of religion and the god experience in reading TGD. According to Lawson though, "the Christian churches...will not have sustained even a scratch... from [TGD]".

Woe is me.

"Dawkins' high-velocity rhetorical weaponry" has missed the target because it has retreated to "the safe high ground of ethics".

Does that mean religion hasn't been debunked and my rejoicing in the excoriation of all things divine is misplaced?
Had I known that my church held the 'get out of gaol free card' of ethics I might not have been quite so happy about joining the RDF forum and openly criticising it. I can feel the flames licking at my feet and a trident poking at my butt as I type.

38. Are antidepressants taking the edge off love?

Comment #61426 by detox on August 5, 2007 at 5:53 am

An apology. There are, I would suggest, few things more tedious than someone banging on about their particular personal circumstances and using the resulting 'evidence' as proof of a given hypothesis. As an argumentative technique it ranks right up there with 'because it says so in the bible'. My previous post was merely expressed in terms of the original conceit regarding the potential effects of SSRI's on the ability of a lover to emote in the 'conventional' manner.

Forgive the solipsism.

Cartomancer: I have to admit that picking you up on a couple of expressions was perhaps churlish given that I had a certain amount of sympathy with your argument. The concept that romantic love should be seen as something to strive for is not necessarily beneficial in modern society. If 'love' per se is a function of our brains that can be seen in terms of chemical reactions and by abstraction a result of evolutionary development then I would suggest that the idea of achieving love as some sort of goal to be attained may be nothing more than a meme that has been given credence by virtue of its longevity.

I may well be wrong about the meme but I am reminded of the story in TGD about the guy staring at the photograph of Stalin, with tears rolling down his cheeks in some sort of quasi-religious trance and expressing his admiration for Uncle Joe in terms of love.

I understand where he is coming from. I've done that sort of thing myself. Firstly as a child gazing on the bloodied and bowed face of my saviour on the cross. Later as a callow youth clutching a photo of my latest paramour. Since I've (thankfully) been disabused of the reciprocal love relationship between myself and the unfortunate character who may or may not have been crucified millennia before I was conceived then it follows that I could equally be disabused of the 'logic' of pining for an absent lover.

Having come to realise that god is a fantasy I'm happy to be told that the reason I 'loved' him was because the chemicals in my brain predisposed me towards having those feelings. What I'm less clear on is the case of my absent lover: tell me that my feelings are nothing more than biologically controlled reactions and I might reply that I know my lover exists and I know their absence causes me pain.

Perhaps then we should advocate the use of SSRI's or future enhanced versions to control love. Could it be as simplistic as: chemicals = love, love = religion, remove the chemicals = remove the religion?

I know I've drifted into the first person again, for which further apologies but if I'm not advancing the argument, the onanistic process is at least enjoyable.

39. Are antidepressants taking the edge off love?

Comment #61025 by detox on August 3, 2007 at 11:11 am

To declare an interest - I've recently taken myself off SSRI's for the first time in 5 years. It seems I was not taking the right ones as cynthax suggests because the ones I took never alleviated the symptoms.

Though in a loving relationship, I finally cracked on the libido issue because it was becoming unfair on my partner and I had to stop the medication.

In the context of this research my personal experience is that my love for my partner does not seem to have been affected by the drugs, before, during or after. What has been affected is the libido which took a bit of a nose-dive, whether due to the depression or the SSRI's I can't say. I can say that months after stopping the meds I still seem to have mislaid my mojo. Which is depressing - though I actually feel fantastic apart from that.

Cartomancer, I have to take issue with you:

"Moreover, love is dangerous. Very dangerous. How many thousands of murders are committed each year by jealous lovers or ex-lovers? Most of them the figures would seem to suggest..."

I may not be a scientist but at least my observations are qualified (if not quantified) by personal experience. Do you have a citation for these figures?

And:

" - I suspect more people have died as a result of this basic human weakness than have ever been killed in religious pogroms, witch-hunts and ethnic cleansing. How many suicides result from the deep abyssal despair of unrequited love? How many lives are ruined by unwise choices made in the throes of this divine madness?"

Really? Isn't this an unscientific description of depression? Not my intention to start a flame war but given that this is Dawkins's forum shouldn't we try at least to avoid expressions like 'divine madness'? Even in jest?