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

Comment #67180 by Christian Tellefsen on September 2, 2007 at 1:25 pm

This is what I wrote to the Times:

So, angels are

"archetypal images that dramatise the invisible realities" and
"symbols for the formless elements of physics"?

You could just as well have written that angels are "pure blue cruciform quantum astral essence". It's just drivel.

One thing I like when reading books by people like Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens is that their arguments are so clear and strong that they can just state them in everyday language, instead of having to resort to nonsensical statements to confuse the reader.

2. CNN Request for 'I-Reports' on religion

Comment #65008 by Christian Tellefsen on August 22, 2007 at 4:03 pm

I wrote the following:

I'm an atheist.

I have no faith, but I have beliefs. I believe that this is the only life I have, making it all so much more precious. There will be no rewards or punishments after I'm dead, no more time, and no making up for any wrongs I may have done. I can only try to make this one life a good life, and try to be good to other people I meet along the way.

I have no faith, but I have hope. I hope that the human race can discard the iron age superstitions of its intellectual and spiritual infancy and enter an age of reason and understanding. Perhaps people will see the beauty of life, of the world and of the cosmos as it really is. Maybe we will stop hating and killing and exterminating each other for believing in the wrong dogmas and myths.

I have no faith, there is nothing out there to have faith in, but there is more to understand and enjoy and live for than any one of us has time for.

3. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7815 by Christian Tellefsen on November 19, 2006 at 2:11 pm

"Naturally he follows an evolutionary route, suggesting that altruism has developed because it has a strong survival value. (Ironically, others have argued that survival of the fittest justifies racial superiority and aggressive imperialism.)"

Mr. Bédoyère,

I do not see the irony here at all. You are comparing apples and oranges.

It is not the same to make the observation that altruism can develop through natural causes (a statement of fact), and to say that what you see in nature says something about what the right way to behave is (a statement of value).

The opposite belief of the belief that we can "justif[y] racial superiority and aggressive imperialism" by looking at nature, is of course, the belief that we can justify being altruistic and kind because that's also something that we see in nature.

Personally, I do not think that either belief makes much sense, but you can hardly argue against the existence of a fact solely because the existence of that fact makes some people believe evil things.