1. God seekers go public

Comment #179502 by Styrer- on May 13, 2008 at 10:45 am

Comment #179467 by Diacanu on May 13, 2008 at 9:47 am

I honestly believe people know in their deepest heart of hearts those tactics are wrong, and these things they believe are a tapestry of lies.
They know in their heart of hearts it can't be true.

Diacanu, I catch myself too often feeling the same, until I smack myself upside the head and remember Harris's message: it is when you realise that these people actually do believe what they say they believe that the ignorant fucking madness of it all begins to make some sense.

I fear that it is equally the shithead faithoholics who truly believe that it is us lot who 'know in [our] heart of hearts' that we're wrong.

This will be a long one.

Best,
Styrer

2. 3QD interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #178818 by Styrer- on May 12, 2008 at 5:25 am

I actually enjoyed the 'homely' way this interesting interview was filmed, and it showed off nicely Richard's easy engagement with some not so usual and fairly wide-ranging lines of discussion.

Abbas did indeed seem 'intent about getting his ideas across' but here I think the time spent was justified as he set up some refreshing and quite incisive questions for Richard to get his teeth into.

I am looking forward to reading Richard's new book when it comes out. Not only a celebration of Darwin but a welcome (and timely) decimation of IDiotic 'ideas' too, I hope!

Best,
Styrer

3. I Am Evolution

Comment #178382 by Styrer- on May 11, 2008 at 10:25 am

Comment #178374 by mordacious1 on May 11, 2008 at 10:07 am

I am afraid I agree. This constant combining of 'belief' with 'evolution' risks refuting the very point the article seeks to make. Clarifying that 'belief in evolution' is entirely wrong-headed is ill-served by the rhetorical device used here. Not a great article.

Best,
Styrer

4. Churchgoing on its knees as Christianity falls out of favour

Comment #177599 by Styrer- on May 9, 2008 at 10:45 am

Comment #177568 by Diacanu on May 9, 2008 at 10:10 am

*Hauls self to feet*

Fuck, I needed that.

Thank you, Diacanu.

Right. Onwards!

Best,
Styrer

5. My Response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #177465 by Styrer- on May 9, 2008 at 6:21 am

Comment #177376 by AllanW on May 9, 2008 at 1:54 am

Styrer; lighten up, man. This is no big deal. And that's why Dawkins' response was apposite; he laughingly swatted a fly, barely deserving of attention in a cool, clear manner.

Yes, I must seem to be harping on, but if you're right that 'it's no big deal', why on earth did he reply at all?

I see no point in his responding unless it was in order to entirely refute this little shit's intimations of anti-semitism.

This is no small-time and insignificant Robertson, whom he rightly and consistently ignores; this man has quite a choir behind him: either give this matter the full deal or give it nothing at all.

Best,
Styrer

6. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177399 by Styrer- on May 9, 2008 at 2:57 am

Comment #177380 by Richard Dawkins on May 9, 2008 at 2:01 am

But I think this is the first time I have heard any reputable spokesman (a) say that Hitler and Stalin's dictatorships were ruled by reason, and (b) say that reason leads to terror and oppression.

So you've not been paying attention, then?

Ben Stein is only too happy to play the 'reason' card for Stalin and Hitler, saying that such regimes are 'logically' the result of atheism, in which regimes 'reason' is the historic and sole diktat by which they can function.

And he thinks that 'science leads you to killing people.' Just a smidgen more worrying than reason leading to terror and oppression, as you put it.

Reputation? Pah. Stein's is greater, over more years, than O'Connor's is and will ever be, small time idiot that he is. Stein is a kind of folk hero in the US. His repeated enunciation of 'anyone' in the Bueller film gained him star-like recognition.

You must have heard all this before. Perhaps you should simply re-calibrate your definition of 'reputable'. I suspect you are setting the bar way too high.

Best,
Styrer

7. Churchgoing on its knees as Christianity falls out of favour

Comment #177384 by Styrer- on May 9, 2008 at 2:04 am

Comment #177351 by Rawhard Dickins on May 9, 2008 at 1:01 am

Styrer

Don't give up mate!

Humanity is in it's adolescent phase (childhood was about 2000 years ago).

It just takes time and education and a lot more straight talking.

Thanks, Rawhard.

Just feeling a bit blue at the moment. I'd just shown the 'child preacher' (baby bible bashers) vid here to my wife, at which we both had a good fucking cry.

This thread's topic just jumped on top of me.

Will do better, mate. Cheers.

Best,
Styrer

8. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177372 by Styrer- on May 9, 2008 at 1:47 am

Comment #177343 by Noodly on May 9, 2008 at 12:26 am

Highlight:

Humphreys: "Did you hear Richard Dawkins earlier?"

Cardinal: "No,I was praying"

Did he really say 'no, I was praying'? Or am I not in on some joke?

Styrer

9. My Response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #177364 by Styrer- on May 9, 2008 at 1:33 am

Comment #177355 by AllanW on May 9, 2008 at 1:04 am

Bravura performance here by Dawkins. The odious little man was treated with contempt and ridicule for his ignorance of evolution but couched in a polite and jocular manner. I think that hits the right tone for a shallow, shrill clown like Boteach.

Really? You don't find Boteach's re-casting of Dawkins' 'Hitler' as something approaching an anti-semitic reproach of him something a little more than the tone of 'a shallow, shrill clown'?

I re-submit that Dawkins' response here is a real fucking disgrace in its refusal to refute Boteach's implied charge of anti-semitism against him, in strongest terms, and in its consequent failure to properly condemn the manner in which faith-fuelled charlatans like Boteach attempt to make of every susceptible person they encounter a new recruit to their pernicious cult.

I think that Dawkins' 'softly, softly' approach, for which he is famous, was utterly out of place here.

Styrer

10. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177352 by Styrer- on May 9, 2008 at 1:01 am

Comment #177342 by Layla Nasreddin on May 9, 2008 at 12:21 am

We'll see how the good Cardinal responds.

I cannot wait.

Really, I cannot wait.

I'm off.

Styrer

11. Churchgoing on its knees as Christianity falls out of favour

Comment #177347 by Styrer- on May 9, 2008 at 12:43 am

I don't think we are going to win this one, folks.

The faithoholics are just too numerous. Their numbers are increasing all the time.

Muslim numbers are increasing as we speak, more than any idea on the planet.

It's just a matter of time.

What's the fucking point in fighting it anymore.

Wish I knew where Steve Zara's watering hole was. I'd stand the first ten.

Waste of fucking effort.

Styrer

12. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177332 by Styrer- on May 8, 2008 at 11:34 pm

Tuned in specially to hear Richard's interview.

Could not have been more than two minutes, within which time, Richard made the great John Humphreys splutter his words!

Richard was in superb form, making the (to us lot familiar) point that the clergy are ALWAYS let off the hook when it comes to justifying their claims in a way that EVERYONE ELSE is emphatically not, because EVIDENCE is demanded.

Richard took Humphreys (and by association, much of the media) to task for applying different standards of interviewing to religious figures than those applied to secular invitees to the show. Cue Humphreys spluttering!

I do not think that Humphreys was expecting such robust rejoinders from Richard at all, perhaps because of the early hour. Humphreys' final 'get me out of here, quick' comment was 'I wish we had more time.'

Richard - excellent!

Thank you. More of the same, please!

Best,
Styrer

13. My Response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #177293 by Styrer- on May 8, 2008 at 9:56 pm

Comment #177290 by Eric Blair on May 8, 2008 at 9:38 pm

Eric Blair

Hitler reserved for some of the most despicable and irrational of his statements in public a stridency, a shrillness and a decibel-challenging shrieking for which it is difficult to find another human-voiced comparison. And Shmuley is a shrieker extraordinaire, precisely when he is uttering the most bollocks. The comparison with Hitler is uncanny.

Malicious or naive as regards a reference to Hitler? Way off the mark.

Dawkins' reference is entirely normal and appropriate.

Unlike your response here - may I suspect that you have deeper issues here?

Best,
Styrer

14. My Response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #177289 by Styrer- on May 8, 2008 at 9:28 pm

Comment #177257 by adonais on May 8, 2008 at 8:34 pm

Your opinion sucks. Scientists aren't in the business of pandering to demagogues who make their livelihood and fame off deceiving the public. Dawkins has dedicated decades of his life to educating the public, but people like Boteach and Stein et al repeatedly demonstrate themselves to be beyond educating.

Quite so. And so why, my dear Adonais, did Richard deign to make so much as a bleat of a response to one such vacuous, half-witted, self-inflating faithoholic as Shmuley?

And why, while he was about it, did Richard not seek to condemn beyond any measure of doubt this failed stand-up's hateful, twisted and abhorrent notions of - let's see - original sin? Of - er - the unpalatable notion of vicarious redemption by human sacifice? Or - and this was nudging towards my main point - at the very least his odious suggestion that Richard is an anti-semite?

Got it, ace?

Best,
Styrer

15. My Response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #177243 by Styrer- on May 8, 2008 at 8:09 pm

Richard

Permit me my opinion - while Boteach is clearly a self-serving, self-publicising chancer of the worst kind, your response to him here is an absolute disgrace.

You have neither properly defended yourself against his despicable intimation that you are anti-semite, nor have you attempted here to categorically denounce such shit-fuelled tactics he is no doubt prepared to use in the propagation of his immoral beliefs to encourage other, more vulnerable people to join his cult.

You may think that you have wisely kept to the issue you raised regarding Hitler and his decibels (which is absolutely on the money), but here is an instance when, I submit, you simply had to take this little fucker to task for the hideous, despicable and hateful associations of which he has disingenuously and viciously sought to make you a supporter.

If you were not prepared to hit back at this horrible little person's crap extremely hard, I think you should have simply said nothing. Your piece seems, stunningly, more like an apology to him.

Extremely poor show, sir.

Styrer

16. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177130 by Styrer- on May 8, 2008 at 4:00 pm

Comment #177127 by Diacanu on May 8, 2008 at 3:47

The motherfucka.

What a moment it would be if Richard turbo-charged his previous on-air 'bullshit' to a well-placed 'the motherfucka' tomorrow.

Back to the land of beautiful dreams...

Best,
Styrer

17. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177126 by Styrer- on May 8, 2008 at 3:46 pm

Comment #177066 by Richard Dawkins on May 8, 2008 at 2:06 pm

OK, well I eventually decided to do it. I'm told I'll be on at about 7.10 am tomorrow morning, 9th May. Then they plan to re-use some of what I say, when they come on to interview the Cardinal later. So he gets the last word! And probably a much longer interview.

Richard

Richard

'twas always thus, and always thus 't'will be.

Until, perhaps, you get Max Clifford in to negotiate you more prime-time.

If I may suggest - do labour the point that the verbose gobshite simply presumes the existence of his god and takes it all, metaphorically as usual, from there.

Not a whiff of a jot of an iota of evidence anywhere.

Give the fucker hell.

Enjoy. But don't be too damned nice to those who, either pityingly or rejoicingly, know you are heading for eternal suffering and pain.

Bonne chance.

Best,
Styrer

18. Trouble ahead for science

Comment #176937 by Styrer- on May 8, 2008 at 11:14 am

Comment #176912 by Cartomancer on May 8, 2008 at 10:32 am

Reluctantly, and solely for the purposes of seeing this film's 'ideas' shoved irretrievably down the world toilet of shit ideas, I agree.

Though quite why a seemingly reasonable chap like Miller doesn't take the next step and have a good old embarrassed chuckle at how daft he's been all this time, I'm really not sure.

Compartmentalization, no doubt. Wearing thin as that one is (intelligent faithoholics must surely know by now what their ill-serving brains are up to), I suppose we must take our support against the likes of anal fissures like Stein as we can.

But definitely reluctantly.

Best,
Styrer

19. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #176127 by Styrer- on May 6, 2008 at 4:16 pm

Comment #176123 by Dr Benway on May 6, 2008 at 3:57 pm

A car wreck which you can't take your eyes off, and which you would surely not sail by in your own unharmed vehicle but for which you would willingly stop and try to assist the injured yourself?

Hmm. Not sure.

Best,
Styrer

20. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #176122 by Styrer- on May 6, 2008 at 3:56 pm

_riverrun_


Just spent a fun-packed hour or so re-reading this thread and have concluded that you really are in sore need of taking a break from your seemingly long-term love-in with Chomsky.

It's messing with your head, my good man.

You do rely far too heavily on Mr MIT's utterances - to a rather tedious degree, I fear - but I discern, unlike some here, that you do have at least a few of your own ideas and, as a fellow atheist, could add a good deal to this site, if you were so minded. But your pseudo-Chomskian delivery - uttered rather grandly, so as to presumably grant you an authority which your own words sadly lack - of such phrases as ' 'Moral equivalence' is a ridiculous term' do make of you a rather risible figure, I am sorry to say.

This is a shame.

I hold Chomsky in highest regard for his linguistic contributions but have been puzzled by his political stances on many occasions. You may wish to note, for your possible future entanglements in this vein, that you have been singularly unpersuasive for at least me in refuting the sheer weight and calibre of criticism to which Al-Rawandi has subjected your unfortunately sycophancy-drenched offerings in Chomsky's defence.

Perhaps it is time for you to find your own voice. I suspect it might be worth hearing.

Best,
Styrer

21. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #176006 by Styrer- on May 6, 2008 at 10:44 am

Comment #175859 by al-rawandi on May 6, 2008 at 6:54 am

Al-rawandi

My main focus has always been on Chomsky the linguist - just starting his 'Language and Mind', as it happens - but I've read some of his anti-US rants and often wondered why he seems so hell-bent on making them. Your post doesn't clarify for me why he does so - though I know that was not necessarily at issue here - but I nonetheless thank you for the time you've spent here in exposing some of his double-think I didn't know about.

_riverrun_

Could you please clarify for me if you disagree with Harris that there is no moral equivalence between 9/11 and Al Shifa and if so, why?

Thanks,
Styrer

22. What really goes on at the Large Hadron Collider

Comment #175943 by Styrer- on May 6, 2008 at 9:03 am

Thank you - this was an absolute joy to watch.

Cox's enthusiasm for and love of science are extremely infectious. A highly engaging chap, he was able in this short appearance to re-awaken in me the awe and wonder we should all feel at our place in this universe which faithoholics everywhere (esp. those visiting this site in recent weeks) seem determined to suck out of all of us.

Bloody marvellous, and a much-needed tonic.

Best,
Styrer

23. The detail in the Devil

Comment #175873 by Styrer- on May 6, 2008 at 7:20 am

Comment #175852 by riandouglas on May 6, 2008 at 6:45 am

perhaps there's simply more money in fictional suspense novels I suspect?

What an ignoble and cynical thought, sir.

Glad we're on the same page...:)

Best,
Styrer

24. The detail in the Devil

Comment #175842 by Styrer- on May 6, 2008 at 6:33 am

How exciting. I cannot wait for Bradshaw's 'very definite' findings to be published, after appropriate peer-review, in a reputable scientific journal.

Quite why he is first presenting his findings in the form of a 'ficitious suspense novel', though, seems rather strange in delaying the awarding of his surely guaranteed Nobel Prize. Unless it's the one for literature he's after, and not for science.

Perhaps I'm missing something.

Best,
Styrer

25. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174276 by Styrer- on May 2, 2008 at 12:50 am

Suffice it to say that if you want to do something worthwhile, you might stop tilting at windmills with the IDers and maybe start putting up wind turbines.

Teratornis, you really are a delighfully single-minded and strange fellow.

I am sure that, if not Steve himself, then some of the rest of us will consider your proposal.

And then wipe our fucking arses with it.

Teratornis, you do your environment-obsession no good whatsoever in offering such piffle.

Fucking hell, man. What's wrong with you?

Styrer

26. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174269 by Styrer- on May 2, 2008 at 12:30 am

Anyway - I think the great philosophers were/are still far less susceptible to brainwashing than an ordinary joe (not because they were or are philosophers, but simply because their psychological nature - and nurture - made them - and thus made them such great philosophers)
Many develop an extremely great intellect but not the ability to apply it to everything... because of indoctrination or a general susceptibility to something of that sort. Other - I think - , like Voltaire, or Kant (whose theism was radically different from anything the church offered) or de la Rochefoucauld, acheive a high level of "mental immunity".

Yes, that makes a lot of sense, I think. Though your 'indoctrination or a general susceptibility to something of that sort' finds me wondering what susceptibilities other than faith-based ones might be in your mind.

La Rochefoucauld's most memorable maxime, by the way, remains for me: we should feel fucking terrible that what we were thinking and feeling yesterday is totally and utterly different today.

He saw this as mankind's most depressing feature.

I wonder why it did not occur to him that such change in thought and feeling is in fact one of our species' greatest assets.

Best,
Styrer

27. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174255 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 11:52 pm

Comment #174225 by MPhil on May 1, 2008 at 11:06 pm

Thanks.

I'm not sure quite how I could have better expressed my 'type of philosopher' question to avoid your taking of my terms to task, but there seems to have been just enough clarity in it for you to grasp my meaning and to provide a comprehensive answer. I should be thankful for that, I suppose.

The 'childhood indoctrination' notion did, I admit, rather surprise me: not because I do not think it the most despicably insidious form of religious indoctrination, but because I have always granted philosophers a measure of intellectual respect which your answer to my question seems to refute. I wondered if great thinkers simply were immune to such human and childhood influences, beautifully holding their solitary own, creating their own affirmations and negations of ideas to which they had never yet had any exposure, and all to the better that they had not.

I am extremely pleased that I am wrong. It means that even steely-eyed missile MPhil's are possible subjects of the whole sad, sorry, vicious horrible process of inculcation of faith. To which nay or yay can be offered, depending on the fucking parents.

Absolutely nothing new, in other words.

As for the Gordon Brown thing, the thicko took up fire on behalf of a rather hapless girl called Laura Spence (I think). As and A*s throughout, something like 5 or 6 A Levels (top grades), and refused a place at Oxford.

It was quite a fiasco, don't you know. A bit of a hoot, actually.

Far better to get far lower grades than hers and to simply walk, as I did, into Oxford without anyone really noticing the second-rate application in the interviewers' unobservant hands.

Good luck with your doctorate application. Go for Oxford. Far more fun than Cambridge, and you'll have the pleasure of wondering if you'll meet Cartomancer and Dawkins.

Best,
Styrer

28. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174221 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 10:55 pm

Comment #174220 by Bonzai on May 1, 2008 at 10:46 pm

Thank you Styrer for the info.

I think we should make you our official site asshole and I mean it as a compliment and in an endearing kind of way

It was only after I had asked my wife to work on some kind of badge saying 'Complimentary Site Asshole', and after she had said to me: 'Are you sure about the words?' that I suddenly realised that you might have been intending to be a bit mean to me.

And then I wept. Too cruel.

I can barely...sniff...type...my...name...

Styr...sniff

29. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174219 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 10:45 pm

Comment #174209 by MPhil on May 1, 2008 at 10:17 pm

Emma Watson is indeed very beautiful... but much more beautiful in the pics from her shootings than without makeup. But still, very beautiful - and just turned 18...

... and what's best (for me), she plans on studying philosophy at Oxford (or was it Cambridge?).

Whether she is intelligent enough, despite outstanding grades, to enter either remains to be seen. I was at school with students who achieved top grades right up to A Level but who were not able from there to make much headway.

Oxbridge usually looks beyond grades to decide whom to admit. These decisions surprise and anger the likes of the witless Gordon Brown, as you may have heard.

Would you answer a question, MPhil? Some philosophers, knowing as much as you about the nuts and bolts of philosophy, come to the conclusion that there is a deity. Those others, like yourself, and knowing all the same nuts and bolts, come to an atheistic stance. Would you care to explain to me what separates the two different types of philosopher?

I do not understand.

Thanks,
Styrer

30. Pat Condell: Anthology DVD available now!

Comment #174208 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 10:02 pm

Comment #173632 by Ramases on May 1, 2008 at 2:23 am

Dalai Lama (aka Ramases)

(Aka) - Shit for brains.

When the fuck, you obnoxious little cunt, did Condell ever refer to a 'White Britain'?

If you can identify one substantive part of any of Condell's offerings as showing him a racist, bigoted xenophobe, then present it here now.

Otherwise, quit with your vile shit and fuck off.

Styrer

31. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174202 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 9:13 pm

Comment #174201 by Bonzai on May 1, 2008 at 9:06 pm

Well, my dear faith-confused Bonzai (couldn't resist, you worm!), it is the ever increasingly beautiful Emma Watson.

Hermione in Harry Potter.

Best,
Styrer

32. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174190 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 8:35 pm

What I meant was that witnessing something first hand is emotionally different from witnessing it from afar.

I have never doubted the immense power of empathy. But I have - I admit - failed to phrase the above thought correctly. It is a psychological fact that closeness and remoteness are a significant factor. That is what I meant.

I have misspoken, phrasing my thought in a way that has connotations and implications which underrate the empathetic capabilities of others... and for that I apologize.

I do hope you will withdraw the "contemptible"-judgment however

Thanks for the clarification. You had me worried there.

I withdraw the adjective, and am grateful to you that I can.

On this issue my feelings run extremely high, and I should have perhaps asked you to clarify words which I found offensive.

Best,
Styrer

33. Pat Condell: Anthology DVD available now!

Comment #174182 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 8:13 pm

I think it is contemptible that Pat's vociferous words, his intelligence in composing them, his agility in making them potent, his unerringly precise pin-pointing of religion's glaring crater-sized holes, and the devastatingly inviting manner he combines anger with humour, are being belittled by those here who would have us all whispering, ever so quietly and carefully, our condemnation of the pious, dangerous shit which is leading us ever closer to the anti-reason abyss.

You should re-visit your evident notions of yourselves as 'intellectual', if those notions remain such that you will dismiss as unimportant a man who can lay claim to fighting the war against superstitious supernaturalism more emphatically, more memorably and more engagingly than any of you naysaying lot have ever shown yourselves capable of doing on this site.

Styrer

34. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174169 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 7:48 pm

Comment #174146 by MPhil on May 1, 2008 at 6:40 pm

I cannot imagine the emotional significance can be felt by anyone who has only heard of it from afar.

A contemptible comment, MPhil, which I hope you will withdraw.

I was standing, in Wadham College in November 1989, in JCR with more than one hundred other of my fellow undergraduates, with tears streaking down faces, whoops of joy identifying those happiest, outright sobbing identifying those seated, twisted with a kind of grateful and long-overdue release of sorrow making way for the noise of one of my fellow linguists saying 'I'm gonna get over there, my Dad will heli me over' (Her Dad was a high-up guy for a leading newspaper at the time.)

The rest of that night was spent pissed up, happy, enjoying the fact that the boundaries between freedom and another trodden-down, under-valued country had been ripped down, for all to see.

Kindly re-calibrate your own imagination in this matter.

Best,
Styrer

35. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174160 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 7:22 pm

Comment #174155 by Diacanu on May 1, 2008 at 6:59 pm

Rudey Rude McRudington!!

That twat gets around. Had a drink with him last night and he was surprisingly polite.

Bastard. Even said he hates my idea of irony.

Smacked the fucker.

Best,
Styrer

36. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174135 by Styrer- on May 1, 2008 at 6:07 pm

Comment #173359 by Steve Zara on April 30, 2008 at 4:58 pm

I don't have the energy or motivation to post or debate here any more. I am fed up with ID nuts posting the same old nonsense, and religious sympathisers like Bonzai posting the same old apologetics.

My next blog entry will be a bumper sticker about how to avoid over-cooking fried rice.

I shall continue to support rationality on various blogs......

You have been an apologist for what you call "moderate" religion here for some time. You have been saying that those who claim moderate religion provides cover for fundamentalists are wrong.

We are dealing with people one at a time when there are millions out there. I don't know what the answer is, but spending time responding to people like seeker_of_truth here isn't part of it, I feel.

Thus spake Zara, thrustingly.

Steve, get your fucking head out of your arse, get back here and continue your bashing, or at least leave this site for the right fucking reason.

The right reason would be that Dawkins (to whom you offered on your hoity-toity departure not a single word of thanks for providing you a platform for so long to spout, challenge, educate and bloody well enjoy yourself since you joined) has decided that this open, world-famous and accessible site of condemnation of anti-rational theists everywhere should be fucking shut down and that the faithheads have finally won.

But no. You, Steve - you are huffily heading off to achieve what Dawkins is trying to achieve through his setting up of this now world-accessible site by...er, contributing to some 'various blogs', and all because 'I am fed up with ID nuts posting the same old nonsense'. And - did you intend this horrible echo of typical theistic departures from this site? - because 'you have better things to do'.

Well, if that is about the measure of you, then do, indeed, piss off.

But I suspect you're just pissed off at having to listen to faithheads here offering not the slightest sign whatsoever that your usually wise words make any impact whatsoever on them. At having to listen to the disgraceful, propitiatory Bonzaian bullshit about faith not being ultimately to blame for faith-drenched notions of self-immolation and murder seeking paradise as reward for their very enactment. And, perhaps, at the apparent futility of it all.

You are not alone. But offering the very best of yourself on this superb, willing, beautiful and educative site is one of your very best chances of even making a start on putting all the above crap to rights.

Return and bash.

If none of the above persuades, I refer you to Cartomancer's kind offer to re-instate his previous avatar. If even that holds no sway, then fuck you, you miserable git. And just stay away from FCOS, ok?

Best,
Styrer

37. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #172219 by Styrer- on April 29, 2008 at 10:59 am

Hi Paula

Thanks for your comments and sorry for the delay in responding - been away for work for a few days.

I note that your rebuke of my strong language is reflected by some others here - even the superb 'fuck' maestro Diacanu himself - and so I do give it serious consideration.

You may well be right that my stridency was premature, though I am by no means convinced. If it has damaged any of my fellow atheists' taking our latest crop of deluded theists to task, then I am genuinely more sorry for that than for any offence caused to the real target of my words here.

The first offence is, and as you seem to imply, made by the very ideas these deluded people hold. Not only are they not content, arrogantly and smugly, or even arrogantly and pityingly, to know from a distance and for a fact that the likes of me, you and others here are destined to spend all of eternity burning in hell, but some of them then seem set on visiting this atheistic site with the intention of committing a second offence by rubbing our fucking faces in it. There may be exceptions - theists visiting in a genuine spirit of inquiry, perhaps with a preparedness to be finally doubtful about the veracity of their despicable claims - but I see precious few, and would note that most simply maintain that we are all lost, forever to spend a torturous eternity in the absence of their deity.

Dr Benway possibly wisely says 'pick your battles' - but my take is that I now perceive just one, long, continuous battle where the theists, no matter how successfully they may cloak their language in courteous language, can never cloak sufficiently well the disgusting, de-humanising, hugely offensive claims at the root of their mad beliefs to hide them indefinitely.

And hidden they often are, and even unwittingly by those whom one would expect to be fearless in exposing them. A recent case in Ireland of a JW woman requiring a blood transfusion after huge blood loss from giving birth to her (healthy) baby boy is a case in point. This woman sued the hospital for saving her life (and so preventing her son from growing up motherless) - nothing new here - but what struck me as being perverse in the extreme was the way in which the media ubiquitously reported on the case with not the slightest sign of outrage, of anger or of censure of this woman's mad ideas.

No. No more tolerance, no more sucking it up, and plenty more pre-emptive 'fucktards' before they begin to spout their genuinely sickeningly perverse shit.

Having just finished off McGrath's 'Dawkins Delusion', I am especially sensitive to the whole idea of seemingly 'respectable' and 'polite' theists really showing their true, vicious and unpleasant colours. Between meanspirited and downright offensive criticisms of Dawkins - and so badly written too - McGrath has absolutely nothing more to say (a point your review made extremely well) beyond the most hysterical and desperate appeals to cling to the horrible ideas at the core of his far from harmless faith. Quite how the shameful goon managed to persuade Oxford to grant him a Professorship utterly defies me.

But here - I will repeat I may have been premature, if not so much in the condemnation of yet another mad theist with truly warped ideas, then in not allowing more patient folk here to deal final rational blows to the mad and typically shitty ideas being put forward as absolute fact as usual.

Best,
Styrer

38. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169840 by Styrer- on April 27, 2008 at 12:12 am

Checking in to see if that cunt Robertson has answered my question yet?

Nope? Didn't think so.

Here I go for the non-reading Bollokertson.

David Robertson - your last stint on this site, with your poorly-lettered address to Dawkins, showed you as a desperate, petty-minded, ignorant, untrustworthy, sad and inconsequential man.

Your sad, undemocratic and nigh-on incompetently-run 'site', on my visiting it, seems to cling to even more negative adjectives than I have been able to bring to your faith-drenched and irrational door above.

Should you ever pop your duplicitous little head into this site, under any of the very many sneaky little names you have created for yourself, I shall hound you for an answer to my many-times repeated question of you.

Your long-wished for absence from this site will prove either an ignominious admission of defeat in the face of the very many more intelligent people here than yourself; or a tacit expression of your cowardly, distasteful and most unpleasant admission that you have been speaking unbelievable bollocks all the while that you've been soiling your pants in our presence here.

Over to you, my dear chap, to choose as you wish.

Styrer

39. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169831 by Styrer- on April 26, 2008 at 11:04 pm

melissajoy1234

New tack, Mel.

Provide evidence without quoting your pathetic bible fairytale that your particular god exists.

Do so, and earn respect.

Do not, and fuck off, you absolute shame and horror of humanity.

While you continue to fuck off with alacrity, pick up a fucking book to educate yourself, you ignorant shit. 'The Blind Watchmaker' would be a fucking good start to your learning something, and thereby discovering that your wanking sadness here has been wholly inappropriate, offensive, unproductive and a total waste of your and our fucking time.

Styrer

40. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169822 by Styrer- on April 26, 2008 at 10:41 pm

Comment #169796 by melissajoy1234 on April 26, 2008 at 8:35 pm

Why the bloody hell, melissajoy1234, are your and nearly all of your fellow faithheads' contributions on this site so fucking long?

Do you really need so many fucking words to make your point?

Do you really have to drag all of us through the fucking dictionary once again for you to even approximate an idea that you may feel is worth imparting to us ignorant gobshite immoral atheists?

Or is the sheer loquacity of your outpourings not simply a stab up our ass to remember that you fuckers never have any new argument to present to us which we can delight in taking apart?

Do answer. Concisely.

Styrer

41. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169813 by Styrer- on April 26, 2008 at 10:19 pm

Comment #169799 by Cartomancer on April 26, 2008 at 8:46 pm

Superb, sir, as is your wont.

But I must own to a probably illogical concern about the comings-on of your D.Phil in the face of your ongoing and devastating denunciations of the pitiful theists on this site, for I don't really know you but for this medium.

Trusting your mind is capacious enough to give mind to both, may I ask if your doctorate thesis is in any way taking in notions of atheism as to be evident in your final piece? Or will your final D.Phil success indicate no such atheistic ideas as you hold?

Let me know if you would.

Best,
Styrer

42. Interview with Dan Dennett

Comment #169803 by Styrer- on April 26, 2008 at 9:19 pm

One of the more worthy pieces offered by Josh and team for our collective interest.

I must rid myself of one bugbear by saying it is the absence of Cristina Howells in this debate, my tutor in French at Wadham, Oxford years ago, now Professor of French at the university, whose speciality remains Sartre, which struck me as most requiring a stiff drink and a good pinch of salt on listening to the rather dubious ideas proffered by Jones, 'Sartrerian expert' of the day chosen to speak here.

Dan did well, despite the apparently confused requirement to link him to Sartrerian ideas; but I would urge him to henceforth write as clearly as he spoke here. I will not, though, hold my breath.

As for the whole tenor of the conversation, it was a real pleasure for me to note that, in terms of the religious content, there was absolutely fuck all that Dawkins has not touched on himself, and clarified infinitely better than this shower tried to do.

Best,
Styrer

43. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166280 by Styrer- on April 23, 2008 at 4:51 am

Comment #166265 by phatbat on April 23, 2008 at 4:22 am

If a student stands up in a class and tells the science teacher he has got something wrong and then proceeds to demonstrate his lack of education on the matter, then he has displayed a level of arrogance that should be called out by the teacher and anyone else that feels like chipping in. We shouldn't be encouraging this kind of talk, as it seems you want to do Styrer.

No, Phatbat, that was not what I was talking about. My own student example was provided to show that this was precisely not the issue.

Best,
Styrer

44. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #166258 by Styrer- on April 23, 2008 at 4:09 am

Comment #166255 by jaytee_555 on April 23, 2008 at 3:52 am

"In reality, both religion and science are expressions of man's uncertainty".

This is absolutely true. One of the two does its best to enlighten man's uncertainty, and has been spectacularly successful. The other one actively perpetuates ignorance by dreaming up absurd explanations which are accepted only by fools.

Is there any 'uncertainty' about which is which?

Not sure about that. Will get back to you (maybe).

Best,
Styrer

45. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166252 by Styrer- on April 23, 2008 at 3:47 am

Comment #166239 by Steve Zara on April 23, 2008 at 3:19 am

Thank you very much for your clarification, Steve.

Now, can we start bashing some fucking theists, for Christ's sake?

Best,
Styrer

46. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166232 by Styrer- on April 23, 2008 at 2:57 am

Comment #166218 by Steve Zara on April 23, 2008 at 2:34 am

We desperately need to educate people about science.

If I may respond to your post to Bonzai - you make sound points, Steve, about the knowledge required by those who hold our civilisation in their technological hands.

But was this ever the issue? Nope. Goal-post changing, Steve, does not become you.

The issue was education and the ability of those without the huge acumen that you have garnered along your way to think about and express - in public, if they wish, despite your desired delimitation - their own ideas of the origin of the universe.

Styrer

ps. ft77 - fuck off, you obnoxious cunting troll.

47. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166210 by Styrer- on April 23, 2008 at 2:20 am

Comment #166189 by Tagred on April 23, 2008 at 1:36 am

Sorry, just my laymans rant

Do not dare apologise. Your words rather moved me. Especially:

We have our elites, and that's perfectly acceptable, but everyone should be allowed to speculate, even if they know very little, after all isnt that the whole point of science? Dont scientists always begin by asking the most basic questions when embarking on a new theory or new evidence? Isn't that how scientists became scientists?

You seem more than very intelligent to at least this stupid old fucker.

Thank you for such a thoughtful post.

Best,
Styrer

48. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #166199 by Styrer- on April 23, 2008 at 1:55 am

I know Dennett only from 'Breaking the Spell', which I found a long-winded and unengaging read, and the same qualities of writing are more or less evident here. Glad to see that he's at least stopped sucking up to Muslims with talk of their 'great faith', but he's no match for a Dawk or a Hitch, in person or in print.

Gobshite Winston might as well be McGrath for all his metaphorical reliance on dubious textual readings to pose as the reality of his chosen cult.

Hands-down winner is, of course, Dennett, not for reasons of felicity of language or of idea, but because...well, against Gobshite, he couldn't really lose, could he?

Unimpressive.

Best,
Styrer

49. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166152 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 9:34 pm

Comment #166144 by ft77 on April 22, 2008 at 8:18 pm

When did you turn into a troll Styrer?
I seem to remember you as a sincere poster at one point.

Troll? The only reason I can see your terming me such is that I have disagreed with Steve Zara.

Is that it? If not, let me know. I note that you yourself have added fuck all in the last few months, you little piss-ant, and so I challenge you to disagree with my assertion that any trolling does not rather belong to your own sorry ass.

On the basis that it is my encounter with Steve that has so inflamed your righteous trolling antennae, let me remind you that the great Zara has offered in this thread:

- an initial statement of dismissal for those who would dare offer ideas on the origins of the universe without being suitably academically qualified in both cosmology and physics

- a response on being termed unfair and arrogant of 'I don't much care about seeming elitist'

- a twisting denial that he ever meant any of the above

- a swift departure

It is precisely self-inflating, elitist scientists such as Zara who are, every single day, inflicting enormous damage on the work that the likes of Dawkins are trying to achieve in making science, and the scientific method, more accessible and more engaging to ordinary people everywhere.

You may wish to note that a major ambition of this site and of many of its pissed-off-with-religion members is to present a rational idea of how to live, encouraged by the idea that science is a pretty good guide by which to do so. If Zara's despicably elitest and dismissive comments about science's range of impact are to be taken seriously (and I see no reason why I should not take everything Zara offers here seriously) then I cannot see any further point in Dawkins writing another sodding book.

Elitest scientists like Zara bring science, in my opinion, into sad and lonely mists, accessing no-one other than their own little egos and their fellow ego-driven scientist pals; real scientists like Dawkins offer light to those countless unscientific people out there who, when the day is done with all its crap, still want to know.

Got it?

Post something worthwhile yourself, you little fucker, before I troll you.

Styrer

50. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166101 by Styrer- on April 22, 2008 at 6:36 pm

Comment #166078 by Double Bass Atheist on April 22, 2008 at 6:02 pm

Comment #165983 by Steve Zara

If people feel excluded, the answer is to get educated and to ask questions. Someone untrained would not seriously try and tell a pilot how to fly, or a surgeon how to operate. They feel no injustice about being excluded from those areas, yet somehow everyone is entitled to push their opinions on cosmology and biology.

Brilliant Steve!

Before you do yourself an injury in your ecstatic approbation of Steve's unashamed endorsement of elitism in the discussion of things scientific, do recall that the great Richard Feynman offered the same notion of elitism as Steve has done here. One qualification - Feynman said that it is impossible to reach a high level in understanding of what this world and universe are really about without understanding, to a very high degree, mathematics. He went on to clarify that only a mathematical understanding could possibly give an idea of what this universe is really about. He did, though, give a delightfully cheeky nod to the ideas of love and sex.

I wonder what Steve (biologist extraordinaire) would have to say about this apparently elitist concept?

I hope Steve's maths is up to par to agree with a posthumous Feynman to be able to maintain his dubious view of who should and should not indulge in 'speculation about the origin of the universe. '

By Feynman's reckoning, Steve must preclude himself from further scientific debate over the nature and origins of this universe. Perhaps Dawkins too, while we're at it.

Best,
Styrer