Comments by Breadbin

Comment #80043 by Breadbin on October 19, 2007 at 3:42 pm

Riley:

Is it at all possible that the question he poses is rhetorical, a way of refuting the persistent suggestion from the religious that belief makes people act morally and non-belief leaves them without a moral compass?

This claim is indeed made by many who would argue the benefits of religious belief. God makes people do good things, they say. Without God, they say, those people would probably be immoral and selfish. This argument is mainly aimed at those who already believe, in my opinion, as a way to encourage them to continue with their belief and to indoctrinate their children to save them from the wicked atheist lifestyle that they love to caricature.

The people who are on the stage at the time may not have said precisely "religious people can do moral things that atheists cannot" but his question simply points out the disingenuous way that many religious apologists hijack morality for their team exclusively. It's a good reply when they've fallen back to their rock bottom argument that faith-based charitable works make up for everything else they can't justify.

2. Creationism raised as Ont. election issue

Comment #68293 by Breadbin on September 6, 2007 at 4:16 pm

Horrifying. I live in Ontario and although I'm not a Canadian citizen and hence can't vote, I know for a fact my wife will definitely be voting against the "Progressive" Conservatives. She would have even without reading this story but now we'll be motivated to show it to everyone we can between now and Oct 10th.

Incidentally we were just talking about the private faith-based boarding school a few hundred yards from us which recently closed down. The official story was that it went bankrupt but there have since been allegations in the local paper of serious abuse by teachers and staff in the 70s and 80s.

http://newsfeed.recorder.ca/cgi-bin/LiveIQue.acgi$rec=23597

"Among the behaviour described in the Globe articles are so-called "light sessions" where students would be roused from sleep and taken to a room where a bright light was shined in their faces as unseen people accused them of being sinners."

Truly shameful things done in the name of religion. The sad thing is I wasn't in the least bit surprised.