1. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #167403 by Kimpatsu on April 24, 2008 at 2:16 am

Which god would Robert Winston be thinking of when he cites Pascal's Wager? What happens if I devote myself t the Xian god, only to be tossed into Hell by Allah? Or Zeus? Or Baal?
Lord Winston does not address the problem of avoiding the wrong Hell.

2. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144002 by Kimpatsu on March 14, 2008 at 8:52 pm

@epinephrine: Good point, but have you ever seen the documentary "The God who Wasn't There"? It begins with Brian Fleming interviewing Xians at a revival meeting, none of whom had heard of any of the Greco-Roman gods he names. Ignorance, for them, is proof of their godliness.

3. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125200 by Kimpatsu on February 11, 2008 at 4:04 am

What about Roger Penrose or Victor Stenger? Both physicists, both atheists, and both authors of popular science books.
I do feel awkward about calling Prof. Dawkins "Richard", though...

4. Blind Faiths

Comment #109965 by Kimpatsu on January 10, 2008 at 7:19 am

"The Romans, the British and the French went about annexing large parts of the world more for earthly or material gain than for spiritual dominance. Under these empires, the clergy was allowed to propagate its faith as long as it did not jeopardize imperial interests."
I think this is a misunderstanding of at the very least the nature of the British Empire. Its missionaries saw the empire as the greatest expression of god's approval, for they read into it connotations of manifest destiny. Further, they were spreading the Word in the name of the established Church of England, so there were no missionaries who preached that the empire was bad. In that, they were as much a part of the empire, and complicit in its spread, as the East India trading company or the colonists in Africa.
With Islam, the spread of the Caliphate is also deemed to be Allah's will, so anyone who opposes the spread of Islam is necessarily anti-god. It is this mindset that drives the bloodthirsty behaviour of Islam's leaders. Where Western governments--I hesitate to call them leaders, either intellectually or morally--go wrong is first and foremost their terror of being called racist, so they bend over backwards to accommodate Islamic fundamentalists who, at the first sign of criticism, scream "racism". There are some who believe that error, but there are also Muslims who are simply using this threat as a form of blackmail to get their own selfish way.
Such is the nature of "assimilation" in the western world.

5. Archbishop of Canterbury Praises Richard Dawkins

Comment #104848 by Kimpatsu on December 29, 2007 at 4:47 pm

FXR, I don't agree that Rowan Williams is a nice man. He said that Salman Rushdie deserved punishment for writing the Satanic verses.

6. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #102148 by Kimpatsu on December 21, 2007 at 7:14 pm

"And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. (Matthew 2:23)"
Ummm... Jesus was a Nazarene because he belonged to the Judaic sect called the Nazarenes; it had nothing to do with living in Nazareth. "Jesus of Nazareth" is actually a misnomer. But, as usual, most Xians don't know this.

7. This deadly religious resistance to vaccinations

Comment #96915 by Kimpatsu on December 11, 2007 at 5:02 am

When Phillips began her assaults on reason in the DM, I e-mailed her with a lengthy explanation as to why she was wrong, and received a 6-word reply: "I stand by what I wrote". I don't think she likes having her non-expertise called into question, but she certainly views herself as an investigative reporter following the likes of Woodward and Bernstein to blow the whistle on the "establishment".

8. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #94156 by Kimpatsu on December 4, 2007 at 11:30 pm

Did anyone else notice that, about 9 minutes into the interview, when they flashed the quote from Christopher's new book onscreen, the title was misspelled as "The Portable Athiest"?
And this is MSNBC!

9. Response to Theodore Dalrymple

Comment #86002 by Kimpatsu on November 7, 2007 at 7:01 pm

It strikes me that, like so many "I'm an atheist, but..." religious apologisers, the issue of whether or not religious claims are true is irrelevant to Dalrymple; religion makes people feel better, ergo religion is good. Like Dawkins, however, I prefer truth over dishonest consolation every time. Or, as Carl Sagan put it, "Better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy."

10. Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in them?

Comment #70859 by Kimpatsu on September 17, 2007 at 5:17 am

The following URL is to be found in the small ads in the latest issue of Private Eye magazine. The author is yet another flea.
http://www.edgewaysbooks.com/20th/Dawkins.pdf

11. Honest Mistakes or Willful Mendacity

Comment #68331 by Kimpatsu on September 6, 2007 at 9:32 pm

I think that, as with all faith heads, Cornwall's starting point is that all atheists are evil and nihilistic, and so he is indeed misreading what Dawkins wrote (i.e., he believes that he is clarifying what Dawkins REALLY meant to say, if only Dawkins were more articulate--as articulate as Cornwall himself is). After all, it is simply not possible for an atheist to make a cogent argument on religion, and so TGD cannot contain any cogent arguments, QED.

12. Unreasonably superstitious

Comment #62706 by Kimpatsu on August 10, 2007 at 11:40 pm

If anyone's interested (and using BT *cough cough*), the torrents are still available for a BBC show earlier this year called the "Bullshit Detective", in which a trio of superb presenters invetigated all manner of quackery, including chakra readers, homeopaths, feng shui (fu sui), etc. Priceless is when one of them substituted the "magic healign crystals" for jelly beans and toffees...

13. Charles Brooker's screen burn

Comment #62702 by Kimpatsu on August 10, 2007 at 11:27 pm

Veronique,
The problem in the UK is exacerbated by Liz Windsor's gormless son, AKA HRH Prince Charles the Prince of Wales, who is a firm New Age woo-wooer, who actually wrote to the Royal College of Physicians insisting that they include "alternative practitioners" and consider "althernative therapies" in their diagnoses and treatments. And, as any fule no, royalty is never wrong...

14. Bush, the ethicist-in-chief

Comment #56112 by Kimpatsu on July 13, 2007 at 8:11 pm

In point of fact, as I understand Bush, he's not about saving lives per se but saving what he terms "innocent lives"; so stem cells and blastocysts are innocent, but murderers can be executed because they're not innocent, having taken the lives of others.
So instead of destroying blastocysts in experiments, they will be reverentially flushed down the toilet. How very ethical.

15. Sean Hannity with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #54856 by Kimpatsu on July 9, 2007 at 6:35 am

Hannitty makes the age-old mistake of assuming that the universe was created ex nihilo. As any modern physicist can tell you, the universe has ALWAYS existed, just not in its current form (which is no greater than assuming it was was created by some external entity). Hitchens should have nailed Hannity on this fundamental ad hoc misconception.

16. Lecture on Neo-Darwinism

Comment #52670 by Kimpatsu on June 27, 2007 at 5:15 pm

I want a shirt like that.

17. The Paradoxical Hatred of Christopher Hitchens

Comment #42892 by Kimpatsu on May 20, 2007 at 4:28 am

What is a "garden variety Xian"? One who doesn't participate in atrocities, but silently supports those who commit them? Or those who disapprove of theistic atrocities, but don't speak out to condemn them?
I think the author should tell us which he means.

18. Freethinking Ruins All Things

Comment #42718 by Kimpatsu on May 19, 2007 at 6:51 am

If the desire to know is a natural desire, why does the Church oppose free inquiry?

19. Nothing sacred: Journalist and provocateur Christopher Hitchens picks a fight with God

Comment #41252 by Kimpatsu on May 15, 2007 at 5:23 pm

I never capitalise the word "god", other than at the start of sentences, as to me, it is a common noun, like "chair" or "table". Further, in school I was taught to capitalise "God" for the one true god, and to use lower case for all the fictional gods (e.g., Zeus, Baal, etc.) As all gods are myths, however, I write "god" in an effort to be true to this rule.

20. Those fanatical atheists

Comment #38368 by Kimpatsu on May 7, 2007 at 10:23 pm

When the Pope says that a few words and some hand-waving causes a cracker to transform into the flesh of a 2,000-year-old man, Dawkins and his fellow travellers say, well, prove it. It should be simple. Swab the Host and do a DNA analysis.

21. Convention ends with Satan and immigrants

Comment #36250 by Kimpatsu on April 30, 2007 at 4:08 pm

I beleive in a one-world sexular order. So I must be one of Satan's minions! Like, wow!

22. One Hell of a Religious Read

Comment #34371 by Kimpatsu on April 23, 2007 at 10:32 pm

'On creationism and intelligent design: "The inculcation of compulsory stupidity."'
LOL!

23. 'The Day They Kicked God out of the Schools' & Rebuttal

Comment #34370 by Kimpatsu on April 23, 2007 at 10:29 pm

Yet again, that tired old lie hat Madelyne Murray O'Hair "kicked god out of school". What O'Hair did was end MANDATORY prayer; students are quite free to pray, and to read the Bible, during recess. But that's evidently not enough for the god-botherers; they have to force everyone to worship their god.
And, if we have to have god in school, then we'd better hire an imam quick. Or is that not what the anonymous video maker wanted...?

24. Atheists split on how to not believe

Comment #33932 by Kimpatsu on April 22, 2007 at 6:01 pm

Go to PZ Myer's blog, Pharyngula, for a rebuttal to these "soft atheists" that's really rather elegant.

25. Street Evangelist Saves 300 Souls From Enjoying Park

Comment #33805 by Kimpatsu on April 22, 2007 at 12:15 am

Did anyone else read the billboard that "Brother Sam" is sporting? It reads (amongst others) that "God denying atheists" are hellbound. So, if God denies us atheists entrance to Heaven, He too is hellbound. Of course, "Brother" Sam may have intended to write "God-denying atheists", which would mean that we atheists are (of course) excluded from Heaven, but that would mean his God-inspired billboard is inaccurate, and God doesn't make mistakes... does She...?
:D

26. The Fifth Flea!

Comment #28337 by Kimpatsu on March 28, 2007 at 8:04 pm

The God Delusion wins awards. Have these fleas won anything...?

27. God Is on Our Side. Does That Mean War?

Comment #28336 by Kimpatsu on March 28, 2007 at 8:01 pm

Hitler was a Roman Catholic. He says that God is on his side 74 times in Mein Kampf.

28. Richard Dawkins: Author of the Year!

Comment #28324 by Kimpatsu on March 28, 2007 at 6:43 pm

Fantastic! Richard Dawkins sweeps the baord with everything he enters! The man is an unstoppable juggernaut of reason, mowing down the pseudoscience and irrationality of the age! Magnificent!
Now, if there's only some way to win the Templeton Prize without compromising your ethics, Richard...

29. UK Christians 'suffer for faith'

Comment #26334 by Kimpatsu on March 18, 2007 at 5:59 pm

Notice that there isn't a single concrete example given; just nebulous claims of a sense of persecution. The survey hasn't determined that Xians ARE persecuted; it's determined that Xians FEEL persecuted, which in the absence of such actual persecution is really only a survey of faith head paranoia.
In what way, exactly, are Xians "persecuted at work"? Could it be that shiftworkers are expected to work on Sundays, like everyone else on their team? Or is it because they are trying to proselytise their co-workers and are being told firmly to bugger off? What form, specifically, does this "persecution" take? I think we should be told...

30. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24442 by Kimpatsu on March 6, 2007 at 5:26 pm

What a load of rubbish. Campos arbitrarily redefines a belief in morals as "god". Well, he might just as well redefine morals as a ginat turkey, and run clucking down the streets. This Humpty Dumpty misuse of words by mealy-mouthed watery faith-heads is obnoxious to those of us who are both real, genuine atheists and extremely moral people.

31. Atheist Apostle

Comment #24324 by Kimpatsu on March 6, 2007 at 2:40 am

Where in either of his books has Sam Harris ever said that people on death row are only there because of bad genes? Did the reviewer even bother to read the books?

32. Religion and Politics

Comment #24283 by Kimpatsu on March 5, 2007 at 4:52 pm

"...people would rather vote for a religiously devout microcephalic ax-murderer than for the most admirable atheist."
The problem is that to many faith-heads, there's no such thing as an admirable atheist, because it says right there in the Bibble (sic) that "their deeds are foul, and not one of them does any good", which assertion they take without question. What we really need is a cultural revolution in the schools, by starting with the teaching of critical thinking, so that 20 years down the road there will be enough people who employ reason as a tool reflexively, rather than accepting authoritative statements about other people's worth uncritically. It's not likely to happen any time soon, but I can still dream...

33. Pope is warned of a green Antichrist

Comment #23946 by Kimpatsu on March 3, 2007 at 5:24 pm

The Devil wears green? I thought the Devil wears Prada.

34. William Crawley meets Richard Dawkins

Comment #23331 by Kimpatsu on February 27, 2007 at 11:32 pm

Michael, they may say it, but it won't be true. I can share my car (a fruit of science) with you, but you cannot possibly share your internal thought processes with me.

35. The Certainty Bias

Comment #23162 by Kimpatsu on February 26, 2007 at 3:19 pm

I have long argued hat the reason why so many people cling to the irrational notions of religion is because their particular holy book tells them with absolute certainty that XYZ is true. I also have great difficulty in explaining the nature of science to laypeople, as they always crave a certainty that isn't there. So when, for example, I try to explain Popper's theory of falsification, they pounce "Aha! See! You don't really know anything!", rather than accepting that although evolution, heliocentricity, etc., have the possibility of being falsified, in practice that likelihood is slim to none.

36. Faith

Comment #23008 by Kimpatsu on February 25, 2007 at 9:25 pm

These liars and charlatans like Colin Slee still don't get it. There is no such thing as a fundamentalist atheist, because unlike Slee, an atheist can be persuaded to change their mind. All I need to become a believer is sufficient evidence. All Slee has to do is give it to me.
I'm still waiting...

37. In praise of Darwin this Sunday ... in hundreds of churches!

Comment #21970 by Kimpatsu on February 12, 2007 at 2:24 am

Roy H, following on from your post, my back-of-the-envelope calculation says that for the "highest mountain" to be completely covered in water in a mere 40 days and nights (i.e., approx 960 hours), means that the rain had to come down at 15 feet per second. That would sink a modern day battleship, let alone a wooden ark. (If anyone would like to check my figures, please feel free.)

38. Young, British Muslims 'getting more radical'

Comment #19614 by Kimpatsu on January 28, 2007 at 11:26 pm

Do you think the word "advertisement" could be removed from the above post, please...?

39. In defense of atheism

Comment #19324 by Kimpatsu on January 26, 2007 at 8:16 am

Great piece, but note this, towards the end: "Evidently they're not fighting for the right to pray, which no one proposes to deny them, but for the right to make a collective gesture of exclusion — to seek public sanction for the supremacy of religious faith and, by implication, the supremacy of believers."
Not quite right; they're fighting for the right to make their own sect pre-eminent. They don't seek the "public sanction for the supremacy of religious faith", but the public sanction for the supremacy of THEIR religious faith. Big difference.

40. Arguing for Atheism

Comment #19322 by Kimpatsu on January 26, 2007 at 8:06 am

Don't forget that Shermer (whose work, for the most part, I admire, BTW--more on that later) used to be a militant evangelical faith-head. I wonder how much of the apologetics impulse still lingers...?
As I say, Shermer's attacks on ID are eloquent, but he now seems to have gone completely bonkers and is arguing that capitalism is naturally justified by evolution. In which case, slavery must be, but Shermer has not (so far, I await his next book on the subject) recognised this inevitability. What I would like Shermer to understand is what David Hume described over 200 years ago: "You can't get an 'ought' from an 'is'". Just because capitalism might (and I find his argument a non sequitur, anyway) be explained by evolution, doesn't mean that it's JUSTIFIED by evolution (or any other political philosophy, for that matter--not that I'm calling evolution a political philosophy). Shermer's views might explain how capitalism came to be, but Shermer (and I hope he's reading and will post a rebuttal if I misunderstand him) seems to be saying that because capitalism can be EXPLAINED by evolution, as a political philosophy it is right and justified. I would have thought that in light of Enron and other scandals, Shermer would think critically about capitalism with the same rigour that he addresses ID. Or does it take a skeptic of capitalism to point out the error of his thinking, in the way that it took a rational thinker to show Shermer why his evangelical Xianity was wrong...?

41. The Mystery of Consciousness

Comment #18909 by Kimpatsu on January 23, 2007 at 3:16 pm

It's a great article, but there is one point on which I disagree with Pinker, finding him hopelessly optimistic. (Or maybe I'm just a pessimistic curmudgeon!) Pinker wrote, 'As every student in Philosophy 101 learns, nothing can force me to believe that anyone except me is conscious. This power to deny that other people have feelings is not just an academic exercise but an all-too-common vice, as we see in the long history of human cruelty. Yet once we realize that our own consciousness is a product of our brains and that other people have brains like ours, a denial of other people's sentience becomes ludicrous. "Hath not a Jew eyes?" asked Shylock. Today the question is more pointed: Hath not a Jew--or an Arab, or an African, or a baby, or a dog--a cerebral cortex and a thalamus? The undeniable fact that we are all made of the same neural flesh makes it impossible to deny our common capacity to suffer.'
I don't see that to be the case. The Lake Woebegone Effect, as described by Michael Shermer et. al., notes that people necessarily view their own experiences as objectively superior to those of others, so understanding how and why other people suffer, or even recognising that other people do indeed suffer, ends up being dismissed on the grounds that of course MY suffering is always greater than yours (because I'm more sensitive/artistic/thoughtful/intelligent, or maybe just because I'm me and so occupy a special place in the universe where my suffering necessarily takes on a whole new dimension, whereas your suffering is merely the bog-standard sort), and so MY suffering will always be worth more. It does not follow that just because I understand the nature of your suffering that I will empathise with it or put your suffering on an equal footing with my own.

42. A Middle Ground for Stem Cells

Comment #18424 by Kimpatsu on January 20, 2007 at 5:44 pm

Mad Patriot wrote, "If the Bush administration really believes that the destruction of embryos left over from in vitro fertilization is tantamount to murder, they should shut down all the in vitro clinics. The fact that they have not done so exposes them as hypocrites."
And what about HELA cells? How come no one ever mentions them in this debate?

43. Deliver us from the god delusion that imperils our humanity

Comment #18193 by Kimpatsu on January 18, 2007 at 11:44 pm

IOW, TinySaint, you're a real tit...?

44. Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

Comment #18068 by Kimpatsu on January 18, 2007 at 6:33 am

Intelligent falling must be true. How else can I maintain an erection for so long, in clear defiance of gravity?
Of course, it's all my own doing. I know this because I am often told, "Oh God, Oh Jesus, Oh Christ" when putting my intelligently falling penis to good use...
:D

45. Can Jews and Evangelicals Get Along?

Comment #17973 by Kimpatsu on January 17, 2007 at 7:24 pm

"For one thing, there is no Evangelical legal system like Islamic sharia. Evangelicals have an agenda, but it is largely the restoration of moral and ethical standards that have typified the U.S. since its inception but have been neglected in the last half century. You may disagree with this agenda, but it is not theocratic."
Absolute rubbish. It is utterly theocratic, because it draws all its "moral" edicts from a particular book of Bronze Age myths--the Bible. Evangelicals like Dean Whycroft ofthe Moral majority have declared their intention to use the death penalty against homosexuals. Not theocratic? Nonsense!

46. Judge: Men can seek damages from church

Comment #17448 by Kimpatsu on January 13, 2007 at 8:21 pm

"Jeffrey Lena, a California-based attorney for the Vatican, said the ruling was in many respects favorable to the Holy See because the remaining allegations rely on the unproved assumption that U.S. bishops act as agents of the Vatican."
So, US bishops are free agents, are they? They aren't bound by Papal Bulls and vatican diktats? Hmm...

47. Richard Dawkins' Report Card

Comment #17014 by Kimpatsu on January 10, 2007 at 4:58 am

Inky-dinky-parley-doo
Oh, what is young Dawkins to do?
He's so messy with ink
His grades, they do sink
And his writing's a bad witches' brew!
:D

48. Intelligent design is a science, not a faith

Comment #16922 by Kimpatsu on January 9, 2007 at 3:54 pm

Jack Rawlinson, as you'll see, I'm one of those heaping scorn upon Buggs.
Cheers,

49. God-less

Comment #16484 by Kimpatsu on January 6, 2007 at 8:05 pm

gimlibengloin wrote, "I don't dispute that humans can act morally without faith in God. What I dispute is whether they can provide a justification for it. How does an atheist label one action as right and another as wrong? What criteria does he/she use?
Why is it wrong to kill the innocent? Or to rape? Or to steal?
Is it 'more' wrong to kill a man than a horse? If so, why?"
Sam Harris has answered this question fully in The End of Faith. Questions of morality are really about the cause and alleviation of suffering. As killing the innocent, rape, and theft cause suffering, they are immoral. Actions taken to prevent these immoralities are moral.
And the question of killing horses was explained by Rousseau and Bentham, among others, and more recently, the rights of higher-order animals has been championed by Peter Singer.
If morality really comes from a book of Bronze Age myths, then we are required to kill unbelievers, apostates, witches, cheeky children, and Sunday labourers. As all such cases cause unjustified suffering, however, they are in fact the most immoral of acts. Consequently, we can see that our own moral intuitions are far better a guide to morality than any authority.

50. Secular fundamentalists are the new totalitarians

Comment #16302 by Kimpatsu on January 6, 2007 at 2:34 am

If you read this article on the Guardian website, do pause to check out my reply below.