1. Send The God Delusion to your MP

Comment #19273 by John01 on January 26, 2007 at 3:25 am

Fantastic idea. I must admit the recent arguments that discrimination is a religious right has had me particularly annoyed.

2. The Blasphemy Challenge

Comment #13450 by John01 on December 17, 2006 at 7:28 pm

In reply to Yorker

Ok fine, I will restate my opinion to the point that I am comforted that there has been negative reactions to the concept, and will retract my interpretation of "many".

As for the level of reward for demonstrating belief/avowing disbelief, surely this is immaterial. While I fully admit no god fearing devout Christian is going to change their opinion for a DVD, to offer a reward for the demonstration surely cheapens the act itself. I realise it may be necessary in order to attract people, it however simply reminds me of the tactics of Christian Union an organisation common in British Universities. They will commonly offer hot chocolate and biscuits as an obvious ploy in order to draw you in to listen to their message, is this not a similar tactic? Exploit those that are vulnerable and undecided by adding rewards.

Additionally this was specifically targeted at the younger generation and as has been pointed out particularly in America open displays of atheism could well negatively impact your life and prospects. For an adult to make the decision to openly declare themselves atheist is laudable, however for children to do the same is a fantastic boost to the movement however may impact their lives negatively.

I fully admit that I am a recent convert to atheism in an active form and this community. I therefore apologise if I am speaking unduly negatively, however having viewed the behaviour of religious people I am hesitant to adopt similar methods merely with an opposing message.

As for the comment:

"What is it with the ageist pseudo-science in this thread? I certainly don't remember behaving like the people around me when I was a teen."

Didn't Dawkins himself state that gullibility and the necessity to believe and act as you were told was a valuable genetic trait in young people and thus evolved. Please correct me here if I am wrong...nothing worse than misquoting someone.

3. The Blasphemy Challenge

Comment #13443 by John01 on December 17, 2006 at 5:45 pm

I am deeply saddened by the fact that this is the first piece of mail that I have received from the Dawkins mailing list.

How can you criticise people such as the Templeton foundation when you yourself are offering rewards for demonstrating your beliefs.

"Participants who videotape their blasphemy and upload it to YouTube will receive a free DVD". If I were a Christian my natural response would be to reward people for uploading videos of themselves protesting gay funerals or abortion clinics, while these videos already do exist you are condoning such tactics by retaliating in a similar manner.

Such a crude and emotive argument against religion only serves to antagonise the opposing side but fails to advance the argument or attract others to the cause. I can only take comfort by the fact that many others have also taken offence to this and hope that its distribution via the mailing list was an oversight as opposed to the general opinion of the RD organisation.