1. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175403 by Silent.Bomber on May 5, 2008 at 10:54 am

Good article.

2. Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed

Comment #163217 by Silent.Bomber on April 18, 2008 at 4:29 am

Quality.

3. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #156873 by Silent.Bomber on April 8, 2008 at 10:54 am

I admire Richard's tenacity in the teeth of such an overwhelming mob of fools.

4. Get out of here, atheists!

Comment #156351 by Silent.Bomber on April 7, 2008 at 11:25 am

Truly shocking, what is happening to the world?

5. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #153118 by Silent.Bomber on April 1, 2008 at 4:32 am

This is a bit late but I hope you had a great birthday, Professor Dawkins. You're an inspiration.

6. Ayaan Hirsi Ali to get EU protection

Comment #135920 by Silent.Bomber on February 29, 2008 at 10:54 am

Truly astonishing, these people have no limits to their cowardice. Money well spent as far as I'm concerned. Hope she stays safe.

~Hollis

7. Richard Dawkins talks about The God Delusion

Comment #122758 by Silent.Bomber on February 6, 2008 at 1:43 am

Good interview.

8. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #116434 by Silent.Bomber on January 26, 2008 at 1:25 pm

People like John really make me despair. What a total prat, it is the fault of society for churning out bolshy morons like this.

9. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #113368 by Silent.Bomber on January 19, 2008 at 12:24 pm

Sorry, I don't want to spoil the fun, but some of these comments eg. #201 are gut-wrenchingly inappropriate. I don't know whether the unsuitable comments will need to be removed.

10. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #112507 by Silent.Bomber on January 17, 2008 at 11:45 am

George, if everyone was like you the world would certainly be a better place. Reading about the great things you have done has really cheered me up immensely.

All the best and more,
~Hollis Williams, Winchester

11. Richard Dawkins interviews the Bishop of Oxford

Comment #87849 by Silent.Bomber on November 13, 2007 at 11:14 am

A strong agnostic?

12. Onward Christian teachers?

Comment #87832 by Silent.Bomber on November 13, 2007 at 9:50 am

Well it was more of an off-the-cuff remark than anything, Teratornis. No it's not as simple as getting rid of the teaching of religous delusions as scientific facts,(regardless of the arguments for a supreme being, that's not relevant) but to aim for that will be a step in the right direction. RD's point about the religious labelling is also very important, a child is no more a Christian than it is a Cartesian. If you think of religion as a thing that is trying to survive, then you can think of what it needs to be here.
It needs blind acceptance, it needs the fear of an eternal punishment to make up for its absurdity, it needs the idea that everyone who is not a believer in your brand of religious bullshit is a sinner who needs to be saved, it needs indoctrination through parents, but a crucial part for me (in my opinion) is the spread of religious bull through the education system.
Just listen to McGrath talking about why he is Christian rather than eg. a Buddhist or a Hindu: the amount of crap he spews is incredible. Rather than the fact that he is Christian because that is the major religion of Northern Ireland, as he would be a Muslim if he was born in the Middle East, he genuinely actually thinks that 'Christianity is a culmination of all other faiths' and if he met someone of another equally deeply ingrained religion he would try to persuade them that 'Christianity is a better faith'. It's astonishing really that he could be so clever and yet he cannot spot the stupidity of his own religious belief and ends up sounding like the world's biggest most pretentious tosser when he tries to justify it with rubbish he has invented. That really suggests something of an indoctrination through education to me

13. Onward Christian teachers?

Comment #87539 by Silent.Bomber on November 12, 2007 at 12:15 pm

''That this simple and indisputable suggestion is anathema to the religions themselves speaks - shouts, screams - volumes about them and what they are doing. And we with our tax money are allowing them to get away with it.''

Absolutely. I really think that once the element of religious indoctrination is removed from schools, religions will lose the power that they hold over so many of us.

14. Sir David Attenborough on God

Comment #87116 by Silent.Bomber on November 11, 2007 at 8:29 am

''The battle for a rational world has really just begun and is too important to get messed up by being fundamentalists ourselves.''

True.

15. When Congress Interferes With Science, Who You Gonna Call? (Hint: It's not Ghostbusters)

Comment #87114 by Silent.Bomber on November 11, 2007 at 8:26 am

''I am sure you are aware that the vast majority of Freud's theories have been outright rejected by modern psychology. He was certaintly a pioneer in a field that had suffered much neglect in the past, but he was nowhere close to right on most of his ideas.''

Of course I know that, I should have said that I do not necessarily think everything he said was right or that most of his theories etc. have been discredited by a wider selection of evidence than he used. I was just pointing out that, whether it is to do with religion or not, sexual repression is never a good thing and many psychologists, not just Freud, have shown it is a bad thing.

16. AAI 07 DVDs by RDFRS are Now Available!

Comment #86840 by Silent.Bomber on November 10, 2007 at 9:31 am

Very good indeed, they're all well worth watching.

17. Sir David Attenborough on God

Comment #86830 by Silent.Bomber on November 10, 2007 at 8:51 am

''I've read something by him before saying "what sort of god creates brain eating parasites" - I then saw a theist reply which suggested the parasites were created only after the fall so now you know that children dying in agony in Africa is because of Eve which of course takes you back to the same question.''

Uh...yeeeeah...

18. Sir David Attenborough on God

Comment #86757 by Silent.Bomber on November 10, 2007 at 4:52 am

Excellent. The evidence is the same for everyone. It is only the method adopted by YE creationists and genuine geologists that is different.

A scientist looks at the evidence (the Earth), considers everything and reaches a conclusion: (the Earth is 4.54 billion years old).
A creationist reaches a conclusion by looking in the 'holy book': (the Earth is 6000 years old) and then proceeds to find evidence which fits in with this, discarding anything that does not fit and denying the objective evidence.
And that is why a creationist is an idiot.

19. When Congress Interferes With Science, Who You Gonna Call? (Hint: It's not Ghostbusters)

Comment #86753 by Silent.Bomber on November 10, 2007 at 4:30 am

''I have never had sex. I have plenty of friends who have never had sex. It is a simple matter of self-control''

I am studying Freud in great detail at the moment, and it is certainly interesting when his theories on sex and religion are compared to what people like you say now. Sex is an urge (he said) and that urge if not satisfied (as it is not with many people, which is normal, maybe he would not agree) that urge has to be sublimated or neuroses will always develop (he said).
I think he is probably right, art and music are things which can sublimate this urge. One of the most important ways the urge can be dissipated is through religion and worship of a higher being(s), that seems to be comparable with celibacy in religion. Religion is a way of keeping away the urge to have sex and it is a way of keeping the balance of our psychological needs.
But religion is not needed for that balance any more than an imaginary friend and whether you think it is great to be celibate, to apply that ideology to children and sex education is, as Russell so rightly pointed out even during the 1940s, entirely reprehensible.
He was attacked by the pious for having such a modern view in the 40s, even now people like Bizarro are stuck in this pre - 1940s headset about sex, which is Victorian and completely incongruous with modern society.
You would like to think that it is as simple as people 'being handed condoms and encouraged to do it like animals', yet you are missing the central point, the whole fallacy that because you are a virgin and because you think that sex is wrong that this should be foisted on everyone. If you haven't read it before, I really recommend you pick up a copy of Bertrand Russell's Why I am not a Christian: there are some essays on the subject that you might find interesting.

20. When Congress Interferes With Science, Who You Gonna Call? (Hint: It's not Ghostbusters)

Comment #86377 by Silent.Bomber on November 9, 2007 at 5:37 am

Bizarro, I always imagine Bertrand Russell turning in his grave when people say things like that about the subject of sex. Sex is an urge like any other, and repressing it needlessly has been shown to cause profound psychological problems. I worry that such a repugnant attitude to sex which is becoming increasingly common among the religious does in itself suggest sexual frustration.

21. When Congress Interferes With Science, Who You Gonna Call? (Hint: It's not Ghostbusters)

Comment #86145 by Silent.Bomber on November 8, 2007 at 9:01 am

Ha, I think hoping that Christians would start calling themselves imaginary sky-god believers would be too much to ask for.
The main problem I have with the word 'atheist' is that it is so easily misconstrued as a faith position by people like McGrath ie. 'I don't have enough faith to be an atheist, because you have the faith to think that the Cosmos was not made by a creator'.
Many people genuinely think that this is how atheists operate, for example: I am looking at a religious studies worksheet right now which tells me that Bertrand Russell was an 'agnostic philosopher' when I know quite clearly that he was an atheist. Because he says that he is agnostic about the position of God during a debate, whoever wrote the sheet seems to think that means he is an actual agnostic.
Believers in God are under the illusion that they know all the answers or that they know the source that can give them the answers, an atheist does not say 'God definitely does not exist' because we admit that we don't know all the answers, but we live our lives on the assumption that there is no supernatural being and there is not concrete evidence to say there is one. Atheism isn't about faith, as is so easy to suppose, it's about rationality and questioning what you have been told to believe.
scooternyc, I'm sorry for your loss, a friend of mine died fairly recently in an accident, I can only say that I know something of what you are experiencing.

22. When Congress Interferes With Science, Who You Gonna Call? (Hint: It's not Ghostbusters)

Comment #86053 by Silent.Bomber on November 8, 2007 at 2:25 am

To them, I say: fuck that. When we start bombing abortion clinics and running planes into buildings, until then, shut the hell up and keep it in the church. And pay some damn taxes.

That's a perfectly fair point and I would sign up if I was in America, but if atheists become over-zealous and militant, they are in danger of becoming dogmatists just as much as religious fundamentalists. It is always important to see things from the other point of view.

23. Same Flea, Different Name?

Comment #85836 by Silent.Bomber on November 7, 2007 at 9:50 am

Yes, I am always critical of 'books written to criticise other books'. These 'fleas' are opportunistic and are in it for some easy money which they can get by recycling some of their old material and chucking in the words 'Dawkins', 'dogmatist' and 'arrogant' every now and then, it really disgusts me.
Apparently, he shows 'how God is important for a coherent understanding of morality'. Oh goody, I look forward to that one. Dawkins is out of his 'theological depth', well it's certainly not the deepest of pools. I hope they aren't going to return to the 'you can't make an opinion on whether Christianity is a load of horse-shit without reading the Bible' argument. That's like saying you can't make a balanced and informed analysis of whether Sauron the Master of the One Ring actually exists without first reading the entire back-story of Middle Earth.

24. When Congress Interferes With Science, Who You Gonna Call? (Hint: It's not Ghostbusters)

Comment #85813 by Silent.Bomber on November 7, 2007 at 9:10 am

Well, I'm new to this site but it certainly looks to be very interesting. I liked this article, I think the word 'non-theist' seems to me somehow more respectable than 'atheist' (not that I think there is anything wrong with atheism, I am one!). I do think that 'atheist' can put many people off because it has militant and aggressive connotations, but it would be a good idea for all nonbelievers and believers in reason to cooperate.