1. Brunswick school board to consider creationism teaching

Comment #256197 by leigh on September 29, 2008 at 12:18 am

Oh dear.

Where is Brunswick County? Why does it say Bolivia at the start of the artice?

2. Without God

Comment #252952 by leigh on September 24, 2008 at 12:39 am

50. Comment #252871 by justaperson on September 23, 2008 at 6:21 pm
"... I think this must be what it is like to be dead--except that you don't wake up. There is nothing--no time, no dreams, no feeling. no thinking. How can that be a bad thing?"

For precisely that reason, no dreams, no feelings, no thinking, no living!

Living is good. While I agree not living isn't itself bad, it's surely less good than living. Death isn't something to fear I agree, but living is surely something to be missed.

3. Without God

Comment #252948 by leigh on September 24, 2008 at 12:28 am

I enjoyed the article.

To all those with the problems with Weinberg's 'life without god is hard comment', how about interpreting it as 'life is hard'?

Undoubtedly there are those for whom god is a comfort and as has already been pointed out if they were in the process of losing their faith life would indeed seem harder without that comfort.

Weinberg is not offering them a false hope, but goes on to describe those aspects of life which he finds enjoyable and make it worth living. For most of us, especially on this site, these are enough.

4. Comedian Sabina Guzzanti 'insulted Pope' in poofter devils gag

Comment #246057 by leigh on September 11, 2008 at 6:33 pm

"Mr Berlusconi, who owns Italy's three main commercial television channels and as Prime Minister also wields influence over RAI, the state broadcaster, has been accused by the Left of using his media power to muzzle critics and satirists."

I wasn't aware of this, the Prime Minister owns TV stations? Three of them? We've come to expect this sort of thing in the middle east and SE Asia, but in a supposed western democracy? How in any sense can you have a democracy and free press when the god damn Prime Minister own's the country's media? Not to mention his inevitable ties with those TV station's main advertisers.

This is blight on the Italian constitution, justice system and the people (I guess you can't really blame them given that they're told who to vote for by the TV).

5. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #190931 by leigh on June 10, 2008 at 12:11 am

RE: 214. Comment #190924 by Styrer- on June 9, 2008 at 11:07 pm

Ok, I now see where the disagreement lies. I think where Frankus used 'faith' he should have said and actually meant 'belief in god'. Here the word faith is misleading or even misused. I was subconsciously interpreting Frankus' use in this context as I think this is what he really meant. You are right that it is completely incomprehensible to say someone tries to justify their faith with evidence when the very definition of faith (belief without evidence?) specifies a lack of evidence. In everyday language the term faith seems to be shorthand for 'belief in god'. i.e. " A person of faith" refers to a god botherer. But you are right they are different concepts. You can have faith, a belief with no evidence, in anything: fairies, leprechauns etc.

A person's belief in god is either a matter of faith or a matter of evidence (albeit faulty evidence, but to them it is evidence nonetheless). What MaxD, Frankus and Steve Zara were asserting is that sometimes, perhaps often, faith alone is not enough to convince them of their belief so they search for evidence of god's existence. Perhaps faith is enough to convince most believers but they appreciate it is not enough to convince non-believers. This article, ID and the bile spewed by fundies on this website testifies to their need to find reasons to believe in god.

I think you and they probably do disagree over the importance of these two factors, faith vs faulty evidence but I can't see how any of you can prove either way which is really more important to a believer. While believers search for evidence and try to shove god into every scientific gap no amount of evidence to the contrary seems to shake the certainty of their belief, they just 'know' they're right. But every now and then some of them wake up and see the truth, there are plenty on this site.

Does this clear anything up? I don't really have a position either way as to which is more important. I think the want or need to believe is important. The concept of an indifferent universe is just too much to bear for some, so they believe in their god in spite of the evidence because they want it to be true.

6. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #190923 by leigh on June 9, 2008 at 10:53 pm

Comment #190889 by Frankus1122 on June 9, 2008 at 8:10 pm

"Most people will try to provide reasons as to why their faith is reasonable."

Notice the TRY? They try to but they can't. Just like this article did. Frankus and the others weren't imlying that this attempt at justifying is successful or admiriable. Just that it happens.

"How is to believe this wrong?"

Here you just misunderstood. He means how is it wrong to believe that people try and justify their belief with evidence? Because they obviously do. The article remember?

Frankus did NOT mean that this process of justification is right.

7. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #190919 by leigh on June 9, 2008 at 10:23 pm

Why don't you show me where anyone said faith was reasonable?

In fact why not show me where anyone but you actually used the term 'reasobable faith'.


edited: added second sentence.

8. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #190914 by leigh on June 9, 2008 at 10:01 pm

The irony of this paragraph is simply beautiful. I couldn't stop laughing to myself. Just for a second I thought it was satire.


"Encouraging atheists to open their minds to pure logic and to possibilities that they hitherto only sought to counter or to avoid on any pretext also involves an emotional challenge for them, as they must open themselves to the possibility of having to shed preconceived notions that they've held firm for decades. And that, rather than facts, is the primary challenge to exposing them to insightful logic. However, if they are willing to address the issue honestly, a search for the truth should be of paramount importance and enough reason for them to take an open look. "

p.s. Styrer.

What the fuck is wrong with you? Your concept of faith and it's importance is basically agreed with. It was simply pointed out that when a theist's belief is questioned they blindly, failingly and pathetically try and justify their belief with evidence. But they fail. Nobody gave this phenomenon any creedence or respect, just pointed out that it happens. You can't deny that it does. Read the article.

And you tell them to fuck off?

9. Sun's properties not 'fine-tuned' for life

Comment #183778 by leigh on May 22, 2008 at 7:52 pm

I love science.

Here comes an article well and truly in support of 'our side' and we all proceed to tear it to shreds.

10. Truly Bizarre : Indians Throw Babies 50ft From Roof To Thank God.

Comment #174979 by leigh on May 4, 2008 at 3:08 am

" 11. Comment #174728 by Quetzalcoatl on May 3, 2008 at 11:11 am
When they mentioned the fact that none of the children suffered from any recorded physical disabilities, it reminded me of the joke from the Simpsons about the Tiger-repelling rock"

Pleeze inthicate your tiger type on dis chart...

11. Religious education as a part of literary culture

Comment #161089 by leigh on April 14, 2008 at 7:28 pm

RE: Comment # 17 by Teratornis
"Obviously only a limited number of people will have built up the same web of information in their heads that the writer carries around in hers, so the writer who only uses paper will limit her reach and effectiveness.

Hypertext solves this problem by allowing any work to link into a vast web of information (namely, the entire World Wide Web) which overwhelmingly exceeds what any one person could hope to carry around in his head. Even when one does understand a particular allusion, usually one does not know everything there is to know about it yet - for example, what other great writers have used this particular allusion, and in what contexts?"

I agree wholeheartedly with your post however I think for many authors and readers the fact that not all readers will understand or appreciate every allusion is precisely the point. (NB: I am not making this accusation at Professor Dawkins) The author and those readers familiar with the background of a particular allusion reinforce their sense of superiority at how clever and well read they are. Or similarly by making your poetry, song lyrics or post modernist essay sufficiently obscure as to be incomprehensible you may mask your actual lack of original thought.

12. Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science

Comment #70121 by leigh on September 14, 2007 at 6:49 am

Why was this in latest news? I could swear I read that paper months ago, linked from this site.

13. Richard Dawkins and the New Age fakers

Comment #67299 by leigh on September 3, 2007 at 3:10 am

Could someone explain the naked eye distance thing to me? Couldn't we see light from any distance as long as there was enough of it, i.e bright enough? Or is it a practical limitation, there just doesn't happen to be anything bright enough? Or is it fundamentally impossible for us to ever have seen anything that was further away than 2 million light years?

14. 'I have never been happier' says the man who won gold but lost God

Comment #52735 by leigh on June 28, 2007 at 12:50 am

Ignorant question: What do people in that deep do on Sundays? Apart from go to church. Can they fix the dripping tap or is that work?

15. The infinite wisdom of Richard Dawkins

Comment #52053 by leigh on June 26, 2007 at 3:42 am

PaulEmecz while there are some problems with your post I think I have to agree with you.

"The thing is, however good your theory is at explaining the origins of crop circles, it doesn't give ANY evidence in favour of the proposition 'There is no intelligent life on other planets', or even the proposition that 'aliens are constantly being involved with day to day human concerns'."

This is correct but I never asserted that it would be evidence for these statements. The equivalent of what I said would be 'however good your theory is at explaining the origins of crop circles, it doesn't give ANY evidence in favour of the proposition that aliens aren't involved in the day to day occurence of crop circles.' I suppose no matter how scientifically convinced of something we are there could always be supernatural forces we cannot see creating the illusion of a natural process.

The important thing about the fact of evolution is that it is not a directional process. The emergence on any one species is an event contingent upon a number of stochastic events such as mutation, environmental change, in our case mass extinctions, volcanic eruptions and meteor strikes. We didn't have to exist. Now a god could have been involved in all of these chance events and you're right that we can't prove one wasn't, to many people this is a perfectly acceptable explanation.

But if we don't accept the occurence of miracles the only rational basis for a personal god would be one that created the universe then left it alone. Perfectly naturally galaxies, stars, elements, planets, life, humans came to be. Then this God wen't wow, those little hairless apes are pretty cool, I should stop the male ones sleeping with each other.

16. The infinite wisdom of Richard Dawkins

Comment #51806 by leigh on June 25, 2007 at 4:51 am

"How can a theory about the development of life on earth provide any evidence, one way or another, relevant to the question of whether there is intelligent life outside this universe or whether such life could have been involved in causing this universe to come into existence?"

Evolution does indeed provide no conclusive evidence with respect to the above questions. Although insert standard Richard Dawkins quote here regarding the consciousness raising power of evolution in explaining complexity from simpler processes.

However it provides very powerful evidence against such an intelligence being specifically involved or concerned with day to day human concerns, as well as placing ourselves firmly within the animal kingdom. Both of which are in direct contradiction to most theological texts. Evolutionary theory logically refutes a personal god, unless of course you just allow for more miracles, which the Catholic Church is all too happy to do. But it makes a deistic God incompatible with a personal god.

17. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #45966 by leigh on May 29, 2007 at 9:11 pm

In a direct appeal to the quasi religious wishy washy 'masses' I would like to see Professor Dawkins make a sustained polemic of sorts on the moral case for athiesm in any upcoming forum such as the Hay festival. He's said it all before in bits and pieces and in detail in the God delusion but it seems all to easy for media commentators to overlook the points they wish (or as most often seems to be the case to simply not read the texts they are commenting on).

Then in future when such criticisms as: "But he cannot engage with the millions who just feel better with some sort of confused belief than with nothing at all." crop up he can respond with refer to my speech etc etc.

Such an appeal could include the "isn't it better to be moral for its own sake not for fear of punishment", "morals precede scripture", "wonder at nature", how vastly improbable and therefore lucky we are, no afterlife makes this one more important etc etc.

He's said it all before but having these type of arguments in one place may be helpful particularly for us for refering people such as sgr79's co-worker.

Contrary Martin Kettle's opinion the comments here so far seem to suggest we athiests (particularly the deconverted) do understand this wishy-washy superstition. sgr79's colleague is correct that it is better to have at least thought about it, perhaps with some more thinking they will see the light and no longer need their superstition.

If Dawkins and Harris et al do no more than to encourage these people in the middle ground to question their beliefs and superstitions, then it is still a worthy cause and not deserving of the sort of criticism the media is dishing out.

18. Brian Lehrer interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #34436 by leigh on April 24, 2007 at 4:03 am

Just a little note on an argument that has proven powerful for me in rebutting people who suggest that a personal God might be hiding behind the process of evolution, or set it all in motion.
Professor Dawkins referred to the inelegance and lack of need for such a hypothesis which only requires further explanation in which he is of course correct.
On top of this, the evolution of concious beings on earth has been a contingent process where extra terrestrially induced mass extinctions and other stochastic events are likely to have played a role in forming the composistion of organisms we see today.

Furthermore the common misconception of evolution as a linear process marching inevitably towards complex, concious beings with Homo sapiens as the target and pinacle pervades these types of arguments.
There is nothing inherent in the process of evolution by natural selection that inevitably leads to complexity and subsequently consciousness. Only that organisms will be adapted to their environment. Life did perfectly well for 3 billion years before we came along.
Thus if some creator did start the process of evolution, whether by providing the spark that generated the first self replicating molecules, or creating DNA which superseded those molecules, or some alien who stopped to visit the loo; they couldn't have had humans (or intelligent life) in mind.