1. URGENT APPEAL: Please Help Protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #89208 by mr gollo on November 20, 2007 at 2:41 am

Firstly, I would like to thank BrianClough for standing up for free enquiry, free expression and honesty.

Secondly, It seems in this thread that all atheists are moral, but some are more moral than others. I have chosen not to contribute, and am thus instantaneously branded immoral (perhaps even a traitor to the cause?) by some. I eagerly await the new commandments these self-appointed Napoleons choose to paint upon the barn of atheism in the future.

Finally, If Ali wishes to reside in the US, why is the State not going to protect her? Where is the campaign of political pressure to ensure that she is? Despite being immoral I would be willing to do what I can in this area.

2. Flea Circus!

Comment #33087 by mr gollo on April 19, 2007 at 6:09 am

Coming Soon;

Merging, Pathologizing, Resisting: (Author)ity in Richard Dawkins and the Queer Fuzziness of (Author)ity in The God Delusion

Subtext as Self: Destabilizing Fictive Capital in Sam Harris's Letter To A Christian Nation

Historicizing, Troubling, Fragmenting: Patriarchy in Daniel Dennett and the Blind Negation of Tolerance in Breaking The Spell

3. Mozart doesn't make you clever

Comment #32480 by mr gollo on April 17, 2007 at 6:33 am

Breaking news; Germans claim famous Austrian not as good for your children as thought...

In next weeks edition; Beethoven was better than Mozart: Official Findings, and don't miss our exclusive feature: Hitler wasn't German either...

:)

4. Peanut Butter, The Atheist's Nightmare!

Comment #27945 by mr gollo on March 27, 2007 at 11:07 am

Obviously Chucky is presenting pseudo theology as well as science.

In the coming peanut butter texture wars, the taking lightly of peanut butter will become a CRIME, for no greater heresay can be imagined than a mere talking ape questioning the properties of the omnipresent nutty goodness.

Crunchy or Smooth? you may ask your puny little brains, Toasty or non-toasty bread?

These questions shall be revealed soon by the peanut god, my friends, but my job as a Prophet of the great Arachis, is to warn you of an insidious threat, the growing power of the dark forces that threaten the planet, the Dark Lord, Count Cream Cheese.

Those who join me in this fight, will forever be rewarded, while the sinners will be forever doomed to swim the great seas of arachidonic acid, that will flow and devour.

Why should you believe me and not Chuck?

Let it be noted for posterity:

"And, Lo the lid was opened, but the devils talons had been at work. For when the jar was presented, the seal had been broken and all evidence of Arachis had been destroyed. The devil makes work of idle hands, but those who choose to see the truth were not swayed by a cheap conjurers trick, for their eyes had been opened."

5. Mormons miffed over coffee-swilling angel image

Comment #27585 by mr gollo on March 25, 2007 at 1:02 pm

I can't say that when I read the bible I got visions of helpful flying beings when it came to angels.

"Did you ever notice how in the Bible, when ever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?" - From the film "The Prophecy"

Incidently, if the angel in the picture is blowing his trumpet how can he be drinking coffee at the same time?

6. Pursue pleasure: it's the natural way to do good in the world

Comment #26295 by mr gollo on March 18, 2007 at 2:10 pm

padster;

You say 'the guns came out' so you're dicussing mainly the 1400's onwards (after gunpowder hand guns became popular in europe

I think ghostbuster meant it figuratively not literally :)

An important point of the question of morals seems to me to be that a lot of people like to be told what is "good" or "bad" rather than question themselves about why things are "good" or "bad".

It's little wonder why a large movement which provides this, while at the same time supporting a persons predjudices and bigotry, even though they do not believe or want to believe they hold them, is a comforting proposition, a black and white view of the world where you're backed up by a group of your peers who do your thinking for you.

Most people want to be moral and live a "good life", but self righteous and an unquestioning morality is a dangerous thing.

7. Stephen interviews Ayaan Hirsi Ali author of Infidel

Comment #26199 by mr gollo on March 17, 2007 at 4:12 pm

nine9s said:

Would she really be more at home in a university full of politically correct socialists?

Obviously not, but why join a neo-conservative thinktank either? They are not renowned for their fiscal responsability. I can see why they wanted her to join them, but not why she would want to. That's all I'm questioning.

8. Stephen interviews Ayaan Hirsi Ali author of Infidel

Comment #26140 by mr gollo on March 17, 2007 at 7:17 am

I'm going to stick up for Pantore.

The AEI is a highly Authoritarian organisation, pro death penalty,
"Much of the disquiet of elite opinion with the death penalty seems to stem from a reluctance to differentiate between right and wrong. A just society, however, must protect its citizens and vindicate their sense of justice. Perhaps paradoxically, executing McVeigh is the best way to affirm Americans' deeply held belief that life is a gift from God and that those who coldbloodedly snuff it out should not continue to enjoy that gift."

Pro pre-emptive wars of agression,(advocated by their "Freedom Scholar") anti seperation of church and state, pro "New American Zionism", etc.

What do they think of Dawkins, Dennet and Harris?

"Alas, it is extremely difficult to engage on the same level with Harris, Dennett, and Dawkins. All of them think that religion is so great a menace that they do not have much disposition for dialogue. The battle flags they put into the wind are Voltaire's Ecrasez l'infame! Meanwhile, all three pretend that atheists "question everything" and "submit to relentless, almost tedious, self-criticism." Yet in these books there is not a shred of evidence that their authors have ever had any doubts whatever about the rightness of their own atheism." (Michael Novak)

"Naturally, the atheists focus their peevishness not on Muslim extremists (who advertise their hatred and violent intentions) but on the old-time Christian religion" (Samuel Schulman)

"The battle over evolution is not an example of how heroic scientists have withstood the relentless persecution of religious fanatics. Rather, from the very start it primarily has been an attack on religion by militant atheists who wrap themselves in the mantle of science." (Rodney Stark)

"...evolutionists have often explained new species as the result of the accumulation of tiny, favorable random mutations over an immense span of time. But this answer is inconsistent with the fossil record wherein creatures appear "full-blown and raring to go." (Rodney Stark)

"For apes to come out of the trees, and change in the direction of being able to write down Maxwell's equations, I don't think you can explain that by natural selection at all. It's just a miracle." (Freeman Dyson)

I could go on and on, but the fact is the AEI is an almost Orwellian, Anti-Muslim, Anti Secular/Atheist views, anti-intellectual, but Pro-Christian, Intelligent Design, conflict cheering, organisation.

9. Blame Abraham

Comment #25114 by mr gollo on March 10, 2007 at 7:47 am

Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says "Man, you must be putting me on"
God says "no"
Abe says "what?"
God says "You can do what you want, Abe, but the next time you see me coming you better run.
Well Abe says "Where do you want this killing done?"

Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited

10. Conservapedia v Wikipedia

Comment #24690 by mr gollo on March 8, 2007 at 4:16 am

I read the conservapedia entry on unicorn and was hooked instantly :)

11. The Dawkins Confusion: Naturalism ad absurdum

Comment #23545 by mr gollo on March 1, 2007 at 2:03 pm

One of the (many) things I do not understand about these "refutations" agains Dawkins, is the theme that he is saying the god of the bible is not something to be admired, as if for the first time, as if it is something of his own singular personal revelation, and a result of some childhood catastrophy, some event so traumatic as to turn him against all that is "good and holy".

In The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine wrote; "Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.

We scarcely meet with anything, a few phrases excepted, but what deserves either our abhorrence or our contempt, till we come to the miscellaneous parts of the Bible."

Can these two similar scathing views exist both from a deist, and an atheist, hundreds of years apart, be some quirk of fate, some shared childhood trauma? Or can it attributed to a critical observation and study over time of the book itself and all it contains? We seem to be seperated in two different camps, argueing over fiction or documentary, with the documentary side claiming the first edition as infallable with DVD extras.

12. James Cameron finds grave of Jesus & Son

Comment #23197 by mr gollo on February 26, 2007 at 5:47 pm

"On the matter of the program Decoding the Exodus, I enjoyed the fact that they could NOT come up with any substantial proofs other than the Egyptian tablet claiming the expulsion of the evil ones around about the time the exodus was supposed to have taken place. It seems highly likely that a group of nonconformist were expelled to provide harmony in Egypt. Sort of like throwing out the hippies from an ultra conservative community. Anyway, that is what I got from it."

I agree HappyPrimate, but they went from a disputed reading of a single historical source to the privileged first born males throughout ALL Egypyt dying because they slept downstairs, whereas the Israelites survived because they were "sitting up" during passover, to missing Israelites wandering the Northern Medditerannean carving pictures into rocks of the Arc of the Covenant.

Why did all this tortured reasoning last for two hours?.... "The answer is revealed after these short messages...."

13. James Cameron finds grave of Jesus & Son

Comment #23193 by mr gollo on February 26, 2007 at 5:16 pm

If it's as well researched and unbiased as "The Exodus Decoded" I think I would rather accept a date between my eyeballs and some sizeable knitting needles.

As Ronald Hendel, University of California, Berkeley, wrote in his review, "Watching it reminded me of an expensive infomercial, in which the actor-salesman makes increasingly exaggerated claims for his product—it makes you lose weight, adds muscle, and makes you rich to boot."