1. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #150915 by L.Minnik on March 27, 2008 at 3:44 pm

May you have a great year Professor!

Thank you for speaking out with courage and clarity!

2. Cutting Edge: Baby Bible Bashers

Comment #129951 by L.Minnik on February 19, 2008 at 8:02 pm

@ the_ultimate_samurai

a site with research on corporal punishment:
http://nospank.net/

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

Comment #112030 by L.Minnik on January 16, 2008 at 8:24 am

Thank you George Scales for caring about what happens to fellow people.

4. Huckabee Wants A 'Faith-based' Constitution

Comment #112026 by L.Minnik on January 16, 2008 at 8:19 am

Instead of "God", each time Huckabee should say at least as much as "the God of the New Testament."

But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God of the New Testament.

5. Saudi gang-rape victim is jailed

Comment #89023 by L.Minnik on November 19, 2007 at 2:05 pm

In Dubai, a 15 year old - Alex - was raped by 3 men, one of which is HIV positive. Alex's lawyer warned him that he was "in danger of facing charges of homosexuality and a prison term of one year."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/world/middleeast/01dubai.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

6. Religious scholars mull Flying Spaghetti Monster

Comment #88531 by L.Minnik on November 17, 2007 at 12:23 pm

Interesting way in which atheists can take part in the discussion of religion at events such as the "American Academy of Religion's annual meeting."

7. Onward Christian teachers?

Comment #87580 by L.Minnik on November 12, 2007 at 2:19 pm

I see no need for having religious schools in religious societies; there is no justification for having religious schools in societies which are partially secular or of mixed religions.

8. Genes Tied to Bad Reactions to Antidepressant Drug

Comment #74512 by L.Minnik on September 29, 2007 at 7:50 am

For those interested in the adverse effects of psychiatric drugs:
http://www.breggin.com/

9. Interview with Richard Dawkins on 'The Selfish Gene'

Comment #61050 by L.Minnik on August 3, 2007 at 12:34 pm

sorry, but what does un-PC stand for?

10. At a Theater Near You ...

Comment #54117 by L.Minnik on July 5, 2007 at 12:24 pm

Just for the record: I have met a couple of muslims who did try to change things, have stood up against the dictates of their theistic governments, and are now living in Europe under different names and with a death sentence if they would ever go back. Don't expect them to publicly react to what is happening now - it's dangerous for them.

11. In Defense of Witchcraft

Comment #52512 by L.Minnik on June 27, 2007 at 6:53 am

MIND_REBEL, I tried to post a comment for you on the other thread, but apparently it doesn't work like that. Hope you read all these messages from people appreciating your posts who don't agree with what happened.

Cheers

As for the article, if anything, the change of wording seems to highlight how illegible they really are. And adding some "evolutionary thinking" and "the ways in which [magical] understanding also grows, develops, and evolves..." ugh

12. The Stupidity of Fox News is Truly Beyond Belief

Comment #52445 by L.Minnik on June 27, 2007 at 3:46 am

The Vatican's stance under John Paul was "evolution is compatible with Catholic theology."

According to the International Herald Tribune, Benedict, "In April, when he was formally installed as pope, he said human beings 'are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution.' In November, he called the creation of the universe an 'intelligent project,' wording lauded by intelligent-design supporters."
It appears as though the present pope's position favours ID, which helps explain why this Catholic priest pronounced the "eye argument."

Well, then what about a fusion of the Vatican and evangelical megachurches? A mega-Vatican?

13. In the name of the Father

Comment #51489 by L.Minnik on June 23, 2007 at 5:35 am

"Please, anyone, someone, please! Find us a theist who will directly address the problem." - GodlessHeathen

I'm afraid they are in Convert's Corner. ;)

14. I Believe In Evolution, Except For The Whole Triassic Period

Comment #46483 by L.Minnik on May 31, 2007 at 12:43 pm

ha ha, I liked it :)! Sounds to me like someone just couldn't take all of this creationist talk anymore.

The real stuff isn't funny (ok, to me) because it really has some impact that it never should.

15. Observer Diary 27th May 2007

Comment #45506 by L.Minnik on May 28, 2007 at 3:20 am

Philos wrote: Or how about a homeless shelter or food kitchen for the poor in your neighbourhood, run by you, the moral atheist?

Please take some time to find out about these organizations and I will gladly discuss anything concerning this subject.

16. Observer Diary 27th May 2007

Comment #45499 by L.Minnik on May 28, 2007 at 2:58 am

As for US Homeland Security - my impression is that they are aiming at collecting as much data about as many people as possible without arousing protests. And that this is only partially pertains to terrorism, judging by how much information and from whom they seek it.

One way to get info is make people go through border security procedures.

17. The Debate: Can We Live by Reason Alone?

Comment #39908 by L.Minnik on May 12, 2007 at 8:49 am

From the interview, Richard Dawkins:
"There's absolutely no reason to think that religion comes from scripture."
ha ha That was probably not meant to be that way, but it was funny. Host didn't notice.
Ok, I agree, scripture comes from religion.

Good interview.

The panel afterwards was confusing. A psychologist arguing for religion. Imam Shabir Ally argues that without religion, there is no reason to be good. I may be wrong, but I think that having a modern good judicial system is a better deterrent than an ancient fear of god. There is also the factor of social disapproval for those who feel absolutely no compassion for others. And they could have at least noticed that animals living in groups may respond to the needs of another, and this is not due to religion. The statement that believing in god without being part of a religion is dangerous because of "the possibility of self-delusion" made me smile. All of these persons claiming that they are the ones who have the TRUE belief...

18. Lou Dobbs w/ Hitchens on Al Sharpton's Bigoted Remark

Comment #39498 by L.Minnik on May 11, 2007 at 1:34 am

Sorry this is off topic, but I don't know where else to post it. There is a nice piece of writing on pharyngula by PZ Myers: "Christianity's sins against science"
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/05/christianitys_sins_against_sci.php

19. Brazil Greets Pope but Questions His Perspective

Comment #39240 by L.Minnik on May 10, 2007 at 8:09 am

I really like this idea of a debate.
For now, does anyone know if it is possible to write to the Vatican for an official answer to questions about faith and religion? If so, I think I would do it.

""If you lose Latin America," he added, "it would be a substantial loss, that could be irreparable."

It is now official that keeping one's followers is the most important issue of all; who can accept this without a second thought about their own church?

20. Supporters of abortion have no future in Church, Pope tells faithful

Comment #39225 by L.Minnik on May 10, 2007 at 7:45 am

Is this the best way to increase the number of believers - to have the faithful have as many catholic children as possible - ideally no contraception, no abortion.

Can anyone stop this man in any way? He is harming people indirectly, but still.

21. God . . . in other words

Comment #39122 by L.Minnik on May 10, 2007 at 3:33 am

Hi Bizarro Dawkins,

In case you didn't know, there are a LOT of posts addressed to you on this thread

6th May 2007
"Atheists go on the political offensive in God-fearing US" | by Tim Shipman

22. Sam Harris in conversation with Oliver McTernan

Comment #38929 by L.Minnik on May 9, 2007 at 2:21 pm

RE: ending religious extremism won't rid the world of extremism

from http://www.wealth4freedom.com/truth/brainwashing.htm:

"true believers." They are joiners and followers people who want to give away their power. They look for answers, meaning, and enlightenment outside themselves.

Hoffer, who wrote THE TRUE BELIEVER, a classic on mass movements, says, "true believers are not intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but are those craving to be rid of unwanted self. They are followers, not because of a desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy their passion for self-renunciation!" Hoffer also says that true believers "are eternally incomplete and eternally insecure"!

I know this from my own experience. In my years of communicating concepts and conducting trainings, I have run into them again and again. All I can do is attempt to show them that the only thing to seek is the True Self within. Their personal answers are to be found there and there alone. I communicate that the basics of spirituality are self-responsibility and self-actualization."
"It is a substitute for their lost faith in themselves and offers them as a substitute for individual hope.

23. Better God-fearing than sneering

Comment #38715 by L.Minnik on May 9, 2007 at 2:35 am

"..death and resurrection of Christ created a new covenant with the church, so they no longer believe that a man should stone his wife to death if she is not a virgin.
!!?!
Well, how could this have come about? Surely, a girl sexually abused, raped in her family, would not be a virgin. Certainly happened then too, if it happens now.
Now, can Stephanie M., herself a woman, imagine a god ever asking to stone ... Imagine those people stoned... Ohh
Please Stephanie Merritt, take the time to imagine your god ever commanding this.

24. Richard Dawkins on Canada AM

Comment #38385 by L.Minnik on May 8, 2007 at 12:55 am

Pedant's corner:

However much I would like it, it isn't so in all of Europe, maybe most, half, I don't know.

25. Atheists go on the political offensive in God-fearing US

Comment #38125 by L.Minnik on May 7, 2007 at 3:41 am

Hi Bizarro Dawkins,

I would just like to ask you -
Do all people adwocating other religions than yours make your 'stomach turn'?
Do you write on muslim sites or 'pagan' sites as much as here and say that they are spreading hatred?

26. Convention ends with Satan and immigrants

Comment #36695 by L.Minnik on May 2, 2007 at 3:14 am

"I'm not calling for BYU to fire them but if no one signs up for their classes ..." she said. "If they say the Vice President doesn't have anything to say we want to hear, I'm not interested in having my daughter learn from them."

Interesting way of choosing what is worth learning.

Btw, I noticed that somehow students maybe not be too keen on discussing politics.
Even when the Iraq war was just to begin, many students from my campus going, still in sociology classes chose other topics over this one.

27. The Video: Bill O'Reilly Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #34396 by L.Minnik on April 24, 2007 at 12:38 am

Great interview! I mean Richard Dawkins managed to give such a dose of rationality there, it is just wonderful.

Cheers!

28. One Hell of a Religious Read

Comment #34392 by L.Minnik on April 24, 2007 at 12:21 am

Good - he deprives the religious of the status of being 'uncriticizable'

29. Atheists split on how to not believe

Comment #34001 by L.Minnik on April 23, 2007 at 2:56 am

At first I thought that yes, maybe I should join some 'atheist organization' just to make the cause stronger, but then again, if that would require me to be more polite when addressing religion, it does not make any sense to me.

I really appreciate atheists who voice their opinions openly. It is a pleasure to hear.
Thanks to this website I found many new ways to discuss religion.

from the article:
"Part of the New Humanism, Wilson said, is "an invitation to a common search for morally based action in areas agreement can be reached in."

I join many actions and causes that I find important and I don't need to agree about it whith anyone. For example I am involved in a group that tries to help abused children, and I don't have anything against theists engaging in it. So it is all-inclusive.
I don't see any need for an atheist organization that is all-inclusive.
And I don't see any need for all atheists to agree on social causes.

However, it could be nice if atheists did have an influence where on those spheres of life where faith is concerned.

30. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32487 by L.Minnik on April 17, 2007 at 6:45 am

Hi Logicel, yes, parents are caretakers of children by all means, but it is only relatively recently, in the past few decades, that children have acquired more and more rights.
Not that long ago parents had no limitations as to the punishments they could apply to their children. Even today not seldom do parents facing abuse chares claim in court that they can do what they want because the child is 'theirs'.

What I suggest is that children deserve to have still more rights than they do.
For example a right to their own bodies where medical procedures cannot be carried out unless it is necessary to do so for medical reasons.
Other decisions can be made by the child when he/she is old enough to decide him/herself.

I don't see any reason why children (or women in some soceties) could not be granted such a right.

31. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32462 by L.Minnik on April 17, 2007 at 5:53 am

I see this case as the extent to which one person has a right over another. Children and infants are separate human beings who have rights of their own. Unfortunately in many cases laws still reflect the old notion that children are the property of parents, who can do as they see fit (as once upon a time people could be owned, as slaves, women, children).

If children and infants are granted full human rights, in no way does anyone have a right to impose medical procedures on them unless it is absolutely necessary.

If people from infancy until adulthood were granted a right to decide about their own bodies, not to mention the right to make other decisions in their lives, this case could not take place.

Imagine that the mother would also want the procedure to be carried out now, and the kid not having an extra $20,000 for lawyers. What would happen then?
A child is defenceless unless he or she has rights and a means of executing them.
In my opinion all children deserve to have rights and to be treated as separate human beings.

32. Christian soldier takes up arms as hustings near

Comment #26518 by L.Minnik on March 20, 2007 at 4:32 am

Why do they continue using the terms pro-family and pro-life?
Am I then anti-family and anti-life?? Of course not.
It makes me upset every time I hear this.
Please instead use anti-gay, anti-contraception and anti-abortion, thank you.

The Christan marketing seems to be powerful in all ways. I don't like the way the language is re-defined because this is one of the ways in which harmful things can be justified and passed as good.

33. Free Speech

Comment #25554 by L.Minnik on March 14, 2007 at 4:42 am

Great to hear someone endorse thinking for yourself, looking for primary sources, looking at evidence, and voicing your opinion.

34. 'Don't discuss polar bears': memo to scientists

Comment #25169 by L.Minnik on March 10, 2007 at 4:12 pm

Just that...
People have a right to discuss environmental issues, politics and religion freely as long as they do not endanger a country's security or the like.
If not, something harmful to people may be going on.

35. Public Acceptance of Evolution

Comment #24946 by L.Minnik on March 9, 2007 at 12:28 pm

re 15. Comment #24895 by cheshirecat

Why do you assume Poland has an inferior education system to the US? Please consult comparative studies. Certainly it depends on the field of study, where foreign language education may be better in the US whereas mathematics, physics, chemistry and astronomy better in Poland. Many distinguished scientists in the US are from Poland. Poland invests in education, but unfortunately not in research.

36. Pope is warned of a green Antichrist

Comment #23995 by L.Minnik on March 4, 2007 at 4:04 am

"Cardinal Biffi said that Christianity stood for "absolute values, such as goodness, truth..."
Could he be more specific - saying since which year?
Certainly he cannot mean during the times of the Inquisition, opposition to new information from science ect.?

Solidarity with people and love of peace should not be absolute values...but goodness should.
Hmm, so goodness means something else. Let's see, that means that you can be a good Christian and support war and conflict, is that what this is about?

37. Dawkins v. Collins Debate

Comment #23399 by L.Minnik on February 28, 2007 at 12:06 pm

ps

Sometimes I have the impression that the definition of "God" is incoherent in a discussion, it changes to fit the issues raised.

If one claims "God" created the universe, that does not imply that "God" needs to give humans moral instructions directly. That is a separate claim and would need a separate explanation.
If the definition of "God" is based on the Bible, it still needs to be defined clearly because of possible differences of interpretation.

38. Dawkins v. Collins Debate

Comment #23395 by L.Minnik on February 28, 2007 at 11:44 am

I agree with what has been said before.

What I miss in many debates on this issue is a clear definition of "God" in the beginning. That would define what is actually discussed, because there are so many concepts.

If in this case God is outside time and space, then what is he/she/it? How do we know of this existence? (or why should we suppose he/she/it exists)
What are the characteristics of he/she/it? And how do we know that they are such?
If any, what is this God's "relationship" to humans and why would one assume that?

Maybe just giving a precise definition is so difficult that trying to do so in a discussion would be enough to show how vague this concept is, and especially how difficult it makes it to be certain of what humans should do because of this "God".

39. Faith

Comment #23086 by L.Minnik on February 26, 2007 at 7:41 am

This article is wrong.

As I understand it, it tries to make a point that "moderate" atheism is all right as opposed to "radical" atheism. And the way to be "moderate" is basically to be silent.

While I have been "silent" about my views and tried to show respect to religions, I cannot say that I have been shown the same.
Beginning with the secular schools that I attended, which organized compulsory prayer in church, compulsory Bible study and compulsory viewing of anti-abortion movies, through all the people that I meet on a regular basis who do not respect my right to be left alone and persist in their attempts to convert me.

As an atheist I believ that I have a right to express all of my views and demand the rights that I believe that I have, as a human being, such as implementing some practices as compulsory, and this does NOT make me "radical" or "intolerant".

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

Comment #21993 by L.Minnik on February 12, 2007 at 5:43 am

"the future Creation Museum !"

Wow!! Really?

41. Interview with Alister McGrath, author of 'The Dawkins Delusion?'

Comment #21022 by L.Minnik on February 7, 2007 at 10:03 am

"Dawkins seems to think that saying something more loudly and confidently, while ignoring or trivialising counter-evidence, will persuade the open-minded that religious belief is a type of delusion. For the gullible and credulous, it is the confidence with which something is said that persuades, rather than the evidence offered in its support"

"...the link between science and atheism was much weaker than I thought, and also being confronted with very articulate Christians in Oxford showed me that my thinking was quite shallow. I realised that Christianity makes much more sense of things, and of life, than anything else."

Can't help but think that McGrath describes himself as 'gullible' because he does not say that it was the 'evidence' presented by the Christians that convinced him, meeting with 'articulate' Christians.


I am very curous to hear exactly what he wants to do to 'eliminate religious violence' on his next debate, and why he does not place atheists together with people believing religions without a personal god, since only his point of view is 'right.'

42. Benny Hinn Faith Healing Scam - Burton and Tinkler

Comment #20789 by L.Minnik on February 6, 2007 at 2:21 pm

Sometimes I wonder how many clergymen actually believe everything they say.