1. MySpace: No place for Atheists?

Comment #121145 by Kristian Z on February 3, 2008 at 2:31 am

Argh. I just tried joining the "RichardDawkins.net Social Networking Site", but the confirmation codes (CAPTCHA) are unreadable. Ten tries and I apparently can't get the 0/O B/E S/5 and upper/lower case right.

Edit: Made it at last. Damn I hate CAPTCHAs.

2. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #106800 by Kristian Z on January 3, 2008 at 1:27 pm

In the context of my own country, Norway, such a campaign would actually make sense. Here, religiosity is largely frowned upon, and many Christians know this and keep their beliefs more or less in the closet.

Edit: I should add that I think this is a good thing, of course. But I can see why some Christians would like to encourage other Christians to step out of the religious closet.

3. Clegg 'does not believe in God'

Comment #100787 by Kristian Z on December 19, 2007 at 10:32 am

I can see that this would be news-worthy if it was in America, but in the UK? I would have thought that non-religious politicians was as common as fish and chips over there.

I can't see a thing like this getting column space in my own country, Norway. I'd be very surprised if most of our current government aren't non-religious. Hell, I'm pretty sure even our current minister of church affairs is an atheist, even if he's nominally a member of the Church of Norway.

4. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #99072 by Kristian Z on December 15, 2007 at 12:42 pm

This wasn't really that interesting. For us who have been watching debates and read books by all of these, there wasn't really anything new here.

I hear it said that Hitchens is a really affable guy, but I can't help having the impression that he's terribly arrogant. His constant interruptions and cutting people off when it's time for one of the others to talk, is really obnoxious.

It also seemed to me that Hitchens' militarism embarrassed the others (at least Dawkins and Dennett). As it should.

And what the fuck was that about MoveOn.Org? Something about them seeing the US government as being brutal imperialists who invade other people's countries. No shit, go ask a Nicaraguan, a Guatemalan or a Vietnamese, or someone from the countless other countries who have experienced Washington's love for freedom and democracy the hard way. This is Hitchens' prime example of cognitive dissonance? He's really gone off the deep end of neoconism.

5. Colouring book warns kids of pedophile priests

Comment #94959 by Kristian Z on December 7, 2007 at 3:52 am

That's just over 7%.
That is a monsterous percentage.

6. Evolution and Texas

Comment #94030 by Kristian Z on December 4, 2007 at 3:47 pm

Didn't Dover put a stop to this nonsense? Legal precedent and all.

7. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #85405 by Kristian Z on November 5, 2007 at 6:41 pm

Common argument in debates I've been part of:

Our Christian heritage is responsible for aspects of modern civilization such as: Science, humanism, human rights, secularism and/or even atheism.

Christians making such an argument will often back it up by pointing to specific christian dogmas (eg. all are created equal under God) or by pointing out that phenomena such as the ones mentioned have only/mainly emerged in Christian Europe and not somewhere else.

My own view: I usually take a position opposed to the argument, but I don't know enough about history to be anything but very uncertain about this issue. It seems paradoxical to give Christianity the credit for that which is basically the antithesis of Christanity, such as atheism and science. So I suggest that these phenomena may be caused by Christianity in the sense that they are counter-reactions to it more than an extention of Christianity itself. I also point to Jarred Diamond's books for an explanation of why Europe developed fastest and that our modern society is a result of that development and that Christanity may just have been a lucky piggybacker.

8. Catholic condom ban helping AIDS spread in Latam: U.N.

Comment #80950 by Kristian Z on October 23, 2007 at 4:29 pm

"I know a Catholic and he says the Pope should change his stance on condoms."

Eh? Doesn't he know that the Poop is infallible? Whatever the Poop says about condoms, the universe or rock music, is absolute and undeniable truth.

9. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79919 by Kristian Z on October 19, 2007 at 3:40 am

Re the WaPo review of the debate: WTF?

As for the following:

McGrath, more erudite, poked tentatively at his challenger at first, before landing some solid punches at the final bell that drew roars of approval from the crowd. (Example: "I take it you do not believe in Hell or anything like that, and therefore I don't see what the difficulty is for you personally.")

10. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79918 by Kristian Z on October 19, 2007 at 3:20 am

Someone in the crowd lost their religion that night, I'm sure of it.

11. God's honest truth?

Comment #79784 by Kristian Z on October 18, 2007 at 2:01 pm

Should we accept the teaching of demonstrable falsehoods in schools? I think most would agree we shouldn't.

Even religious people would agree that Christianity and Islam, to mention but two, cannot both be true. Hence, with Christian and Muslim schools teaching that their religion is true, at least one of these sorts of schools must logically teach falsehoods.

Knowing, then, that false teachings are being taught, and aknowledging that such a situation cannot be accepted, one can either try to figure out which, if any, religion is true and allow the teaching of that (an impossible task), or one can ban the teaching of all religions as if they were true.

12. Norway flourishes as secular nation

Comment #79085 by Kristian Z on October 16, 2007 at 4:35 am

One significant difference I've noticed between Norway and the US when it comes to the effect of secularism, is in public debate. In the US, a politician can win an election by repeating "God bless America" ad nauseam. In Norway, it would be political suicide for any politican to mention God or Jesus in a debate. He'd be laughed out of the room and never win an elected seat again. At the very most they are allowed to make vague references to "Christian values", and only members of the small Christian Democratic Party dare do that, and even that causes smirks all across the room.

On a sadder not, officially and nominally Norway is a very religious country. The constitution declares Lutheran Evangelism as the religion of the state, the King has to adher to that religion, and at least 50% of the government have to be members of the state church. And the state church is allowed enlist members without their knowledge. I myself was enlisted in the state church, without my consent or knowledge. I stayed a member for ten years before I found out about it. The same goes for most of my friends and family, none of whom are religious. That's how the church manage to keep their membership as high as 80% of the population.

13. Hitchens on Falwell, Part 2

Comment #43780 by Kristian Z on May 22, 2007 at 3:19 pm

I'm sure Hannity and Reed's first reactions after the death of Saddam Hussein was to show a measure of respect and appreciation for his family and loved ones and those who were grieving. Yeah right!

14. Blame Abraham

Comment #25306 by Kristian Z on March 12, 2007 at 1:21 am

"Gods are ideas and Jews and Muslims have the same idea about their respective gods which makes their gods identical."

But they obviously don't have the same idea about God.

"That is why they are two different religions but they are still both based on Abraham's god which makes Yaweh and Allah identical and equally bogus."

But they aren't based on the same Gods. The Judean and Christian God is based on Elohim and Yahweh, while Allah is based on several Arabic Gods. Muhammed said Allah was the same god as the Abrahamic god, but that doesn't make it "true" in any sense other than nominally. Neopagans could claim that Zeus is the same God as the Christian God, but that would clairly not be the case.

The only good argument for claiming that the two gods are the same god, is that believers believe they are the same gods. But far from all Christians, Jews and Muslims actually do believe that. So we're really only left with Muhammed's declaration that his Allah is the same god as the Christians' God, and unless you believe in Muhammed's superior authority on what's true, that isn't enough.

15. Blame Abraham

Comment #25145 by Kristian Z on March 10, 2007 at 11:34 am

I don't agree that the Christian God and Allah are the same Gods.

First of all, the pedantic argument is that a non-existant something cannot be the same as anything else non-existant, except in the trivial sense that they both don't exist (Ø==Ø, the empty set equals the empty set).

Second, since we're not dealing with actual existing entities but fictional characters, these Gods are only the same if the believers have the same idea about them. From a pedantic perspective, again, it is unlikely that two people in the world holds EXACTLY the same beliefs about God, these abstract ideas being quite complex. But even beyond that pedantic observation, I think it's reasonable to say that when two persons' idea of God is sufficiantly different to want to kill for those differences, we're not dealing with the same God, but rather different Gods.

Thirdly, from the perspective of the history of religions, the Christian God and Allah have different heritages: The Christian God is based on Elohim and Yahweh, while Allah is an amalgam of various Arabic Gods, especially the moon god, which Mohammed claimed was the same god as the Abrahamic god, but which isn't from the perspective of the history of religions.

16. Even Stephven: Islam vs. Christianity

Comment #24514 by Kristian Z on March 7, 2007 at 2:56 am

Bremas: Colbert himself (the actor, not the character) proclaims a religious belief. He's a Catholic and a sunday school teacher. Seems unbelievable, but it's true.

17. William Crawley meets Richard Dawkins

Comment #23335 by Kristian Z on February 28, 2007 at 1:22 am

Comment to nr. 9: Seeing religion as a tool for the powers that be to control the masses does not in any way explain why the masses in such large numbers do believe (only why someone would want them to), just as seeing telephones as a tool for communication does not explain how they actually work. So Dawkins does not miss a point, as you say, when he's confronted with the question of why people believe.

Comment to nr. 13: This is the point I felt Dawkins failed to answer properly. It is a common argument from religious people that atheists also make leaps of faith. And while that is true, both in science and in everyday life, one should argue that the leaps of faith in science and everyday life are much, much smaller than the giant leaps of faith in religion, and demonstrate with a couple of examples, such that believing the earth is round or that I had bread for breakfast today are both much smaller leaps of faith than believing in resurrection, transubstantiation or virgin birth.

18. The Certainty Bias

Comment #23215 by Kristian Z on February 27, 2007 at 12:29 am

If global warming disaster is 100% certain to happen, then there's nothing we can do about it, and we might as well not bother. Politics is about dealing with probabilistic outcomes and try to steer our society onto one path instead of another when that is in fact possible.

Obviously, this observation is a counter-argument against those who argue that global warming or, say, a Muslim take-over of Europe, aren't real problems because they aren't 100% certain. It is the fact that these aren't absolutely certain that makes it worthwhile to take them seriously and possibly make an effort to avoid their outcome.

19. Memo: Stop teaching evolution

Comment #22634 by Kristian Z on February 20, 2007 at 4:02 am

gimlibengloin: "We see this in the God Delusion where Dawkins is quite adament about the folly of believing in a God we can't see, touch, or feel but is quite willing to state his belief in extraterrestrial civilisations."

You seem to have a pretty naïve view of atheists' epistemology. No one only believes in things they can "see, touch, or feel". I've never seen, touched or felt Australia, dinosaurs, the Holocaust, individual atoms or Elvis, but there are good reasons to believe that these are, or were, all very real.

Similarly good reasons do not exists for believing in Zeus, Brahma, Vishnu, Thor with the Hammer, The Great Spirit or the Christian God, nor for believing in Santa Claus, zombies, Superman, ghosts, Christian miracles, fairies, etc..

The point is, "see, touch and feel" is not anyone's requirement for believing in something. It may be sufficient, but not required. And Dawkins is not using such a requirement as an argument against God.

20. Interview with Chris Hedges

Comment #22005 by Kristian Z on February 12, 2007 at 9:06 am

Not only is Colbert a Catholic, but he even teaches Sunday school!

plastictowel, I'm stumped too. So often do I run into Christians saying "I'm Christian, but ..." and provide some excuse for whatever it is they find they have to excuse their moronic religion for being assosiated with this time, yet won't convince them to dismiss their religion altogether.

21. Is God a Delusion? Atheism and the Meaning of Life

Comment #21981 by Kristian Z on February 12, 2007 at 3:25 am

His refutation of the Santa analogy seems rather void. No one is claiming that analogy is the same as identity. Of course there will be differences. He points out one difference (people do not become Santa-believers in adulthood), and he could have pointed out countless other differences. What he fails to do, is to address the point of the analogy, namely the similarity between Santa-faith and God-faith, or for that matter, faith in the FSM, Scientology's Xenu alien, Superman or celestial teapots.

Also, he claims that Dawkins's inclusion on the "top intellectuals list" was featured prominently in his book. Is it even mentioned at all? I can't remember reading it, and I can't find it when looking for it now. In any case, it cannot be very prominently featured.

22. The questions science cannot answer

Comment #21578 by Kristian Z on February 10, 2007 at 1:33 am

#3: "Well no, we can't disprove a negative, but you most certainly can prove a positive to a level which is beyond reasonable doubt."

At the very least God could prove his existence if he wanted to. If indeed he does exist, why keep us humans guessing and killing eachother over the details of those guesses?

(Yes I know, the believers will say that he has made his presence known, but this is unconvincing seeing as there are at best only a small minority of the world's population who has the right idea of his nature, and it would be trivial for him to make his presence known much better and for everyone.)

23. Do stop behaving as if you are God, Professor Dawkins

Comment #21411 by Kristian Z on February 9, 2007 at 4:24 am

It appears the article (wouldn't even call it a book) I read, and which is also called "The Dawkins Delusion" (without question-mark), is written by a nobody called Sam Fryman.

Again, sorry for any confusion I may have caused by attributing what I recalled from Mr Fryman's article to McGrath.

24. Do stop behaving as if you are God, Professor Dawkins

Comment #21409 by Kristian Z on February 9, 2007 at 4:08 am

Hm. It seems there are several books called "The Dawkins Delusion", and the one I looked at was not the one by McGrath. My apologies to Mr McGrath! He's not the one obsessed with the personal life of Dr Dawkins. (I'd delete my post if I could.)

25. Do stop behaving as if you are God, Professor Dawkins

Comment #21318 by Kristian Z on February 8, 2007 at 4:10 pm

I actually tried reading "The Dawkins Delusion". It started out arguing that we (the readers) shouldn't listen to what Dawkins says because, and I think this is almost litterally what he wrote, "Dawkins is nothing like us". Dawkins is nothing like us, therefore what he says should be disregarded. Dawkins, according to the author, is rich, has a good-looking wife and, as we know, is an Oxford professor, so what he says cannot possibly be relevant to us common people. I could hardly believe my own eyes. Never have I seen such a blatant ad hominem argument in print! I stopped reading after the first few pages. I was shocked to learn, reading the above post, that the guy is actually also an Oxford professor.

(If I recall correctly, he mentioned Mrs. Dawkins's good looks several times. Maybe he's just jealous?)