1. Can't Darwin and God get along?

Comment #202386 by funkyderek on July 1, 2008 at 12:22 pm

OK, I see why Bible believers need to embrace Darwin, the same way as they need to accept that the universe is more than 6,000 years old, but nothing in the article suggests why atheists should start believing in gods.

2. Mecca should become core to measure time zones: scholars

Comment #165199 by funkyderek on April 21, 2008 at 7:49 am

They'll probably want the world to adopt the Islamic calendar next. Narcissistic egomaniacs

3. Bishop accuses gays of 'conspiracy' against the Catholic Church

Comment #143323 by funkyderek on March 14, 2008 at 2:14 am

Shouldn't that be the other way around? The Catholic Church has led a conspiracy against gays for centuries, excommunicating them, threatening them with hell, contriving to have them persecuted and prosecuted.

4. The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief

Comment #109971 by funkyderek on January 10, 2008 at 7:40 am

Strange, it is only £48.45 at Amazon UK - that's about $100 I think.

5. Two Ex-Jehovah Witnesses to Tell Why They Became Atheists

Comment #109959 by funkyderek on January 10, 2008 at 7:08 am

With all these people afraid of what their religions/organisations might do to them because of their apostasy, are we going to have to fund hoards of security guards a la AHA? It could get rather expensive!!!!

6. Pope's exorcist squads will wage war on Satan

Comment #104762 by funkyderek on December 29, 2007 at 11:32 am

He said the Pope wants to restore a prayer seen as protection against evil that was traditionally recited at the end of Catholic Masses. The prayer, to St Michael the Archangel, was dropped in the 1960s by Pope John XXIII.

"The prayer is useful not only for priests but also for lay people in helping to fight demons," he said.

7. U.S. Congress Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith

Comment #98149 by funkyderek on December 13, 2007 at 6:28 am

This seems to have no purpose other than to piss on the First Amendment. Nothing will change, there will be no more funding for Christian endeavours, Christians will not receive preferential treatment and non-Christians will not be discriminated against.
All it will serve to do is alienate non-Christians. Do America's lawmakers not have better things to do with their time?

8. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #96337 by funkyderek on December 10, 2007 at 11:52 am

"Chennelle and Houser have been fighting back with prayer."

Yeah, that'll work!

9. Papal encyclical attacks atheism, lauds hope

Comment #92357 by funkyderek on November 30, 2007 at 10:42 am

"Spe Salvi", an anagram of "Evil saps". Coincidence?

10. 'Muhammad' teddy teacher arrested

Comment #91024 by funkyderek on November 27, 2007 at 2:21 am

The correct response is for the British ambassador to talk to the Sudanese government as follows:
"You know the way you get apopleptic with rage when somebody gives a cuddly toy the same name as every second man in your country? Well, we respect that as part of your culture.
In OUR culture, when someone is arrested by a backwards regime on ridiculous trumped-up charges, we demand her immediate release or else we bomb the living shit out of them.
So, what's it to be, Muhammad?"

11. Most religious people are moderate, and don't hurt anybody

Comment #82377 by funkyderek on October 26, 2007 at 7:46 am

The "extremists" are simply those who put their money where their mouth is. The Bible says "Do not suffer a witch to live" so, by God, they'll kill anyone they think is a witch. The "moderates" will hum and haw and wring their hands and talk about changing times and not taking things literally. But if the Bible is the word of God, then shouldn't it be followed completely and absolutely?
It's like calling a driver an extremist because he obeys every rule of the road while "moderate" drivers would ignore some red lights or overload the vehicle or break any of the rules that actually inconvenience them.

12. You can't prove that you love someone, so don't expect proof of God

Comment #81881 by funkyderek on October 25, 2007 at 10:40 am

Is there in principle a test that could prove the existence of love?
Is there in principle a test that could prove the existence of God?

If the answer to these questions is different then the comparison is not valid.
If the answer to the two questions is the same, then:
If the answer is no, we can never know anything useful about love or about God.
If the answer is yes, then we can set about devising a practical test.

Personally I think that the answer to both questions is yes, as long as both subjects are clearly defined.

13. Crisis of faith in first secular school

Comment #73099 by funkyderek on September 24, 2007 at 5:57 am

In a sensible world, there would be no requirement - or indeed allowance - for daily worship in schools.
But, if as stated it's "politically impossible" then the school just needs to offer alternatives. As pupils cannot be forced to attend these services, give those who opt out a more enjoyable alternative - an episode of "Robot Chicken", say - and see how long the school chaplain continues preaching to an empty hall.

14. Another view

Comment #66414 by funkyderek on August 30, 2007 at 12:49 am

"I was in practice for 20 years, and I wasn't treating idiots."

Right! And he wasn't boning his patients either...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,2000639,00.html

15. Fallen Pastor Seeks Aid to Pursue Studies

Comment #66127 by funkyderek on August 29, 2007 at 1:31 am

I bet now he wishes he'd saved some money instead of spending it all on amphetamines and male prostitutes.

16. Why Richard Dawkins is right on alternative medicine - but not when it comes to religion

Comment #62594 by funkyderek on August 10, 2007 at 8:23 am

Also, arguing that mainstream religious people don't really believe all the nonsense stories they are fed doesn't really absolve religion of responsibility, any more than the fact that most people who read their horoscopes don't take it too seriously doesn't alter the fact that many people do, and depending on whether they are selling or buying make a lot of money or waste their lives as a result.

17. Why Richard Dawkins is right on alternative medicine - but not when it comes to religion

Comment #62592 by funkyderek on August 10, 2007 at 8:15 am

"It could not remotely be described as "unscientific" to declare that, for example, marriage is the only fully morally acceptable form of partnership between couples, or that adultery is sinful."

No, but it could rightly be described as harmful, and when we investigate why these harmful ideas are being propagated we find that it has nothing to do with the way the world actually is, but how religionists imagine it to be. The idea of a vengeful god is used to control people's behaviour. If ethics is "no more than the expression of the view that we either like or dislike something" then my view is that I dislike those who use fairy-tales to make people's lives miserable. I consider it unethical.

18. Floods are judgment on society, say bishops

Comment #53573 by funkyderek on July 2, 2007 at 4:46 am

That might be a reasonable hypothesis if only the homes and businesses of gay people or those who support "pro-gay legislation" were affected. That doesn't seem to be the case. It seems to affect people indiscriminately (well, there is geographical discrimination, but not ideological discrimination).
Therefore, it's impossible to tell exactly what God is angry about. Perhaps he's angry that Gordon Brown is the new Prime Minister, or that Tim Henman is out of Wimbledon or that stupid old men with crooked sticks pontificate about things they know nothing about.

19. Christians at Bible publishers have their throats cut

Comment #33085 by funkyderek on April 19, 2007 at 5:47 am

"The Zirve publishing house, which the Turkish media says is owned by two South Africans, Gert Martinus de Lange and Stephen Smithdorf, had been the target of nationalist protests for allegedly distributing Bibles and proselytising."

Nationalist protests? Yeah, right!

20. 'God Is Not a Moderate'

Comment #21453 by funkyderek on February 9, 2007 at 8:49 am

It appears that Andrew Sullivan has effectively abandoned the debate. By posting that his position cannot be defended rationally, and that he believes it merely because he has always believed it, he signals his lack of interest in getting to the real truth of the matter.

21. Give us back our bones, pagans tell museums

Comment #20769 by funkyderek on February 6, 2007 at 11:25 am

Other pagans are less impressed with what science has to offer. "Any story that is reconstructed from that data will be an imagined past, which usually turns out to be a blueprint of the present imposed upon the past," said Mr Davies. The druid council is not against studying human remains per se, he said, but does object to their retention in museums. "They are not samples, they are bits of body, they are bits of people, bits of spirit."

The overall story I find predictable but pathetic but the above struck me as funny. A druid (i.e. a member of a whimsical 20th century reconstruction of a long-dead religion) complaining that scientific data obtained from actual physical evidence will be an "imagined past".

22. Atheists' bleak alternative

Comment #12871 by funkyderek on December 14, 2006 at 6:01 am

***
What makes murder inherently wrong is not that it feels wrong,but that a transcendent Creator to whom we are answerable commands: "Thou shalt not murder." What makes kindness to others inherently right is not that human reason says so, but that God does: "Love thy neighbor as thyself; I am the Lord."
***

Wow. I don't think I've ever seen such a peculiar idea actually explicitly stated by someone who holds to it. I thought murder was wrong because it violates another person's right to life, and that kindness to other people was right because it benefits the community. But according to Mr. Jacoby, these things are only right or wrong because a holy book says so.
Presumably then, he also believes shaving, leaving his house on a Saturday, and wearing mixed fibres are also wrong, that disobedient children should be stoned to death, and the punishment for raping a virgin should be to marry her.
Or could it be that actually, he doesn't get his morality from the god of the bible at all, that there is some reason that virtually all moral codes throughout time have prohibited murder, but very few have outlawed eating shellfish?

23. An Exercise in Contempt

Comment #12652 by funkyderek on December 13, 2006 at 5:20 am

"The real question is whether one's explanation terminates with a meaningless cosmos or with a being who provides a reason for things. Dawkins, without further ado, assumes that the former alternative is the only rational choice."

Dawkins actually made quite a lot of "further ado" about this point, arguing convincingly that terminating an infinite regress with a complex omnipotent being is not in any way satisfying or explanatory. Whatever caused the small and simple singularity that began our universe, it is vastly unlikely to be an intelligent being, and if it were, such a being would itself need explaining.
I'm not really sure how anyone could read the book and miss that.