Comments by ft77

Comment #243631 by ft77 on September 6, 2008 at 1:51 pm

Stupid, not funny.

2. Jamy Ian Swiss - Skepticism and the Art and Philosophy of Magic

Comment #185779 by ft77 on May 28, 2008 at 1:59 pm

It was good of him to be so upfront about the deception in magic as opposed to the 'psychology' of Salem and Brown.

Comment #178404 by ft77 on May 11, 2008 at 11:03 am

Penn Jillette also went on this programme with the title "I believe there is no god."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557

4. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166221 by ft77 on April 23, 2008 at 2:40 am

You're a troll because you obstinately cling onto an original claim. No matter what points or clarifications are reasonably made during the duration of the discussion.

Things moves forward and you get pushed back until the point at which you pull some B.S. to try and give your point the merit it does not have e.g. But Richard Feynman says...

5. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166144 by ft77 on April 22, 2008 at 8:18 pm

When did you turn into a troll Styrer?
I seem to remember you as a sincere poster at one point.

First cause botherers may find Sean Carroll's talk at Beyond Belief 2 interesting for an example of a phenomena from the past that was thought to need a cause. Motion.
http://tinyurl.com/6m6rxj

6. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #161972 by ft77 on April 15, 2008 at 10:31 pm

Thanks for posting this Josh.

The Quicktime versions did not work for me on Linux (Ubuntu 7.10) like they usually do though. I tried with mplayer, vlc and Totem.

7. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby

Comment #157565 by ft77 on April 9, 2008 at 9:16 am

Excellent job Paula. You were as good as a professional interviewer.
It was so nice to have a long talk without any combat.

The answer that Prof. Dawkins gave about 'why?' questions was excellent.
The short breakdown of evolution from bacteria to ape was also very nicely done.

This video goes into my favorites of Richard's interviews; Along with the interview with Jonathan Miller in The Atheism Tapes and the speech and question & answers in Lynchberg.

8. Two More Fleas

Comment #142508 by ft77 on March 12, 2008 at 3:18 pm

'Has anyone provided a proof of God's inexistence?
Not even close.'

Mr. Berlinski, let me introduce you to my invisible dragon...

9. The ethics of mixing science and religion

Comment #142500 by ft77 on March 12, 2008 at 3:07 pm

'He is the kind of physicist who is so awestruck by the mathematical order of the universe that he sees God lurking in equations.'

AKA, the lazy kind.

10. God, power and money

Comment #137944 by ft77 on March 3, 2008 at 3:55 pm

'11. Comment #137930 by fatcitymax on March 3, 2008 at 3:32 pm
There is a similarity between Hinn and RD; although, Hinn is certainly crass whereas RD is silky smooth. RD hawks his book whenever he's interviewed or on a book tour--with the intent to keep the profits, as does Hinn. RD intends freeing people from a delusion and making them mentally healthier. Hinn intends on making people both mentally and physically healthier, and probably does so frequently and temporarily because of the placebo effect. I have no doubt that people attending Hinn's revival felt much better afterwards (and maybe quite a bit lighter in the pocketbook too). Same for the people attending RD's book signings.

Now, don't all you athiest fundies out there blow a gasket.
'

The only similarity is that they're both selling something.

The question is do you want to buy lies and cruelty, or truth and kindness?

11. My Argument With God

Comment #131692 by ft77 on February 23, 2008 at 2:52 am

By Ricky putting the emphasis on chance rather than natural selection as the guiding force in evolution may have done more harm than good.

People who understand evolution need to remember this when communicating the to others.
As Prof. Dawkins does of course :)

12. Bart Ehrman, Questioning Religion on Why We Suffer

Comment #130173 by ft77 on February 20, 2008 at 6:46 am

MP3 of the interview is at http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/13/19186602/npr_19186602.mp3

13. New Website on Secular Philosophy

Comment #116177 by ft77 on January 25, 2008 at 5:50 pm

Prof. Dawkins interview in The Atheism Tapes is in my opinion the best all around one he has given.
Miller is very knowledgeable of the arguments and covers all the issues well.
I highly recommend seeing it if you have the chance.

14. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up

Comment #109801 by ft77 on January 9, 2008 at 6:31 pm

Thanks for the link to the Atkins video OsakaGuy.

15. Jail for creationist row killer

Comment #98738 by ft77 on December 14, 2007 at 7:11 am

You're right Jack. He got off far, far too easily. How this can be called manslaughter is beyond me.

I wonder how the sentencing would have gone if the non-believer had done the murder. Off course you don't need to kill the other bloke when you know what you're talking about.

16. Finding My Religion: An Interview With Shalom Auslander

Comment #94080 by ft77 on December 4, 2007 at 6:04 pm

For the people who read the book:

Do you remember if he says if he read any science or just the philosophy?

17. RELIGULOUS: A Conversation with Bill Maher and Larry Charles

Comment #69859 by ft77 on September 13, 2007 at 2:36 am

[quote] 9. Comment #69821 by Dirk_Starlight on September 12, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Don't get too excited. Bill Maher believes in Homoeopathy and is anti-Vaccination.
[/quote]

He's also a big fan of PETA.

I'd say he's fairly cynical about people in a position of those in power. He's not a skeptic/critical thinker.

18. We need a more intelligent religion debate

Comment #68501 by ft77 on September 7, 2007 at 10:21 am

I think the point is that of course religious people can and do do good. But when they do they are acting from the same moral reason that the rest of us are.

Hobson should try answering Hitchens' question. What moral act could a religious person do that an atheist could not?

19. Interview with Richard Dawkins and John Cornwell

Comment #68380 by ft77 on September 7, 2007 at 3:35 am

---

Tumara Baap on September 6, 2007 at 9:24 pm said

Books by Dawkins and Harris were bound to cause acute cognitive dissonance in the faithful. I think everyone anticipated a response based on emotion rather than an interest in truth. Cornwell epitomizes the vitriol of someone jilted and scorned. He approaches TGD with an embittered slate to nit pick, distort, misrepresent and demonize with anger and threat steering his project. This could have been done cleverly and on the sly. The fact that Cornwell's riposte is so easily assailable and so plainly daft does bring me a bit of perverse pleasure. The success of books by Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens is laudable. Just as enjoyable has been the floundering counter-attack. It helps the cause.
---

Nicely put Tumara.
Although maybe I'm naive in that I expected someone of Cornwall's education and position to be reasonable and calm.
On the contrary. Right from the beginning you could hear his rage at someone having the temerity to question religion.
His tactic was to use whatever methods necessary to 'win' the argument, regardless of if the claims he made about the book were true or not.
Unfortunately the host just took the modern relativist position. And if he had read the book chose anyway to make no interjections from a neutral position when Cornwall mischaracterised Prof. Dawkins.

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

Comment #52536 by ft77 on June 27, 2007 at 8:00 am

Jonathan always has seemed like such a decent bloke and it's nice to see he's handling this ok.

It sounds like he's a little hung up the 'absolute meaning' nonsense though. I hope he can get past this and see that all the meaning that was in his life before his deconversion is still there now.

21. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #51251 by ft77 on June 22, 2007 at 4:28 am

tieInterceptor the link to the ram file is rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk:554/radio3/nightwaves/nightwaves_wed.ra?start=140

22. Review of 'Growing Up in the Universe' DVDs

Comment #50193 by ft77 on June 15, 2007 at 3:39 pm

Awesome review.
Check out this if you haven't already. The personal approach Prof. Dawkins takes in it nicely compliments the more formal approch of his books.

23. Richard Dawkins in the Time 100

Comment #37116 by ft77 on May 3, 2007 at 12:06 pm

It's not a gesture of goodwill, it's just cynical, lazy, journalistic relativism.

24. Richard Dawkins in the Time 100

Comment #37111 by ft77 on May 3, 2007 at 12:01 pm

--- 'roach' said

'Heh. Behe reveals that ID is nothing more than creationism dressed up in technical language when he says: "The central idea—popular among readers and deeply unsettling among proponents of intelligent design like myself—is that religion is a so-called virus of the mind, a simple artifact of cultural evolution, no more or less meaningful than eye color or height." And then he mentions the Bible in his last paragraph!

So much for all of that "well we don't know who the designer is" bs.'

---

You really hit the nail on the head.