501. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63241 by keith on August 13, 2007 at 4:03 pm

Salvatore,
You made me laugh but you have brought up an interesting issue. I didn't wade through the actual music around the Dawkins interview, but this was Radio Two, which is basically for people who are no longer teenagers, more specifically, for my generation who were young(ish) and listening to music in the 1970s and 1980s. As you can imagine, anything that gives us oldies a break from the juvenile and monotone rap or techno is welcome.
This summer I worked with an American who is around my age and I noticed how American rock could be used as an argument as to why memetics is not really analagous to genetics at all, namely, while biological evolution works by small, very gradual changes in the gene pool, there has been absolutely no evolution whatsoever in American rock since the 1970s! From Tina Turner to Vonda Shepherd to Bryan Adams sound-alikes (he's Canadian, I know), nothing has really changed. Green Day sound like a band in the garage next door to me.
My colleague considered anything that varied from the macho-guitar riffs and dramatic drum beats of his hirsute and leather-clad heroes "a bit girly" or just plain weird. I realise that some groups like Talking Heads, REM and They Might Be Giants have come out of the States, but simply from the law of averages you'd expect a few more innovative groups to come through. Where, for example, is the American equivalent of Elvis Costello? What kind of music were you missing that you wanted to hear? REO Speedwagon? Sad Cafe?

502. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63234 by keith on August 13, 2007 at 3:36 pm

Steve99,

"something I feel is not discussed enough in forums such as these is the importance of non-equilibrium thermodynamics (of which Chaos Theory is just a part) in explaining order and structure in the universe."

Okay Steve, you first. (I'll join in with any bits that relate to football).

503. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63208 by keith on August 13, 2007 at 1:52 pm

Darwin2,
We have actually had this scenario many times before. A believer who hasn't read much science but thinks he has most of the answers comes onto this website and tells us all about science, sometimes adding that the people on this website are arrogant. Some commenters, who actually know quite a lot about science, then take the trouble to put the (not-arrogant) believer right on various points he has misunderstood. The believer then repeats his original posting as though this were a reasonable response. After a while the polite commenters become less so and finally realise they are banging their heads against a brick wall, though some valiant souls keep trying.
Please, try to imagine for a moment how a doctor might feel if a patient starts telling him that the reading of tarot cards is a much surer way of reaching the correct diagnosis. If you can, then you'll get some idea how some of the scientifically-literate commenters here feel about your silly posting.

504. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60499 by keith on August 2, 2007 at 4:54 am

Wee Flea,
Can we just take a closer look at the posting you made earlier? Let's start at the beginning:

"Okay, here is my prediction.

Everyone who writes in answer to Dawkins is going to be written off as a flea. Whereas everyone who writes in support of Dawkins is going to be brilliant".

First, predictions are usually made before, not after something starts happening. It looks to me like you read some of the initial postings, saw which way the wind was blowing and made a 'prediction'. This is like feeling the first drops of rain and saying, "Okay, here is my prediction: It's going to rain".

Secondly, as Beth pointed out, it isn't the fact that these writers (including you) are writing against Richard Dawkins that they have been labeled fleas. It is because they are using his success to make some money for themselves. As a writer and presumably an intelligent bloke, you must be able to see the difference. Can you see it?

"Everyone who writes in answer to Dawkins is just out to make money. Whereas everyone who writes in support of Dawkins is a hero who is fighting the good fight without any thought of monetary advantage".

No, obviously you don't see it. Let's try again. All writers want to make money. Some do it by their own creative work, others look around for a more famous and talented writer to generate interest in a topic and then quickly knock out a so-called response. By the way, on the subject of writing, were you never taught how to use conjunctions? You seem to have a problem with the word 'whereas'. It is supposed to join two parts of a sentence, not separate them. These are not important errors, but I was still surprised to see a published writer making them.

"The fact that the atheist books will outsell the flea books by 10 to one is only an indication of the brilliance of the atheist books and the stupidity of the flea books".

There are three responses to this statement. The first is a simple 'Yes'. The second is that little old ladies in their twilight years don't have enough disposable cash to buy consoling books, which is why you lose out. The third is that religious books have always been ten-a-penny and thus have to fight for their place in the market, whereas (this is how you use it) when atheist books are written they tend to make a killing, simply because they are so thin on the ground.

"Almost everyone who comments on this website will manage to disparage all of the flea books without having read a single one of them".

Knowing that these books are written by Christians and that Christianity hasn't come up with any new ideas or evidence for their ideas in the last couple of years (or millennia, come to that), why would we read them? For the same reason that you don't constantly go outside to check that the paint on your house hasn't changed colour, we assume that it's all quiet on the Christian Front. If there are some new arguments that suddenly occur to a canny Christian, be sure to let us know.

"Yet despite all this there will be a bout of self-congratulation, mockery and self-righteousness. You will all go away feeling justified and immensely thankful that you are part of the new enlightenment and that you have nothing to do with fleas".

Yet despite all what? The word 'despite' (another scary conjunction) suggests there is a contrast between 'all this' and what you are about to say. 'All this' must refer to something negative that went before, but what? All the points that go before are positive. Or have you suddenly changed point of view from atheist to Wee Flea? Confusing, at best. Whatever was going on in your mind, this really is a train wreck of a sentence. Without wanting to be rude, there might be other reasons why Richard Dawkins sells more books than you, reasons that have nothing to do with which side of the religious fence either of you sits.

"Such is the rationality and open-mindedness of the New Atheism".

I think you were attacking people on this forum, not Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Dennett and we are not New Atheists. We are atheists.

505. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60430 by keith on August 1, 2007 at 11:23 pm

Wee Flea,
You seem to be under the impression that we atheists don't know the arguments at stake here. If that were true, then your accusation of us being closed-minded would have some substance, but you'll just have to believe me when I say that I, and I think most others at this site, know precisely what McGrath's and your side of the argument is. We have been over it time and time again.
I have a friend who recently became a Baptist and started to go to bible discussion groups. We talked a lot about his conversion from mild, lazy Christianity to the full-blown version. He insisted that I read C.S Lewis. I did and found it silly. He suggested other writers, all of which I dipped into but the story was the same: none of these writers felt a need to separate wishful thinking from reality. And believe me, I know the temptation of wishful thinking. In my own dreamy moments I think that there is a possibility that the 20-year-old girl down the road will take an interest in me. However, all it needs to bring me back down to earth is a visit from my very lucid and painfully honest friend (not the Christian, I might add) to put things into perspective. The conversation generally goes like this:
Friend: Why would a gorgeous 20-year-old girl who could have any man in a radius of ten miles choose a short, bald, often bad-tempered middle-aged man as her partner?
Me: Okay, shut up.
This is enough to show me that the gap between 'wanting' and 'being' has grown too large.
Anyway, it soon became clear that my Baptist friend would keep suggesting Christian writers until I died of old age or was converted, whichever was the sooner. For him, the fact that I still hadn't been converted was proof that I hadn't really read the books properly, if at all. The truth was that I had read them, had understood them and found them appalling rubbish. I drew the line there and wouldn't read any more of his suggestions because I felt I had wasted enough time. I suspect he felt then that I was closed-minded.
My question to you is: When is it enough? How many books do we have to wade through, how many of your comments on this site do we have to read before you'll take us at our word when we say: WE UNDERSTAND. WE REALLY DO. WE JUST DON'T BELIEVE IT.

506. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60420 by keith on August 1, 2007 at 9:58 pm

Dingo Dave,
In the New American Standard Bible, are the names changed from Moses, Noah and Seth to Chuck, Randy and Skip?
Surely the only reason an Atheist would have for reading a bible at all - apart from the obvious 'know your enemy' tactic - is to wallow in the archaic style of language, which conjures up the romance of times and places now gone. Reading it in present-day language would be like reading Shakespeare in a reader-friendly edition. You know the kind of thing: "Hey, what's up, Mercutio? Where you headin'?". The genius of Shakespeare was not his wonderful story lines, but his way of expressing himself. If Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are to be believed, the same must be true of the King James Bible. In a modern style, the silliness of the text would become so apparent that it would be rendered almost unreadable - unless you are an aficionado of silliness. If so, fill your boots!

507. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #60090 by keith on August 1, 2007 at 1:19 am

Dr. Benway,
Why does the juvenile tuffted titmouse in one of your photos have a broken piece of pencil lead in its mouth? Or did you have it catching miniature bullets in its beak, a la Penn and Teller?

508. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59965 by keith on July 31, 2007 at 8:49 am

IQHQ,
You might think that style is petty but I don't. You might think that style and content can be easily separated but I don't. For me, floral language should describe floral things. Using British legal style on the comment page of a popular science website is a little jarring. Please imagine Prince Charles commentating on the FA Cup final and you'll get some idea of the mis-match. I also believe that the diction you use is more under conscious control than you seem to think. For example, I tend to talk more poshly when I'm with my parents than I do with my football friends and I swear more with the latter. I would suggest that your style is quite consciously chosen rather something you can do little about. Yes, you are articulate but consciously so, and some uncharitable people might even say pompously so, which tends to divert interest away from what you are actually saying. For the sake of diversity I could start to make comments in the style of Geoffrey Chaucer or the author of Beowulf. This might have entertainment value (for a while) but since you consider style to be petty, why draw attention to something of so little importance?

509. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59947 by keith on July 31, 2007 at 8:03 am

Fire1974,
You wrote: "I guess you loose the Hawthornian reference with a hat...but I still want one!"
This would be because Nathaniel Hawthorn's story The Scarlet Letter is about a 'T' shirt and not a baseball hat?

IQHQ,
I suspect that it's not what you write that gets people's back's up but how you write. Has anyone ever told you that you write in exactly the same style as Samuel Pepys? Were you brought up in the 17th century by time-traveller parents?

510. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59694 by keith on July 30, 2007 at 8:40 am

Does anyone remember that old Tom Robinson song, "Glad to be gay"? He later brilliantly rued that the song had been "a milestone that became a millstone". Anyway, it occurred to me that we could commandeer the song for our own purposes and change it to, 'Glad to be A', as in 'Glad to be atheistic'...Or is there a danger that someone outside our ranks, for example the pope, will think that the sentence is incomplete and finish it with, "Glad to be a what...a twat?"? Hmm, maybe not such a great idea after all. Still, that doesn't reflect on the T shirt.

511. How could God allow 26 pilgrims to die in a crash?

Comment #59603 by keith on July 29, 2007 at 10:26 pm

Thank you Russell, I stand corrected.

512. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59600 by keith on July 29, 2007 at 10:14 pm

Mr. Empirical,
You wrote: "Some people only take issue with those with whom they disagree, which is pretty hypocritical".
Would you care to explain this? Why should we take issue (i.e. disagree) with those with whom we agree? And why is it hypocritical not to disagree with those with whom we agree?

And to Bremas,
I have no idea if you meant to be funny but you certainly made me laugh.

513. OUT Campaign Launched, 'Scarlet Letter' Shirts Now Available!

Comment #59420 by keith on July 29, 2007 at 2:36 am

Henri,
I once had a discussion with someone who, after backing themself into a corner by defending an untenable position, claimed, with a conspiritorial chuckle as if I had been cleverly taken in, that he had been playing the devil's advocate all along. On me saying that that was actually more annoying than if he had genuinely held those beliefs, he then did a second volte-face (actually more of a spin this time) and claimed that at some level he really did mean what he had said at first. I then informed him that wanting to have it both ways, i.e. playing the devil's advocate and really believing what he had said, was even more annoying than simply playing the devil's advocate. Are you still with me? Does this ring any bells? Anyway, for the spectacular double somersault with twist and perfectly landed dismount that he then performed I only have the highest admiration and held up a large '10'.

514. How could God allow 26 pilgrims to die in a crash?

Comment #59199 by keith on July 28, 2007 at 7:07 am

Wow, not only do the religious have the lion's share of bad ideas but also an awful way of expressing them, a kind of double-whammy. Does the writer really believe that earthquakes are a "natural evil"? If I trip over a stone, stagger into a canal and drown, is that stone evil? And is the water I drowned in evil too? Are lions evil because they sometimes kill us? Doesn't our notion of evil have something to do with intention, something to do with being able to have acted otherwise?
But hey, in the context of the views themselves, this is just pedantic nit-picking, like objecting to finding a hair in your soup when the soup itself is made of horse urine.

515. All the mistakes of the godly are merely metaphor

Comment #57814 by keith on July 21, 2007 at 8:47 am

You know how analogies are supposed to make a difficult point clearer? Well, have you ever noticed that an analogy in the hands of a religious person has precisely the opposite effect? I found the analogy of atomic theory so convoluted and contrived that the original point because less clear rather than more so. Am I being cynical in thinking that this could be due to an intentional desire to muddy the waters? Maybe, or maybe the truth is less sinister, though equally depressing: religiously-oriented minds are so hell-bent on making their belief system work that one more somersault with pike and one more knot added to the already impenetrable tangle simply goes unnoticed - at least by them. For non-believers it's just the final Heath Robinsonesque detail in an already comical creation.
(Sorry. I have should have read PZ's response before writing this now slightly redundant comment).

516. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #55994 by keith on July 13, 2007 at 6:14 am

I'm sure there must be some mathematical law that states that the ludicrousness of the initial proposition (i.e. Danielos') stands in direct ratio to the length of the subsequent discussion thereof. This wouldn't have been weirder if Danielos had used Goedel's Theorem and Quantum Mechanics to prove that he liked doughnuts. Like a man trying to undo buttons with a mallet, rarely have tools been so poorly chosen.
But I salute those of you who argued with him, despite the fact that you were probably driven more by that same instinct that makes it impossible to ignore the presence of a mosquito in the room than from any real hope of converting him. To paraphrase Churchill, never has so much intellectual energy been spent by so few in the service of so many for such little reward.
This whole thread really deserves a short publication of its own, perhaps bearing an Oliver Sacks-like title: The Strange Tale of the Believer who was Thrashed to within an Inch of his Life - and Walked Away Smiling and Unscathed. The task of 'Guardians of the Limits of Wishful Thinking' is indeed a thankless one.

517. Charles Darwin - Legacy

Comment #55741 by keith on July 12, 2007 at 6:20 am

Beachbum,
I have read you comment three times now and still have no idea what you are saying. You're not one of those computers that generates (more or less) grammatically correct sentences at random, are you? I have to say that your comment reads like an internet translation from Japanese. Do you mind trying again? Start out from the part where you are watching us from behind some trees.

518. Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton

Comment #53391 by keith on July 1, 2007 at 8:08 am

I think the reason Sharpton keeps accusing Hitchens of attacking religion rather than god is that Hitchens' book is Called God is not Great so he should give reasons for saying so. Yet since Hitchens doesn't believe in god, it is clear to anyone with a little wit that he is really criticising religion, not god. However, either because Sharpton is none too bright or because he really is quite shrewd, he insists that Hitchens does nothing to show that 'god is not great'. What is Hitchens supposed to say. That he doesn't believe in god and he's really attacking the belief in god? "Then your book is badly titled because how can god be either great or not great if you don't believe He exists in the first place" the reverend will ask. It's a pathetic form of argument and highlights the fact that all the religious side really ever do is duck and weave so as not to lose the argument in public.

519. God Hates the World

Comment #52541 by keith on June 27, 2007 at 8:20 am

To The Wee Flea,
My first sentence was actually a spoof on one of your postings that I'm not sure you picked up on, though this was probably more my fault than yours. The truth is that of course Richard Dawkins is representative of most atheists. How could he not be when atheist don't and can't differ in any important way? So although you may like to squabble with other denominations about what sex, colour, form, manifestation, history etc. your god has, we atheists are united in our assessment that he/she/it doesn't exist and therefore has no sex, colour, form etc. We have no details to argue about.
The point of my spoof was that I was hoping you would tell me in what way your religion differs from that of the WBC. It's possible that from your point of view, you are the pinnacle of rationality, while they are just a load of nutters who stand lightyears away from your views. I'll agree that you seem a little less unpleasant, though here I'm only talking for myself. I'm sure Billy Sands, Dr Benway et al may not agree. After all, they know you better than I do. Either way, from where we atheists stand, the difference between you and the WBC is much harder to spot than you might think. You both believe in a whole suite of beliefs that just seem odd to most rational people. The fact they have added on a twist here and there doesn't make a great deal of difference to their fundamental views. I'm sure Sam Harris would even argue that the WBC has simply been more rigorous in their reading of the bible while you have shied away from the moral implications they have drawn. Insofar as this is true, perhaps it is they who are the more rational, consistent and in possession of the true spirit of the bible. However, if you could just inform us about the way your beliefs differ substantially from theirs, we might be able to judge just how atypical they really are.
To put all this in more visual terms, we see the WBC as clowns, complete with stilts, whacky Ronald McDonald hair-dos, big shoes, white make-up and a red nose. We see you as pretty much the same, just minus the red nose.

520. God Hates the World

Comment #52121 by keith on June 26, 2007 at 8:16 am

Wee Flea,
I actually find it quite offensive and very unhelpful that you think that Richard Dawkins' views are typical of all atheists. More than angry, I'm just very very disappointed. It's easy for you to take pot-shots at the lunatic fringe of the atheist spectrum (if a spectrum can have a fringe), but this is not typical of what most atheists believe. I will of course reserve the right not to define what a typical atheist believes. (I find this useful so that I can adjust the definition, depending on who I'm talking to).
By the way, I must say that you're quite keen on having your point proven. If anyone argues with you they are just rats following Richard Dawkins' pied piper, and if they don't argue with you then you feel victorious for having silenced them with the depth of your insight and your rapier wit. You have carved out for yourself a no-lose situation, at least in your own eyes. And while we're on the subject of proving points, how about Richard Dawkins' observation that religious people's favourite tactic is that of resorting to being offended when argument fails, as it very quickly does when religious people argue? Does this ring any bells with you? I suppose not.
Surely your objection that the video shouldn't be shown because it isn't typical of most Christians isn't valid from a journalist point of view. Showing only what is typical is tantamount to The Times printing only articles with headlines like, "Nothing happened in Cheltenham today". The banality of it is overpowering. However, please don't assume that banality is equivalent to benignity when it comes to your religion: you have plenty of the former and much less of the latter. If we were only allowed to show videos of the kind of religious behaviour you probably approve of, and I agree, is probably typical of most religious people, we would have endless footage of inanely grinning, self-satisfied fools saying things like 'God is love', all sure they knew what the hell they were talking about. You would no doubt be nodding approvingly at the profundity of such comments while some people with a little less intuition and a little more intellectual curiosity might wonder what such assertions meant. Questions such as 'How do they know God is love, or even exists?' might just come to a few minds. I'm not sure you can begin to imagine how annoying such smug sureness, coupled with utter emptiness of meaning such statements can be to anyone who stands outside this chosen group of those who have seen the light. Even putting fundamentalist whakkoes to one side for a moment, such unsupported and unsupportable statements like 'God is love' simply add confusion to the picture we are building up of the world. This should be enough to label them a menace from the start, for while you're right in saying that simply being rational is no guarantee we will build a better world, it is also true that raising irrationality to a position of virtue will certainly guarantee that things go badly.
Finally, re your demand to have an apology and the video taken off the site. You sound remarkably like someone who goes to an Iron Maiden concert and after worming his way to the front, asks the band if they can't turn the noise down. I think you probably know the solution to your problem here, but I'll suggest it anyway: perhaps you should stop visiting this site if you find it so offensive. Or are you the kind of person who, after being allowed into another person's house, tells the owners they should rearrange the furniture to suit him?

521. A battler beyond belief: Review of 'God is Not Great'

Comment #50426 by keith on June 18, 2007 at 4:53 am

Johann Hari's more mature atheist retort, good though it was, doesn't actually deal with the problem of what we say when religious people claim that Stalin/Pol Pot et al were driven to do what they did by their atheism. Basically Hari is saying that just because getting rid of the evil of religion won't cure all the world's ills is no reason for not making a start. Every little helps, so to speak. However, this will only ring bells with those who already believe that religion is a bad thing and does nothing to answer the Stalin-was-evil-and-he-was-an-atheist-so-atheism-is-evil logic.
Apart from RD's comment that although Hitler, Stalin and Saddam all had moustaches, this doesn't necessarily mean that it was this common trait that drove them all to kill millions of people, the best (longer) answer to this challenge I have read was one I saw on this website a couple of weeks ago. One poster said that if someone breaks into his home and it later transpires that the burglar was a Christian, this doesn't make the burglary a 'Christian crime'. Similarly, just because the Japanese were more or less irreligious during World War Two doesn't make the bombing of Pearl Harbor an 'atheist crime'. However, if a shi'ite runs into a sunni mosque, shouts "God is great!" and then detonates a bomb, this can perhaps be qualified as a religious crime since it was motivated by religion.

522. The 'Is God...Great?' Debate

Comment #50269 by keith on June 16, 2007 at 7:35 am

To Xenocratic,
Sorry it has taken me so long to reply to your long and interesting reply. It's more than possible that you won't even read this posting as the debate seems to have finished, but I'll reply all the same.
I don't know what you mean when you say that the U.S is run by 2% of the population. Are you saying that around 6 million people run the U.S.? How did you arrive at such a figure and how did you decide who to include? Anyone who works for a big corporation? Anyone who is a CEO? Anyone who is connected with either the Republicans or Democrats?
You invite me to correct you in case you have falsely suspected that I mistake criticism of American policy for anti-Americanism. I take up your invitation. Hitchens has been very critical of American policy but I wouldn't accuse him of anti-Americanism. There, suspicion allayed. Actually, I sometimes find his constant assertions about the good, brave people who are defending us while we sleep safely in our beds quite nauseating. So, yes, I can tell the difference between the two. My criticism of Chomsky and Pilger remains that their assessment is sometimes unbalanced, not that they are anti-American. You go some way towards explaining this by saying that Chomsky's philosophy is to try to change only the things over which he has some influence and for this reason he rarely criticises, for example, Russia. On the face of it, this sounds quite reasonable, but isn't there a danger that his readers will come to the conclusion that all the bad is done by just one nation, a conclusion which he wouldn't necessarily draw himself?
I found the story of the French security guard hilarious, though I'm not sure it was supposed to be. Maybe he was so lugubrious because he was thinking, "I wish this bloke would go away and let me get on with...securing...being a security guard". Were you trying to provoke him or just passing the time of day?
My main problem with calling Chirac a fascist and wanting to put Carter on trial as a war criminal is the difficulty of finding an adequate language to describe the Hitlers, Stalins and Saddams if we've already classified lesser criminals with our worst epithets? Super-ueber-fascist? War-criminal-but-no,-I-really-mean-it-this-time? Or would you like to put Chirac's name along with those others? Surely not. There must be different degrees of moral corruption that can be got at by different terms.
Sorry for the red herring of JFK. I only mentioned him to try to illustrate that I don't naively believe all I'm told by the media. Perhaps you were right to point out that such a muddied subject isn't an ideal test of someone's scepticism since we are all sceptics on this issue.
You mentioned Robert Fisk and I remember an article he wrote after being attacked by a group of angry Arabs/Iraqis - sorry, it was so long ago that I can no longer remember exactly - who mistook him for George Bush. Of course, Fisk never pondered what kind of people would believe that it's really likely that George Bush would simply wander into an Arab village with no security. Luckily for him (Fisk), after being beaten on the head and face with stones until he was badly bleeding, he was rescued by a kind, more sensible villager. The thing that shocked me most about the piece was when Fisk said that he didn't at all blame the people of the village for the attack on him or for their mistake. I found this both generous but at the same time incredibly patronising. What kind of view did he have of these people? Why didn't he hold them to the same standards he would have held an angry mob of British or Americans? It was almost like he was condoning the uneducated rabble who took to the streets after 9/11 looking for muslims to beat up. I felt he was working on double standards and it is precisely this that I suspect Chomsky and Pilger of being guilty of.
Maybe we were talking past each other on the 'Chomsky is not to be trusted' issue. The two comments that made me make that assertion were the following:
Quote number 1: 'He (Hitchens) must be unaware that he is expressing such racist contempt for African victims of a terrorist crime'.
Quote number 2: 'Hitchens claims that I accused him of "propensity for racist contempt." I explicitly and unambiguously said the opposite'.
Now, although Chomsky didn't use the word 'propensity' in his first comment, I can't help thinking that he meant what both you and others have supposed he meant, i.e. that any view which didn't see an equivalence between 9/11 and the missile attack on the Sudan pharmaceutical company must be racist. Hitchens, however, had already put forward his reasons for saying why he thought there was no equivalence, namely, the intentions of the two attacks were perhaps not wholly irrelevant (Clinton, although neglegent, had thought he was taking out a chemical factory, not a vital pharmaceutical company whereas the 9/11 bombers wanted to cause as many civilian deaths as possible) and if Chomsky was so keen to factor in all the Sudanese people who would die as an indirect result of the destruction of the Pharmaceutical company, he would surely wish to factor in all the children living in poor countries who would die as an indirect result of the drop in the economy after 9/11, which the world bank estimated at around 40,000, plus another "10 million people (who) will fall below the bank's extreme poverty line of $1 dollar a day or less as a result of slower economic growth".
My main point is not about whether or not there is an equivalence here, but rather that I think Chomsky in one breath calls Hitchens a racist and in the other denies he has said such a thing. This I found a little dishonest.
I totally agree with you about my comment about 'infinite regression' being banal. I was trying to make two points. Firstly, that nobody can know that a greater disaster than we now have on our hands wasn't averted by the invasion of Iraq and that given enough time, things might turn out (relatively) well. Of course, this would be for the world in general and generations to come, not for those already dead. However, I don't want to find myself in the ridiculous position of arguing say, that World War Two was good because it averted a hypothetical greater calamity. I suspect we might already have arrived at a point in Iraq where it's no longer possible for me to make such arguments. My other point was that finding ultimate causes in the real world can only go so far, a point you also make (clearer than I did). I just wanted to say that the Iraqis do share some responsibilty for the mess they now find themselves in, and that we should avoid attributing to the world an all-pervasive predestination which started with the first cell, on which view the Iraqis become the aforementioned billiard balls and even Bush can use the get-out clause that he too, is merely a victim of circumstance and history that we are all locked into. I don't think either you or I want to go down that road. I'm more than happy to attribute praise and blame, both to Bush and the Iraqis themselves. Where I baulk a little is in being so sure that the invasion was wrong, though in retrospect I think (in italics which I can't find) it was a bad idea. Others on this site are not only sure that it was wrong but that anyone who doesn't share their certainly is morally suspect and not to be trusted.
My understanding is that Bush senior didn't go on to remove The Butcher of Baghdad because the UN had only signed up to remove him from Kuwait, not for regime change. Anything more than freeing Kuwait would have meant the Americans going it alone. Apart from this, his administration might have foreseen the problems that Bush junior apparently didn't foresee. I personally would have pressed on and got rid of him without the help of the other UN countries and in doing so would have saved the lives of those Iraqis who had helped the allies and were subsequently left to be murdered by Saddam. However, there are people who think that all unilateral action is wrong and that only actions sanctioned by the UN are valid. I think that some people want it both ways: they think that Bush senior should have removed Saddam but they don't think the Americans should be the arbiters of good and evil in the world. It seems to me that you can't have it both ways.
Finally, I'm quite happy to believe that the six-day war was engineered by Israel. I have never actually mentioned that war. However, I have asked you several times about the initial war of 1949 and it was on this subject that I wanted you to show me some evidence that 'every war between these countries has been started by Israel' (paraphrase but more or less correct). The reason I'm insisting on this is that being the first war, it is perhaps relevant in setting the tone for future relations. Claiming otherwise might be like Hitler complaining that the Allies had attacked him on both western and eastern fronts. Such a claim could only be viewed with some sympathy if you weren't aware that, in playground parlance, 'he started it'.
Finally, I have to apologise for being so infantile when I suggested that you and Stuart Paul Wood were one and the same person. I, of course, didn't believe it for a second. I just found it comical that you both agreed on so much and then praised each other for this coincidence of views. It was almost like one twin complimenting the other on his beauty. By the way, I have subsequently noticed that although your views are similar, the manner of expressing them is very different which is why I'm replying to you rather than him. Among other things, I found his intolerance of other people's views amazingly arrogant. He seems very sure he is in sole possession of the truth, while others' views were described as 'cripplingly ignorant'. Such arrogance speaks for itself and doesn't require or ask for a reply.
Anyway, thanks for the interchange. We will no doubt meet again on another topic.

523. We stand awed at the heights our people have achieved

Comment #49916 by keith on June 14, 2007 at 4:47 am

To Pewkatchoo,
Could you tell us why you found this such 'unspeakable shite'? If you're going to make your comments so stark, why not just resort to calling the author a fat bastard and have done with it? Unless of course, you genuinely have something to say.

524. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49043 by keith on June 10, 2007 at 4:25 am

Devolved,
One of the reasons why it isn't helpful to call yourself an agnostic, even if you do admit there is only a 0.0000000001 chance of god existing, is that every honest, sensible person fits this description. Nobody knows. How then would we differentiate between someone who actively disbelieves and someone who simply doesn't know or hasn't thought about it? Following your logic, even the pope would have to declare himself an agnostic since he can't be 100% sure of god's existence...Oh, I see, he is 100% sure of god's existence! Wow, and he calls Atheists arrogant?

525. The 'Is God...Great?' Debate

Comment #48986 by keith on June 9, 2007 at 10:15 pm

To xenocratic,
I certainly won't dismiss out of hand what you've written. You've inspired me to find out more about subjects I know very little of and that you clearly know a lot. Thanks for pointing me in certain directions. However, my problem still remains of how to recognise a true account of events when I see it. I remember believing until I was in my mid-twenties that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. Then I saw a documentary, Rush To Judgement, and I realised that it almost certainly hadn't been Oswald and that he'd been set up by the CIA. I then too, felt like I'd been set up, but in my case by the media. Years later I read more on the subject which re-convinced me that Oswald had in fact killed JFK. I then felt foolish (again) for being the dupe of a conspiracy theory, which is where I now find myself. Will something come along to change my mind again? I can't completely exclude the possibility.
My problem is, how to know when you've read enough and read enough of the right people? You are right in suggesting that by going to certain official documents we can go some way towards by-passing this problem of merely having to trust a writer, though back in the real world, I have a job to do and bills to pay etc.
Some of the writers you recommend have been on my reading list for a while, though Ibn Warraq has made me more than a little wary of Edward Said. I suspect Said belongs (belonged) to a group of writers that have a blanket dislike of all American policy, of which Chomsky and Pilger are prominent. And this is my gripe: there is no recognition of the fact that there is never a perfect solution to a situation and thus to dwell at too much length on the negative side while never mentioning the positive, is, quite frankly, unbalanced. You'll have to take my word for it when I say that if I come out in support of western regimes, it is not due to a blind belief in their virtue or wisdom. They just seem to offer the best of the worst. However, when it comes to 'balancing', I would agree with you that there is no need to balance decisions taken cynically or that some historical crimes need to be given a positive slant, just for appearances' sake. As Richard Dawkins has pointed out, sometimes one side is totally right and the other side totally wrong.
Re Chomsky, I once followed an online debate he (reluctantly) held with Christopher Hitchens and I had to agree with Hitchens when he said that Chomsky was guilty of dishonesty. At one point he clearly insinuated that Hitchens' stance was racist, though Chomsky later claimed he had meant no such thing. It was at this point that I felt he had forfeited the right to be trusted.
The little I have read about Said and Chomsky, they seem to portray America always as the actor and other countries as the acted upon. Though I think there is a lot of truth in this (since America has all the power), I think it can be taken too far. When a Sunni gets on a bus and travels across Baghdad to plant a bomb in a shi'ite mosque, to what extent is he not in control of his own actions? To what extent are the Alliance to blame for this bombing? I think you would answer that by having set the whole train of events in motion, the Alliance is indeed 100% to blame for such acts. And here is where we would disagree. Apart from the problem of infinite regression i.e. finding the cause of the US decision to invade and then finding the cause of that cause, all the way back to Adam and Eve, I would prefer to believe that Iraqis, like the rest of us, have at least some free will and are not simply objects to be acted upon like so many billiard balls. This view of Iraqis and Arabs as nothing but helpless victims is one I believe Said espoused to breaking point.
You will probably say that the writers you advocate are right to do find little worthy of praise in American policy. This maybe so, but such a powerful country is always going to be in an awkward position regarding how it wields that power. This is a problem that Andorra, for example, will never have to confront and for that reason (alone?) is a paragon of virtue (ditto most other countries).
You suspect me of naively believing all I'm fed by the mainstream media and although you might be partially right, I think you are only partially so. (By the way, you are absolutely right that I got my information about Israel having been attacked by Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1949 from mainstream sources. However, this doesn't make them wrong per se and I'm still waiting for you to show me that this is factually wrong). My views are always in flux and held temporarily (blame or accredit Lee Harvey Oswald for this) and I hope I have a small voice in my head telling me that I could be wrong again. (Do you have the same voice? It doesn't sound like it to me). I suspect you mistake my irritation at the certainty of others regarding the invasion of Iraq for moral certainty on my part. Far from it. It's more than possible that I was wrong in supporting it, though I find it impossible to tell, even as the body count mounts. The reason I am still unsure is the following. A historian was once asked what effect the French Revolution had had on history and he answered that it was still too early to tell. Over two hundred years after the event and the effects were still unravelling! But, of course, this is bound to be true of any event, especially one as momentous as the French Revolution (or the invasion of Iraq). So, it is not for the rightness of the invasion that I was getting on my high-horse. It was against the certainty of others that I was railing, especially as this certainty coincides with the fashionable, safe and thus often unthought-through view. This contrariness should actually appeal to you. And my support for the invasion of Iraq was taken, not because I think George W. Bush is the greatest human being to walk the Earth. My decision came after I had been reading reports by Amnesty International and imagining myself stuck in one of Saddam's torture chambers. Had I been in that situation, I would have been asking myself why no one came to help me, despite knowing what was happening. So, for this reason I thought that something concrete should be done, something more than just passing more UN resolutions, like The People's Liberation Front of Judea in Monty Python's The Life of Brian. So, my reasons for invasion were not the same as Bush's, so I hope we can side-step the usual oil/Haliburton objections. Even so, with hindsight it is possible that to have continued passing resolutions in a show of actually doing something might indeed have been the best plan.
Anyway, thanks for your leads which I shall follow up. Have a good weekend. Here in Japan, mine's nearly over.

526. The 'Is God...Great?' Debate

Comment #48813 by keith on June 9, 2007 at 5:46 am

I suspect that in reality Stuart Paul Wood and Xenocratic are one and the same person. Some of your assertions were so extreme (yet at the same time knowledgeable), that I can't help wondering if you aren't mind-rebel's very educated brother. You state - because I know it's you (singular) - that, "every single war Israel has fought in they have provoked. The US media lies about all this, of course, so I'm sure you won't believe me, but these are just basic facts. Look them up". Let me guess where we have to look them up: John Pilger?
I'm willing to consider the proposition that John Pilger and Noam Chomsky are in possession of truths that the rest of the world media would like to cover up for various sinister reasons. What surprises me is that you seem incredibly sure of their accounts over others. How did you reach security? I, for example, was always taught that soon after the formation of Israel, three Arab nations (Egypt, Syria and Jordan?) ganged up to attack Israel. Was it really the other way around? If you can give me some evidence, I'll believe you, I promise.
In your guise as Xenocratic, some of your assertions e.g. "all US presidents since World War 2 are war criminals", are quite frankly lazy. Do you really believe that Jimmy Carter should stand trial as a war criminal? And is "unlawful use of force", really just another name for terrorism? I would doubt it. However, I have no desire to become too pompous or literal-minded in my criticisms, heaven forbid.

527. The 'Is God...Great?' Debate

Comment #48792 by keith on June 9, 2007 at 4:25 am

To Hightrekker,
When you say that Christopher Hitchens is morally suspect, do you perhaps mean that he doesn't agree with you? He is a journalist who has studied world politics for decades as a profession. What, may I ask, is your job?
Is it not possible to see that there was no good solution to the problem of Iraq and that we can argue about which was the best of several bad options without calling people with different views 'morally suspect'?
Or maybe you thought the situation in Iraq was absolutely fine and you were happy to see Sadam and his sons go on indefinitely? Or did you advocate sanctions and thus, according to some, support the deaths of millions of Iraqi children? Or did you advocate doing nothing? Did doing nothing mean to you that your conscience was clean because you didn't have to think about it? Would you have advocated doing nothing in Bosnia? Sierra Leone? In retrospect I'm sure you'll say no. And what is your considered stance on Darfur, or are you going to wait to see what happens before telling us what should have been done?
The point I'm trying to make is that it should be possible to disagree with your personal analysis of world affairs without being called 'morally suspect'. Your suggestion isn't simply that Hitchens was wrong, but that he was in some way cynical in his opinions and we should therefore beware of him as he could 'stab us in the back'. I don't know how you made the jump from disagreeing with him to making such accusations.

528. The 'Is God...Great?' Debate

Comment #48723 by keith on June 8, 2007 at 8:18 pm

To Stuart Paul Wood,
You say Hitchens is a hero of yours but I don't see how this can be true. Have you really never heard him rail against the Zionist nutters and the settlers who would have us believe that God himself has decreed that Palestine is their land? He criticises those Americans who support the Zionists for wanting to bring on Armageddon as soon as possible. How could you have missed both that, and his support for the Palestinians (now, as before) when it comes up in almost all of his interviews and debates? Is he your hero in the same way that some reviewers are critical of Richard Dawkins' book, despite never having read them?
To Stuart Paul Wood and xenocratic equally, some of us are aware of both John Pilger's and Noam Chomski's writings. Both are good political commentators though both are prone to criticise one side only, leaving the reader with a clearly unbalanced view. Surely this is precisely what you are accusing Hitchens of?
By the way, I would like to be able to agree with the person who said that Hitchens " mopped the floor with Hedges", but I'm damned if I saw it that way. I just saw the same phenomenon we've seem time and again: Hitchens trying to pin down his opponents while they dishonestly disclaim any adherence to the beliefs of organised religion (despite Reverend Sharpton being a Reverend, a fact that didn't strike him as odd). It's like trying to get hold of a slippery fish. I assume that Chris Hedges' god took on a far less nebulous form once he was out of Hitchen's company and back in the bosom of fellow believers.
The bottom line seems to be that to finally nail your opponent, he needs to have a modicum of honesty to begin with, something that is clearly lacking in religious debaters whose only goal, rather than wanting to get closer to some truth, is to simply not lose the debate. It reminds me of a comedy boxing match where one opponent moves forward to engage while the weasely, frightened opponent scampers round the ring, merely trying to stay out of range with no intention of actually landing a punch of his own. It's akin to watching Joe Louis in the ring with Stan Laurel. Thus the religious sophists wriggle and squirm with no apparent sense of shame.

529. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47042 by keith on June 2, 2007 at 11:22 pm

Steve99,
I don't think you in any way tried to stop people from voicing their opinions. You were simply having your say, and that's how it should be. I also totally agree with you that whether or not Alistair McGrath is condescending and affected has nothing to do with his arguments. And I'd also agree with your claim that ad-hominem attacks do our cause no good at all, though this admission comes with a rider.
Where I disagree, and to take your first point first, I wonder if you aren't extending the language of science to an area where it's not really appropriate. What would you construe as supporting evidence for or against McGrath's affectedness/condescension? I could point to some of his mannerisms and you could in turn claim either not to see them or to say that they are manifestations of politeness. This would then be a point of merely subjective impression, which is fine, since these are also part of our daily lives. Even so, both of us are human and it would be strange if we hadn't developed a similar, even if not identical, sensitivity to the mannerisms of other people. How else could we function properly in society if we were always misreading gestures and tones of voice? Usually we can sense if someone is being sarcastic or hostile or friendly, simply by listening to them and watching them. Are we only allowed to comment on such things if we have corroborating scientific evidence to back it up? That you think that this is a domain only for scientific evidence sounds odd to me, perhaps a case of an over-reliance on science. To give an example of inappropriacy, imagine going to the cinema with a friend and on emerging from the darkness he/she says, "What a great movie!" Is your immediate reaction to say, "You have no evidence as to whether that movie was great or not and such comments do the cause of critical movie analysis no good at all"? Were we all writing for Scientific American here I might agree with you, but that isn't the case.
As to your other point, that these comments damage our cause, I would agree with you if, on this website, we were in some kind of dialogue with 'the opposition'. However, without wanting to sound too cosy, most of us share the same views here, so where is the damage? Do you think that our comments will seep out into the religious community and that there will be some kind of backlash from our comments? I suspect it is more likely that our words drift around in the heads of one or two people on this site for one or two days and then disappear forever.
To insist on such absolute correctness of expression at all times and in all places can sometimes wear you down. Can't we occasionally let our hair down just a little? Ever?

530. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #46601 by keith on May 31, 2007 at 7:07 pm

Steve99,
I'm not convinced that the head tilt and the artificial manner are totally irrelevant to the topic (though I did mention them more in jest than anything else). On this website we always seem to be trying to understand why someone would prefer a religious explanation (i.e. a bad one) over a scientific one (a good one). This desire to choose the supernatural over the natural is especially perplexing in an intelligent person, as McGrath clearly is. I think perhaps looking into someone's psychology might be one place to start understanding this phenomenon, and why not start with what we can see i.e. gestures, posture, manner etc? To me, McGrath's whole manner seems to have been consciously constructed to an incredible degree, and I asked myself what kind of a person would go out of their way to shun a more natural manner in order to acquire such an affected one. It occurred to me that he might have developed this super-authoritative, artificial style as a way of distancing 'himself' from ideas that he knows, at some deeper level (as Bertrand Russell would claim), are indefensible. Were he ever forced to admit that he'd been wrong, I think that not only would his whole belief system collapse, but also his constructed personality with it. The two seem to me inextricably linked, in a way that they are not in the personality of the famous teacher of Richard Dawkins' days, the 'I have been wrong these fifteen years' professor. All this is mere speculation. It could be that Alistair McGrath is just by nature a very annoying person, poor bloke. By the way, had he started picking his nose or scratching his arse during the interview, I would have commented on this too, though strictly speaking, this too, would have had little relevance to his argument.

531. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #46303 by keith on May 30, 2007 at 9:27 pm

That's the best interview I've ever seen Richard Dawkins give. He comes over as being a great listener, capable of thinking on his feet and really interested in the other point of view, rather than being simply exasperated by the same old nonsense. In other interviews he occasionally seems on the verge of losing his cool (or maybe it's just my own blood that's boiling through not being able to jump through the TV screen and strangle whoever he's debating).
I think Richard does better when he's matched by another civilised person who has no desire to antagonise, and Alistair McGrath is certainly civilised. However, whereas Richard came across as genuinely human, Alistair McGrath, with his head constantly cocked to one side in pensive pose and his infuriatingly condescending manner, was almost robot-like and it made me wonder if he is completely human. I actually started to wonder if he also talks to his wife and in this authoritative-lecturing style, as this is the only style I've ever heard him use (he also, equally infuriatingly, debated Peter Atkins). Rather than the actual discussion, I became obsessed with the following question: Are we dealing here with a real human being or a 'humanoid', something akin to a 'pod-person' in Invasion of the Body-Snatchers?

532. Groundbreaking Research Has Scientists Talking With Apes

Comment #46272 by keith on May 30, 2007 at 6:07 pm

I recognize that bonobo. It's Roddy McDowell with his ape-suit back on. He's grown a little fatter too, as one would expect from a 70-year-old actor.

533. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46135 by keith on May 30, 2007 at 10:19 am

Davee1,
I share your distrust of Hitchens to a certain extent. I sometimes have the impression he will do anything to win an argument, even if this means temporarily taking up a position he really doesn't hold. I never have this feeling with Richard Dawkins. However, Hitchens' sophistry usually gives him the upper hand in interviews, partly because he can always take refuge in a witty comment, or in an extreme position that I'm never sure if we are to take 100% seriously. However, I forgive him for this because he's often just fighting fire with fire, since religious opponents, especially media presenters, know all the tricks on how not to lose an argument.
On the other hand (and to return to Iraq), I don't share your certainty about being able to spot ideologies among suites of opinions. I'm not sure what ideology you attribute to Hitchens, but could it be that he just has a body of opinions that are consistent and cohere?

534. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46127 by keith on May 30, 2007 at 9:49 am

Davee1,
I'm not sure if your post was aimed at me as I certainly didn't tell anyone not to respond. Someone brought up Iraq, I responded and then was told that this was maybe off topic.
I'm willing to believe you about articles in Slate and the Nation putting forward different views to Hitchens and even that he has a tendentious way with facts...So, why are you disappointed with his absolutism?

535. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46121 by keith on May 30, 2007 at 9:32 am

Peacebeuponme,
Perhaps there was a note of sarcasm in my last sentence. However you just made me chuckle with your comment about sounding 'a little camp' so I take back any intended sarcasm.

536. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46120 by keith on May 30, 2007 at 9:28 am

Davee1,
You say, "I am disappointed when I hear him (Hitchens) talk about it (Iraq), because it seems like the same kind of absolutism and dichotomous thinking that religious people are often guilty of".
Would this be the same kind of 'absolutism and dichotomous thinking' that Richard Dawkins is sometimes accused of in relation to religion? He is told by some that he should try to appease the moderately religious. Dawkins might reply that sometimes one side is completely right and the other side completely wrong so why split the difference? Is this your view? In what way should Hitchens be less absolutist? By saying that what happens in Iraq is actually not so important after all? I don't quite get what you're disappointed about.

537. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46114 by keith on May 30, 2007 at 9:10 am

Peacebeuponme,
I agree with you that Hitchens' views on Iraq are irrelevant to this topic. Please tell this to the posters who insist on dragging it up every time Hitchens' name is mentioned.
Hope I didn't spoil your enjoyment too much of Jonecc and Russell Blackford's comments.

538. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46106 by keith on May 30, 2007 at 8:33 am

I'm with steve99 on this one. Every time I read someone on this site say that Hitchens is great on religion but he should shape up on the question of Iraq I sigh at the sheer arrogance of the person posting. The poster must feel very much like some medieval cleric spouting religion, safe and completely sure that his views will be well received. The fact is that Hitchens almost certainly knows a great deal more about the situation than most of the posters here who dismiss his views out of hand, simply because they find themselves in the majority. I take Sam Harris' view on the subject i.e. that it's impossible to tell if it was right or wrong to invade Iraq. Had things gone better, it would have been the right thing to do. That things were handled badly after the invasion isn't in doubt, and Hitchens is also critical of this bungling. However, to be sure that the invasion itself was wrong, you have to know what the alternative future would have looked like, and none of us will ever have that knowledge. Even so, if the poster imagines that the choice was between invasion on one hand and 'peace' on the other, then he is deluding himself. Ian McEwan, writing about the banners of the peace protesters in London, said that instead of reading 'We want peace', these banners, to have been accurate to any degree, should in fact have read, 'We want Saddam to stay in power and for him to continue to torture and murder the people of Iraq and thus to set an example to other tyrants that they can do the same to their populations with impunity, and we want Saddam to continue to try to acquire the nuclear weapons he has made no secret of wanting to get his hands on. We want sanctions to continue, though it is claimed (by us) that these sanctions have already killed millions of Iraqi children etc. etc.' (I may have embroidered a little on what McEwan actually said but the main thrust is correct). The banner could actually have been longer, filled with further indictments against Saddam's regime, but there are limits to what will fit on a 4' X 3' sheet of paper.
That people have different views on this subject is fine and with the benefit of hindsight, I also veer toward the conclusion that it wasn't a great idea. However, for the poster to imagine that he has some superior insight into this convoluted subject and that Hitchens should get into line with his opinion, I find a touch arrogant.

539. God help us all - The No. 2 book on Amazon right now is a

Comment #45764 by keith on May 29, 2007 at 6:41 am

Epeeist,
Maybe you are being overly sensitive here. And in all honesty, do you really really mind about the 'Islamofascist' epithet? I get annoyed when I hear Richard Dawkins described as a fundamentalist partly because the term is simply wrong but mainly because I'm on his side. As long as the people I dislike are being described negatively, why should I care how they are described? Why should I be so scrupulous about terms used by others? (though I think it is correct in this case). Perhaps you should leave the nitpicking to the other side. They are more than capable of defending themselves, by fair means or foul. We, on our side, seem to have enough on our plates just looking after our own.

540. Would the World Be Safer Without Religion?

Comment #43307 by keith on May 21, 2007 at 5:03 am

Right Gregg, I think we've seen what you've done here. By stating that "it can be argued that since the mass murderers of Sept. 11 openly violated the Quranic prohibition against killing the innocent, they weren't true Muslims anyway."
So, because both the koran and the bible (sometimes) say that you shouldn't commit crimes, then the people who do murder and steal can't really be people of faith. Thus, because no crime can be commited by a true believer, a criminal can't, by definition, be a person of faith. Nice footwork.
However, the usual definition of faith is not whether you are a criminal or not, but whether you believe in one of the various gods. So, unless you wish to change the definition of your lot from 'person of faith' to 'non-criminal', I'm afraid this ruse won't work. Sorry.
Apart from all this, since the bible prohibits so many things, including working on the sabbath and taking the lord's name in vain, I suspect that there would be no true believers, by your own definition, left on god's green Earth. So, anybody here without sin? No? You Gregg? I know how you Christians hate to claim sinlessness for yourselves and instead prefer to wallow in guilt. So, the category of 'true believers' turns out to be a club with no members. What conclusions can we draw from this, and your argument? I would suggest that you are simply trying to distance yourself from the actions of your fellow believers with a little sophistry and a lot of self-deception. If that's what makes you happy mate, why not?

541. Pale Blue Dot

Comment #40892 by keith on May 15, 2007 at 7:05 am

I can't help thinking that this video would have gained something if the backing track hadn't been so much to the fore and consciously trying to tug at our heart strings. It made me think less of a documentary and more of a TV movie in which the action has become particularly poignant e.g. the death of a young loved one or a faithful dog. At this moment the director chooses to wheel on the big guns and put on the track that Richard Clayderman discarded from his coming CD for being too trite.
Carl Sagan once memorably said that he tried 'not to think with his gut', yet by appealling equally to our intelligence and to the part of us that has been sequestered by Hollywood, I can't help thinking he has fallen between two stools. I would like to believe he wasn't involved in the final choice of music. His voice would have been enough for me, though something less intentionally moving in the background could have been added for those who dislike silences or who find the human voice too stark.
Still, I suspect I'm just an old cynic, especially as this all seems to have gone down a storm with those who say they miss Carl (Really? You miss someone you have never met?) and with those who thank him for giving us such beauty (Was this said with Carl Sagan in mind or was it more for the people of this website to read and marvel at the depth of feeling of the person commenting?). Where and when did we acquire such a cloying sensibility?

542. Dawkins transcendent

Comment #40043 by keith on May 12, 2007 at 8:00 pm

Much more to the point and of far more importance, what was Richard thinking of when he bought that donkey shown in the picture? Had he just come back from his holidays in Ibiza?

543. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32414 by keith on April 17, 2007 at 3:11 am

Whether right or wrong, I can't help but think that donations of $25 or $50 would be better spent in saving children's lives in Africa. Although I can see why the mother and boy might consider his foreskin worth the $20,000+ it has apparently already cost in legal fees and hence the same amount of money that could save hundreds of children's lives in undeveloped countries, I can't understand why they think we would make the same calculations and have the same priorities.

544. The Moral Necessity of Atheism

Comment #27338 by keith on March 24, 2007 at 5:50 am

Mind-rebel,
Re your comment that "although Hitchens is not a scientist, he does have a great grasp on many issues relevant to the progress of humankind".
I doubt that even Richard Dawkins would want to claim that the progress of mankind is a field almost exclusively for scientists, or even that they are per se the best judges on what is progress. However, I'm sure that Hitchens, voted no. 5 in the FP list of world intellectuals (Richard Dawkins was no. 3), will be relieved that you approve of his views.

545. Gimme That Old Time Religion (Bashing)

Comment #27334 by keith on March 24, 2007 at 5:27 am

Ho-hum. If it hadn't been such a long piece I might have made the effort to read it all but life is simply too short. However, from skimming I gathered that Atheists can criticise the religious - but not too much - and that moderates do not betray their own religion and rationality in equal meausure, as Sam Harris claims. Maybe if I'd believed the author was going to elucidate on why I might have read on. However, experience tells me the chances of him doing so were, if not actually zero, at least near enough to make it not worth the while. So, back to Football Focus...

546. Debate between Alister McGrath and Peter Atkins

Comment #27211 by keith on March 23, 2007 at 2:48 pm

Can someone explain this to me?
"I knew just enough astronomy to know that the light from some of those stars wouldn't hit earth for hundreds of years"
How could he be looking at light arriving from stars yet think that it wouldn't arrive until hundreds of years later?

547. Britain Proposes Allowing Schools to Forbid Full-Face Muslim Veils

Comment #26891 by keith on March 22, 2007 at 7:37 am

Jonecc,
Re your comment about the government 'Taking a hard line against civil liberties'. Is making rules about what is and isn't appropriate dress for everyone really your idea of taking a hard line? How about making children go to school? How about asking people not to drop litter on the floor? One man's hard line is another man's sensible step to take. I must confess that taking a hard line in my book consists of hanging someone upside down in a torture chamber and beating the soles of their feet until swollen. The problem with labelling the request for people not to wear face masks in public places as 'Taking a hard line against civil liberties' is that you are lost for words when describing a genuine hard line. I hardly need to add that civil liberties cut both ways. They also imply a responsibility of the individual to the society. It isn't purely one-way traffic.
I disagree with your point about the wearing of turbans being somehow equivalent to the wearing of the niqab. A turban, like a woolly hat or trilby, doesn't hide the face and at the end of the day, this is what the whole discussion is about. I would be equally against the wearing of full-face balaclavas, despite them having no religious significance.
I would also take issue with your point about Britishness being simply a matter of where you were born, though I have to be a little careful here. I think the influx of foreigners has in general been a positive thing and Hindus seem to have made a wonderful job of settling in, as have people from many other cultures. However, a small caveat: If you don't subscribe to many of the things that have shaped Britain, like democracy, freedom of speech, and a reluctance to take religion too seriously, then are you really as British as roast beef? Where do your allegiances really lie? Jonecc, you talk about us having to be aware of our 'historical baggage', presumably because you feel that Britain has been anything but Persil-white in its dealings with foreigners. But are you going to insist that British Moslems also feel this collective British guilt regarding our past? It would be silly to do so, but this is what logically leads from your definition of nationality and insistence on our historical baggage. Could it be that when you talk about 'historical baggage' you mean white British baggage? You're getting into awfully deep water if you insist on both equal Britishness for all but a history that only some of us feel is ours.
One or two more things while I'm in the mood. You repeatedly make the point that only a very small number of women actually wear the niqab. You say that no one in you area wears it. It would be necessary to find out where you live for this to have any meaning. Do you live on the Shetland Islands, for example? Either way, I would dispute this (I live in Leicester), but that is not really the point. The rights and wrongs of an issue are not related to how many people are involved. It is purely a question of whether the wearing of the niqab in public places is acceptable or not. It really doesn't matter if there is only one woman in the whole land.
You say, "I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of banning religious practices, though, if only because that brings us down to the level of the theists".
You could use the same logic and say, "I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of banning criminality, though, if only because that brings us down to the level of the criminal".
For me there is no logic here.

548. Britain Proposes Allowing Schools to Forbid Full-Face Muslim Veils

Comment #26881 by keith on March 22, 2007 at 6:19 am

Jonecc,
You say: "The question...is whether you make those girls better or worse off by banning it (the niqab)". This isn't, as you suggest, the only question, but one of them. It is not only the Moslem girls we have to think of here but the whole school and even more widely, society in general. You don't seem at all worried about the kind of message allowing one section of the school to do as they please would send out.
Neither does the fact that most of these girls would actually welcome a ban on the niqab enter your equation. Of course, given the choice, the parents would no doubt impose the niqab on them. In what way does this empower the girls or help them integrate into our society?
You go on to say: "If it's not allowed, the most likely response from their parents will be to withdraw the girls from state schools and put them in a private Muslim school". So what you're advocating is to allow the parents to hold a gun to our heads? Basically, they are saying, "Either you let us do what we want or we withdraw our children from your society". This is a democracy and this isn't how things work. You seem to be quite happy to bow to this threat. How this is different from the issue of the Danish cartoons, as you suggest, escapes me.
You continue: "The problem really is with the idea of school uniform. I've never liked the idea, I hated it when I was at school and I've never changed my view.
I'm sorry but you've missed the point here. The issue is not whether or not you disliked wearing school uniform when you were at school, interesting though this fact is. The issue is, rather, whether it is right to be able to wear what amounts to a full face mask in class, one which at the same time acts as a statement of one's beliefs. Would you allow a child to wear a balaclava with eye-holes cut into it if the child's religion demanded it. (Please note that Islam doesn't even demand the wearing of the niqab. It is a choice).
On another occasion we can talk about the pros and cons of school uniform - I actually support it, as the danger of not having the lastest Nike trainers and thus exposing some poorer children to the ridicule of their peers, seems to me to outweigh the danger of, well, uniformity of clothing. However, this is a separate discussion and not really relevant here.

549. Saving believers: Former Christian finds calling to preach the good news of atheism

Comment #26667 by keith on March 21, 2007 at 3:31 am

Cory,
Why does the word 'gift' in this context make me squirm with embarrassment? (You can almost hear the falsely-gentle voice in which it is uttered). A baby isn't a gift, it's a baby. A gift is something you receive from your family at Christmas or on your birthday. And why would you want to thank someone for a baby, even your wife? If she was doing you a favour in having it, then maybe there's something not quite right about your relationship. Shake the doctor briskly by the hand, thank the midwife and leave it at that.

550. Free Speech

Comment #25651 by keith on March 14, 2007 at 2:25 pm

To NMcC,
At least you only called my ideas 'tripe' and didn't resort to jibes about effeminacy, which was a relief.
The invasion of Iraq was for an accumulation of reasons which all tipped the scales in favour of intervention (in the eyes of Bush and Blair and Hitchens). Those reasons were human rights abuses, genocide, giving a refuge to terrorists, the fear that Sadam was trying to acquire nuclear weapons (which we now know to be the case), destabilisation of the region, the lack of cooperation with the weapons inspectors, the suspicion that he had WMD (which of course turned out to be false), and the belief that somewhere down the line there would have to be some kind of confrontation, either with Sadam or later with his sons. Leaving it until later might leave the choice of when it finally happened to Sadam.
Incidentally, Sadam said after the first Gulf War that his only mistake had been to invade Kuwait before he got the bomb, so you can see his mindset.
All these factors taken together made a reasonable case for intervention, factors that don't come together in any other country.
The reason America hasn't invaded Russia or China is partly because only a few of those above factors come together in those two countries and also for the reason that it would be suicide to do so (which you of course know). I sometimes tell children to pick up litter they have dropped in the street but I wouldn't dream of telling a gang of ten chain-wielding thugs to pick up their litter. To some this may appear to be a case of double standards or cowardice but it is really just good sense; I am not prepared to get beaten to a pulp for the sake of a dropped crisp packet. If the Americans wanted to start World War Three, invading Russia/China would be the best way to go about it. However, this does not mean that they can't intervene in the places where they are able to do so. You step in where you can. So I tell children to pick up their rubbish. (Please don't accuse me of calling Iraqis childish).
The reason Rwanda is different from Iraq is that it does not harbour any desires to acquire nuclear weapons or cause instability to other countries. I personally think the UN should have gone in there, but they didn't. Is that also the fault of the Americans? You might claim that had the Americans insisted, then the UN would have gone in. However, Iraq shows that the UN doesn't simply do what the Americans ask.
As regards your comment that the people of many countries other than Iraq suffer worse or equally bad treatment at the hands of their governments, that is something I doubt. The scale of the abuses in Iraq put it pretty much at the top of the list of human rights abuses. Of course the degree of abuse is all-important here. Just because one man was beaten up by the Swedish police would not constitute a reason for invading Sweden and thus the extent of abuse is crucial to a decision on when to intervene. My point is that even if abuse is bad in say, Tibet, is it really so bad that it requires an invasion.
Regarding the British police clearing away protesters from the streets (I didn't see it. Did the police really kick the protesters?) what is a government supposed to do? Let anyone who disagrees with its policies stop all traffic in the capital? Would your policy be to stop all talks with China?
Yep, I agree with you. Bush and Blair did lie about WMD. (Actually, exaggerate the danger might be a better description but I won't split hairs). However, for Hitchens, this never was a reason for going into Iraq. And yes, I do believe that Hitchens had the good of the Iraqi people at heart. Call me naive if you like, but if you should read more by him you might conclude that he really is a very moral and brave person too.
Yes, we both agree that the situation in Iraq is much worse now than before the war, everybody agrees with that. The thing we disagree about is whether this was inevitable from the start. I think that had the Americans and Brits put more effort into the basic needs of the Iraqi people straight after the war (water, electricity, repair of roads, jobs etc.), the intervention could have been a success.
The reason 'daddy' didn't finish off the job the first time round was that he was tied to a coalition who had signed up only to get Sadam out of Kuwait, not to change the Iraqi regime. Any further action would have been alone and even then the spectre of a power vacuum after deposing Sadam loomed. Perhaps he foresaw what junior and his advisors didn't. However, finally getting rid of Sadam this time round was not a private obsession of G. W. Bush's as you seem to suggest. The democrats under Clinton proposed the idea of regime change in Iraq in 1999, long before Bush came to power.
I realise that you're in good company here: Richard Dawkins, of course, was also against the war and I've never heard anyone speak more sense than him. And in the end I probably dislike Bush as much as anyone else, and I'm no fan of Tony Blair either. I just felt I ought to defend Hitchens from what I think was a crude caricature.