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Comments by epeeist


801. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162513 by epeeist on April 17, 2008 at 3:25 am

Comment #162508 by Egomaniac


I'm looking to find specific examples of the behavior I'm referring to (which I did see, believe it or not), but this thread is huge and I'm a little short on time, as it's late here. I will get back to you on that, though.

Can I be Al-Rawandi, can I, can I?

Time of death 10:24 UTC, reason "I am a little short of time"

802. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162499 by epeeist on April 17, 2008 at 3:13 am

Comment #162496 by clodhopper


Indeed. Quick registration. Lob a grenade or three. Run like fuck. Good name for it though.
I refer you (I was going to say my learned friend, but he fizzled too) to http://austhink.com/critical/

Quarrel dialogue is one of the dialogue types defined in informal logic.

803. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162495 by epeeist on April 17, 2008 at 3:07 am

Comment #162491 by Quetzalcoatl


Ironically, Annabanana did a post on her blog yesterday in which she commented on the increase of hit-and-run theists on RD.net, and suggested that they be ignored unless they have something salient to contribute. Perhaps I should have taken her advice.....
Ah well, as my mother would have said "Here's my head, my arse is coming later."

Egomaniac - I note that your registered on the site today. Could I ask you why? Could I also ask whether you were directed here from elsewhere, or did you come of your own accord?

804. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162489 by epeeist on April 17, 2008 at 2:59 am

Comment #162487 by Quetzalcoatl

I would first have to ask for examples of this looking-down" on others.
I would also like to point him at the discussions with the likes of "thisisme" and Kardashovel.

A classic example of initiating with the intent of generating quarrel dialogue.

805. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162480 by epeeist on April 17, 2008 at 2:45 am

Comment #162468 by Egomaniac

everybody has to start somewhere, don't they?
You know we had a poster the other day called Laphroaigman. He started off much like you, apparently he came here to broaden our horizons.

I offered him all sorts of topics to discuss, I was rather hoping he would take me up on the "International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea", but he disappeared without responding.

You wouldn't like to take up the challenge would you, how about the difference between vessels constrained by their draft and those restricted in their ability to manoeuvre as a starter?

806. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162463 by epeeist on April 17, 2008 at 2:27 am

Comment #162454 by Egomaniac


Bravo, my fellow atheists! Let's all give ourselves a big pat on the back for our intellectual superiority over the masses of peons that share our meaningless existence, yet like to delude themselves into thinking life is about anything more than self-praise and the belittling of inferiors!
You registered specifically to deliver this gem did you?

Ah well, at least you aren't trying to sell creationist DVDs.

807. Religious education as a part of literary culture

Comment #162462 by epeeist on April 17, 2008 at 2:24 am

Comment #162192 by hungarianelephant

Perhaps the bible's literary importance has waned these last few generations.
Are you considering the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland?

The former is (was?) essentially Catholic and there would have been less emphasis on the bible. As for whether it still is a force in the world then this gives some interesting reading - http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/05/02/catholic_church_withers_in_europe/

I caught a bit on the BBC Radio 4 news the other day about the recruitment of Catholic priests in Ireland, I can't find it at the moment. Briefly it indicated that nobody is applying, they had something like 28 recruits last year and parishes are being forced to amalgamate as priests retire.

808. Teacher Expelled Over Religion

Comment #162447 by epeeist on April 17, 2008 at 1:54 am

Comment #162419 by jesustweak


Quick, order your FREE! "Age of the Planet Earth" disk from Dr. Dino.
Hmm, someone who registered yesterday to advertise a creationist DVD.

Back under your bridge!

809. Evolution fray attracts top scientist

Comment #162446 by epeeist on April 17, 2008 at 1:47 am

Comment #162341 by thewhitepearl


why don't we just burn all of the literary texts and replace the educational curriculum with the teachings of the bible.
Ah yes, the bible - because all the works of science cannot equal the wisdom of cattle-sacrificing primitives who thought that every animal species in the world lived within walking distance of Noah's house.

810. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162424 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 11:51 pm

Comment #162423 by clodhopper


Yup...waste of time. Next time he comes to UK we'll just wizz him down to Sarrat for a debrief with Toby Esterhase.
Well that made me smile(y). I wonder how many other people will get it.

811. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162284 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 1:52 pm

Comment #162281 by al-rawandi

I am going home to karate chop a bible.
Having virtually karate chopped a total wingnut on this thread.

That we did miss you for Diacanu, I tried with one guy but it wasn't up to your standards - http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2394,Lying-for-Jesus,Richard-Dawkins,page31#161408

812. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162278 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 1:43 pm

Comment #162274 by al-rawandi

Bonzai became a Rabbi too. You should really try to keep up.
Yeah, and I have broken my blades a foot from the tips, given up fencing and turned them into knitting needles.

813. Evolution fray attracts top scientist

Comment #162275 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 1:41 pm

Comment #162269 by Steve Zara

I am over 40. Hence I have no idea of these "bot-nets" of which you write.
Phew, I can go on referring to anything containing the word "Kraken" to be a) something out of Greek mythology and b) a poem about the same by Tennyson then.

Memo to self: stop using telnet to get to the C & C servers and use ssh instead.

814. Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art

Comment #162267 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 1:23 pm

Total aside - my wife teaches at Withington Girls' School. One of the founders was C.P. Scott, editor and owner of the Manchester Guardian.

I suspect he would have spiked this article.

815. Evolution fray attracts top scientist

Comment #162266 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 1:19 pm

Comment #162262 by Steve Zara

Me, I think e-mail spamming is a far better way.
You wouldn't own a botnet called Storm by any chance?

816. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162245 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 12:34 pm

Comment #162241 by clodhopper

It comes out of the hills just north of Scunthorpe (I think).
Ah, that wonderful town whose inhabitants reputedly used to have all sorts of problems with filtering on search engines.

Mind you they had it easy compared with the denizens of Cockermouth.

817. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162232 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 12:13 pm

Comment #162173 by thisisme


Thanks for getting back. Here's my response to your points.
You seem to have had some positive, if critical, responses to your post. I hope you are not too overwhelmed.

The one thing that is fairly obvious is that you are arguing from a position of considerable weakness, if only because your exposure to these ideas seems to be somewhat limited.

Can I re-iterate my advice which has been supplemented by MPhil (someone who knows a lot more about the subject than most), step outside the box, go read some of the references that have been given to you.

Note to everyone else: do you think David Robertson will use this set of posts to show how nice we are to theists?

818. Evolution fray attracts top scientist

Comment #162224 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 11:47 am

Comment #162189 by Bigorra


While I am grateful for the work Harold Kroto is doing, some are only going to be swayed by hearing that he's a Nobel laureate, not because he can intelligently explain why there should be no debate in Florida or anywhere else.
I am with "tree with roots" (great moniker). Harry Kroto is one of the great communicators. I heard him a few years back talking about the discovery of buckyballs.

Really nice guy too, he came across to chat with my two daughters who were the youngest people in the room.

819. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162163 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 8:56 am

My ears are burning for some reason.

I am not sure intellectual laziness completely explains the boundedness in the understanding of many of the theists we get here. Intellectual laziness would surely mean they were aware of say, the works of Spinoza, but couldn't be arsed to get around to reading them.

What we seem to get is either the complete unawareness of anything that has happened in philosophy and science in the past couple of millenia, or an inaccurate view of them seen through the distortion of their presuppositions, or a complete unwillingness to even consider anything that runs counter to their faith.

820. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #162134 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 8:09 am

Comment #162132 by Artful_Dodger

Except when he states quite bluntly that he wants to KILL religious faith.
You have it wrong AD - he doesn't literally want to kill religious faith, its only a metaphor.

821. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162058 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 4:52 am

Comment #162051 by MPhil

I'm extremely interested in thisisme's response to my answer to him... not expecting much, though
I think you are probably right. I see him as reasonably intelligent and at least attempting to look for some answers. However I am not convinced he has attempted to step out of the god given absolute morality mindset (as yet?). Perhaps he has not explored other views.

I am constantly bemused, baffled and irritated by the majority of the theists that come to this site who not only have not read anything of other ethical systems but are not even aware that they exist.

822. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162003 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 1:57 am

Comment #161996 by thisisme


Was out all day yesterday and expected to find a response to my earlier questions on my reappearance today.
As you may have noticed we seem to have an infestation of trolls at them moment (not you I hasten to add).

One thing I would agree with though - this discussion is too 'spread out'. Maybe this isn't the best place to hold a debate.
You might want to suggest a formal debate on the fora. What subject would you want to raise?

Incidentally, if you have been advised to read Mackie's book on ethics this isn't really atheist. It just doesn't invoke a god of any kind. Lots of books don't mention gods, are they all atheist?

823. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161994 by epeeist on April 16, 2008 at 1:42 am

Comment #161971 by billright


Seeing that it's the 21st century, Instead of coming up with newer technospeak about the same old theories and their obvious oppositions...why not be so 'mad rad' and invent 'hybrid' theories that spend less time doing away with God (or god, gods, goddes...) and really use our imgaination.
Invent as many conjectures as you like, scientists do it all the time even though much of it may be at the mundane level.

Of course when you do come up with a conjecture you are going to have to subject it to some testing. If it doesn't pass a crucial test you are going to have to discard it. If it does pass a series of crucial tests but is less parsimonious than current theories that explain the current data, is less accurate or less fruitful of new research possibilities then people aren't going to beat a path to your door.

824. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #161708 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 2:18 pm

Comment #161218 by Artful_Dodger


Ther are clearly many theist philosophers and scientist that you have not had the chance to listen to. I actually think that there are a number of theist debaters from whom Dawkins is cutting and running before any engagement starts.
I missed this earlier.

Got to take your word for it. As a master of the cut and run you would know all about it.

825. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161694 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 2:09 pm

Comment #161680 by Steve Zara


[I gave up on a thread today when a theist was attempting to demonstrate using Bayes Theorem how the human brain could hold contradictory ideas (theism and science) without conflict.
I am reading a paper by Salmon on theory choice using subjective Bayesianism. Part of "Philosophy of Science, the Central Issues" by Curd and Cover.

I am still unsure as to how they get to the values of prior probabilities. I suppose your guys simply do what Plantinga appears to do, make values up that fit the answer they want to get to.

826. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161675 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 1:52 pm

Comment #161474 by navyjake95

Like it or not, I'll pray for you.
My daughter going to be out in Dharamsala in the summer helping with a women's refuge.

She at least will be making a difference in the world. Praying to non-existent entity might make you feel good but it does fuck all for anyone else.

827. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161437 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 9:42 am

Comment #161433 by MaxD


Hold on I am getting rained on by G-d droppings. Whatever they are.
Not much different from stepping in D_g droppings.

828. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161408 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 9:11 am

Comment #161406 by navyjake95


Woweeeeee! Your heart is filled w/bitterness and anger. Your own "intelligence" has allowed your pride to run your life. Is that your version of evolution?
You don't know me, you have never met me, I make one comment about you and you take it on board to make completely incorrect and grossly insulting conclusions about me.

Like it or not, you were created by God, and he has a plan for your life.
I hope not, otherwise he is going to be in severe trouble with my wife. She takes it very badly when someone else makes plans for me.
He changed my heart - and if you're not careful, he'll change yours too!!!!

Where's irate when you need him, looks as though I will have to do it myself.

Fucktard.

829. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #161267 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 4:49 am

Comment #161263 by Artful_Dodger


Steve, "external to the universe" does not mean that he does not interact with the universe. Obviously, creation means interaction.
And if he interacts then methodological interaction should give us the ability to investigate that interaction. Or is your god a bit like Sagan's dragon?

Of course you ca take the tack that so many of you have taken and simply airbrush Jesus Christ out of human history, and press on regardless of it.
No we don't. We ask for evidence. I suspect a fair number of people here would accept an historical Jesus. Where we would take issue is with the claim that he was the "son of god". All the supposed evidence for this comes via writings of cult members, hardly neutral.

830. The simple falsehood at the heart of Expelled

Comment #161249 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 4:21 am

Comment #161238 by BillySands

1073: Pope Gregory VII prohibited Jews from holding office in Christian Europe.
But those are all Catholics, not real Christians.

Perhaps you ought to have linked to this - http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Luther_on_Jews.html

831. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #161245 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 4:15 am

Comment #161225 by Artful_Dodger

So keeping God out of the picture (equation), in that sense, may make a lot of sense.

Artful - you keep blathering on about "God" as though there were only one. Hubris on your part.

I have been to Greece and seen the temples. Until you disprove the existence of Zeus and Apollo could I ask you to not bring your presuppositions into the arguments you make.

832. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #161242 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 4:09 am

Comment #161232 by irate_atheist


Epeeist - Could you wheel out your lemmata?

Certainly can - it is part of the "Fleabytes" thread in which Artful_dodger strangely avoids answering how to tell the difference between literal and metaphorical parts of the bible.

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2285,Fleabytes,Paula-Kirby,page38#135651

Because of the missing posts this doesn't seem to work.

Lemma 1: The Universe was created
Lemma 2: The creator of the universe is an omnipotent, omniscient being
Lemma 3: This being, having created the universe continues to play a part in the development of the universe and all that is in it
Lemma 4: This being is specifically the deity of a particular sect of people living in one small section of one small planet circling around particular star out of 1011 others in one galaxy out of 1.5*1011 others.
Lemma 5:All of this is documented in a book written approximately 2000 years ago

All the lemmas need to be demonstrated in turn. Once this has been done then you may actually have some claim to the truth of your religion.

833. Religious education as a part of literary culture

Comment #161233 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 3:50 am

Comment #161229 by Steve Zara

Steve - I think you have just been wootered.

834. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #161226 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 3:45 am

Comment #161224 by Quetzalcoatl


I agree with you for the most part, but some of the theist posters we get are honest and try to explain their positions properly without resorting to hit-and-run tactics. Brother John and Mark Taunton are excellent examples of this.
Agreed, to my shame I used a universal rather than existential quantifier.

835. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #161223 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 3:39 am

Comment #161218 by Artful_Dodger


As for the metaphorical / literal issue, I have answered that question, tho seemingly not to your satisfaction, which I would probably not do however long I spent on it.
No you haven't. You have made a few comments on specific pieces of the bible.

What you have not done is to provide some kind of general mechanism for saying what is literal and what is metaphor. Nor have you provided any argument as to how you gain the authority to make statements as to what is literal and what is metaphorical.

836. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #161219 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 3:36 am

Comment #161217 by Quetzalcoatl


I'd be surprised if he returns. He seems to be doing hit and run attacks on any thread with "Richard Dawkins" in the title at the moment.
I would be very surprised if I ever got an answer. However, I am not really doing it for his benefit. Like Jon_sociologists valiant attempts with wooter I am doing it to show the underlying insincerity and dishonesty of the theist posters we get and the lack of argument that they can muster.

837. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #161214 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 3:25 am

Comment #161209 by Artful_Dodger


Interesting discussion. I just hope that Dawkins will be equally willing to engage in a similar way with fellow-scientists who are not atheists.
The question is whether he would actually get answers from them. It seems to be that whenever someone asks a theist a hard question they cut and run.

Perhaps you could finally get around to actually telling us something about how one can tell the difference between what is literal and what is metaphorical in the bible. This and some extended questions can be found in the post below.

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2394,Lying-for-Jesus,Richard-Dawkins,page27#160334

I hope you aren't too busy, or have other things to do.

838. The simple falsehood at the heart of Expelled

Comment #161172 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 2:04 am

Comment #161161 by clearthinker

You stated that my post above was odious, lying and nasty.
No he didn't. He actually said
has been shown on this site to hold and promote particularly odious, lying and nasty ideas.
In other words, nothing about your particular post.

As for your post. Your first paragraph is ingenuous. There are numerous expositions of what actually happened with the people who were supposedly "expelled". Did you actually do any background research on this before you wrote it?

The supposed atheism/Nazism causality. Hitler was religious, his affiliation with orthodox Christianity is debatable. That he misused ideas from Darwin and Nietzsche is true, but this reflects on Hitler and not on Darwin or Nietzsche. That he extended the anti-Semitism that had been a part of German society since at least the time of Martin Luther ("The Jews and their Lies") is also true. That the collapse of German society can be attributed to the treaty of Versailles and world economic conditions is also a valid argument.

Does this give any substance to the claim that atheism is causally implicated in the rise of Nazism. Neither you or Ben Stein has come any where demonstrating this. I would probably go further and say that neither he nor you have even demonstrated even correlation between the two.

839. Religious education as a part of literary culture

Comment #161162 by epeeist on April 15, 2008 at 1:35 am

Comment #161160 by Grumpy Max

I hate Shakespeare - I think he SUCKED and I didn't learn a single thing by reading him. Even the movies suck.
I know this is meant to be an oasis of free thought, but...STONE THE HERETIC!
The OP isn't quite as eloquent as Tolstoy, but has very much the same opinion.

Now I know Tolstoy is dead, but do you want to stone him as well?

840. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161142 by epeeist on April 14, 2008 at 11:29 pm

Comment #161047 by MaxD


I think part of the reason for this is that two sports dominate here in the states and they occupy all the major talent
We have the same thing here, with football (soccer) swamping virtually everything else.

But this is not dissimilar to having large supermarkets and brand name stores dominating and homogenising all our towns and a small number of parties dominating both national and local government.
Also did David Robertson or Artful ever offer a satisfactory answer to the metaphor questions?
You need to ask?

841. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160882 by epeeist on April 14, 2008 at 2:09 pm

Comment #160825 by al-rawandi


The guy will come back, once all the important issues have been forgotten, then we will be at square one again. I doubt he will be broadening anything save my definition of annoying.
Personally I take my mother's attitude. To paraphrase her, everyone brings joy to the site, some when they arrive, some when they leave.

842. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160821 by epeeist on April 14, 2008 at 12:36 pm

Comment #160816 by navyjake95


Dude...just read your article, and I must say - you're clearly "unnerved" about something. It's been my experience (for 50 years), that people who behave like you did (in your article), do so because they're deeply afraid of Jesus.
Why should Dude be afraid of a possibly non-existent preacher from an iron age Semitic tribe?

I'll pray for you - In spite of hatred and name-calling. God loves you dude!
To quote another poster from this site - "Well, I'll think of you the next time I am having a shit, the effect will be the same"

Does anyone here know of a poster called "Dude"?

843. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160775 by epeeist on April 14, 2008 at 11:36 am

Comment #160763 by al-rawandi


My father was a quite good fencer at University here in the US. I don't know if that is comparable to English fencing.
I am being generic here, so don't take it as trying to characterise your father. Fencing in the States used to be crap, but like a lot of other countries they have bought in East European coaches as the Soviet Union collapsed and their game has improved enormously, they are now winning gold medals at world level. This is especially true for women's sabre where a Russian called Nazlymov is in charge.

Britain is gradually improving, largely as the impact of Hungarian and Polish coaches gradually works through. One of the guys I coach with is a Hungarian who had 4th and 5th places in the Olympics, he recently had one of his pupils take bronze at the world under-17 championships.

To switch back to topic (boring I know), do you thing Laphroaigman will come back? If so do you want to hazard a guess as to how he wants to broaden our horizons?

844. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160758 by epeeist on April 14, 2008 at 11:21 am

Comment #160664 by laphroaigman

Personally I don't find your scary capitals or bad French to be threatening at all.

I came here to a) learn where you all are coming from, b) to posit some questions that just might get some of you thinking in broader terms, and c) to try and be reasonable..
Always glad to learn something new and to have my horizons broadened. What do you want to talk about?

I can do the differences in styles in modern French, Italian and Hungarian fencing coaching methods, music in Tudor England (I don't do the history of the period, for that you will need a professional historian, someone like Cartomancer), somewhat outdated quantum mechanics from when I did my Ph.D, I know an amount about evolution (though again someone like maxD or Steve Zara would be better) but can't do it in detail, enough about the philosophy of science to know that Intelligent Design isn't science (though you would want a professional philosopher like MPhil, Quine or Spinoza if you want more depth). I don't really do theology, you would want someone who actually did that at University, Al-Rawandi would be a good choice. I am not sure what qualifications Billy Sands or the Rev. Shayne Dark have in the subject but they seem to do it pretty well.

Its a time back but I could do the International Regulations for the Prevention of Collision at Sea, I used to teach the shore based Yachtsman Offshore course.

So where do you want to go?

845. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160650 by epeeist on April 14, 2008 at 8:56 am

Comment #160614 by Quetzalcoatl

Has anyone noticed that we've been getting a lot of trolls on the site recently? I wonder what the cause is.
Well the last time it happened was just before the publication of Vox Day's book. Is there something going to happen shortly that is similar to this?

Personally, if people are coming here from some Ben Stein/Discovery Institute fine site then I wonder whether we will get the chance of a Christian blowjob again.

846. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160638 by epeeist on April 14, 2008 at 8:50 am

Comment #160607 by al-rawandi

Type "A" personality, combined with ADD, and the details of the English language are completely lost.
Fine, now I know I won't bother you again about it.
What is the prescribed punishment for this transgression? Force me to read old tabloid articles on Princess Dianna?
I'm afraid you are going to have to do an extended Paula, read all the flea books and write a review of them...

847. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160590 by epeeist on April 14, 2008 at 8:06 am

Comment #160581 by al-rawandi


Because in the American athletic world, using someone's last name is a means of appreciation and a sign of acceptance.
That wasn't the problem.

Almost inevitably you refer to her as "Brenway" not "Benway" and in my anal-retentive British way it just niggles me.

848. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160583 by epeeist on April 14, 2008 at 8:02 am

Comment #160572 by thisisme


I'm glad someone above found my small input 'valuable' anyway.
Don't do what a lot of theists do, and Al-Rawandi hints at. Namely disappearing because "I am busy now" when difficult questions occur. Your posts are spread out and fairly fragmentary. As such you are going to be vulnerable, as Kardashovel has noted, to the pile-on effect.

Could I suggest that you take some time out, read the referencs that Al-Rawandi and I have given you, formulate a coherent version of your views and come back with that. It should make discussion much more productive.

849. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160567 by epeeist on April 14, 2008 at 7:49 am

Comment #160554 by al-rawandi

Brenway,
Just because reading it gives me a little frisson of irritation - is there any particular reason why you misspell Dr. Benway's name?
Notice thisisme is quite "busy" at the moment, but shall vouchsafe us some valuable wisdom... in abridged fashion.
As well as your reference MPhil pointed me at J.L. Mackie's "Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong". I am finding it stimulating. Why is it that the theists who come here and argue about ethics don't seem to have read any Aristotle, Kant or Spinoza? Or even McIntyre

850. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160531 by epeeist on April 14, 2008 at 7:27 am

Comment #160510 by laphroaigman


Too funny... I make a point that the Dawkins apologists are always resorting to ad-hominem and/or personal attacks, and then my very first post is responded to with things like:

You come to the site, make an assertion that someone is a hypocrite and intellectually dishonest, talk about "atheist hordes", rant with SCARY CAPITALS and little coherence and then you wonder why people deride you?

Did you come here to have a reasonable discussion, or simply to engage in quarrel dialogue? If the former then look at Kardashovel's posts and the responses he gets. Personally though, I think you are really here to vent your apoplectic ire and besmirch the name of a good whisky.

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