51. Nurses Told to Turn Muslims' Beds to Mecca

Comment #94214 by CJ22 on December 5, 2007 at 3:14 am

"Yes, a quick tug from matron is the answer."

You only get that in private hospitals

52. Evolution and Texas

Comment #94209 by CJ22 on December 5, 2007 at 3:05 am

It never ceases to amaze me how mendacious the so-called 'pious' are prepared to be, seemingly at the drop of a hat. Therein lies the danger of moderate religion I suppose - you can use that faith to justify any manner of wickedness and stupidity. As long as it's for Jebus or Big Mo, anything is justified.

53. Bah, Hanukkah

Comment #94206 by CJ22 on December 5, 2007 at 3:00 am

"He died for our Yens!"
Brilliant.

I think this article is not to be taken as a serious plea to abandon the holiday. But it's important to rattle cages and to challenge uncritical assumptions sometimes.

54. Why debate dogma?

Comment #92233 by CJ22 on November 30, 2007 at 5:35 am

Fighting religious lunacy on a case-by-case basis is like engaging in a gigantic game of whack-a-mole, and I'm sure the theocrats will be highly delighted to encourage you to do that.

We won't get anywhere until we make our cultures unfriendly to religion in particular, and superstition in general.

55. Turkey probes atheist's 'God' book

Comment #91407 by CJ22 on November 28, 2007 at 8:43 am

If I had the money to do it, I'd sue a bible publisher or a Qu'ran publisher for incitement to religious hatred. I'm pretty sure I could make a cast-iron case too.

56. Mitt the Mormon

Comment #91185 by CJ22 on November 27, 2007 at 1:59 pm

Let him, like Tony Blair, hide his beliefs. This is a tacit admission that there is something to hide - that the beliefs are derisory or tendentious.

57. 2006 Charles Simonyi Lecture: 'Can the Internet Save The Enlightenment?'

Comment #90863 by CJ22 on November 26, 2007 at 2:15 pm

Cheers Josh. What's it about?

58. Bankrolling Ali's Asylum

Comment #90861 by CJ22 on November 26, 2007 at 2:14 pm

On a technical point, it's probably better to donate than to buy another copy of the book. The percentage of the cover price of a book that the author actually gets is quite low.

59. URGENT APPEAL: Please Help Protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #90323 by CJ22 on November 24, 2007 at 10:14 am

@Fanusi Khiyal: I meant to say in my original post that I found your comments to be particularly scabrous. Thanks for reminding me so eloquently.

60. URGENT APPEAL: Please Help Protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #89934 by CJ22 on November 22, 2007 at 7:40 am

Hi Ian, thanks for your reply to my comment. I disagree with everything you said in it, but I respect your right to say it ;)

61. URGENT APPEAL: Please Help Protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #89900 by CJ22 on November 22, 2007 at 4:56 am

The self-righteous moral bullying that has gone on in this thread, aided, to my horror, by Josh, is frankly sickening. We're all supposed to be skeptical thinkers for goodness sake. We don't attack, censor or bully people for asking the skeptical questions. I'm not even going to bother deconstructing the arguments, it hardly matters. I'm really crushed by what's gone on in this thread, sincerely.

62. Response to Dinesh D'Souza op-ed

Comment #85787 by CJ22 on November 7, 2007 at 5:36 am

Christ on a bike Dower, can't you see the guy's been trying to make peace with you for YOUR misinterpretation of HIS bad joke for the last 6 posts? Chill the f**k out man!

63. Response to Theodore Dalrymple

Comment #85775 by CJ22 on November 7, 2007 at 4:36 am

"Third, the metaphysical difficulties of human existence are considerable, and I do not think the abandonment of religion would make things any easier."

Au contraire, without religion, most of the "metaphysical difficulties of human existence" softly and silently vanish away.

64. A House Divided: Hitch at Georgetown

Comment #85138 by CJ22 on November 5, 2007 at 4:59 am

Extremism is the failure to notice the simple truth that there are exceptions to every rule.

65. Lessons in hate found at leading mosques

Comment #83748 by CJ22 on October 31, 2007 at 6:06 am

Surely selling these books is 'incitement to religious hatred' isn't it? Sauce for the goose...

66. If you don't accept the supernatural, you obviously think life is depressing, meaningless and cold

Comment #83609 by CJ22 on October 30, 2007 at 3:59 pm

"Isn't it enough to believe a garden is beautiful, without having to believe there are faeries at the bottom of it?" ~Douglas Adams

67. Atheists don't believe in anything

Comment #82312 by CJ22 on October 26, 2007 at 3:19 am

I usually counter this one with:

"Everybody is an atheist. Do you believe in Shiva The Destroyer? No? Do you believe in Jove, Greatest Of All The Gods? No? You're an atheist about 99.9% of all the thousands of gods invented by man over the millennia. I just go one God further than you. It's a perfectly reasonable working hypothesis that if all those Gods are wrong, yours is liekly to be wrong too"

Tricksy moderate theists will often counter this with:

"Ah but they're all just different interpretations of the same deity - God shows himself in different way in different times"

I counter this with:

"In that case, why go to church? Why don't you drink? Why do you feel sex outside of marriage is a sin? If all these interpretations are equally valid, why choose one over the other?"

When you start to pin them down on this, it usually turns out that they truly believe that THEIR interpretation is the correct one, in which case go back to the beginning and start again.

68. American kids, dumber than dirt: Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history

Comment #81717 by CJ22 on October 25, 2007 at 4:59 am

@Philip1978 "To give you an example, the Government wants to charge higher council taxes for those who recycle more..."

Hmmm, no they want to charge more for people who DON'T recycle. They want to charge a surplus for unrecycled waste. But apart from that, you're right :)

The most worrying thing for me is that it's become 'cool' to be stupid. The influence of nanny-statism and the ever-present woo-woo industry has caused people to sneer at intellectualism generally, and rational thinking in particular. How many times do you hear some nitwit say "Science!" like it's a bleeding pejorative? Using your mind is nerdy, being a gormless loser is where it's at, innit? To such an extent that I KNOW that otherwise intelligent kids are obliged to cultivate a persona of fake dimwittery just to get by.

But it's no big suprise. Government wants good little drones, not a chattering class of intellectual boat-rockers. Religion is FOUNDED on that principle, and would be long gone without it. Couple that with school systems that don't have the time and resources to do much other than churn out a semi-productive workforce, and the trend seems inevitable.

69. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #81713 by CJ22 on October 25, 2007 at 4:42 am

"Atheists don't believe in anything"

On the contrary, I believe in lots of things: (list). As do other atheists. They believe a wide range of things, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't. The only thing we have in common, and the only thing you can infer from the term 'atheist', is that we don not believe in any gods or God. My believing gland is as fully formed as yours, but there is no evidence to support the idea of supernatural deities, and I don't believe in things which there is no good reason to believe in - that's called being delusional.

70. Help Counter the New Atheist Crusade to 'Evangelize' America!

Comment #79417 by CJ22 on October 17, 2007 at 8:23 am

We should all apply for our free copy of Dr. Kennedy's classic book Skeptics Answered immediately. Drain their resources :) I wonder if they'll do international postage?

71. Richard Dawkins receives the Deschner Prize

Comment #78844 by CJ22 on October 15, 2007 at 4:13 am

Gratz Prof.

72. Fiction or prediction?

Comment #77902 by CJ22 on October 11, 2007 at 4:28 am

I thought Aldiss long dead - kinda surprised to find he's still alive and writing. Must go find out what he's published since I last checked.

73. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77342 by CJ22 on October 9, 2007 at 5:07 am

I'm rather disapointed in the mis-representations in this article. I agree she needs to be protected, but I can see why a democratically elected government that is responsible for how it spends it's citizen's tax money might look twice at this issue. They already seem to have gone the extra mile and Hitch seems to be complaining they weren't prepared to throw in a free car as well. Oh well, hope it gets sorted out satisfactorily.

74. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72405 by CJ22 on September 21, 2007 at 2:10 am

"We don't think of God like that as simply an inhabitant of the universe."

Hmpf, you might not do chum, but I assure you lots of other people do. The mormons think God lives on a planet, for goodness sake. Once again we see an example of the moderate obscurantists assuming that everyone believes what THEY believe. You have to wonder if its really the fundies who are the arrogant ones...

75. Fossils Reveal Clues on Human Ancestor

Comment #72403 by CJ22 on September 21, 2007 at 1:57 am

"for improved terrestrial locomotor performance,"

"improved walking capability", perhaps?

This is important for many reasons, but one that springs to mind immediately is that it puts one more nail in the coffin of the oft cried theist refrain "there are no transitional fossils". Not that it needed any more nails from a scientific point-of-view, but it's always nice to be able to point to an easily understood example.

76. 'Root of All Evil? The Original Program' available now on DVD

Comment #71968 by CJ22 on September 20, 2007 at 2:56 am

I ordered this and the interviews DVD (and a lapel pin - wouldn't be seen dead in the t-shirt :) ).

Must admit I do resent having to ship this stuff over from the States (and paying overseas postage charges), but maybe I'm just being proprietary about a British national treasure :) I also resent the DVDs only being available in the lesser quality NTSC, but what can you do?

Hopefully those will be waiting for me to watch when I get back from my vacation.

77. VOTE on the 'Faith smackdown': Richard Dawkins vs Francis Collins

Comment #71959 by CJ22 on September 20, 2007 at 2:18 am

I like that Ian: Life is not a symphony, but a piece of jazz.

78. In Depth: Christopher Hitchens

Comment #71355 by CJ22 on September 18, 2007 at 2:08 pm

3 Hours! Woo what a treat. Thanks Josh and Linda, watching now.

79. Griffin's 'offensive' Emmy speech to be censored

Comment #69660 by CJ22 on September 12, 2007 at 5:02 am

"except generally only a few people here are worth reading"

Suck it, NormanDoering!

80. Creationism raised as Ont. election issue

Comment #68401 by CJ22 on September 7, 2007 at 4:33 am

The leader of the conservatives is called Mr. "Tory"?? Hahah.

81. Court bans Christian cross on private land in public park

Comment #68400 by CJ22 on September 7, 2007 at 4:30 am

Agreed, wendelin. The article writer clearly took a stance on the issue.

82. Bible Belter

Comment #68146 by CJ22 on September 6, 2007 at 8:51 am

"I once had a televised encounter with a leading "moderate" Muslim, of the kind who gets a knighthood or a peerage for not being an "extremist"."

Bwahahahahah!

83. The God Delusion One-Year Countdown

Comment #67917 by CJ22 on September 5, 2007 at 6:53 am

In the UK, it's "a fuckload".

84. Like any half-decent atheist, I'm fond of a bit of religion

Comment #67857 by CJ22 on September 5, 2007 at 2:28 am

"Is there, I wonder, something called an atheist heretic?"

No, get over yourself. There's no dogma to be heretical about: you created the straw man yourself then attacked it. This article is remarkably self-absorbed.

85. 'Root of All Evil? The Uncut Interviews' Released on DVD

Comment #67850 by CJ22 on September 5, 2007 at 2:04 am

It's NTSC, but region-free. Just check your DVD and/or TV is capable of duel-format (most modern machines will be).

86. The God Delusion One-Year Countdown

Comment #67639 by CJ22 on September 4, 2007 at 5:04 am

Was this just an excuse to try out the countdown applet Josh? ;)

87. Christopher Hitchens on BookTV

Comment #67638 by CJ22 on September 4, 2007 at 5:01 am

Oh this is gonna be good! Thanks all those making the efforts to make this stuff available to us all. Of all the musketeers and their colleagues, I think Hitchens is probably the one whom I agree with the least but enjoy hearing speak the most.

88. Christopher Hitchens and Bill Donohue on Mother Teresa

Comment #66485 by CJ22 on August 30, 2007 at 5:44 am

Surely, he's an American now.

89. Teresa, Bright and Dark

Comment #66481 by CJ22 on August 30, 2007 at 5:28 am

On the other hand, it's the kind of attitude I sometimes have to take, when faced with believers who see any expression of uncertainty as a chink in your armour. You try and tell them "when I don't know something, that doesn't mean your particular deity has the answer either", but it's not the best use of my time...

Yeah that pinged my attention too. I get it...sort of like this: "While technically speaking, absence of evidence may indeed not be evidence of absence, the bastards have had 2000 years to find any shred of evidence and have so far come up with nada. There comes a point where the CONSPICUOUS absence of evidence should, in any reasonable world-view, indicate absence as a working hypothesis."

You sound disturbingly like one of Brian's followers in 'The Life Of Brian'

Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: Yes, we're all individuals!
Man: I'm not...

90. I'm gonna be a MOVIE STAR

Comment #65411 by CJ22 on August 24, 2007 at 5:34 am

"a bowel full"?

91. In Google Earth, a Service for Scanning the Heavens

Comment #64857 by CJ22 on August 22, 2007 at 5:19 am

If it's half as addictive as Google Earth, then it should be very cool.

92. Good luck, Dawkins!

Comment #63868 by CJ22 on August 16, 2007 at 1:15 pm

I must admit when I saw the name I too thought "isn't that the woman who had a go at RD after TGD came out", so we're obviously both thinking of somebody else.

93. Atheists and believers have got religion wrong

Comment #63603 by CJ22 on August 15, 2007 at 3:55 am

In a just and fair world, these ideas would be no more harmful than the irrational following people have for football teams.

Ponders the images of football fans beating the crap out of each other and uninvolved passers-by, and wonders if Mark has thought this through.

94. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63365 by CJ22 on August 14, 2007 at 3:08 am

IIRC, doesn't Wright have a regular phone-in astrology segment in his show? He's hardly liekly to collude with RD in mocking astrology if he has to look his astrologer in the eye an hour later :)

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

Comment #62568 by CJ22 on August 10, 2007 at 6:33 am

I'm pretty sure that the commandments to love thy neighbour in the old testament only apply to other Jews (I think the professor covered this in TGD). So the rabbi quoted by Mr. Lawson might have been more accurate to say "[Love thy Jewish neighbour as thyself.] is the whole of the Torah; anybody else can be slaughtered, raped and sold into slavery with God's indulgent approval". Modern Christianity is still guilty of chronic in-group -building behavior, on many levels, to the pain and detriment of many.

Some ethics. Some God. If that's your moral high-ground I have to warn you you're camped on a volcano.

Call me naive but it seems to me that the majority of Christians don't not believe in an afterlife (heaven and hell) or the divinity of Jesus or the existence of God. Lawson's attempt to make this world view appear to be a straw man is...troubling.

Nonetheless, this is a polite, thoughtful article that does at least try to address the issues that RD raises, instead of just ignoring them or denouncing them without providing an argument, as so many theist apologists do.

96. Another Flea is Born

Comment #62561 by CJ22 on August 10, 2007 at 5:58 am

It's Huxley, a mirror copy of this pic:

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/b/b7/180px-Thomas_Henry_Huxley_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_16935.jpg

97. Scarlet Letter Campaign Update: A Victory

Comment #62553 by CJ22 on August 10, 2007 at 5:00 am

It does beg the question of whether a parody that's so hard to distinguish from a real website isn't as damaging as a real one would be, to those taken in by it.

98. Public Debate on Complexity and Evolution

Comment #61312 by CJ22 on August 4, 2007 at 3:02 pm

Cheers Yorker, something to listen to when I go for my walk tomorrow :)

99. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60519 by CJ22 on August 2, 2007 at 5:49 am

[quote]As I said most of this website bears all the characteristics of the most religious fundamentalist website.[/quote]

Ah. Can you point me to the calls for Jihad, book burning, expression of longing for the apocalypse, discussions on how to exorcise a child without killing them, calls for people of alternate sexuality to be put to death etc., discussions on just [i]how much[/i] God hates this that or the other? I must have missed them in my browsing.

Your attempts to paint atheists as fundamentalist is starting to sound like Tourettes. I know your religion is based on the principle of 'repeating something often enough makes it true', but I take exception to you attempting to make us into something any rational person would see we are not, just to make it easier for you to dismiss us.

By repeating the phrase 'fundamentalist atheist' constantly, you are attempting to close down thought and discussion on the issue, exactly what you claim to be criticizing. I call hypocrite.

Just because somebody is confident of their position doesn't make them a fundamentalist. I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of atheists on this forum would say they would be willing to change their mind about the existence of a deity if sufficient evidence were given to them - in what way is that 'fundamentalist'? Can you offer the same in reverse? Again, hypocrite.

But you're a smart man, and you know all this. That makes you a mendacious hypocrite.

Bizarrely though, even if we excepted that what you say is true...what does that get you? That atheists are as bad as theists, so there? Weak man, very weak.

100. CNN Debate on Koran in Toilet

Comment #60511 by CJ22 on August 2, 2007 at 5:31 am

I choked on my cereal when he said that SB :)