51. Letter From America: Atheists throw down the gauntlet

Comment #15873 by Seti on January 3, 2007 at 12:22 pm

This guy would probably describe himself as a "moderate" - and he's excatly the sort Richard is talking about when he says they're dangerous. They close their eyes to the extremism in their own camp, and because of this fail to perceive why atheists have felt they have to stand up and protest about what is happening.

I - and I suspect most of us - would be more than happy to leave beleivers alone, happy in their delusions, if they would simply acknowledge that all they have is a beleif, and that does not give them the right to dictate how others should live (or die) or to demand financial support from our taxes, or to infiltrate their delusions into the minds of other people's children.

52. Ghosts in the Machine

Comment #15340 by Seti on December 30, 2006 at 1:41 pm

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

53. Oh, we Brits of little faith

Comment #14791 by Seti on December 25, 2006 at 5:03 am

More tosh.

54. How the Great Atheist got polite society standing

Comment #14790 by Seti on December 25, 2006 at 4:51 am

Usual tosh, with a few ad-hominems thrown in for good measure.

55. A Christmas thunderbolt for the arch-enemy of religion

Comment #14788 by Seti on December 25, 2006 at 4:50 am

Usual tosh. Just longer.

56. The Only One in Step

Comment #14438 by Seti on December 22, 2006 at 12:45 pm

Comment # 14429 Posted by Joadist: "When man tires to apply his science to the works of God, he creates errors of magnitude."

Or vice-versa. Why is scientific evidence good enough for brain surgery, building aeroplanes or... um... discovering the second law of thermodynamics, but when it comes to the "works of God" it all falls down? As Galileo said, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." If Galileo had lived in our post-Darwin world, he would not have been quite so compromising.

57. Now we know how to make the IDists dance in their petticoats: blaspheme.

Comment #14238 by Seti on December 21, 2006 at 3:30 pm

Oh, wow, I'm like totally converted (not!)

Actually I don't understand any of that, and I'm fairly well-read. It's a classic trick they pull - they pick up bits and pieces from all over the place, shovel in a heap of scientific-sounding terms, and you'd have to be an expert in about a dozen esoteric scientific disciplines to refute all of them. Or trail around the 'net getting explanations of each one from people who do understand.

I just ask myself "So how did the kangaroos get to Australia after the flood?"

58. Beneath The Surface

Comment #13997 by Seti on December 20, 2006 at 2:36 pm

Very good. A professional interviewer, well-researched and not there just to hear the sound of his own voice. Let's hope that this "upsurge" of atheists in America he spoke of is really going to get a head of steam.

59. Richard Dawkins on the Mike Dickin Show

Comment #13976 by Seti on December 20, 2006 at 11:49 am

Very sorry to hear about Mike's death. The world needs all the intelligent people it can get.

And if perchance he has found himself at the Pearly Gates, I bet he's telling "god" right now to stop being so bluddddy stupid!

60. Richard Dawkins on the Mike Dickin Show

Comment #13526 by Seti on December 18, 2006 at 5:17 am

That was brilliant. Richard as always was impeccably polite - except now-and-then when a comment was particularly stupid. But Mike Dickin really doesn't take any prisoners, does he?

61. The Grinch Delusion: An Atheist Can Believe in Christmas

Comment #13376 by Seti on December 17, 2006 at 10:29 am

Felix dies natalis solis invicti. Doesn't run off the tongue as easily as Merry Christmas. But since it's quite likely that Jesus was a personification of the undefeated sun anyway, I see no problem in re-appropriating the word.

As for the commercialisation - I bet if our ancient forebears had had shopping malls they would have indulged in just as much conspicuous consumption. That was the whole point. It was a challenge to the darkness, a declaration of confidence in the returning sun - "Splash out, chaps, the sun is returning and we'll be able to replenish the stocks. Tell the Druids to stop mithering about forgetting the spiritual side - this weird box just fell from the sky, and it's showing a Bond movie and the twenty-seventh re-run of Only Fools and Horses."

62. Richard Dawkins on The Sunday Edition

Comment #13375 by Seti on December 17, 2006 at 10:19 am

Oh dear - that was sad. I knew Tony many years ago in Bristol, and really liked him, and I've always had enormous respect for his debating skills. When I saw this, I thought - "Ah - at last. Someone to give Richard a real work-out." Sadly, no. Tony has had to retreat into the only viable position for a rational man trying to hold onto the beleifs his mother taught him to respect - he's watered them down so far, they've almost disappeared.

63. Science Weekly for December 11: Creationism special

Comment #12920 by Seti on December 14, 2006 at 11:48 am

Bacterial flagellum again. It's rather pathetic that the "God of the Gaps" has been reducted to what is functionally a bacterium's ****hole.

64. Richard Dawkins on The Late Late Show with Pat Kenny

Comment #12167 by Seti on December 11, 2006 at 3:53 am

@ point 4 (above) I suspect atheists are perceived as "condescending" because somewhere in the brains of theists is the recognition that they are talking utter codswallop, and atheists call them on this. The cognitive disonnance between what their reason tells them and what they insist on trying to beleive must be quite painful, hence their panic and anger at anyone who increases the disonnance by attempting to add to the rational side.

Self-labelled "ex-atheists" are rather to be pitied. For them, the disonnance must be even more powerful, as once their rational mind was able to see clearly. But they had never dealt with the emotional needs which cause people to cling to the notion of a Big-Daddy-Inna-Sky who will sort everything out for them. In the end, the emotional needs won, at the price of their sanity.

Or else, of course, they are just lying. They were never atheists at all. Sadly, good xians seem very prone to lie. Of course we shouldn't be surprised at that. For them, beleif trumps evidence every time.

65. Sunday Sequence with William Crawley

Comment #12095 by Seti on December 10, 2006 at 2:22 pm

It's also on You-Tube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=HyKqhvF-6tI

[admin note: I've posted this set of 3 videos HERE. ]

66. The Atheist Delusion: a pisspoor presentation

Comment #11955 by Seti on December 8, 2006 at 2:41 pm

Nice one! Sometimes it gets tricky to tell the spoofs from the "real" thing (I assume you've seen the evidence from bananas vid?) but this one sails beautifully down the line.

67. Intelligent Design: The Clincher. A butterfly explodes the theory

Comment #11691 by Seti on December 6, 2006 at 2:39 pm

The ultimate clincher against intelligent design is the toe-nail. Only a total idiot could have designed that.

68. The God Delusion in Private Eye

Comment #11687 by Seti on December 6, 2006 at 2:32 pm

Great Scot! They've swiped my Xmas pressy list!

69. O Come All Ye Unfaithful

Comment #11198 by Seti on December 3, 2006 at 4:40 pm

It never ceases to amaze me how Richard manages to hold his temper with some of those determinedly ignorant people who ask such utterly ridiculous questions - and pretty much the same question over and over again, with only minor variations. He must have the patience of... ooops, am I allowed to say "saint" on here?

70. The God Delusion? Part 1

Comment #7817 by Seti on November 19, 2006 at 2:12 pm

Dawkins answers all of this with his quote from Douglas Adams. "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful, without having to beleive there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

71. Dawkins's version of the deity does not exist

Comment #7481 by Seti on November 18, 2006 at 3:34 pm

Richard has no awareness of God existing entirely outside the Universe? Has he actually read the book? The whole premise is that belief in the supernatural - ie existing outside the natural universe - is a delusion.

And note the sleight-of-hand - moral behaviour requires a moral choice which requires free will. Why can't moral sense be an instinct? Oh - because then it couldn't be used to "prove" that humans are essentially different to animals. Except that some animals, rather inconveniently, appear to have a moral sense too.