51. U.S. Congress Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith

Comment #98215 by BicycleRepairMan on December 13, 2007 at 9:24 am

To the people screaming Armageddon over this I can at least offer some consolidation, I come from one of the LEAST religious countries in the world, Norway, and we don't even HAVE church-state separation over here, its no big deal that the government spends millions of dollars (or kroner) on support to the churches, we have a cross in our flag, and we are a monarchy. The point is, as much as I'd like these things to change, in the end what matters is how society actually works.

I guess that with as many Christians as the US has, it might be much more important to hold on to the formal separation to ensure equality for the law. I guess to most representatives this is a damned if you do, damned if you dont vote dilemma, on the one hand, it is a violation of the constitution, on the other, its a sure way to ensure that your not anti-Christ.

52. The empty myths peddled by evangelists of unbelief

Comment #97095 by BicycleRepairMan on December 11, 2007 at 11:56 am

Looks like we are back to square one again, Dawkins does something public (an interview on Have Your Say) and the same nonsense comes back once again, "Hitler/Stalin/Mao", this time from a Fox news house-priest, and now "Atheism is also a religion" from this nutter.

Seriously folks, you just HAVE to do better than this. Please, for the love of Goodness, atleast TRY to come up with a good argument in support of Gods existence, just one. Infact, forget "good" , just an argument.

This is just getting boring.

53. Laugh at Sudan

Comment #97010 by BicycleRepairMan on December 11, 2007 at 9:13 am

I challenge you, sir, to a duel!!!

You forgot to add "..You Godless Heathen!" to fill my daily dose of puns.

54. Merry Mithras 2007

Comment #95350 by BicycleRepairMan on December 8, 2007 at 5:16 am

For these reasons, it is so bitterly ironic when that FOXnews gay priest screams at that "Tree of Knowledge" displaying atheist woman that "CHRISTMAS IS A CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY!!!"

I mean, arent EVEN THESE facts part of the theological education?

55. The God Delusion in Turkey

Comment #95348 by BicycleRepairMan on December 8, 2007 at 4:52 am

From what I can glean, other than the Koran and Hadith, Arabs are not really into books.

Lets stick to "Islam is not really into books", thankfully, you can be arabic and not subscribe to that travesty of a religion, but once you do, books are generally excluded from the reading list, I suppose.

56. Fox: 'Atheist Outrage' over holiday 'Tree of Knowledge'

Comment #95049 by BicycleRepairMan on December 7, 2007 at 8:47 am

I find it embarrassing when atheist groups do this sort of thing.

I thought this was an excellent idea, of course the things you are mentioning are important, but this tree is not gonna revamp the US educational system, but then again, it doesnt cost 300 billion dollars to put it up either. Its a statement, they got TV-coverage. Thats as far as you can possibly get on a budget thats probably alot closer to 300 dollars, and not billions.

Is it gonna change the world? Or even win a single "convert"? hell no. but again, its a statement, a thought-provoker, something to think about. Most people arent even going to do that, but in the words of "Rage against the machine":

"It has to start somewhere,
it has to start somehow,
what better place than here,
what better time than now."

57. Bad Faith Awards: Vote for the winner now

Comment #95035 by BicycleRepairMan on December 7, 2007 at 7:57 am

Chuck Norris once killed five thousand secular humanists in ONE roundhouse kick, just because he wanted to.

Just a piece of information for those on the voting fence here.

58. Ask The God Delusion author Richard Dawkins

Comment #94353 by BicycleRepairMan on December 5, 2007 at 12:38 pm

As much as Dennett should re-consider his own 'softly, softly' approach in light of his rather lack-lustre performance against the maniacally motivated D'Souza

Are you serious?, Am I the only one who thought Dennett actually CRUSHED D'Souza? Or rather, D'Souza crushed himself.. Let me explain, D'souza got most of the time, and admittedly, most of his ramblings went by a little bit unopposed, but who came out the best? Who seemed like the most intelligent debater? With Dennett, whenever he gets a question, you can actually see him thinking,and giving a thoughtful, masterly off the cuff answer every time, his entire presentation was thought-provoking, interesting and intelligent. D'Souza screamed like a god-damned lunatic the ENTIRE time, he seemed like he had to, there wasnt a bone in his body that even believed the ramblings he spat out, and I think the audience, theist or none, could tell. obviously he just seemed plain desperate the whole time. Counter that with the sympathetic, rational, calm teddybear Dennett, who could just sit there and watch while D'Souza reached the edges of his logic and pitch at roughly the same moments.

I thought D'Souza evened, or perhaps even won, against Hitchens, because he appeared confident, his arguments gave a sort of air of logic and rationality.

59. Highway to hysteria

Comment #93959 by BicycleRepairMan on December 4, 2007 at 1:47 pm

"I guarantee you will be showing them a lot more links than they will be showing you."

And I personally guarantee they'll throw the old Hitler,Stalin,Mao combo to show how crazy all we atheists are.

60. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93173 by BicycleRepairMan on December 2, 2007 at 11:20 am

Whats with the god-damned screaming. Dinesh comes across as a desperate fool in this debate, Dennett as a really, really smart person who thinks even as he is talking. I'd like to see that again, except it'd have 3 minutes for D'saucer and 2 hours for Dennett.

61. This Friday: Debate between Dan Dennett and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #91780 by BicycleRepairMan on November 29, 2007 at 8:44 am

It will be interesting to see how Dennett does, I dont think I've seen him in an actual confrontational debate with a theist, and I didnt even think he wanted to do them.. (If anyone has a link to one, I'd be happy)

I'm glad the topic is "Is God man-made?" as opposed to this "can religion be good?" nonsense. The central claim of all atheism is that the religious claims are overwhelmingly likely to be false, and that God doesnt exist. once that is established, it is more or less a given that believing in these myths, and spreading the myth that myth-belief is good, is harmful.

62. Turkey probes atheist's 'God' book

Comment #91444 by BicycleRepairMan on November 28, 2007 at 10:27 am

http://edition.cnn.com/

Theres a poll up on Cnn.com's Quickvote

Do you believe Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" insults religious values?
Yes 29% 401
No 71% 998
Total Votes: 1399
read related article »
This is not a scientific poll

I dont know whether to vote "yes" or "no" in this one, I wish there was "Yes, and thats a GOOD thing" or "No, but more books should"

63. Rock of Ages, Ages of Rock

Comment #90709 by BicycleRepairMan on November 26, 2007 at 7:28 am

And Oceania is at war with Eurasia, it has always been at war with Eurasia,

How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?
-Four, Four, Four!!!
-But if the Party says its Five, Winston, then how many is it?
-Three! Five! I dont know!!
-Better.

64. Onward Christian teachers?

Comment #87544 by BicycleRepairMan on November 12, 2007 at 12:34 pm

Religion : Mind Genocide.

65. Response to Theodore Dalrymple

Comment #85230 by BicycleRepairMan on November 5, 2007 at 10:21 am

Killing people for their thoughts alone is not a recipe for anything except bloody disaster.

Again with the out-of-context'ing , Sam is ver clear in TEOF on this, talking about specific what-if scenarios, where unreasonable-ness is completely out of control. Take the man who slaughtered Theo Van Gogh in broad daylight in Amsterdam, then stabbed a knife through his ribcase passing a note on the way saying "Ayaan Hirsi Ali"

Imagine if he and a group of likeminded individuals where to come across a nuclear weapon.

Thoughtcrime my ass. That requires thinking. And the last time I read "1984" ,compulsory Doublethink is not thinking, its the opposite.

66. The Turning of an Atheist

Comment #85024 by BicycleRepairMan on November 4, 2007 at 2:37 pm

there is still no proof of that and this is a sad exploitation of an old man.

Huh? Are you saying the entire article is a lie? that reports and interviews done by journalists dont qualify as "proof"?

You're making a statement on a false premise, this article, apparantly with first-hand information from all sides referred to, is making a pretty strong case here, and you seem to think there is no basis for the allegation of exploitation unless the oh so elusively defined "Proof" can be offered? What proof might this be?, Scripture? A circular ontological argument perhaps?

67. The Turning of an Atheist

Comment #84945 by BicycleRepairMan on November 4, 2007 at 10:13 am

I'm not that worried. Especially as a younger atheist, Flew isn't really anybody to me, so no chords are struck.

Did you even read this article? Quick recap: Flew never really was an atheist, he's a deist, and Christian zealots are exploiting his aging mind to further their own cause, they've even written a book in his name, that Flew agreed to basically because he trusted these frauds, and he really has no interest in the ongoing debate.

Disgusting, and good one on Mr.Oppenheimer for exposing this.

68. A House Divided: Hitch at Georgetown

Comment #84657 by BicycleRepairMan on November 3, 2007 at 6:30 am

Or am I missing something?

Yeah, this argument falls on its own merit, but so does christianity, discussing theology/anything with a religiously devout is like playing a game of soccer entirely based on the concept of breaking the rules, you cant score an honest goal because then you'd be violating the rule of breaking the rules.

The entire theological field is an excercise in self-deception and sky-castle engineering, they build fortresses based on faith, and so when things like logic and consistency fails to show people the vacuum on which they stand, the battle has to be brought into their fortress and attempt to collapse it from the inside.

69. The Year of Living Biblically

Comment #84646 by BicycleRepairMan on November 3, 2007 at 3:50 am

Very interesting project, I think I just found another book to buy..

70. A House Divided: Hitch at Georgetown

Comment #84643 by BicycleRepairMan on November 3, 2007 at 3:19 am

I hear some of them use their balls to play with altar boys ...

Isnt that just one more reason to chop them off for uselessness?

71. Lessons in hate found at leading mosques

Comment #83829 by BicycleRepairMan on October 31, 2007 at 12:20 pm

Books calling for the beheading of lapsed Muslims, ordering women to remain indoors and forbidding interfaith marriage are being sold inside some of Britain's leading mosques

We have the same hate-mongering books in my local bookstore, they are called "The Qu'ran" I hear it sells pretty well too.

72. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #83826 by BicycleRepairMan on October 31, 2007 at 12:11 pm

Thank You.

Excellent article, that argument needed a good beating, and many fine punches can be observed

73. Don't write off religion - it can be the key to a stable family

Comment #82547 by BicycleRepairMan on October 26, 2007 at 4:54 pm

Another moron who hasnt read a word of Dawkins in her life. Did all these damn article writers ride the small bus to school, what the hell

74. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #81981 by BicycleRepairMan on October 25, 2007 at 1:32 pm

Talking points:

"Atheism leads to moral decline"

Law/lawgiver argument ala D'Souza: God, and Christianity, apparantly, (and not all the evidence in the world..) is what permits us to make the assumption that the universe follows rules.. and thus is the "grounds for science"

"The Ten Commandments are just GREAT!"

"All charity is religious"

"All the great scientists believed in God"

Well, that all I can think of for now, remember, these are not my opinions, I simply try to come up with FAQ's here, and yeah, I could give a pretty damning, godless answer to all of them ;)

75. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #81204 by BicycleRepairMan on October 24, 2007 at 12:08 pm

Firstly D'Souza has completely misunderstood evolution and its connection to morality and consciousness, apparantly, he has not understood any works on evolution published since "The selfish Gene" and still takes up a social-darwinistic view of things, thinking that all living creatures are selfish etc. Specially stupid it gets when he seems to think that we are (or can be) programmed by evolution to only treat our immediate next of kin good..

He is quite annoying in his misrepresentation of scientific facts, Lets see him debate PZ Myers or Dawkins on these issues of origin of morality.

Hitchens is great, but sometimes I feel that his answers are pre-made statements and not direct debunks and responses to the opponents claims, that would work if the audience is inside your own head, (or perhaps in your book) but they are not.

It is of course difficult to answer all the half-truths and idiocy D'Souza manages to cram into one sentence, but atleast the following ought to be said:

D'Souza keeps on with his "We both assume laws" nonsense that "proves" a law-giver, Well, our assumptions of universal law first of all is not a baseless assumption. ALL the evidence, whether it be daily life things (sun goes up and down-stuff) or deep science, it all seems to follow laws. Secondly, this discovery is not a RESULT of modern christian thinking, it is the SOURCE of it. The bible is overwhelmingly NOT a "all humans are equal" type book, this is an interpretation that came LATE, as a result of continual opposition to the Christian doctrine.

I'll give Christianity this: Unlike, say, Islam, Christianity is diffuse and inconsistent and self-contradictory enough to leave much to interpretation and guesswork, this ALLOWED for much of the science to florish, not because of, but despite of, a dominant religion.

76. Italy's Padre Pio 'faked his stigmata with acid'

Comment #81190 by BicycleRepairMan on October 24, 2007 at 11:26 am

Holy Shit

77. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #80635 by BicycleRepairMan on October 22, 2007 at 12:04 pm

Watched part 2, Shermer stumbles and is even vaguer, I think this debate clearly shows that the Dawkins/hitchins "outright attack" approach is MUCH more effective,

Hitchens will tear this guy apart.

D'Souza gets Darwinism completely wrong, he rants on about Christianity being the source of not just our morals but apparantly our science, and Shermer completely fails to address these things properly.

He could have addressed the whole Law/lawgiver argument by saying that the assumption that the universe has laws DOES NOT come from Christian doctrine, but from study of the universe itself, which is ofcourse also where Christianity itself comes from , ie: Its man-made.

78. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #80591 by BicycleRepairMan on October 22, 2007 at 9:25 am

Watched part 1, Shermer lost this one, WAY too much statistics and a vague stance on the whole issue, the question is not "What is the bottom line number of good and bad things in the name of religion" The question is whether it could conceivably make you a better person, to believe that a 1st century Palestinian was born of a virgin and rose from the dead.

The bottom line is: You Do NOT need to believe such nonsensical rubbish to "justify" acts that we all, universally, consider "Good". You only need them to make the Bad sound like the good.

In other words, all religious people, if they intend to stay religious, ought to run everything by us atheists,

"-Hey, do you think its ok if I start an orphanage?, you see, I think my God tells me too.." -
Yeah, sure dude

-Hey, do you think its ok if I ram this fully loaded jetliner into a populated skyscraper, you see, My God tells me its my duty..
-No, sorry, you see thats what we atheists call "insane"

So thats the new rule, every religious person needs to take advice from an atheist before doing.. well, anything, really.

And BTW, Hitler= Roman Catholic, Stalin= His own damn God, and superstitious as a fuckin pope.

79. Make Richard Dawkins a Knight

Comment #80330 by BicycleRepairMan on October 21, 2007 at 11:03 am

Well, I cant vote, but good luck on it, Sir :)

80. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77358 by BicycleRepairMan on October 9, 2007 at 5:58 am

Does anyone that chooses to put him or herself in the spotlight deserve funding for private protection?

YES. It is the responsibility of EVERY nation who wants to call itself "democratic" or "open" to ENSURE the safety for those who utter their opinions, even if those utterings are morally disgusting. The riot police, for example, will not sit idly by and watch neo-nazis be attacked physically by some left-wingers, for instance. No matter how ridiculously offensive and unappealing your thoughts are, and no matter how loud you speak them, you deserve protection from physical threats.

81. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77355 by BicycleRepairMan on October 9, 2007 at 5:50 am

As Dawkins reportedly said to her at AAI: "Can I nominate you for the Nobel peace prize?" Hirshi Ali definitely deserves that price.

I consider myself willing to put my life on the line to protect Hirshi Ali from these ignorant, brainwashed assholes that aims to harm her. Maybe the RDFRS should sponsor her with private bodyguards :) I'm sure that'll get some exposure for the cause as well ;)

82. Response to My Fellow 'Atheists'

Comment #77138 by BicycleRepairMan on October 8, 2007 at 2:29 pm

Harris is a brilliant arguer, and its kinda hard to disagree with him when he puts it like this. However, I think there is room for, and need for, both approaches. Obviously, acting as if only an ATHEIST (that loudly) could have the brains to understand why stem-cell banning is wrong, is obviously a bad idea. At the same time, its time to stand up and be counted, to come out, and thus passify and destroy the nonsensical myths about atheism that is clearly in abundance in America, the same could be said about stem-cell research itself, people need to know what it actually is, and not the religious mythical version of it. Many religious people, until you fair and square tell them "I dont believe there is a god." simply havent even CONSIDERED that your kind of people exist, and I guess if they do exist, they are these suicidal, nihilistic, demon-possessed Stalinists that you'd best stay away from..

Surely, we dont have to shout "atheist!" while trying to reason with people, and as in the example, it can be outright counter-productive in most cases, however, to stand up and be counted on a general basis, saying stuff like "Here we are, we're just people like you" is not counter-productive, and I think its an important part of being recognized.

83. Norway flourishes as secular nation

Comment #76169 by BicycleRepairMan on October 5, 2007 at 12:41 am

As a Norwegian, I'm flattered, of course, It should be mentioned, in all fairness, that we are sitting on one of the largest oil reserves in the world, and we're less than 5 million people, so this is part of the reason, but then again, unlike other oil-rich nations, we are not divided by thousands of years of religious sectarianism and tribalism.

But its really frustrating to live here, and then hear of Americans attributing Columbine and Vtech etc to the "Moral decline" of society, and they laughably blame Marylin Manson etc..

Btw, Mention this to the evangelical, and I'm sure Church-burning, satanism and black metal will come up, but of course all that nonsense came down to a very small group of idiots with some quasi-religious motives,(inspired, of all things, by Norse mythology) and their posterboy, Varg Vikernes, is now considered a neo-nazi, obviously, that loser is probably heading for Evangelical Christianity next, having been through all the usual suspect phases that people with no friends go through.

84. Researchers devise way to calculate rates of evolution

Comment #76009 by BicycleRepairMan on October 4, 2007 at 9:54 am

I dont know about 30 seconds, but I like Dawkins use of fire, Fire is a great example of a replicator, it spreads like, well.. fire, and thereby multiplies in "size", imagine a chemical process, although quite unlikely, but nonetheless starts to produce copies of itself, a bit like fire, except for one crucial difference: Heredity, the copies (or "offspring") inherits from the "parent", but they, like us, are not 100% copies.. One becomes 2, 2 becomes 4, 4 becomes 8, and so on, within less than a hundred generations of this, the entire universe would be full of copies, but LONG before that happens, they run out of food, space, energy or whatever, and those who dont make it, dont make it. thats Natural selection, and its just getting started. To survive, the replicators that happens to create the best "survival machine" will be more likely to replicate. The modern replicators is what we call DNA, and we are their survival machines

85. Open letter to YouTube video

Comment #70361 by BicycleRepairMan on September 15, 2007 at 4:12 am

In the not to distant future, the DMCA, as well as all forms of copyright, will be come sleeper laws and one day be fully discarded. Due to the nature of the internet, and the importance of free information, this seems not only inevitable, but absolutely necessary as well.

The "piratebay" folks are about to launch their own streaming video site,(ie: a Youtube alternative) and I think if GoogleTube continues its banning policies and the user-wars (flagging, DMCA claims etc) continue, people will move to better, and more open sites.

86. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #69934 by BicycleRepairMan on September 13, 2007 at 8:12 am

If that's the point of "new atheism" then it's factually wrong. Hasn't Harris ever heard of astrology and the hundreds of millions, maybe billions, who believe in it? Hasn't he heard politicians speak for that matter? Or of people who claim to have devised a method to beat the casinos at roulette? I mean it's really not difficult to find outside of religion grown-ups who "pretend to know things they manifestly do not and cannot know"

Congratulations, You've taken two wrongs and made them both RIGHT!! How ignorant I, and Sam Harris has been not to see this! Brilliantly argued, a real eye-opener.

87. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #69931 by BicycleRepairMan on September 13, 2007 at 7:58 am

Vikings,...., Scandinavians

Hey, unfair! He counted us twice! ;)

Besides, the Vikings did have some weird beliefs alright, but they didn't, to my knowledge, perform ritual murders or force their views on others. They did get a bit of a reputation for raiding other countries occasionally, but much of this reputation is actually pretty exaggerated, the Vikings were actually excellent traders and negotiators, and most of all, great sailors.

88. Censoring Sir David

Comment #69707 by BicycleRepairMan on September 12, 2007 at 10:20 am

He is reported as saying he thought the changes were "fairly innocuous".

NOOOO!! Sue them David, let these mammals have it. Give them this, and theyll eat through everything.

Stump out ignorance, that is, after all, what you've been so wonderfully and inspiringly been doing all your life!

89. Review of Richard Dawkins' new book 'The Fascism Delusion'

Comment #69014 by BicycleRepairMan on September 9, 2007 at 1:47 pm

Haha, that was great.

.. the occasional bad consequences of Fascism

..Priceless quote

90. 'Incredibly lucky' find yields important fish fossil

Comment #68735 by BicycleRepairMan on September 8, 2007 at 11:10 am

Pfft. Planted by Jesus. Idiots.

91. Honest Mistakes or Willful Mendacity

Comment #68420 by BicycleRepairMan on September 7, 2007 at 6:14 am

Just saw this Dawkins quote on the left sidebar:

"The patient typically finds himself impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a belief as 'faith'."

To be fair to Cornwell, I can see how he'd paraphrase the above with:

You refer to believers as "faith sufferers", and you refer to you and your associates as "we doctors".

After searching Google, this phrase, and thus Cornwells paraphrase, seems to be taken from Dawkins 1991 Essay "Viruses of the Mind"
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Dawkins/viruses-of-the-mind.html

That makes Cornwells paraphrase in this case slightly more relevant, but it is still pulled out of context, and the "we doctors" phrase is still obviously meant as a joke. There is also a dishonesty to take this out of its context, which was that Dawkins was setting up his essay as a thought experiment, and analogy, where religion was compared to a virus in order to play with the idea, and see how far the analogy could go, so to speak, Dawkins was not just saying "religion is a virus, let us doctors fix you" it was an analogy. any person with average intelligence should see this

92. Honest Mistakes or Willful Mendacity

Comment #68158 by BicycleRepairMan on September 6, 2007 at 9:09 am

Wow. I just listened to the Today Programme was was genuinely scandalised - I can't imagine how Richard felt.

I just did the same thing, and I couldnt believe it, its one thing if the excerpts Dawkins here pulls from his book were Cornwells occasional blunders, something I could possibly forgive, but hearing him accuse Dawkins of this ridiculous nonsense on air it makes me downright angry, I just have one thing to say about such deceptive nonsense, and I cant think of a nicer way of putting it:

What an asshole.

93. Honest Mistakes or Willful Mendacity

Comment #68145 by BicycleRepairMan on September 6, 2007 at 8:50 am

Hi, you linked to the wrong article, (the Ipod book, instead of the article on Cornwells book), you'd better fix it before he uses it against you ;)

here's the link to the news article on the Cornwell book:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,761,The-Fourth-Flea,John-Cornwell

94. The Flea Circus moves to your iPod!

Comment #68116 by BicycleRepairMan on September 6, 2007 at 7:15 am

Does anyone know if this Barry Kurch guy actually IS the entire "intelligence community"? I've looked at the various FAQ's and stuff over at theintelligentcommunity.com, and it actually has nothing, apparently, to do with "Intelligent Design" or creationism, as one might expect. Not a single one of the documents has any names of authorships or hints of any members of this community's names, basically, it portrays itself as a community of smart people who will make the world a better place etc, and asks for "intelligent" people to join. There isnt a single religious reference that I can find, but it does call to broaden the definition of intelligence to include social intelligence etc.

In short, with all anonymous authorship, except the guy who owns the domain, I'm left with more questions than answers from this site.. And anyone seeking membership on these highly dubious grounds, has in my view, perhaps not fulfilled the demands for membership, if you know what I mean.

95. The Flea Circus moves to your iPod!

Comment #67976 by BicycleRepairMan on September 5, 2007 at 1:32 pm

Pewkatchoo, all I mean is that for all you know, without actually making an effort to find out about the content in question, he COULD have spent all his life reading books on theology, biology, science, or whatever, so without having any official qualifications and papers, he could know and understand more of the subject than any of us, or Dawkins for that matter.

I SUSPECTED, as you probably did, that he was just another faithhead, talking-out-of-his-ass kind of creationist con-man who's only purpose was to try and discredit TGD. And after actually checking, it seems I was right. But with your own admitted disinterest in actually checking it out, any attack on the author is invalid.

I do agree with your attack on this idea, the concept of having this "guide" interrupting while you're trying to read a book, a pretty much, to put it mildly, retarded idea, after all, why cant the faithful simply put their fingers in their ears and go "LALALALALALALAAAAAA..." while reading and save their hard earned cash for the tv-evangelists?

96. The Flea Circus moves to your iPod!

Comment #67749 by BicycleRepairMan on September 4, 2007 at 3:51 pm

Pewkatchoo: I'd have to side with blaine here, you attacked a person, and not the contents of his arguments or his actions (well, to be fair, you did that too, in the second paragraph, but the point still stands, the persons prior assumed lack of "qualifications" are no reason in itself to dismiss the book)

I dont care if the guy is a plummer or a professor, your point about this publication being "an insult to the intelligence of the ordinary people who have bought and enjoyed The god Delusion." may still be true, no matter who or who or what he is.

Based on the audio experts, the whole affair seems like a pointless nitpicking attempt to discredit the book and misleading, rather than "guiding" the reader with useless, redundant and mistaken babble about "logical fallacies", complete with fancy names like "Enthymeme" itself a blatantly fallacious technique to fool a gullible reader by trying to appear smart using "smart words" to make dumb points.

97. The Flea Circus moves to your iPod!

Comment #67584 by BicycleRepairMan on September 3, 2007 at 11:48 pm

www.theintelligentcommunity.com

I listened to the excerpt the community he's put on his site, and man, its not what it claims to be at all, this is not an "Argument against the God Delusion", its more like a collection of "nitpicking sentences out of context"

For instance, there's a sentence in TGD that mentions a few religious crimes throughout the centuries.

First, Barry takes this sentence and analyses it independently, looking for inconsistencies and omitted facts etc, and concludes that since the one sentence doesnt contain the whole argument for and against, the mentions of all the non-religious crimes, the mention of all the good that religion supposedly has done, it can be deemed fallicious, even if Dawkins touches on all the other sides of the debate on the same or following page..

But, it gets worse. After that, you see, he uses that very stuff Dawkins does mention on the same page like "Religion isnt the root of ALL evil.." and accuses Dawkins of another fallacy, this time he is being inconsistent..

Basically, this is no rebuttal or counter argument at all, its inconsistent, fallacious nitpicking of individual sentence structures. Amazing what will pass as a publication these days..

I call for taking him to court and using the Chewbacca Defence on him. That'll teach him not to mess with TGD http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU-tZy3NIS4

98. In God we doubt

Comment #67430 by BicycleRepairMan on September 3, 2007 at 12:06 pm

http://www.theintelligentcommunity.com/


Haha, listened to the audiosamples, what a bunch of nonsense, basically this guy has taught himself the fancy names of all kinds of logical fallacies ie: "synexdoche" and "enthymeme", then he pick out a sentence and accuses Dawkins of being guilty of them.. fair enough but just annoyingly boring you might say.. but fear not, they are also notoriously delusional as well. One examples is a sentence in the introduction where Dawkins mentions some evils done in religions name, RIGHT after saying religion is not the root of all evil,

This self-proclaimed intelligent idiot then claims Dawkins doesnt present a full, accurate picture, apparantly by leaving out every other event in human history from his set of examples of religious evil.. How nice.

Then he attacks Dawkins defence of the word "delusion" by attacking Dawkins method of actually going thru different perspectives(common perception, dictionary, and his own thoughts and intentions) and when Dawkins explains what he means by the word delusion, the commentator accuses him of "jumping to concusions"

As you can see, this is not a rebuttal of Dawkins actual points, more the nitpickings of individual sentence structure in more or less random sentences, notoriously fallacious, boring and useless. Its only purpose would be to confuse the reader with strange fancy-words and try to break Dawkins credibilty by what I can honestly say seems worse than the infamous "Chewbacca Defence" used in South Park: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU-tZy3NIS4


To quote the Angry Nintendo Nerd: F&¤KFARTS! What a S#%tLoad of F&%k!

99. The Flea Circus moves to your iPod!

Comment #67420 by BicycleRepairMan on September 3, 2007 at 11:35 am

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100. In God we doubt

Comment #67412 by BicycleRepairMan on September 3, 2007 at 10:57 am

1. Believers are mostly naive or stupid. Or, at least, they're not as clever as atheists.

I stopped reading here. NONE of the so-called "new atheists" that I know of have ever claimed anything even remotely like this, its a COMPLETE strawman, there just is no reason to go on reading after someone make such an absurd statement.

What you can possibly accuse some of the atheists of, is claiming that the CLAIMS of the various religions are so absurd that it SEEMS like you'd have to be a bit dim, or crazy, to actually believe in them, but obviously, 80-90% of the world are not stupid and crazy, thus something is making them believe this stuff all the same, and that thing, is what I call Religion.In fact thats the #1 argument against religion, that it can actually make otherwise intelligent, well educated 20 year-olds with their entire life ahead of them, believe, without a shred of doubt that piloting a passenger plane full of people into a skyscraper with even more people is something you just have to do, and will get you eternal life and 72 virgins..

Yes, thats the extreme end of it, but unlike your first point, its not a strawman, because it actually happened, and religion did it.

The fact that the outcome can be extreme in the violent sense, isnt even that relevant. intelligent people is conjoured, by religion, again, to believe in nonsense like transubstantiation, assumpltion of Mary and Virgin births, all equally nonsensical as the crashing-planes-gets-me-pussy-forever belief, although mostly alot less harmful(at least these days..)