101. When is a bishop like a suicide bomber?

Comment #53759 by automath on July 3, 2007 at 3:44 am

The Bishop was wrong.

So are suicide bombers.

In both cases, they do not speak for the vast majority of religious believers.

The religious believers do think they are right.

You might be refering to those haven't quite become true religious believers, but like to think they are and so tend to support the thoughts, words and deeds of the more devote. They can try and brush the bad aside by not acknowledging it as true religion. Anything to make them feel good and stop them from facing up to the world and learning to become better people, both for themselves and for humanity.

I've lost track of the number of so-called believers that believe in the gospels because those that believed were apparently willing to die for their belief. How can it be false they say. Islam must indeed be the true religion!

102. When is a bishop like a suicide bomber?

Comment #53756 by automath on July 3, 2007 at 3:29 am

In addition, though the Bishop is not advocating direct violence against gays, he is indirectly setting up scapegoats. If and when global warming's deleterious effects grow, there will be a ready group to silence, gays.

Ah the lessons of history, I remember a Christian Germany looking to these self appointed messengers of a god for the answers to the economic problems experienced in the early 20th century, it was the Jews that paid the price back then.

103. Floods are judgment on society, say bishops

Comment #53552 by automath on July 2, 2007 at 2:51 am

If bad weather means God is pissed at you, does nice weather mean He's pleased?

Sounds a bit pagan-ish to me.

Everytime I start to give the religionists the benefit of the doubt, something like this comes along to bring me back to reality!

104. World's most prominent atheist takes on the Biblical God (and other topics)

Comment #39456 by automath on May 10, 2007 at 5:42 pm

arrgghhh mind numbing - I only manage 15 minutes of it. Surely playing this to anyone would be enough in itself to make them lose their belief in life!

105. God . . . in other words

Comment #39083 by automath on May 10, 2007 at 12:32 am

Something smells fishy to me. Is it at all possible that Dawkins is now trying to present a softer image after taking so much criticism for his attitude towards God and religion? Forgive my scepticism, but from all that I've seen of Dawkins, this interview just seems very atypical.

lol, hardly, but maybe you could put it down to the release of TGD in paperback ;)

106. Mormonism: A Racket Becomes a Religion

Comment #35621 by automath on April 28, 2007 at 12:37 am

Wow! I never saw the parallels between Mormons and Islam this way accept for the obvious polygamy which is taken from the old Testament and still practiced by Islam which I've always pointed out as being biblical.

There are quite a number of animals that practice polygamy, so I suspect they probably got this idea from witnessing the evidence of their surroundings, different groups then decided it had been revealed to them in different ways. Just goes to show how arbitrary religious teachings really are.

107. UK Christians 'suffer for faith'

Comment #26412 by automath on March 19, 2007 at 6:45 am

In the US, Christians complain about discrimination. They are continually fed the idea that they are a suffering lot who must fend off the slings and arrows of a secular world.

Aye, that's pretty much what they are told to believe over here in the UK as well. There again we have a similar, but more dangerous, problem with what the mosques tell the muslims to believe.

108. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24551 by automath on March 7, 2007 at 7:46 am

I highly suggest that you express your comments in a civil way, in the comments section of the article itself.

Suggestion has taken. As you command so it has been done ;)

I think that comments in the RD forum on this topic is an example of preaching to the choir.

Makes up for the lack of a church I guess.

(BTW. this response was a humourous aside, it might even pass for satire?)

109. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24535 by automath on March 7, 2007 at 5:59 am

Conversely, when one presses a purported atheist, one almost always finds that the person believes in various propositions that simply don't make sense without a belief in some source of an ultimate moral order, i.e., what most people would call "God." For instance, almost everyone who claims to be an atheist still makes lots of "ought" statements, as in "we ought to preserve biological diversity," or what have you.

What utter rubbish! All that is required for an ought statement is the idea that something could be done in a different or more beneficial way.
Reasons not 'God' justify the ought, which can then take into account the circumstances surrounding the situation in question.

Appealing to this concept they call 'God' appears to be an excuse to stop us having to do the hard work!

Atheist and Proud.

110. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24531 by automath on March 7, 2007 at 5:37 am

This kind of proves how fallible our ability of thinking is when it hasn't questioned the starting premises throughly enough. I would expect better from someone who is a professor of his profession. Just goes to show that we always need to address the argument and not the authority of the position that a person holds.

111. Books on Atheism Are Raising Hackles in Unlikely Places

Comment #24208 by automath on March 5, 2007 at 9:22 am

Has anyone copyrighted the following book title as yet?

The Dawkins' Effect

It would make for a really good read.

112. Books on Atheism Are Raising Hackles in Unlikely Places

Comment #24204 by automath on March 5, 2007 at 8:53 am

I expect the way Richard dismisses theology as a subject worthy of consideration raises the feeling of 'something is wrong here' in many who fall foul of the predominate cultural bias towards religious belief.

An example is Jeremy Stangroom on the Talking Philosophy blog - http://blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=13

If we are to think then we must also question our most basic of assumptions for the way we are likely to think about things. What good is this notion of freewill if we don't?

113. Why Are Atheists So Angry? A Debate with Dennis Prager

Comment #10958 by Automath on December 2, 2006 at 12:32 am

I stopped reading after day 1 (Dennis Prager) in 4th paragraph, I see little point in reading further, as the typical religious arguments have no basis in reality.

Point 1 - 'Is it really reason and common sense that lead atheists to their certitude that everything, all existence, came about by sheer chance?'

I know of no atheists, in fact anybody with common sense and some ability to reason that thinks everything happens by chance.

Point 2 - 'Atheist certainty and religious certainty are both faith claims that transcend reason and common sense.'

I'm not certain, however using my common sense I can arrive at an approximation of probablity, to the question. The more I learn about the world, how it works, how we interact, pushes the plausibility of there being gods to the point where it need not be entertained as a serious proposition. Hence I do not think that gods exist, for which you will call me an Atheist.