Comments by PaulJ

101. When did the police start collaring television?

Comment #62958 by PaulJ on August 12, 2007 at 2:20 pm

Hardly surprising that the police wish to condemn a TV programme in which they are shown to support the organisation portrayed.

Or are they just pandering to so-called religious sensibilities?

One good thing - this fuss will focus more attention on the programme.

102. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #62819 by PaulJ on August 11, 2007 at 5:09 pm

Lynch's article has been pretty much kicked to death over at Pharyngula.

103. Believe it or not: the sceptics beat God in bestseller battle

Comment #62818 by PaulJ on August 11, 2007 at 5:04 pm

Good to see that last paragraph. Maybe the message is getting through at last...

104. Curriculum for Baptist School

Comment #62398 by PaulJ on August 9, 2007 at 3:09 pm

Students will examine the nature of God as they progress in their understanding of mathematics. Students will understand the absolute consistency of mathematical principles and know that God was the inventor of that consistency.

Say it enough times, then surely it must be true....

Students will learn not to choose violence, jealousy or dishonesty, but to choose obedience.

"You will choose to obey. You WILL!"

105. Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder

Comment #62181 by PaulJ on August 8, 2007 at 3:46 pm

I remember watching this on TV - it was the Richard Dimbleby lecture.

Now I obviously have to return to the arrogance problem. How can I be so sure that this ordinary Englishman with an unlikely foreign accent was not the long dead Paul of Judea? How do I know that astrology doesn't work? How can I be so confident that the television 'supernaturalists' are ordinary conjurers, just because ordinary conjurers can replicate their tricks? (spoonbending, by the way, is so routine a trick that the American conjurers Penn and Teller have posted instructions for doing it on the Internet!

When Professor Dawkins mentioned 'spoonbending' the camera just happened to focus on another Dimbleby in the audience (David) who had given Uri Geller his break on British TV...

106. Religion is Hard

Comment #59564 by PaulJ on July 29, 2007 at 4:26 pm

Truly great stuff. Too bad Marcus won't be appearing on the final two episodes of the current series of The Now Show.

Incidentally he's posted a thank-you to RD.net on his website:
http://www.marcusbrigstocke.com

107. How could God allow 26 pilgrims to die in a crash?

Comment #59127 by PaulJ on July 27, 2007 at 1:16 pm

For reasons known only to God, the world is as it is. We are invited to join in God's creative act of world-making which we now know is not a seven-day wonder but a continuous bringing to birth. To hold on to this vision in the face of injustices and natural disasters is the very act of faith; it is to believe that caring for victims and striving for a just society are the very heart of life.

Very nice. Very comforting. And totally devoid of reason. I offer this slightly amended version: "To hold on to this vision in the face of injustices and natural disasters is the very act of utter denial..."

108. Face to faith

Comment #57775 by PaulJ on July 21, 2007 at 1:34 am

All too often our Cinderella status has meant that we have conducted introverted discussions, of interest only to people in our own scholarly circles.

Quite. There's probably a reason for this....

109. Kenya: The Death of Religion And Rise of Atheism in the West

Comment #56614 by PaulJ on July 16, 2007 at 2:38 pm

I think it's clear from this article that Peter Odoyo is not a writer by trade or experience. I wonder if perhaps English is not his first language, given his name and where he's based.

Even taking that into account, however, the article betrays a level of muddled thinking usually confined to the worst of tabloid journalism. There may be doubt as to whether he understood - even at a superficial level - the books he's ostensibly reviewing.

110. The New New Atheism

Comment #56605 by PaulJ on July 16, 2007 at 2:14 pm

But suppose, as Jewish teaching suggests, that the biblical principle put an end to the practice of taking a leg for a foot and a life for an eye, and in its place established a principle that, though differently interpreted today, remains a cornerstone of our notion of justice -- that the punishment should fit the crime.

Such as stoning and other forms of capital punishment for misdemeanours?

..."there are many questions that by their very nature must be recognized to lie beyond the legitimate scope of the scientific method." Such questions -- toward which the mind naturally wanders, though it is susceptible to ambush by the crude scientism of which Mr. Hitchens occasionally avails himself -- include: Where did the universe come from, and is it governed by purpose?

The first example is very much a scientific question (even if science can't at present answer it). The second is a nonsense question - the universe is no more "governed by purpose" than a die is "trying" to come up a six when you throw it.

It is like deriving the meaning of the Constitution today by reading its provisions without reference to "The Federalist Papers," which provides authoritative commentary on its principles...

The problem here is the "authoritative commentary" - by what authority is biblical commentary valid?

And yet Mr. Hitchens shows no awareness that his atheism, far from resulting from skeptical inquiry, is the rigidly dogmatic premise from which his inquiries proceed, and that it colors all his observations and determines his conclusions.

So Hitchens' atheism is a "rigidly dogmatic premise"? How many more times? - atheism by definition cannot be dogmatic (or fundamentalist, for that matter).

That a teaching is sublime and sustaining does not make it true. But that, along with its service in laying the moral foundations in the Western world for the belief in the dignity of all men and women -- a belief that our new new atheists take for granted and for which they provide no compelling alternative foundation -- is reason enough to give the variety of religions a fair hearing. And it is reason enough to respect believers as decent human beings struggling to make sense of a mysterious world.

More proof that this writer hasn't read (or hasn't understood) what Hitchens has been saying. We don't get "moral foundations" from scripture.

111. An Atheist Responds

Comment #56262 by PaulJ on July 14, 2007 at 4:36 pm

Comment #56256 by roach

Could you provide a link to Harris' "woo woo" ideas on spirituality? I couldn't find it on Randi's site. Thanks

Try these two:
http://www.randi.org/jr/2007-06/062207.html#i8
http://www.randi.org/jr/2007-06/062907.html#i5

112. The fundamentalist delusion

Comment #56240 by PaulJ on July 14, 2007 at 3:22 pm

Does Barney Zwartz actually know the meanings of the words 'dogma' and 'fundamentalist'?

There are no such things as 'atheist dogma' or 'fundamentalist atheism'. Both of these would require unquestioning adherence to some kind of authority, which by definition atheism doesn't.

As for militant atheism, how many times do we have to go over this? Just because atheists have at last begun to speak in concert they are labelled as some kind of army. Robust debate is not militancy.

113. An Atheist Responds

Comment #56231 by PaulJ on July 14, 2007 at 2:52 pm

Comment #56210 by marcdesm

Of course I agree with Mr. Hitchens. But I find his style difficult to follow. Mr. Dawkins and Mr. Harris have a more concise communication style.

Christopher Hitchens is a master of prose, and Richard Dawkins' literary style in The God Delusion is precise, concise and direct - suited to the audience for which he's aiming. But for me Sam Harris tops them both. He's good in front of an audience, but on the page he's unsurpassed.

114. Borehamwood eruv granted planning permission

Comment #56080 by PaulJ on July 13, 2007 at 3:47 pm

My religion requires me to wear a 1.5 metre high head-dress in public. I demand that all the public buildings I need to visit have their entrance doors adjusted at public expense, forthwith. If this is not done I shall sue the city fathers for disrespecting my religion.

115. Christopher Hitchens - God Is Not Great

Comment #54980 by PaulJ on July 9, 2007 at 2:31 pm

Comment #54969 by Salvatore

Hitchens denies us a parting joke! :(

He also said he's going to be debating Alister McGrath. That'll be ... interesting. (Or possibly futile.)

116. Sally on Sunday with Alister McGrath

Comment #54613 by PaulJ on July 8, 2007 at 6:49 am

Finally got around to listen to this.

Sally Magnusson seems to be a sharp interviewer. She asked some pertinent questions, but unfortunately didn't have time to pursue them. Alister McGrath was his usual circumlocutory self, expounding with apparent conviction but actually saying nothing.

It was Alistair Noble who had the most interesting things to say -- specifically that ID was indeed a scientific theory, and that it wasn't a god-of-the-gaps argument. He seemed to be saying that because cells contain DNA -- essentially digital information -- this points to design, and therefore a designer. Two problems I see with this argument:

1. Presumably he's saying that the information contained in DNA is irreducibly complex, but is it? Most things in the natural world that ID-ists have claimed to be irreducibly complex have subsequently been shown to be no such thing.

2. If DNA points to a designer, to what does the designer point? How is this different from the god-of-the-gaps argument?

Most disturbing though, was his (and Gordon Graham's) continual insistence that ID is a scientific theory. If it is a scientific theory it should be testable. If it isn't testable, then clearly it shouldn't be taught in science classes.

(I'm open to reasoned persuasion on this point. If here isn't the proper place, hop over to http://www.evilburnee.co.uk)

117. Won't anyone stand up for God?

Comment #54474 by PaulJ on July 7, 2007 at 11:31 am

This (anonymous) article seems very muddled, as if the writer accepts the arguments from both sides of the God debate.

Just for good measure he adds: 'A misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal megalomaniac and capriciously malevolent bully.' Does he think anyone believes in a God like that today?

Dawkins is quite right to think that (though he has said elsewhere that this was put in partly for comic effect). Only the other day the Bishop of Carlisle said that the recent floods in England were God's judgement on declining moral standards, with a particular reference to homosexuals.

But Hitchens and Dawkins fulminate as though every believer has to accept wildly improbably episodes as 'gospel' along with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, which are the heart of the matter.

The improbable episodes are in the same book as the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. How, exactly, are readers supposed to discriminate?

But, say the atheists, it all came about by chance, thanks to millions of amazing coincidences, without any God-like creating principle behind them. Strictly speaking science invites us to believe not in a God but in the gambler's goddess - Lady Luck.

May I suggest perusal of Douglas Adams' explanation of the anthropic priniciple? To quote:

This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise.

Adams, as usual, has an illuminating take on things.

Without faith - belief beyond evidence - life would be unlivable. Imagine taking a journey without faith - faith in an unknown driver, faith that there will not be an accident. You would never leave home.

Actually, when I take a journey I don't know there won't be an accident. But I can look at the probabilities, and make a judgement. I don't pray that there won't be one. This is a silly example.

I know of only one: Oxford professor of theology Alister McGrath - who is also a bio-physicist - who has made a substantial refutation.

I've not read McGrath's book, but the arguments I've heard him give, including in his (subsequently cut) discussion with Richard Dawkins intended for Channel 4's The Root of All Evil? struck me as puerile.

It is time for some honest debate.

I'll second that.

http://www.evilburnee.co.uk

118. Ah, the fervour in returning to my flock

Comment #54415 by PaulJ on July 7, 2007 at 1:45 am

Atheists are expected to account for their beliefs in a way that religious people are not.

This is so wrong.

The answer to the question "Why are you an atheist?" is "Why shouldn't I be?" The believers in unsupportable, unverifiable nonsense are the ones who should be called to account.

The fact that atheists appear to be a minority should not coerce them into unnecessary justification of their views.

119. When is a bishop like a suicide bomber?

Comment #53813 by PaulJ on July 3, 2007 at 10:45 am

Comment #53762 by PaulEmecz

Nancey Murphy
Fuller Theological Seminary

There's this excellent two page article on why there couldn't be any complex life at all on the surface of the Earth if we didn't have a movable crust, and if we have a movable crust you're going to have earth quakes, and if we have earth quakes under water we're gonna have tsunamis.

Couldn't the intelligent designer have designed something more intelligently?

On the matter at issue, does the bishop really believe that God's petulant hissy fit, in sending floods and other indiscriminate retribution for unconnected 'sins', is the action of a sane or even grown-up deity?

God moves in mysterious ways? Childish and immature ways, more like.

120. Scientist Build a 'Brain' From Rat Cells

Comment #53148 by PaulJ on June 29, 2007 at 4:32 pm

The "brain in a dish" is the brainchild of Thomas DeMarse...

Er ... did he mean to say that?

121. Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed it

Comment #53143 by PaulJ on June 29, 2007 at 4:18 pm

If there is an ultimate meaning to existence, as I believe is the case, the answer is to be found within nature, not beyond it.

The operative word here is "if".

Personally I don't think there is an ultimate meaning to existence. It just ... exists.

122. Rival to evolution may enter schools

Comment #53139 by PaulJ on June 29, 2007 at 4:00 pm

"It deserves formal consideration. It presents a scientific challenge to the construct that the world is the result of blind and purposeless forces."

It doesn't, and it doesn't.

Why do they insist on calling it Intelligent Design theory? The only science I've seen on the TiS website is stuff attempting (badly) to pick holes in evolution. Where's the alternative theory to explain what evolution explains? It's simply not enough to say that life-as-we-know-it was magicked into existence. And if they're not saying that, then what's the point?

By all means teach ID in RE (where it belongs), but never in science classes.

(Maybe all science teaching should begin with a primer about what is and isn't science.)

http://www.evilburnee.co.uk

123. I believe that there is no God.

Comment #53135 by PaulJ on June 29, 2007 at 3:37 pm

Comment #52856 by Spinoza

I'm sorry... as much as I sort of admire Penn (I think anarcho-capitalism is dumb though, among other things), he's no philosopher, and he totally bastardizes this.

Atheism is NOT "not believing in God". No philosopher would take that seriously.

The definitions go like this:

Agnosticism is the negation of two propositions:

a) I believe in God.
b) I don't believe in God.

I'm no philosopher either, but the negation of two opposite propositions? Either I do believe in God, or I don't. If it's not one, then it must be other. Am I missing something here? I don't see how I could deny both propositions simultaneously, any more than affirm both simultaneously.

If I said I didn't (and couldn't) know whether a) or b) applied, then I would be agnostic. Actually in my case b) applies -- I don't believe in God. That doesn't mean I'm 100% certain that God doesn't exist, just that the evidence I've found suggests a convincing probability that God doesn't exist, and as far as I can know or 'believe' anything about the world, I'm happy to proceed on that basis. (I suppose it depends on your definition of 'knowledge'.)

I may be wrong about God, but it's unlikely.

124. Science of the Soul? 'I Think, Therefore I Am' Is Losing Force

Comment #52640 by PaulJ on June 27, 2007 at 3:15 pm

For scientists who are people of faith, like Kenneth R. Miller, a biologist at Brown University, asking about the science of the soul is pointless, in a way, because it is not a subject science can address. "It is not physical and investigateable in the world of science," he said.

The soul is an idea -- and no more than that. Like consciousness and self-awareness, the soul is a manifestation of complex thought processes. The soul as 'an actual thing' doesn't exist. As Kenneth R. Miller says above, it's not physical, in the same way that stereoscopic vision isn't physical. Three-dimensional visual perception is a manifestation of perceptive pattern-recognition. We see a solid object, and our other perceptive experiences confirm the solidity of the object seen. But its solidity is an illusion created by our cognitive framework. We don't see in 3D -- we actually receive two slightly different images, and our perceptive acuity interprets these differences as solidity.

In the case of consciousness, we appear to have self-awareness, and it's natural to go from that to the question, "If we are conscious, self-aware, what part of us is receiving or perceiving that awareness?" And so the ideal of a soul is postulated. It doesn't exist in physical reality, but its difficult to get our heads round the idea that such a central, indivisible, indefinable entity might not actually exist, because it's such a convenient idea. Like the idea of the ether was convenient, and 'obvious.'

Just my two cents.

http://www.evilburnee.co.uk

125. God Hates the World

Comment #51942 by PaulJ on June 25, 2007 at 3:36 pm

There's a button missing when the video ends.

[REPLAY] [COPY LINK]

[EMBED] [THROW UP]

Seriously though, what perplexes me, having seen both the Louis Theroux and Keith Allen TV documentaries, is this: these folks are not simpletons. They may be suffering from the isolation of home schooling but they are reasonably intelligent people. Surely they must know that their extreme views and obnoxious protests won't win any friends. They can't really believe people will watch this video and say, "Ahh...how cute!"

If they think they're the only ones going to heaven, why are they protesting? Their obvious hatred would suggest they're not interested in converting anyone, so what's it all for?

Extremely puzzling. (Or maybe they're all congenital nutcases ... on reflection that seems more likely.)

126. His word

Comment #51463 by PaulJ on June 23, 2007 at 2:28 am

...but surely the key thing about religion is that we have it and animals don't.

We also have art and mathematics.

The key thing, as I see it, is that we have a need to explain how things work, and (other) animals don't. But if we spend too much time trying to figure stuff out, other stuff -- such as survival -- is neglected. So some mental short-cuts, such as religion, are invoked.

"What's that big, hot, yellow thing in the sky? Where does it go at night?"

"That? Oh, that's God, who magicked everything into existence. Stop worrying about it and fetch me some food...."

127. In the name of the Father

Comment #51456 by PaulJ on June 23, 2007 at 2:06 am

Comment #51443 by kizumoto:

Sorry, in my previous message, I tried to use blockguote for the first time, and forgot the / mark in the second one, so the quote and my comment are reversed.

You can go back and edit, you know...;-)

128. In the name of the Father

Comment #51455 by PaulJ on June 23, 2007 at 2:03 am

But how is it that the majority of the world's great philosophers, composers, scholars, artists and poets have been believers, often of a very devout kind?

I would guess that the answer is a simple statistical one: atheists were a minority, so the majority of the world's great anything would have been believers.

129. 'Purity' ring case in High Court

Comment #51318 by PaulJ on June 22, 2007 at 10:42 am

Seems to me that in this case the school has been well and truly trapped. There's a reference in the article to the ring being against the school's uniform rules, but I'd like to know what the rules actually state -- and I wouldn't be surprised if the school's lawyers tell them to settle.

The more I read about this, the more it seems likely that the religious group saw a golden opportunity for some free publicity.

Watching the linked video made me think that the girl is simply doing what Daddy has told her to.

130. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #51136 by PaulJ on June 21, 2007 at 4:15 pm

This link will only be in effect for 7 days, can someone make an mp3 for the site and send it to design@richarddawkins.net? Thanks, Josh

Actually the Today Programme seems to be archived for substantially longer than 7 days, see here. Not only that, but the individual clips seem to be better organised once they're archived.

131. The Great God Debate

Comment #50390 by PaulJ on June 17, 2007 at 4:36 pm

Comment #50097 by Logicel:

The more crap that is thrown at faith--except in rare cases--the stronger it gets because the psychological investment in the faith stance increases and becomes a monument that can't be budged.

And the greater 'virtue' it is to hold on to faith in the face of such overwhelming reasons to abandon it. It seems that faith increases inversely to the decrease in evidence for it (in fact that could almost be a definition of faith).

132. Call for 'post-9/11' RE teaching

Comment #50341 by PaulJ on June 17, 2007 at 1:59 am

Back in the late sixties when I attended a grammar school in Buckinghamshire, we were taught about other religions, also about how the bible stories were not necessarily to be taken literally (I remember a highly plausible explanation of the phrase "an angel came to me and said..."), and we looked briefly at something called 'situational ethics').

I don't recall ever being examined on the subject.

133. In the know

Comment #50235 by PaulJ on June 16, 2007 at 12:38 am

... - the militant atheists aim to force individuals to take sides. They too want to push people to fundamentalist extremes - this time following scientific rather than religious dogma.

Completely, utterly wrong. Atheists ('militant' or otherwise) are not touting dogma. They're not telling people what to think on the basis (from unquestionable authority) that certain principles are incontrovertibly true. They are saying, "Where's the evidence?"

One of the new militants, Sam Harris, in his book The End of Faith, is so triumphant that he contemplates the possibility of nuking Muslims: although it would kill millions of innocent people, he argues it might be the only option "we" have, in the face of the threat "they" and their faith represent.

The operative words in this quote are 'contemplates' and 'might' -- Harris isn't saying that this is what should be done, he's simply exploring all possible implications.

134. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50009 by PaulJ on June 14, 2007 at 2:14 pm

The Vatican throwing its weight around again.

Catholics have their beliefs (whatever one might think of those beliefs) and that's fine -- up to a point. That point is reached far too often.

135. The Great Mutator

Comment #49631 by PaulJ on June 12, 2007 at 4:21 pm

The more I find out about evolution, the more it becomes the most elegant and efficient explanation of how we came to be here.

Every opponent of evolution seems to be saying the same contradictory thing: there are gaps in evolutionary theory, which science is unable to explain, and therefore the explanation must be God (or whatever).

Well, given that evolution does explain a great deal (and Jerry Coyne's article is an especially lucid example of explanation-for-the-lay-person), I've always wondered what the 'alternative' explanation would look like, for those parts that evolution doesn't (yet) have answers for. How does the Intelligent Designer actually perform his intervention? By snapping the celestial fingers? By expelling a puff of holy breath? How does a new species, for instance, come into being? Does it appear all at once (shazam!) fully grown? Or is it embryonically interfered with in the womb?

If the Intelligent Design proponents say they don't actually know how it's done, are we allowed to invoke the Flying Spaghetti Monster for this purpose (those noodly appendages must have some use)?

136. A Compass That Can Clash With Modern Life

Comment #49591 by PaulJ on June 12, 2007 at 1:16 pm

Isn't this just like papal infallibility, except here we have lots of mini-popes?

137. We stand awed at the heights our people have achieved

Comment #49588 by PaulJ on June 12, 2007 at 1:02 pm

...we're merely unlettered, unschooled near-illiterates with no appreciation of the depths of religious thought.

Good to read such a reasoned and sympathetic analysis of this standard 'theologist's retort' to atheists' objections to god-belief.

There was a typical example of theology being too deep for ordinary mortals recently on BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day (commented on and linked from here).

138. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #48791 by PaulJ on June 9, 2007 at 4:01 am

Atheism is different. It is a form of protest.

Being an atheist, it seems, is OK if you don't tell anyone (or at least say it under your breath, hoping no-one's listening). If you actually 'come out' as an atheist, you're automatically labelled 'militant' (or as here, 'protesting').

(My own 'protest' here: http://www.evilburnee.co.uk)

139. Teaching assistant quit in protest at Harry Potter

Comment #48778 by PaulJ on June 9, 2007 at 3:27 am

I think Christians are justified in their fear of Harry Potter; more power to J. K. Rowling for showing children another set of weird beliefs (with about as much credence as some others).

(more here)

140. Pell plans fidelity oath for principals

Comment #47758 by PaulJ on June 5, 2007 at 12:53 pm

This looks similar to (though perhaps more draconian than) something the Anglican Bishops are attempting, as reported in the Sunday Telegraph.

(I've blogged about this here.)

141. Photos of The God Delusion Event in Second Life

Comment #46767 by PaulJ on June 1, 2007 at 1:24 pm

OMG! It looks like a ... a ... a church!

142. What I Think About Evolution

Comment #46540 by PaulJ on May 31, 2007 at 3:19 pm

Yet I believe, as do many biologists and people of faith, that the process of creation � and indeed life today � is sustained by the hand of God in a manner known fully only to him.

It's a mystery....

The most passionate advocates of evolutionary theory offer a vision of man as a kind of historical accident. That being the case, many believers � myself included � reject arguments for evolution that dismiss the possibility of divine causality.

Evidence? No, of course I'm not going to look at the evidence. I've already made up my mind.

I firmly believe that each human person, regardless of circumstance, was willed into being and made for a purpose.

Because if that wasn't the case (God forbid...) I wouldn't be important.

While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man's origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.

Or in other words, I'm in favour of any scientific inquiry that doesn't come up with results that might contradict what I already know to be true.

This is the most awful, closed-minded trash I've seen in, oh, days.

143. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #45866 by PaulJ on May 29, 2007 at 12:31 pm

But he cannot engage with the millions who just feel better with some sort of confused belief than with nothing at all.

Well who can? Ask them what they believe and they can't tell you. And this is what they base their lives on?

"I've made up my mind (at least I think I have). Don't confuse me with facts."

Pathetic.

144. Dawkins' Christmas card list

Comment #45832 by PaulJ on May 29, 2007 at 11:12 am

But with Prof Dawkins now seemingly set on training his formidable intellectual artillery on politically-correct lefty thinking, the chances that he will expand his Christmas card list to cuddly archbishops seem pretty remote.

I send cards at Christmas. Not many, but those I do send I make myself from my own photographs, and they rarely include any Christian symbolism. An example of such symbolism that I happened to use a few years ago was a picture of the steel cross made from girders at Ground Zero in New York City. It was more an illustration of my travels that year, rather than an implication of seasonal significance. (If I had intended such significance I would probably have waited until Easter. But I don't send Easter cards -- does any atheist?)

145. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Robert Winston

Comment #45749 by PaulJ on May 29, 2007 at 5:38 am

"Ahh... you didn't tell me Richard Dawkins says he's only 99.9% sure... that means a tiny part of him thinks there is a God."

Unfortunately this is the kind of sloppy thinking we have to deal with. In the same way that the question of God's existence has a yes-or-no answer, what anyone personally believes is the answer is also 100% one way or the other. At any one time you can hold only one belief about such a binary question, so suggesting that "...a tiny part of him thinks there is a God," is nonsense.

People say, "I'm in two minds about...." It's a figure of speech that suggests the person speaking has not yet decided one way or the other. It cannot mean that the person holds opposite opinions simultaneously -- even in unequal proportions.

On the other hand, saying "Sometimes I think this, and other times I think the opposite," is legitimate. As is, "I don't know."

146. Christopher Hitchens Is a Treasure

Comment #43425 by PaulJ on May 21, 2007 at 11:05 am

Hitchens himself is a public protagonist of compassion and solidarity. But these come, don't they, from the same Creator to whom Judaism and Christianity, as well as the Declaration of Independence, point.

(my emphasis)

Actually, no they don't. Isn't this what's called begging the question? This article seems to be riddled with the prior assumption that God exists, and that therefore Hitchens is wrong.

147. Among the Disbelievers

Comment #41235 by PaulJ on May 15, 2007 at 4:55 pm

The Catholic Church does not just make such things up but has thought long and hard about angelic orders and other matters of equal importance.

This is probably true. It thinks long and hard, and then just makes them up.

After all, these matters probably are of equal importance (as in, "not important").

148. French Muslim women opt for hymen surgical cons

Comment #39848 by PaulJ on May 12, 2007 at 5:17 am

Despite any evolutionary reasoning behind an insistence on virginal wives, what I find depressing about this business is the hypocrisy of it. The fact that these women willingly undergo expensive and no doubt unpleasant surgery in secret, in order to deceive their prospective husbands, indicates one of two things:

1. These women are truly oppressed. They willingly and knowingly disobey the rules of their religion, in order not to be, at best, cast out from their society, or at worst, killed.

2. Or, they are completely in denial about the utter nonsense of their religion -- do they really believe that the surgery somehow alters their past?

Whichever of the above applies in a particular case, the implications are abhorrent in the extreme.

149. New Noah's Ark ready to sail

Comment #35798 by PaulJ on April 28, 2007 at 10:36 pm

A contractor by trade, Huibers built the ark of cedar and pine -- biblical scholars debate exactly what the wood used by Noah would have been.

According to one particularly unreliable source it was gopher wood (Genesis 6:14).

As in, "Hey, Ham! Go for some wood while I get these pesky critters rounded up!"

150. A Brief History of Disbelief

Comment #35661 by PaulJ on April 28, 2007 at 6:33 am

I remember this series from when it was first broadcast several years ago here in the UK. As I recall, it was a fairly subdued but in-depth examination of lack-of-faith, featuring many distinguished notables, including Richard Dawkins.

Miller is erudite and lucid, and despite his continuous expression of puzzlement over those who believe, he is genuinely interested in exploring the roots of faith (and non-faith).

Also broadcast were some longer versions of some of the interviews that were edited into the series.

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