Comments by CJ

Comment #20057 by CJ on January 31, 2007 at 7:23 am

Do listen to this. It is wonderful to be able to hear such considered eloquence. This woman has been through the whole religious (Islamic) indoctrination process and come out the other side a card carrying rationalist. Amazing.

102. Send The God Delusion to your MP

Comment #19974 by CJ on January 31, 2007 at 12:48 am

This is the letter I intend to send to my local MP. It might stimulate a few ideas for others. Comments welcome.

We met many years ago at my home in xxxxx to discuss how to stop the so-called xxxxxxxx. You helped us sort our way through the red-tape at the town hall, that help proved invaluable.

The time has come again to make a stand and this one is far more important than an electric train passing a school. This struggle is for the hearts and minds of humanity. Sounds terribly dramatic doesn't it!

I have enclosed a copy of The God Delusion of you. If you have read it please feel free to pass it on as a gift to somebody else.

The reason I am sending you this is that I found it one of the most important books I have ever read. Richard Dawkins argues, in my opinion very successfully, that a personal god does not exist and that any true supernatural deity is unimaginably improbable.

If Dawkins is right then of course the implication is that we require a complete re-evaluation of our society. Why? Because the development of our current society has been dominated by generally well meaning people who have been indoctrinated for generations in a falsehood. The effects of that falsehood need to be undone if we are to truly progress beyond our superstitious past.

I would ask you to read this book on behalf of one of your constituents and also because it's a very interesting insight into the workings of the theistic and atheistic mind.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

103. He Calls Himself God

Comment #19793 by CJ on January 30, 2007 at 12:39 am

Lets nail him to a tree and send him back to his dad!

Only Joking…. let's burn him at the stake, then we can all start smoking again and claim it's religious observance.

104. Atheists in Jail

Comment #19790 by CJ on January 30, 2007 at 12:24 am

Figures provided by Scott Adams arse.

6.25 billion people overall
25 million criminals overall (2/3 theist, 1/3 atheist)
0.4% population are criminals

5.25 billion theists
16.6 million theist criminals
0.32% of theist population are criminals

1 billion atheists
8.3 million atheist criminals
0.83% of atheist population are criminals

Therefore atheists are 262% more likely to be criminals than theists.

Evil little atheists ;-)

105. Grief Without God

Comment #19536 by CJ on January 28, 2007 at 2:25 am

When I first posted on this thread Carol's identity had not been made public. However now it seems relevent to share a link to Carol's website for Eric.

http://www.geocities.com/ericfiore_hero/

He looks like a man who got the most out of life.

106. Grief Without God

Comment #19505 by CJ on January 27, 2007 at 5:18 pm

Ms Anonymous. It took 5 minutes to find your web site to your husband. You don't need to stay in the closet, you are with friends and supporters here, just as Eric would have been.

It took five years for me to grieve for my Father. And it came about in such an odd way. He never met my wife and never saw his grand children. One day these facts just hit me as I was driving home from work.

My father lives on through me and my sister and in his six grandchildren and currently one great grandchild. Just as Eric lives on in his children and in your heart.

Regards

Chris

107. A Culture of Faith, Devoted Yet Complex

Comment #19152 by CJ on January 25, 2007 at 8:00 am

For me the mind numbing bit of the Dawkins interview with Haggard was when Haggard said to Dawkins something along the lines of "above all don't be arrogant, don't be arrogant."

I was utterly gob-smacked by the bull headed, pig ignorant, wilfully stupid, overbearing, patronising a—hole!

This goes so far beyond "I told you so" it would make Oppenheimer's comments about the atomic bomb look tame.

Somebody please, please, please YouTube or Google this so we can see this in the UK.

Thanks to John Turner no. 6 below.

Could somebody please YouTube the HBO program mentioned in the article.

Thanks

108. Send The God Delusion to your MP

Comment #18999 by CJ on January 24, 2007 at 8:39 am

An absolutly spanking idea!!

http://www.parliament.uk/directories/hciolists/alms.cfm

All the MPs are listed here. You don't have to know their home address as they can all be sent Co Houses of Parliament.

645 books is a good pile. How about getting all the books together in one go and delivering them on mass. Possible publicity with a national newspaper involved?

But I still want to know how we will avoid duplication?

109. Britons unconvinced on evolution

Comment #18948 by CJ on January 24, 2007 at 12:40 am

For interest the details of the survey can be found here.

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/polls/2006/bbc-horizon.shtml

Personally I would be a little careful about shooting the messenger. MORI do this sort of thing all the time for hundreds of organisations and they are an extremely professional organisation.

While Horizon has dumbed down something chronic over the last few years I still have a little residual faith in the BBC to do a good job.

"There are lies, dammed lies, and statistics!"

"A politician uses statistics in the same way a drunk uses a lamp post. For support not illumination."

Chris

110. Zeus devotees worship in Athens

Comment #18596 by CJ on January 22, 2007 at 12:38 am

You realise this is all Dawkins fault. If he hadn't started being an equal opportunities atheist and reminding people about these extinct gods they would have stayed extinct!

On the other hand is this the naked virgins lot? If so where do I join up as the undercover investigator?

111. Sex and the Single-Minded

Comment #18450 by CJ on January 21, 2007 at 12:46 am

10. Dos, your comment sparked a thought.

In the "good old days" people like us, rationalists and atheists (I tend to think of the two things as combined) would have been imprisoned, possibly tortured and in extremis executed for saying what we can now publish to the world via the internet.

Religion has never had to tolerate criticism; it just played the God/Faith trump card and won the argument. It can't do that anymore. The result has been that religion has had to justify itself by argument and of course it can't. Consequently it attempts to abuse science to justify its own un-justifiable position. And ultimately this will fail as the bedrock of the scientific method, repeatable evidence based proof, is just not there to be found.

The meme (or mind virus as coined by RD) of religion has never faced such strong opposition as it does today.

So to answer your question; "Is this just another example of the hypocrisy of religion?"

Undoubtedly yes! But further it is evidence of uncertainty in the mind of the theist that the God/Faith trump card no longer works. And this doubt is the chink through which the meme of rationalism gains entry and grows.

Chris

112. God's Hostages

Comment #18446 by CJ on January 20, 2007 at 11:48 pm

2. MIND_REBEL wrote.

"Religion is the root cause of sexism."

The three religions mentioned were all created by men, are now mostly run by men and mostly exist for the benefit of men.

Therefore men were and in some cases still are the root cause of sexism.

Hmmm!

Hopefully things are changing as we progress out of our superstitious past.

113. Deliver us from the god delusion that imperils our humanity

Comment #18196 by CJ on January 19, 2007 at 12:38 am

It will probably only get worse.

David's article really re-iterates many points that we have all seen many times. My worry is that we aren't at the end of religious extremism but actually at the beginning.

As rationalism erodes superstition the remaining zealots will feel more and more isolated and therefore threatened. Consequently their behaviour will become even worse. We should expect considerably greater atrocities than 9/11. There are now more people with more extreme views with access to better weapons than ever before. Add in the massive amplifying effect of common cause fostered by communication via the Internet and the result hardly bears contemplating.

But contemplate it we must. If we, the rational secularists, intend to change the world then we can expect to become the hate figures for millions if not billions of our fellow human beings.

Is a society governed by rational thought worth the price?

I think it is.

But that won't make it easy. We are up against, at a guess, 75% of humanity or if you prefer to see the number 4,800,000,000 people.

Well having completely depressed myself I think I'll go and find a harmless little theist to argue with and cheer myself up!

Regards

Chris

Science creates understanding, People create morality, Gods screw things up