251. In defense of dangerous ideas

Comment #58325 by pewkatchoo on July 24, 2007 at 1:16 pm

jonecc
"people like you"

Nice. You know sweet fuck-all about me, so what does that fascinating piece of cerebrelisation represent?

252. In defense of dangerous ideas

Comment #58265 by pewkatchoo on July 24, 2007 at 7:22 am

jonecc
I am in the Netherlands. Unfortunately you are talking tosh. There was no real need for immigration in the scale that eventually occurred. It was all short-termist and Powell knew this.

As for immigration being a raging success. I suggest you ask some of the people who had to move out of the areas that became muslim ghettos. Or some of the people who live close by to some of these areas.

As for economically. I don't think that importing whole families, many members of which are economically inactive is a plus for the economy.

253. The new preface to The God Delusion paperback and Q&A

Comment #58260 by pewkatchoo on July 24, 2007 at 7:06 am

Ash Roskell is an idiot. He got caught out with a slip in getting Professor Dawkins first name wrong and then tried to cover up his embarrasment by inventing a tenuous link to some martyred geek in the bible. What a plonker.

254. The new preface to The God Delusion paperback and Q&A

Comment #58256 by pewkatchoo on July 24, 2007 at 6:54 am

I wonder if friar william would be happy that his supposition is now used as a basis for arguing against the complexity of god! Poetic justice or what?

Note to self: must read more Popper.

255. In defense of dangerous ideas

Comment #58245 by pewkatchoo on July 24, 2007 at 6:05 am

Margrat

Until we have a sample of male and female humans who have not been subjected to any differences in their upbringing whatsoever, an experiment which is not only unethical but impossible, we will never know.

256. In defense of dangerous ideas

Comment #58211 by pewkatchoo on July 24, 2007 at 3:06 am

sbooder
"That Sir is a loaded question."

That is exactly what it is not. It is a statement not a question.

257. Can the rest of us have our planet back?

Comment #58208 by pewkatchoo on July 24, 2007 at 2:59 am

phil rimmer
I am sure that they will send Boris Johnson to Liverpool to apologise in his stead.

258. In defense of dangerous ideas

Comment #58207 by pewkatchoo on July 24, 2007 at 2:51 am

Steve99
Why did you add the codicil 'though natural'? It is surely superfluous in the context of its purpose and really only reflects your own particular bias. You have to be careful with these things. Also, the statement should be phrased as a question.

259. Islamic Creationist and a Book Sent Round the World

Comment #58205 by pewkatchoo on July 24, 2007 at 2:30 am

It seems like Mr Yoyo is a legend in his own mind! http://www.living-fossils.com/about_author.php

He also seems to like his own face! But is that plastic surgery or is he just carefully preserved?

260. In defense of dangerous ideas

Comment #58188 by pewkatchoo on July 24, 2007 at 12:34 am

jonecc

Enoch Powell was a spiteful bigot, and has not been proven right. He argued that different races would be unable to live together without descending into a state of permanent conflict, and the history of the last twenty years shows him to have been dead wrong.

261. Response to the God Delusion

Comment #58027 by pewkatchoo on July 23, 2007 at 3:32 am

PeterK
Why are you behaving like a total bampot in the Ali thread and yet are quite normal and lucid here? You are confusing me, please stop at once!

262. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #58018 by pewkatchoo on July 23, 2007 at 2:57 am

Dr Benway and others, thanks for your support. PeterK, you are still a fool. In fact you are a total bampot, as is, obviously, your dear wife.

I actually agree with Hirsi Ali when she says there is no such thing as Islamophobia. I think there is a very clear dislike of Islamic groups continuously asking for special treatment, but that hardly amounts to a phobia. Similarly, there is a healthy dislike among right thinking people of being blown to smithareens, but that should hardly be considered islamophobia. To coin such a word is as ridiculous as saying people who don't like catholocisim are catholophobic. Or that all atheists are religiophobics or theophobic. It is a nonsense phrase that means nothing and is simply designed to add to the ridiculous victim culture that seems to be prevalent in Islam. People who are vitriolically opposed to Islam on religious grounds are simply bigots. No need to create a new word to make them a special case. Me, I think they are just religious nutters, a touch on the extreme side, but no worse, ideologically, than anyone else who holds to irrational beliefs.

263. Face to faith

Comment #57792 by pewkatchoo on July 21, 2007 at 3:12 am

Move along folks, nothing to see here! Just more psuedo-intellekshul whiney twaddle.

264. Why I Believe Anti-Evangelism Is Wrong

Comment #57412 by pewkatchoo on July 19, 2007 at 8:58 am

Friend Giskard
"The guy is an epistemological relativist."

and I still say he is a git.

265. Why I Believe Anti-Evangelism Is Wrong

Comment #57392 by pewkatchoo on July 19, 2007 at 6:13 am

What a git!

266. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #57358 by pewkatchoo on July 19, 2007 at 2:58 am

PeterK
You are simply a fool!

267. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #57354 by pewkatchoo on July 19, 2007 at 2:30 am

-riverrun-
"American policy has killed thousands of times more than any country that espouses Sharia Law has, in the past 5 years alone."

Could you please cite sources showing evidence for this extraordinary statement please.

268. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #57347 by pewkatchoo on July 19, 2007 at 2:02 am

Rtambree
I mostly like what you have to say, but sometimes you just talk total and absolute tosh.

"The right have got a lot more to answer for in aiding religion, than the left has."

This is just nonsense and you know it. Jimmy Carter was probably one of the US most left wing bleeding heart democrats ever, but he was also a total religious nutter. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are both socialists (though Blair just wears the garments) and total faith heads who are both encouraging the building of faith schools throughout the UK while dumping secular grammar schools.

Get off of your left/right schtick. I would consider myself to be both right than left on different topics. I think the left/right divide is a red herring nowadays and we should treat it as such, particularly when we are dealing with the issue of religion. The divide, in my opinion, is between the deluded and the rational. Left and right are now inconvenient and nonsense labels that will slow down the progress of reason. What we need is rational debate about policies without clouding the issues by simply labelling someone as a leftie communist or as a rabid fascist (unless of course they are) just because they may hold a slightly different viewpoint.

269. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #57342 by pewkatchoo on July 19, 2007 at 1:40 am

I cannot believe some of the criticisms of this lady that I have read so far, not totally up-to-date yet, they are just so far off base. This is a woman who escaped a totalitarian regime after being mutilated in the name of culture/religion. She then worked in a factory in a strange country, teaching herself to speak a language that is one of the hardest to learn in Europe (I should know) and ascending to the second chamber of the parliament, later to be threatened with deportation because she told little white lies on her entry form. She was brave enough to condemn the foulness of a religion that keeps 50 percent of its practitioners in total servitude and a good deal of the remainder in semi-servitude. She is now under threat of death from the higher councils of that same religion. She saw one of her main supporters and friends killed by one of those religious nutters. She has written a best-selling book that will keep her firmly in the 'marked for death' camp until someone eventually succeeds in carrying out the sentence, and it will happen. Do you think she does not know this?

And all I see from some of the wittery plugs on here is the like of 'I think she is biased' 'She should condemn the west too' blah blah. Go and get a life the lot of you. Try achieving just a fraction of what she has, under the conditions she has had to endure. before criticising in any way her position. I think she knows whereof she speaks. Some of you pampered nimbys obviously don't. Rant over.

270. Don't Mince Words: The London Car-Bomb Plot Was Designed to Kill Women

Comment #56771 by pewkatchoo on July 17, 2007 at 7:00 am

Goatboy
An excellent ending I think! Unfortunately, Xeno appears to have disappeared into the nothingness from whence he came. Maybe he went away with his fingers in his ears. Maybe not. Only time will tell.

271. Darwin or Design

Comment #56721 by pewkatchoo on July 17, 2007 at 3:47 am

the_assayer
Excellent stuff. Couple of items in there that I particularly like and will help me to explain my position to my son. I worry a little that I do not give him enough explanation for my position and that he just follows my lead blindly without objectively understanding it, which makes it valueless. This particularly will help.

Naturalism is not a choice, it is the only option for us if our objective is to explain the mysteries of the universe and not explain it away! Religion is explaining away the mystery of our existance by saying that something magical using magical means created the universe. Tell me, what is the difference between saying, "something magical using magical means created the universe" and "I don't know what created the universe"? ...I say none. There is no extra information in the first sentence.

Also bear in mind. Once people say, "Yes God did it", they would not care about mystery any more. 'Cause to them the mystery is solved. I like to be honest about my ignorance about the workings of the world and i like to find out more. To assume that there is no need to look for answers and that instead i should settle for an answer like " God did it", is very naive and close-minded a view about life and its meaning.

272. The New New Atheism

Comment #56713 by pewkatchoo on July 17, 2007 at 2:47 am

Every single one of Berkowitz's arguments fall apart if one presumes that there is no god. If one cannot bring oneself to believe in god then there is no point to religion at all. I might as well believe in Arthur C Clarkes 'Childhood's End' as believe in any of the religious twaddle.

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

Comment #56706 by pewkatchoo on July 17, 2007 at 1:55 am

When you cannot even get the name of one of the books you are critiquing correct you have nothing more to say!

274. Fears Grow Over 'Mega Mosque'

Comment #56696 by pewkatchoo on July 17, 2007 at 1:20 am

Jonathon Dore
I agree that the wording of the petition is terrible, it was obviously started by a religious person without the ability to produce a well thought out premise (quelle surprise there). However, I still signed it because it is the only game in town at the moment. Of course, I could have started my own petition for atheists only, but that would have been used by the politicos to diffuse the original petition.

275. Fears Grow Over 'Mega Mosque'

Comment #56694 by pewkatchoo on July 17, 2007 at 1:16 am

CJ22
Sorry but you are barking up the wrong tree there. Keeping all your eggs in one basket would require closing all the other mosques spread around the country and moving all the muslims to London. While we are busy focussing on one huge megaplex in London, all sorts of nasty stuff would be being planned elsewhere.

If the intelligence community are saying otherwise then they will have proved to me beyond doubt that they could not find their backsides with the aid of GPS and a route map.

276. Darwin or Design

Comment #56692 by pewkatchoo on July 17, 2007 at 1:02 am

scipishow
dogmatism = a settled or established opinion, belief, or principle.

Perhaps, but that does not make the atheistic view dogmatic. We have no established opinions or beliefs. What we do have is quite well established scientific facts that fit in with all the current evidence. If the evidence changes then our position changes automatically. Religion does not do this, it requires a significant leap of faith to exist in the first place and never ever changes its position, even when evidence is shoved in its face. Even when the church accepts evolution as fact it still prefaces that acceptance with 'but godstilldidit'.

You really need to understand that this is why we give up with you people. Because you never say anything that we have not heard 1000 times before. You also miss the fact that most atheists have come to an atheistic position after being brought up with religion and have got here after long careful examination of the dogmas that pass for so-called truths. We are well versed in the arguments of the religious and find them very thin and unimaginative gruel indeed.

So what most of us now tend to do is have a quick look to see if there is anything new being proposed (your show for example) and if it is just more of the same old same old then we cut our visit short. This is not a sign of a closed mind, this is a sign that you have nothing new to say. Life is just to short to waste it on endless mumbo jumbo.

If we let you people run things, real human achievement grinds to a complete halt.

277. Darwin or Design

Comment #56688 by pewkatchoo on July 17, 2007 at 12:37 am

Scippishow
Say something often enough and loud enough and you may even manage to convince yourself of its veracity. However, that does not necessarily make it so.

"Atheists like PZ are the most dogmatic people I have ever encountered."

Only in your own head. Dogmatism can only exist for a proposition that requires faith not for something that does not depend on faith (non-faith). PZ would change his mind immediately if evidence were presented to make him change his mind. This is not an intellectual argument you are proposing here, this is of the same level of a childish "Ah but, what about if.." We are clearly not dealing with ifs and buts. There is no evidence for the god proposition, therefore there can be no dogmatism involved in not believing in one. I don't believe that there are elves at the bottom of my garden. This is not a dogmatic belief. I have never seen any, there are no little unexplainable footsteps in the soil, none of the next door-neighbours cats have ever deposited a half-dead elf on my doorstep. Do you understand the difference between dogmatism and pragmatism? If you don't then we are wasting our time even discussing with you.

278. LA Church 'agrees abuse pay deal'

Comment #56464 by pewkatchoo on July 15, 2007 at 11:13 pm

Morro
That is a very self-opinionated stance you are taking if I may say so. Given the amount of time and the number of priests involved, I am surprised that it is only around 500 people that have come forward. I suspect there are many hundreds more that are keeping quiet due to shame.

279. Butterfly shows evolution at work

Comment #56070 by pewkatchoo on July 13, 2007 at 3:22 pm

And a very large and solid nail in the coffin of the creationists.

280. A force for evil?

Comment #56065 by pewkatchoo on July 13, 2007 at 3:05 pm

Ian now it is you that is interpreting Professor Grayling. But the problem is that you are interpreting what he said quite correctly. But if that is what he really did mean to say then I would have to disagree with him entirely.

"to abandon human decency you need ideology."

I just cannot get along with that and I find it remarkable that a man of Dr Grayling's supposed intellect could believe such a thing. Still, I suppose it comes down to what is your definition of ideology.

You said: "You're getting quite involved with this aren't you? Perhaps overly so?"

Nah, not really. It is just nice to have a decent no-holds barred argument once in a while. Otherwise it gets quite boring around here you know. The fundies certainly don't put up a decent intellectual fight.

281. A force for evil?

Comment #55861 by pewkatchoo on July 12, 2007 at 4:48 pm

Ian
Your claim that you were not rebuking anyone is rather thin:

Of course we have freedom to critique, but that comes with the danger of making a complete fool of yourself when you take on someone who knows so much better than you do.

By all means, rush in like a fool, there's no law against it. I just can't recommend it as policy.

After Wittgenstein, philosophy has been about little other than language and its relationship to meaning, so modern philosophers have extremely fine control over what they say.

The intent of my post was not to rebuke, but to give pause. Pause is good, it gives time for rational faculties to consider other possibilities.

282. A force for evil?

Comment #55753 by pewkatchoo on July 12, 2007 at 6:44 am

Ian
Oh please do get over yourself. There are lots of clever people in here too you know, maybe even as clever as you hold Doctor Grayling to be. Maybe not. But none of us are out to belittle or 'take on' Dr Grayling as you suggest, totally the opposite. I and everyone else I think actually liked the initial phrase, but even you must agree that the conclusion was clumsy and easily misconstrued. We all know what he probably meant, but that is not what came out. Here, re-read it yourself. "For kindness needs no ideology; ideologies (including religions, the prime examples of such) are required for unkindness, division, mayhem and murder." He is stating that ideologies are the cause of all unkindnesses. This is just plain wrong and paints a picture of atheists being militant. It is a clumsy attempt to paraphrase Weinburg and he got it wrong. Nobody is perfect.

283. Is Christianity Good for the World? A discussion between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson

Comment #55740 by pewkatchoo on July 12, 2007 at 6:17 am

Robert s
I would say sneezing!

284. Is Christianity Good for the World? A discussion between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson

Comment #55739 by pewkatchoo on July 12, 2007 at 6:17 am

Konradius
I have to concur with the BicycleRepairMan, that is both a wonderful analogy and a beautiful putdown.

285. Is Christianity Good for the World? A discussion between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson

Comment #55723 by pewkatchoo on July 12, 2007 at 4:43 am

I don't see them as evil! I see them as totally bonkers.

286. Is Christianity Good for the World? A discussion between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson

Comment #55714 by pewkatchoo on July 12, 2007 at 4:02 am

ChinmayKukade
Hahahaha, I read the article in the Calgary Sun and initially thought that it was a spoof, bit like the Onion you know. Then I realised it wasn't. FFS. So I sent an email to the editor.

Sir

I have just read the disgraceful article by your columnist Paul Jackson, in which he states 'Atheist Author no Einstein'.

Well, apart from the fact that Professor Dawkins has never claimed to be an Einstein, so a strawman straight away, he is very much respected throughout the UK and the rest of the thinking world as a very emminent scientist and a downright nice human being. Unlike, of course, your ad-hominem columnist.

Just to give two examples of the ridiculous things he states:

'Does he 'Dawkins' think he is more intelligent than god?'

This was just after he made it clear that Prof Dawkins does not believe in god! Is your columnist smoking some illegal substances or what?

He then compounds his stupidity by arguing:

'Has he ever been over to the Other Side? (his capitals not mine for all as if the other side is a real place that people go to on holiday!)
'I'll bet you 1,000-to-1 he hasn't.'

Leaving aside the superfluous comma in the 1000 and the -to-1 instead of the normal /1, I would like to ask the author if he has been to the other side? Perhaps he has! Could he recommend it as a nice place to visit? What are the beds like there? Food any good?

'Doesn't Dawkins believe in open discussion?'

Er, yes. He is involved in open discussions all the time. For example he had a very open and interesting discussion with the Bishop of the Anglican Church in the UK. He has been on literally hundreds of open discussion forums. So basically your author is talking rubbish here.

'Dawkins himself makes preposterous claims that God is non-existent -- claims he can't possible prove.'

This is a most absurd statement to make and, if I thought that he had any intellectual integrity at all, he completely disabused me of that with this statement.

I could write a rational rebuttal of every single one of your columnists' points but, to be honest, unless you paid me to do it I just cannot be bothered. In short, your columnist is a seriously deluded individual and a terrible writer to boot. How is that for an ad-hominem?

regards

287. Police plea on genital mutilation

Comment #55493 by pewkatchoo on July 11, 2007 at 9:32 am

PrimeNumbers, er arabs also circumcise their boys. It is not just a jewish practice.

288. The Panel

Comment #55491 by pewkatchoo on July 11, 2007 at 9:29 am

I think mr Tambree just had a whooooosh moment.

289. Police plea on genital mutilation

Comment #55447 by pewkatchoo on July 11, 2007 at 5:41 am

RTambree, I don't think that it is that the left support these practices so much as well meaning legislations passed by left wing governments and promoted by left-wing groups has allowed such things to flourish. For example, multiculturalism is a form of moral relativism that is promoted by those of the leftist persuasion and it, together with political correctness has a lot to answer for. Because of this we have the ridiculous hate crime laws that are totally subjective and unenforceable. Incitement to religious hatred is perhaps the most banal of these.

By the way, I don't think all politically correct measures have been bad, just that the doctrine itself is misguided. Common sense and rational thought seem to have been abandoned by some people in the desire to be seen as non-judgemental.

290. Inferior Design: Richard Dawkins reviews Behe's lastest book

Comment #55444 by pewkatchoo on July 11, 2007 at 5:32 am

Paul, I am sorry but your posts were interesting for a short while but in the end you suffer from total logic failure like all faithheads. This renders all your arguments and positions as absolute nonsense. Nothing to see here folks, please move along.

291. Tinkering with Humans

Comment #55418 by pewkatchoo on July 11, 2007 at 3:56 am

I loved Iain M Banks Culture society in his SF series. I thought that was a decent direction and showed what might be possible in the future with self-controlled genetic engineering. Long productive lives without disease, changing gender when you felt like it, no money driven economy. Excellent stuff.

292. Tinkering with Humans

Comment #55417 by pewkatchoo on July 11, 2007 at 3:52 am

To argue that a child is less loved because its parents chose its gender is ridiculous in the extreme. Some care is of course needed with genetic engineering, but that could be covered by sensible guidelines instead of seeing it as the big boogeyman. As for stem cell research, just what is wrong with the US? Does Bush even know what a stem cell is?

293. Sean Hannity with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #55400 by pewkatchoo on July 11, 2007 at 2:52 am

Darwin2: You are clearly insane. Please check yourself in to the nearest mental institution immediately.

your mum

294. A force for good?

Comment #55396 by pewkatchoo on July 11, 2007 at 2:12 am

Hobbit
Thanks for the compliment, at least I guess it was a compliment. Whatever, I will chalk it up as one. To be honest, I and everyone else here have read a lot of drivel from the pens of the religious, but for me, this one tops the lot. I could have taken virtually any 3 words in sequence and made a full rebuttal of them. It was that nonsensical. This guy is so seriously deluded that he really should be locked up for his own protection. The sad case is that there are lots of other people out there nodding their heads as they read this sort of bilge. Total bampots.

295. A force for evil?

Comment #55333 by pewkatchoo on July 10, 2007 at 4:28 pm

Broshiesq
What, we are not allowed to criticise writing style any more? Is that the rules? Or did you just decide that yourself? How self-righteous and arrogant is that then? Too much starch in your shirt, just maybe?

296. Don't Mince Words: The London Car-Bomb Plot Was Designed to Kill Women

Comment #55251 by pewkatchoo on July 10, 2007 at 10:56 am

Robert Maynard said: It must be reformable..
I think a big step would be eroding their hard-on for the death penalty. When new ideas aren't stifled by lopping off the idea-carrying head, there's no limit to how benign bad ideas can become.

Sorry Robert but I maintain that it is unreformable. I always think a good position is to see where someones faith leads them. If you ask a modern christian how they think about the sanctity of human life they would usually say that it is inviolable. Ask them if they would renounce their god to save one human life and, I would hazard a guess, that many if not most would be prepared, after much 'soul' searching, to do that. Ask the same questions of a muslim and you would probably get an ambivalent answer to the first question and a categorical NO to the second. Apostacy is a death sentence for a muslim. Unreformable.

297. A force for evil?

Comment #55202 by pewkatchoo on July 10, 2007 at 8:40 am

I don't think any research on charity giving statistics can be relevant. After all, non-religious charities will be equally made up of religious and non-religious people.

The amounts given by the religious and non-religious would be equally contentious. In a survey of such things, people would lie. They would not want to be seen as mean. Even if you could get accurate amounts it would still be misleading. What sort of charity do you give to? Is it a local school or college for example. Maybe you give because your children go there! Redistributive charity is really what we should be looking at only.

The UK is a secular country with a very high proportion of non-religious people, yet we give millions every year to charities. Comedy Relief and BBC's Children in Need (tv based charities) both surpass their collection totals every year. I am pretty sure that it is not just religious people that are donating to these.

If it is ever found that religious people do give more than non-religious people. Is this out of altruism or is it because of their religious guilt complex? If it is the other way around or even equal, then are non-religious people actually more generous because they don't expect anything in return?

Charitable donations is too complex a matter to have any relevance.

298. A force for good?

Comment #55195 by pewkatchoo on July 10, 2007 at 8:25 am

Primary problem: preventing religion, extreme political ideologies, murderous philosophies taking hold.

Secondary problem: preventing delusional, immoral/ammoral paranoid schizophrenics, psychopaths and other assorted murderous lunatics getting into positions of power.

I think that if we could sort both of those we would crack it once and for all. Any suggestions?

299. A force for good?

Comment #55166 by pewkatchoo on July 10, 2007 at 6:59 am

One of the most important things for me, as an atheist, is that I have no need to see god in events or situations that I don't understand or have no obvious explanation for at the time. If such an approach had been taken by religion then we would not have had such evils visited upon us as the inquisition or witch burnings. There would just have been no need for it. Odd things would simply have been filed away in the odd things drawer for later investigation and explanation.

If you start off from the premise that god probably didn't do it, then all sorts of things start to make sense. Instead of the other way around.

300. A force for evil?

Comment #55135 by pewkatchoo on July 10, 2007 at 4:51 am

Kindness needs no ideology, whereas, ideology provides commonplace justification and encouragement for all sorts of unkindness, division, mayhem and murder.