351. Britons unconvinced on evolution

Comment #18751 by Jack Rawlinson on January 22, 2007 at 6:46 pm

Okay, that's surprising and depressing. What the hell has happened to my country?

We live in the Dim Ages.

352. 12 Year Old Girl Prodigy Paints Pictures of God

Comment #18707 by Jack Rawlinson on January 22, 2007 at 2:52 pm

That's not God! That's Noel Edmonds!!

NO DEAL!!

353. Neither intellect nor faith will save humanity

Comment #18518 by Jack Rawlinson on January 21, 2007 at 1:00 pm

M_R: right now the cute words which are springing to mind in relation to you are things like "hypersensitive" and "paranoid". And I mean that in a non-serious, "just-joshing-with-ya" way, 'kay? :-)

I'm British, so perhaps there are racial overtones to "redneck" that my cultural ignorance means I'm unaware of, but to me it seems no more racist than our Brit terms like "chav" (which basically means under-educated and largely white working-class youth with a fondness for dressing in sportswear and indulging in minor criminality). The term is vaguely derogatory but inasmuch as race forms any part of the characteristics of the group, it isn't the element which makes the term derogatory. People don't sneer at rednecks or chavs because they're white. I think gangsta rappers are shallow, idiotic boneheads, but not because they're black.

354. Neither intellect nor faith will save humanity

Comment #18506 by Jack Rawlinson on January 21, 2007 at 10:07 am

Do you hate poor blacks, too?

Who said I hated people for being poor or white?

We atheists are too used to that sort of straw man not to spot them, no matter what the source, I'm afraid.

Do you have any quick ways to describe them?

"Poor blacks" is pretty quick, and is probably the description I'd use.

Any other questions/assumptions you'd like to make?

355. Neither intellect nor faith will save humanity

Comment #18425 by Jack Rawlinson on January 20, 2007 at 5:48 pm

I love Muriel Gray and I want to have her children.

I have no problem at all with terms like "redneck". It's just a quick way of saying "under-educated, ignorant hick moron". And those people really do exist, you know. One thing atheists of all people shouldn't be afraid of is calling it like it is.

356. Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

Comment #18253 by Jack Rawlinson on January 19, 2007 at 6:04 am

Question for admin: where is the troll thread? I just had a quick scan on the forum and couldn't see it there.

357. Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

Comment #18096 by Jack Rawlinson on January 18, 2007 at 9:36 am

Classic satire from The Onion's golden era. Funny that it fooled a few people here, too!

358. Sam Harris at Idea City '05

Comment #17915 by Jack Rawlinson on January 17, 2007 at 1:47 pm

Great speech. I loved his "big diamond" illustration. And I wish every religious believer would listen to this with an open mind. If they can find one, of course. :-)

359. Atheist Outreach: Group Coaxes Unbelievers Into the Open

Comment #17818 by Jack Rawlinson on January 16, 2007 at 6:21 pm

Well hell, I may be a Brit but I live in NYC. Maybe I should go check these folks out and lend my support. I certainly have no problem being "out of the closet" about my atheism. Even after five years in possibly the most liberal city in the US it amazes me how negatively atheists are viewed here. In Britain it means nothing. In fact, people tend to assume you're an atheist - or at least an agnostic - unless you show the immense bad taste and lack of social grace to say otherwise. :-)

360. Christian Shrine Needs Two Exits, Israel Says

Comment #17817 by Jack Rawlinson on January 16, 2007 at 6:14 pm

"an unprecedented violation of the status quo"

Man, I haven't heard that expression since I goosed Francis Rossi in 1974

361. Wash. school board restricts Gore's global-warming film

Comment #17787 by Jack Rawlinson on January 16, 2007 at 11:39 am

scot: "The global warming bandwagon is beginning to resemble a religion"

No, it isn't. Not if you look at it properly. Why? because unlike a religion it has masses of hard, scientific evidence to support it. And it really isn't hard to find at all. Watching the film would be a good start, you know.

362. Wash. school board restricts Gore's global-warming film

Comment #17724 by Jack Rawlinson on January 15, 2007 at 5:45 pm

Hey Frosty! My Granpappy only died in 1974 and he said he saw a UFO, and I believed him! How cool that you believe people who wrote some mad shit over 2000 years ago! You are Mr. Rational!

Can we as fallible humans be mis-interpreting the data that is being read?

Sure we can! Unless the data that is being read is that which is contained in the bible, eh? Then it's so obviously truth that we can damned well add up all those ages in that genealogy in the book of Matthew and GOSHDURN IT EVILUTION MUST BE WRONG!

Thank you for bringing some cool-headed reason to our humble forum, Frosty!

363. Wash. school board restricts Gore's global-warming film

Comment #17720 by Jack Rawlinson on January 15, 2007 at 4:47 pm

Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher

Nice argument. Presumably this school doesn't use any materials - books, video, DVD, recorded sound... that isn't written or performed by qualified schoolteachers? Oh dear! I guess that would include the bible!

364. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17669 by Jack Rawlinson on January 15, 2007 at 11:55 am

I'm not returning to this thread for the all-too-tempting opportunity to indulge in a futile argument with Saucus about what does and does not constitute a snide remark, but just to note that I found this on the Forum.

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2373


It's a shame the only options provided were "Liberal" and "Conservative" - I'd have preferred something more along the lines of the Political Compass - but the results are currently showing something like 85% liberal.

365. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17557 by Jack Rawlinson on January 14, 2007 at 5:49 pm

A mountain range of secular capitalist literature awaits you on the other side of your parasitic religious morality.

This lack of familiarity is by choice, moreover. It is a voluntary ignorance not apparently dissimilar from religious faith.

Apparently Jack Rawlinson is not the only one who endorses some snide remarks but not others.

I think I'm done with this thread.

366. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17521 by Jack Rawlinson on January 14, 2007 at 11:30 am

Saucus, I wasn't complaining about snideness. I just felt that this isn't really the place for a political argument, as it would take the thread away from the subject post. It seems that the forum might be better suited to that. I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise, or to simply step aside if that turns out to be the way people want this to go.

367. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17517 by Jack Rawlinson on January 14, 2007 at 11:06 am

liberalism is basically just another religion.

*Sigh*. See, this is what I was trying to avoid.

368. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17504 by Jack Rawlinson on January 14, 2007 at 7:34 am

It's hard for me to think of conservatives as rational, whether or not they believe in supernatural forces.

I agree, Kismettena. I just didn't want to turn this into a political slanging match. Although maybe that'd be fun... :-)

369. Conservative Atheists

Comment #17498 by Jack Rawlinson on January 14, 2007 at 5:49 am

The value of these pieces by MacDonald, for me, is that they illustrate that atheism has nothing to do with your political alignment. It's a separate thing. There's no reason why you can't be a communist, a socialist, a liberal, a libertarian, a conservative or a fascist and also be an atheist. All it takes to be an atheist is to be a critical thinker who is open to rationality. I suspect it's a little harder for conservatives - in the US especially - to come out as atheists because of the natural tendency of right-wingers to hold to "tradition". Perhaps, also, the liberal mindset tends to be a little more open (almost by definition) to rejecting outdated concepts and bucking the status quo. But that's just conjecture, probably coloured by me being a bit of a liberal lefty myself. :-)

I'd actually be interested to see some stats about atheists' political positions. Maybe we could do one of those polls of the contributors to this site?

370. Intelligent design is a science, not a faith

Comment #17195 by Jack Rawlinson on January 11, 2007 at 4:19 pm

gimlibengloin: crystals appear to be designed too, don't they? All those lovely straight edges and perfectly flat facets. Such wonderfully regular shapes. Obviously couldn't have happened purely by natural processes, could it?

371. Homophobia, not injustice, is what really fires the faiths

Comment #17194 by Jack Rawlinson on January 11, 2007 at 4:09 pm

Also, we all know the prof isn't averse to the odd swearie... :-)

372. Homophobia, not injustice, is what really fires the faiths

Comment #17193 by Jack Rawlinson on January 11, 2007 at 4:09 pm

Coppernose: not sure it'd be down to the swearing. I seem to recall I've sworn here a few times without being deleted, but I could be mixing up my forums.

373. Richard Dawkins' Report Card

Comment #17097 by Jack Rawlinson on January 10, 2007 at 6:50 pm

I think this is not only a bit of fun, it's actually encouraging for kids who are getting bad reports. This book lets us point to famous and successful people who also had bad reports at school.

374. Homophobia, not injustice, is what really fires the faiths

Comment #17096 by Jack Rawlinson on January 10, 2007 at 6:42 pm

Another - just after the London bombings.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,9321,1534018,00.html

Okay, I'll stop now. But trust me, Toynbee is full-on anti-religious.

375. Homophobia, not injustice, is what really fires the faiths

Comment #17095 by Jack Rawlinson on January 10, 2007 at 6:30 pm

Here's one of many examples.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,787108,00.html

376. Homophobia, not injustice, is what really fires the faiths

Comment #17094 by Jack Rawlinson on January 10, 2007 at 6:29 pm

MIND_REBEL: It's not surprising to hear Toynbee attack religion at all. Long-time Guardian readers will know she's a pretty militant atheist and has done a number of great pieces sticking it to the faith-heads. It's just been a while because she spent too long trying to stick up for Bliar around the last election.

Toynbee's one of the good guys where religion is concerned.

377. Intelligent design is a science, not a faith

Comment #16907 by Jack Rawlinson on January 9, 2007 at 2:47 pm

Yes, The Guardian was at it at again this morning; posting another piece of outrageous lunacy from the wacko end of the believer spectrum. If you go to Guardian Online you'll see that as usual it received a huge amount of scorn and debunking in the reader comments.

Why do they keep doing this?

378. Halting progress

Comment #16905 by Jack Rawlinson on January 9, 2007 at 2:45 pm

Go Grayling!

Yeah, don't they love to whine about how oppressive and disrespectful we atheists are being by, shock horror, verbally criticising their stupid beliefs; how we're being no better than fundamentalists? Is that so? No, you idiots. We're not doing this, are we? We're not protesting and demanding a legal right to discriminate against you, are we?

379. Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture

Comment #16781 by Jack Rawlinson on January 8, 2007 at 5:35 pm

It's ridiculous to suggest Dawkins should distance himself from Harris. Even though I disagree with Harris on torture it's perfectly plain that he made his case logically and using rational argument. I take issue with elements of his arguments but that's fine: Harris has shown himself to be a clear-thinking, rational person who will argue fairly, will listen to those who disagree with him and will make his own fair judgement. He's an intelligent, lucid, rational man, and you don't cut yourself off from a guy like that just because you don't agree with him 100%. And anyway, do we actually know that Richard doesn't agree with him on this too?

Sam strikes me as the kind of guy I'd love to sit down with over a drink and argue about exactly this sort of thing. I agree with 95% of what he says. What fun it'd be to discuss that other 5% with such a smart, thoughtful man!

380. Secret Life of Brian

Comment #16760 by Jack Rawlinson on January 8, 2007 at 1:41 pm

Not The Nine O'clock News was always keen on having a poke at religion. We could use more of that these days, for sure.

Here's another classic where they had a go at the weekly nonsense that was "Songs of Praise" (an extremely old-fashioned, long-running and lame UK religious broadcast which essentially consisted of a service... aaaand, that was it. It may still be going for all I know).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcuRbD6r18g&mode=related&search=

381. The Nodder

Comment #16759 by Jack Rawlinson on January 8, 2007 at 1:37 pm

I'm reading a book which I got for Christmas too. This one is resulting in broken crockery, shattered ornaments and traumatised cats, because I keep hurling it away from me in disgust.

I won't tell you what it is because I wouldn't want the same thing to happen to you.

382. Secret Life of Brian

Comment #16733 by Jack Rawlinson on January 8, 2007 at 11:00 am

To clarify: when I say "The free speech that incites violence" I don't, of course, mean speech actively encouraging the use of violence. I mean speech which offends someone so much that they decide to express that offence through violence, or the threat of violence.

383. Secret Life of Brian

Comment #16729 by Jack Rawlinson on January 8, 2007 at 10:58 am

"Freedom of speech does not end when it offends someone. It should only end when it incites violence."

I completely disagree. The free speech that incites violence is the freedom it is most important to defend. If people - be they Muslims or anyone else - see that violent intimidation is working, they will continue to use it to get their way.

Yes, it takes more guts to criticise Islam (which is a regressive and nonsensical pile of garbage, of course), but that is precisely why it needs to be done. Bullies keep bullying until their bullying stops working.

384. Secret Life of Brian

Comment #16632 by Jack Rawlinson on January 7, 2007 at 5:15 pm

"I walked away from religion around that time and thought education was better"

Priceless!

385. Secret Life of Brian

Comment #16630 by Jack Rawlinson on January 7, 2007 at 5:10 pm

jburdoo: I see little evidence of genuine humour even in moderate religion. And when it does try to be funny it usually fails as embarrassingly as when christians try to rock.

A vital element of humour is the ability and willingness to question, to look sideways at things, to puncture the pretensions of others - and ourselves. The weak sort of mind that clings to belief in the supernatural and makes it one of the most important things in its life is always going to be severely challenged in this regard.

386. Consciousness Without Faith

Comment #16608 by Jack Rawlinson on January 7, 2007 at 2:55 pm

NormanDoering: you know, I think part of the issue here is simply that the climate is right now for forcefully-argued books about atheism. It's a problem with any creative work - music, art, literature, whatever - that unfortunately, to a greater or lesser degree the success of that work can depend on the zeitgeist. Ask Van Gogh, John Kennedy Toole, Nick Drake...

You guys should get onto your agents/publishers and tell them the time's right for another print run and a big ad campaign!

387. Consciousness Without Faith

Comment #16597 by Jack Rawlinson on January 7, 2007 at 2:25 pm

I have no problem with this, although like Stephen, I worry about the use of words which carry a weight of historical religious baggage. Using such words to describe real-world, non-supernatural experiences carries the same risk as Einstein's use of "god" - it throws the hungry religious believer a bone.

388. Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture

Comment #16534 by Jack Rawlinson on January 7, 2007 at 6:30 am

ryanbooker: good point. I realised after I posted last night that I had not made clear what I mean when I use the term "primary intent". You are right to clarify that in one sense the intention of a torturer may be to achieve what he perceives as a greater good (although if you read many real-world accounts of torture it soon becomes clear that few torturers are actually quite so high-minded).

I should have said "primary action" rather than intent. I mean simply the raw action taken by the person inflicting the suffering. In the case of a bomber pilot it is to operate a switch and fly home, essentially. In the case of a torturer it is to apply a club, an electrode, a pair of pliers or a bucket of excrement to the body of a visibly suffering human being, and to keep doing it until that person visibly cracks. Surely you will at least concede that this second action takes a very different mindset to perform? And if you agree with that, then why does it? I contend that it does so because there is a quantitative shift along the moral spectrum of cruelty between bombing and torture.

Let me be clear: I am not saying that the results of torture are worse than those of bombing; I am not saying the level of suffering inflicted by torture is higher; I am saying that the unarguable differences in the nature of the actions necessary to cause the two situations indicates a difference in the moral position one must adopt to be a bomber or a torturer.

I can hear the counter-arguments to this already. It's actually a very deep and subtle argument and I suspect this non-threaded format isn't going to support it for too long. :-)

389. Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture

Comment #16486 by Jack Rawlinson on January 6, 2007 at 8:25 pm

ryanbooker: I don't dispute that it's intentional. There are gradations of intent, too. When someone drops a bomb on a building they believe contains a legitimate target and maybe some innocent people, their primary intent is to kill the target, but additionally they accept that the price of that intent is the likely death of some innocent people. They may very well regret this. They may comfort themselves with the thought that maybe it won't happen. Maybe there will be no collateral damage. But in any case, they see it as justified in the larger picture.

Conversely, when someone tortures an individual they intend only to cause direct suffering to that specific individual. Possibly in the hope of obtaining valuable information, possibly not, but it is very clear that the nature of their primary intent differs crucially from the nature of the primary intent of the bomber pilot. It is a gross and rather sinister blurring of detail to try to equate these intentions and to suggest that the very real distinctions between them are irrelevant in the broader moral spectrum.

We, as rationalists, must be extremely wary of this sort of blurring of moral distinctions, or we run the risk of justifying the accusations of those believers who seek to lump is in with the likes of Stalin and Mao Tse Tung. Morality is relative. It is not black and white. If we lose sight of the differences - subtle and not-so-subtle - between different moral dilemmas we coarsen ourselves.

Damn, I really must go to bed!

390. Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture

Comment #16478 by Jack Rawlinson on January 6, 2007 at 7:23 pm

Let me just add that I really, really value Sam Harris and I appreciate his robust atheism. These differences are issues which I am sure we could have a satisfying discussion about over a drink or two, and which I am equally sure we could reach - if not agreement - at least respect for each other's position.

One can rarely say the same thing about discussions with a faith-head.

391. Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture

Comment #16477 by Jack Rawlinson on January 6, 2007 at 7:21 pm

Without going into detail (because I'm tired and ready for bed), my big problem with Sam's view about torture was precisely his attempt to suggest that it is morally equivalent - or as near-equivalent as makes no odds - with bombing, collateral damage etc. It isn't. Are they both bad, painful, terrifying things which merit antipathy and distaste? Sure. But then so are the activities of hit-and-run drivers and serial killers, but I trust no one is about to suggest a moral equivalence between those things. There is the question of the directness of involvement, and it matters. There is a continuum of "involvement". The pilots of the bombers who pressed the button which launched incendiary pain, death and bereavement on countless human beings during WWII bear a responsibility, yes. But it is in a different stratum to that of the person who takes a captive, incapacitates him and slowly and deliberately inflicts excruciating pain on him - all the while directly listening to and seeing the results of that pain and adjusting his pain-inflicting technique accordingly. I'm sorry, Sam, this is not a black-and-white issue. It is a spectrum.

392. Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture

Comment #16408 by Jack Rawlinson on January 6, 2007 at 2:15 pm

Muslims will be cheering "The End of Faith"? Oh boy. Not if they read it!

However, in fairness I must say that I didn't agree with the parts of the book pertaining to torture and Sam's thoughts on "mysticism". I thought they marred an otherwise excellent work.

393. God-less

Comment #16403 by Jack Rawlinson on January 6, 2007 at 2:09 pm

"The who-designed-the-designer question, by the way, does not trouble me"

Well, I suppose that's one way of dealing with an unanswerable argument - simply refuse to be "troubled" by it. I'll remember that one in future, it'll be handy:

"But your proof fails because the math is wrong - you divided by zero there!"

"Oh, that doesn't trouble me."

394. Secular fundamentalists are the new totalitarians

Comment #16333 by Jack Rawlinson on January 6, 2007 at 6:23 am

Simmons: The Guardian has been printing a lot of these pieces by religious apologists lately. Mostly, they're fairly unhinged (although this one is probably the most outrageously deranged). I actually have a theory that they're doing it as a way of exposing just how irrational these people are. However, I'm starting to think that this theory might be based a little too much on wishful-thinking borne of my left-liberal fondness for The Guardian.

I really don't want to have to transfer my allegiance to the Indescribablyboring, but if The Guardian keeps this up...

395. Secular fundamentalists are the new totalitarians

Comment #16331 by Jack Rawlinson on January 6, 2007 at 6:11 am

I just read this astounding rant at The Guardian itself. Even by the lamentably distorted standards of the usual backlash piece, this one reaches new heights... er, depths of paranoia and rage. I don't think irrational, splenetic diatribes like this deserve the slightest respect. So here's the reply I made.

Oh get a grip, you absurd, paranoid, raving little man. The truth is that you superstitious, god-bothering primitives are being loudly called out and SHOWN UP for what you are, and my golly yes, isn't it *embarrassing* for you? No wonder it sends you off the deep end like this, flailing in the turbulent, polluted waters of la-la land. Listen to yourself: you sound no better than a foaming, overheated street-corner loony, you dimwit.

Hint: compounding your embarrassment by desribing reasonable, rational critics of your stupid little beliefs as dictators, totalitarians and fundamentalists doesn't exactly make their criticisms look bad. Can you get your credulous little mind around that concept? Or do you need it delivered in a vision or a holy book?

396. Without God, Gall Is Permitted

Comment #16234 by Jack Rawlinson on January 5, 2007 at 4:43 pm

LDMiller: I'm 47 years old, you presumptious upstart.

397. Without God, Gall Is Permitted

Comment #16233 by Jack Rawlinson on January 5, 2007 at 4:42 pm

Whereas, of course, the god-botherers are just bursting with shiny new exciting arguments, like "OMG Dawkins doesn't know Jack about this obscure point of theology (which I'm not actually going to tell you because I know it doesn't make a lick of sense so please just take my word for it that it's rilly rilly conclusive, will you? Thanks!)"

Just as well they have all these killer arguments since they - as the actual proponents of a set of outlandish claims - have the responsibility to provide such arguments, not those of us who remain to be convinced by those claims.

And of course he heard all the atheist's counter-arguments at school. He heard them from the smart kids. It's not like you need ten years in college to see what a pile of rank, steaming garbage religious claims are. Not if you have an IQ over 120, anyway.

398. No religion and an end to war: how thinkers see the future

Comment #15887 by Jack Rawlinson on January 3, 2007 at 1:56 pm

No, Nazgul. The two types of people in the world are those who divide people into two types and those who don't. :-)

399. 10 myths - and 10 truths - about atheism

Comment #15769 by Jack Rawlinson on January 2, 2007 at 7:14 pm

"Jack – that is exactly what I was saying. If you read it. I think the argument is preposterous but it was your prophet who brought it up"

"Prophet"? What is he prophesying, exactly? Just knock it off with the juvenile rubber/glue nonsense, Robertson. You're not impressing anyone but yourself.

400. What are you optimistic about? Why?

Comment #15768 by Jack Rawlinson on January 2, 2007 at 7:08 pm

Personally, I'm optimistic that the world is going to hell and that religion has a huge amount to do with that.