...victims of sexual exploitation by clergy often also suffer loss of faith...

Every cloud has a silver lining.

they are now doing what Christianity used to do in the Middle Ages, in much more dangerous circumstances because now there are much more terrible weapons than the Crusaders, for example, ever had.

This is quite right, of course, but, as I was reading it, the thought occurred to me the the absence of nuclear weapons in the 11th century did not prevent the crusaders from going nuclear on the people of Jerusalem when they invaded that city. They slaughtered the entire population, numbering tens of thousands. Bloody crusaders.

The saying is, actually, 'Dead as a dodo'.

And I dispute that dinosaurs are frequently cited as the ultimate exemplars of failure.

Who thumbs their nose at dinosaurs, and laughs derisively at their present-day absence? Nobody. That never happens.

I could hear it better when I set my computer's audio manager to 'Rock'.

One million miles per hour relative to what?

Edit: I see from Wikipedia that it is relative to the cosmic background radiation (which I congratulate myself on having sort of guessed).

Edit 2: Oh wait. The article says that the flow dates back to the first fraction of a second. But the origin of the cosmic background radiation is much more recent than that. So I'm still in baffled.

"But we should always say that I may refrain from publishing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed, but it's because I fear you. Don't for one moment think it's because I respect you."

[exasperated splutter] Oh for goodness sake, why do I keep hearing atheists calling him that?

Nobody in the history of the word has ever been a prophet. Prophets do not exist. Prophets have never existed, any more than psychics, wizards or unicorns.

Cut it out already! It shows too much respect for a delusion!

[edited for extra irateness]

65. Comment #469105 by Roger Stanyard on March 13, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Your right Friend Giskard. These 14 people can't be dismissed. They are scientists who support science.

Actually I was being sarcastic. I do dismiss them.

Looking at the signatories, I think perhaps we are dismissing them too lightly.

Jeff Tallon has won a medal. That makes it more likely that his opinions are right.

Well done Jeff.

The mp4 which I downloaded stops playing at about 8 minutes. I don't know if it's just me.

Any priest worthy of the name (2:10)? What is that supposed to mean? Does it, perhaps, refer to the "true churchmen like the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Pope" which Richard has mentioned elsewhere? (http://richarddawkins.net/articles/4736)

I suppose when someone talks publicly as often as Richard does, daft things are bound to slip out from time to time. I hope it was a mistake. It is worrying.

This is the caricature God attacked in The God Delusion:

A superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed the universe and everthing in it, including us.

No wonder this fellow is so agitated. Nobody believes in that god.

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind. LOL

Asked about science heroes:

"Carl Sagan blah-blah...Richard Feynman, if you want to come closer to my generation."

Uh? Exactly how old is he?

[Edit: oh, I see, the comparison was with Einstein and Newton. It just didn't sound like it]

9. Comment #462152 by Mitch Kahle

Friend Giskard: "Caning in not that big a deal."

Are you nuts?

Are you soft?

Caning is not nice. Being thrown in prison is not nice. Punishments are not nice. They are not supposed to be nice.

If I had to choose between receiving a whacking and a jail term, I am not sure which I would choose. I would have to think hard about it, taking into consideration the length of the term, and the number and nature of the whacks.

It's just a pity when people get punished for non-crimes like adultery.

There are two problems here,

(1) Adultery is a punishable crime.
(2) Some criminals are caned.

I see (1) as the much greater problem. Caning in not that big a deal. Until relatively recently it was common in schools in the UK.

edit: Also, of course, there's the uneqaul treatment of men and women. I account this a BAD THING.

This guy should come out of the closet. He'd be much happier. He sounds quite sad.

The earliest flying machine manuals? LOL

That's inspiring. I think I might write a time machine manual this evening. I am sure to win lots of praise for my intellectual energy.

Yada-yada-yada.

But I say that in a powerful and meaningful way, you understand.

What impertinence, asking about Richard's daughter like that. It's none of our business what she's doing now, or if she goes to church. I felt uncomfortable watching that exchange.

A.C. Grayling was debating this on PM tonight (starts at 33 minutes)

http://tinyurl.com/ydqof4m

The enormous wasps are giving me pause for thought.

I agree with blakjack. This is daft.

This article makes the case that Pat Robertson's bullshit is more authentic to tradition than nice, middle-of-the-road theologians' brand of bullshit. That isn't much of a stick with which to beat the latter, give that it's all bullshit anyway. I don't see the point of this piece.

They call it Mohican in the UK. Don't know why.

[Robertson] is the Christian who stands squarely in the Christian tradition...

those faux-anguished hypocrites are denying the centrepiece of their own theology...

Just read your own Bible. Pat Robertson is true to it. But you?

Sure. Those "nice, middle-of-the-road theologians and clergymen" are just as clownish and contemptible as Pat Robertson, and this is something that is worth drawing attention to. But is making points like these really the best way to do it?

Why does the professor lower himself to addressing questions about who is truer to the bible? Who cares? It's theology.

Jacobson either hasn't read the God Delusion, or hasn't understood it. Or he has read and understood it, and is deliberately mis-representing it. So he's either a liar or a moron.

OFF TOPIC

Holy crap. look at this:

http://tinyurl.com/yay7gp5

Unbelievable!

[For those who might not know, Cherie Booth is Tony Blair's missus]

I have a yellow question mark over my head. Are these programs (this one and How Earth Made Us) on YouTube with the BBC's blessing, or are they likely to be taken down soon?

(Someone should upload Aristotle's Lagoon. It's a good one.)

Nice to see some physics jokes in there, which reminded me of this one:

"Milk production at a dairy farm was low so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the farmer received the write-up, and opened it to read on the first line: "Consider a spherical cow in vacuum. . . ."

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow

I first heard a version of this joke in the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, but with spherical chickens instead of cows.

Poor Lavoisier.