Congratulations Richard! I so admire your tireless work against religion and for reason. Well deserved!

Ridicule hits the target where it hurts : their dignity. There are occasions when this is the best tactic.

If you're arguing for free will then what I'd like to know is, What would it look like if there were no free will?

Free will is a religious concept needed to explain why so much suffering exists and is not the fault of god. Science has no need for it. Once the universe has stuff in it then one thing leads to another through the laws of physics.

I'm with Steve on this. I'm a 7.

There could be no physical evidence that disproved Fermat's Last Theorem now that a proof has been found.

I think there can. The proof is written down on paper in ink, or is stored by a particular configuration of electrons held in a hard disk. So the proof exists as a material object, and what if someone rechecks the proof and finds that a character is out of place or misplaced. This would throw doubt on the proof and we wouldn't be sure anymore that it had been proved. So an inkmark can disprove Fermat's Last Theorem. And an inkmark is a physical evidence.

I've just watched this fascinating conversation. Here's an idea for a future conversation that Richard can have : with Steven Pinker. That would be one hell of a conversation!

Here in Canada we don’t need fatwa’s to protect women, we have the law! And maybe those imams have not read our constitution and our rules of law.

It's not about that. The imams' fatwa will have the effect of raising consciousness about the problem of "honour" killings. It's someone from within their "community" speaking out against these barbaric pracitses.

Hi Farhan, It's great that you have seen the light and have left superstition behind and embraced rationalism. Here is a book that you'll find helpful and interesting : Alex Rosenberg's The Atheist's Guide to reality : Enjoying life without ilusions.

I can't wait to get it. This is going to increase sales as people like me, who have never bought it before, buy one now.

My 2 copies just arrived from Amazon at 11:15 am in London. Am I the first?

I hope we get it in the UK. Can't wait.

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It is an interesting question, incidentally, why pain has to be so damned painful. Why not equip the brain with the equivalent of a little red flag, painlessly raised to warn, “Don’t do that again”?

Perhaps pain has to be painful so that we will not ignore it. For example, we know that alcohol harms us and we should not over do it but despite knowing this we do overdo it occasionally.

I think skiles 1 is a concern troll.

Comment 126 by knocknnock.

Yes of course there must be an explanation for why these people are so stupid, just as there is an explanation for why people obeyed Hitler's orders. But RD did not deny that nor did he go into the reasons. That is a separate issue.

Atheism has nothing to do with science.

No, but it is a consequence of a scientific world-view.

Wow, looks brilliant. Can't wait. But I was just wondering, the kids I know already don't believe in the mythical explanations of reality. So for them they'll first learn the myths and then see them debunked to reveal the true explanation. Why not just go straight to the true explanation?

Anyway, I'll be buying several copies.

Happy Birthday to the great RD. Many happy returns.

But what if a flat-earther is hired to teach Latin?

But what if a virgin-birther is hired to teach Latin?

I would say that they too are so disconnected from reality that these fuckwits should't get hired either. But where do we draw the line? Do we have a scale to measure the level of disconnectedness? Where on a scale would belief in homeopathy lie? Should a believer in homeopathy be hired to teach Latin?

I'm with danconquer on this. It really sounds like one of those self-help American motivational videos.

What is really satisfying instead is learning about how this world we live in works, scientifically and politically.

I just cannot find the words to say how repugnant I find the pope, the vatican and the catholic church. (And I'm not going to dignify them with capital letters.) I wonder what's in it for the pope?

This is exactly the book you are looking for : The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work by W. Daniel Hillis. Hope this helps.

I've never really "got" poetry. Can't say I'm that bothered. You don't need to understand the poetry in the KJB to appreciate reading Sagan, Pinker, Feynman, Hawkin. It would be a waste to my time to read the Bible.

So sorry to hear this, Richard. You have my deepest sympathies. Take care. Jiten.

You could have said to your 4- year-old that her great-great-great-great (that's enough greats for a 4 year old's mind) grandma WAS a monkey, and you would have been accurate enough for her.

The other way to handle it is to say, as I did to my 6-year-old niece, that that's a very interesting question and I'll tell you the answer when you're old enough to understand it.

Well, you can't change anyone's mind by debating with him, for if that were possible then RD would long ago have converted all those crackpots he's debated with - such as William Lane Craig and Lennox. No, like you, it has to come from within oneself, by questioning one's beliefs. The most you can do is recommend books and articles and the leave them to it.

Oh no, not Cristina Odious. Why o why is she ever asked to contribute to these debates? Her opinions are so cretinous. Even the religious should despair.

Here it is : http://newhumanist.org.uk/2382/there-will-be-blood

So we insist that an animal is stunned before its throat is slashed, to ensure it is deeply unconscious.

I read an article in the, I think, August edition of New Humanist which talked about this very thing. It said that stunning causes paralysis but not anaesthesia, i.e. not unconsciousness. So the animals may be suffering after all ,even more so if you think about how frightened they must be being paralysed but unable to move or scream.

If the conclusions are based on this premise than as the premise seems to be wrong, or at least needs more research, then the conclusions are not valid.

I'll try and find a link to that article.