Simply call yourself whatever the freakin hell you like, according to the occasion.

In 20 years time when Sam has established himself as the Second Cumming of Our Lord and Saviour, none of you are safe.

Of course we could all sit around here with our fingers in our butts, wondering what to call ourselves, while Rome burns.

RD: Only depressing if you acknowledge that there is a 50/50 chance of these ideas being correct - my point at #23. Why give these fantasists equal space to debate their loony tunes ideas?

He had good debating skills. This is what makes you depressed. He can have these skills without one good idea in his head. And I repeat, he came much better prepared to this debate.

"Hello, Mr. Hitchens? We at the Christian College wondered if you wouldn't mind awfully, coming along to discuss why Christianity doesn't really suck that badly..."

"Thank you, for your most acceptable offer. I would be glad to kick your head in for that amount of gratuity."

"Thanks, we must all accept our suffering for our faith in nonsensical shite"

"You're welcome!"

As entertaining as I find these debates, I can't help but think that they give too much credence to theist view.

This reminds me of the creationist v science, 50/50 possibility of being right point of view, attempting to lever itself into our classrooms.

By offering these nutters equal air-time, as it were, the rationalist is accepting that the nutter may have a valid argument that needs debating at all.

I assume this prostitution of rational thought in this context, is usually done with the intent of exposure to ideas, or to line the back-pocket, in the hope that they are exposed as the fools they obviously are.

Is the only forum for atheistic and rational views to be expressed in the public arena to be in debate with more deranged lunatics? They have the pulpit, countless television opportunities to fleece the vulnerable and pseudo news channels to bang on about their worthless, crass and childish notions. What do normal people have? Forums preaching to the converted and...

D'Souza seems to have one hugely inflated opinion of his own worth. But he comes with well prepared and researched bullsht.

I wonder if derision, spiced with humour and a refusal to take to the stage on equal terms is not a more appropriate way in which to to deal with these over-inflated, self-congratulatory, charlatans and twits.

It looks to me like the next phase of the public debate has just taken off.
People like Humphrys and Alibhai-Brown that have so far held themselves to be outside the religion/atheist debate. They have a much more balanced and nuanced view of the world than these warring extreme factions, as they see them. It is interesting to see where this will go. It seems, this disenfranchised group in the childhood of defining its own position in the world, feels itself set-upon by both the dogmatic religiously defined God and unfeeling scientific reductionism.

There is I think, affecting an awful lot of people of the same mindset, a growing dislike of cold-hearted, out of control science, globalisation, climate change, destruction of the planet, wars, religious or otherwise all lumped into one threatening bundle. A wish to return to better simpler times when we could just all get along…

We must accept that there are a huge number of people that have no interest in science or reason, are quite happy to live there lives not knowing (like most of us to one degree or another) and find happiness in this way. These authors do not really believe in God, but they see something not described by science or religion, that really happens to them.

These people are not to be loathed because they see the world in a different way. In fact all we lack is a common language to describe the world we see about us.

Do these authors really think that an atheist, does not, can not, see beauty in the reflection of a full moon over the sea? Do they imagine that we observe these physical events in terms of photons, atmospheric conditions and Newtonian physics? I really think they must.

What else is there to say? Wouldn't it be cool if my post was the last in this thread? Why butter the mans ego? Leave it - pls.

Comment #60885 by scooternyc
Never mind the leg-pulling Scooter. You made an excellent point.
It is very reminiscent of a hypnotist planting key words into your head when a child. Only to call on them again when you are feeling vulnerable for whatever reason. The brain works in some amazing ways. This is the first time I have heard this argument - so good for you :-)

To all of you interested in how you might get involved in tackling the problem of faith schools in the UK. This organisation is politically active in this area.

http://www.secularism.org.uk/

I recommend to everyone, whether UK based or not, sign up to the weekly unobtrusive and informative weekly email newsletter. You might be suprised how much the religious are influencing policy here in the UK. Check the latest news column.

This whole thread is a fascinating read and an often humbling explanation by some posters of why we need to take this shit seriously.

Many of you have engaging and intelligent positions on the issues at hand. I would personally like to single out Epeeist and BillySands as having titillated some obvious but unexplored areas in my own thinking - so thanks.

Thanks for youir encouragement Yorker, though I would like to point out to the younger viewers that this experiment has proved beyond doubt that the t-shirt is a serious 'babe-magnet'.

Please don't think this is sexist. I am still waiting for the experimetal data from the fairer sexes use of the shirt. Though I don't really like girls to wear t-shirts, when they can look so much prettier in their usual clothes.

I would like to see an atheist lingerie range, subtle of course. Wouldn't like to be reminded to much of RD when getting down to business. No disrespect intended.

Cheers

I have been using the t-shirt as an evolutionary experiment.

I have experimented to see if I can pull more birds than usual whilst wearing it (whilst concurrently using my abundant wit and charm), than I could have by using a Jesus Luvs U t-shirt.

I will of course use a blank t-shirt as a control in this experiment.

I considered using a 75% smaller 'back motif' combined with shirt pocket area subtle designer A. But came to the considered conclusion that this was crap. Appendix A.3.34

The results after a 3 week intense period of investigation in bars and clubs and lonely hearts dates: 1 week per t-shirt.

1. Dawkins A motif t-shirt, with added website info.
17 possible pregnancies, 3 offers of permanent luxurious habitation, 1 offer of presidency of a former colony.

2. Jesus Luvs U t-shirt. With bloodstained effect on the back panel.
Had one approach from a crying woman.
Two approaches from obviously devout women who tried to hack my genitals off with a broken glass.
And another very nice person called George, who I could not imagine passing on my genes, despite several quirky attempts.

3. Blank t-shirt control.
As usual, I passed amongst the bars and clubs unnoticed.

So I draw the conclusion that if you are a bearded, middle-aged, fat bastard, you will not pass on your genes unless you wear a Dawkins.net t-shirt.

However, I have no wish to pass on my genes, so I will be wearing my Y-fronts over my vest for the remainder of my life.

Cheers

This just irritates me a lot. I just want to challenge those posters that suggest that every one of us need to actively engage in battle, in order to suggest that it is right that our respective democracies do so. The idea is preposterous.
Presumably we would have Gordon and George leading the cavalry charge and the rest of us on zimmers and clutching our copies of 'Free Inquiry".

Our people decide that that we need armies to defend our democracies. Currently these are voluntary positions (unless you want to get into the whole poor, duped, no-hope, army gives you a life arguments). It is perfectly correct for ANY of us to suggest to our MP's that our fighting forces get involved in protecting our democracy in any place that we see a danger. I have absolutely no guilt about that, even if hand-to-hand fighting is not my forte.

It is also our right to kick the government out if we think the money would be better spent on hospitals while we wait for the Caliphate! Lucky us.

But while we continue to agree as a nation that my taxes are spent in this way, I can see no reason why I should not have a say in what struggles we are involved in.
So to all of you that think I should shed my blood before opening my mouth on any issue with regard to deployment of our forces. You are just dead wrong in holding such a naive position.

What an amazing woman.

Maybe some of you learned philosophers or scientists here could expand a little on the (common sense!) notion that the universe we inhabit is the only possible way that matter and energy could have come together. I have often wondered about it.
The thought that there is no multiverse necessary, because after any big bang, all the components could ONLY be arranged in the way that we see them today.
Humour me and educate me! Thx.

Tx for the quote Healing. That was new to me, and putting it in context made a lot more sense.

If anything I'm even more in awe of this thinker that could get outside his doctrinal upbringing, and help to describe phenomena to his contemporaries in their own language.

What a giant of a human being. You can toss off to yourselves however you like, about how you fancy his religious leanings were. The matter is inconsequential. He is the father of our times.

Thanks for the thoughtm Steelman, but it seems a little too heavy on the Christian doctrine thing for me to get interested. Emerging = Wooly interpretation without the guilt factor and without to much examination of the biblical literature. (which is fine by me, but why make a new scene out of it?)

Well i suppose there is no room in your world for anyone that is not upright and sober.
I see myself as completely sober, even under the influence of voluminous amounts of Scotch.

You also don't shop 'em to the police. And you don't moralise. Either you take their keys off them or turn a blind eye. Enough analogies?
Did you read any of my arguments?

@42035
This kind of thing was what I was trying to get away from in my argument. It might well have been the reason for your robust post!

"The poison part is faith. When you encourage people to act according to faith, you open the door to many good works, but also to horrors. You open the door to deeds of charity in Jesus' name, and to suicide bombings in shopping malls. Faith is the most elastic justification imaginable. For that reason, it's got to go."

This is the extreme reaction I was referring to in my earlier post, when you correlate the author's intent with those of suicide bombers. How can you possibly hope to win over a friend when you you use these kind of arguments?

I have for donkey's years not bothered to trouble anyone with my own belief that there is no God, and Bill Gates is his Profit (PBUB)(sic).

But now, all of a sudden, I feel motivated to bemoan and agitate against the swelling
tide of the ranting righteous and dangerous aggressors and even their fee-paying
dupes. But I realise what I rail against is twofold and distinct.

1. The real danger that fundamentalist nut-jobs will destroy the world or my way of
life. From whichever continent.

2. That well meaning people encroach upon my government and have unreasonable demands on what I consider to be fundamental human rights.

The two things surely demand different approaches, but may converge in their ends. I think the differentiation of these two ideas are often blurred by both sides in debate.

On the first point: I have sympathy for Hitchens view on the 'real' war we must fight against Islamic fascists. I'm not yet wholly convinced, but I can see where he's coming from. We are not dealing with a reasonable political organisation that can be negotiated with. We are looking at a disparate army of fucking loonies that have it in their heads that the only reasonable course of action is to loot and burn and kill, until the whole world is run by loonies that loot and burn and kill. And they mean to come after you. And they may have already got you. If not, in their eyes, it is only a matter of time.

On the second point: I have sympathy for the author of this article. Reread that last
paragraph from Leora Tanenbaum and tell me that you don't find some hope that the fundamentalists can be, at least weakened, from the inside. There is an empathy for my values of human rights writ large here. There is also a distinct realisation that the nut-jobs are taking over the asylum, and a willingness to tackle the problem.

I have noticed a distinct change in the tone of these kind of articles over the last few weeks. From dismissing atheists as fundamentalist aggressors in their own right, towards a more
conciliatory approach.

"Religion offers community, a framework in which to celebrate
lifecycle events and mourn loss of life, distinctive recipes, and a code of values
for moral living, among many other positive things." She says.

Exchange the word 'Religion' to 'Atheists', and how far apart are we really?

I've said it before here, but I think we should be trying to engage and harness this
attitude, not to try and bludgeon it to death.

I think all major pioneers of reform, like the feminist revolution, have to go in with a big club, and a hard message, to wake people from their slumber. Dawkins, Harris, and now Hitch have done this. It seems as though the faithful have woken up. We don't necessarily have to go on swinging the club when faced with similar arguments to those expressed in this article.
Indeed, my own aims are more easily accomplished by encouraging this kind of understanding about our mutual hatred of those that have hijacked a specific doctrine for their own political means.

@Comment #41907 This is increasingly looking like a tired argument to me. I think it was well made my Harris & Dawkins in the face of fundamentalist aggression, I think also, now, that this should be an area of give and take where journalists like Leora, offer a way out of the mire for us all. We maybe should be looking at how we can help the liberal 'soft' religious to accomplish their aims. Then I can also put back to bed my need to go on & on about my own atheism and fears that I hold about the future.

I am only concerned with our secular political values, and our condemnation of those that seek to take them away. I find myself sympathetic towards those authors and activists that reach out in ways that are also sympathetic towards my cause.

At some point, the secularist, scientific, atheistic hammer-headed argument runs out of steam. I mean you can only repeat the obvious so many times.

I would like now to begin how to explore how we engage the potential of the atheistic-religious, to further our desire to rid the world of the extremist.

I think that the argument is worth having - and worth winning - but now we must shift tack, and think about objectives. Just for a little while ;-)

A bit of light relief. Lovely satire and gentle interview. Will have you laughing.

Don't forget to visit http://www.landoverbaptist.org/
The hatemail on there is particularly entertaining.

You very nearly had me u basts

lol - now i am falling in to the same thing. n1 Baron/IQHQ

Come on - the guy was crying his eyes out for that, cosmetically enhanced, second rate Butlins performance? I know it it is difficult to bite the bullet with American skills at irony, but don't you think this is pushing it?

Wouldn't you tart up and maintain wiki, if you were perpetuating a hoax?

I reckon u've all been had.

An excellent spoof.

http://www.catalaw.com/detox/reverse/14.shtml

Hi, Machoduck
Hang around for a while. listen to that feeling in your gut. Read a lot more of these posts and watch a few vids. Things will become more clear. Nice to have you on board.

Wonderful stuff.
A triumph of of cosmetic surgery over reason.
I defy you sinners not drink some human blood after listening to the sighs of the cosmetic blonde woman. She got off on that one. Hmmm.

#1 ' "I don't think (Bush) has any religious convictions of any kind, but he's a sap for the idea of faith," Hitchens says.

That's the kind of absurd statement that makes Hitchens such a mixed "blessing" for the cause of rationality. '

I don't understand why you think this statement absurd. It paints a perfectly informed picture of reality to me. Also, what is the 'cause of rationality' that you ascribe? Who has bestowed this "blessing" that is now being mixed?

_J_
I try to understand your pacifistic and optimistic view, that there can, in the end, be a base understanding of what it is to be human and have compassion in the world without resort to ancient, cruel and horrific instruction. But I find myself struggling to believe that this is a feasible approach to bringing about this desired outcome.

I suppose I'm looking for more reasons, that I should not think, that this is deeply rotten, it needs killing off, these people have declared themselves avowed to aboloshing my way of life. My reasonable, live and let live, each to their own, you go your way, I'll go mine, you take the low road, way of life.

They want to pervert and destroy my way of life. Simple as that. Why should I stand by and let them? Why are we standing on the airplane steps waving a paper saying "peace in our time", when the islamic facists have shown us the road-map to our own destruction? Folly.

Tell me why I should not wish war against these facists. Tell me why Hitch is wrong. Why are you not sleepwalking into oblivion?