God Owned! Repeatedly. Must see...

[Golden AWe]

I would much rather see Dawkins debate a scientist who believes in God - not a 'Creationist' scientist, but one who despite being a phyicist, chemist, or biologist, actively goes to Church. But Dawkins wouldn't do that - why debate someone as intelligent as you?

Well he does challenges a lot of experts from different fields in his books. And not only challenges, but looks at the subjects from so many perspectives. He doesn't really pick the lowest fence as you mention here. Read'em. Some of the most interesting parts are also about biology or physics too. Definetely not just about mocking someone, not at all.

The only thing worse than an unthinking Christian is a fundamentalist atheist.

Richard Dawkins annoys, no angers me, more than I can convey - like Michael Moore, he is as guilty of polemic, misrepresentation and zeal as the people he castigates, and to me both men do more damage to the causes they 'support' than good. Dawkins is very good at finding zealots and extreme fundamentalists to show up, but he positions them to the centre ground of Christianity, as though they are typical of the average Churchgoer who uses their faith to get them through their daily lives, and to help others around them.

I just feel that there's a lot of faulty logic in the Dawkins-type atheist is the assumption that most everybody who practices a religion or happens to believe in a higher power automatically equals out to an extremist who wants to blow up the world.

No, he doesn't. I think he's more cuntcentraded on whether we really need all the superstitions and higher powers, all the supernatural sides of the religions to do all that good.

Unfortunately it's not the harmless churchgoers that have most of the power in the world. Who do you think cuntrols more power, the peaceful church-goers, or the strong-willed fundamentalists? How many dangerous fundamentalists do you need?

Look at Palestine and Middle-East. How many of them peaceful ones are making progress there? Do you think two atheist nations ran by Dawkins and the Mickey Mouse would do such damage? Do fundamentalist atheists blow up Twin Towers?

What about the peaceful muslims? Do they cuntrol the power? Did the peaceful ones gain cuntrol when the fundamentalists came up with their propaganda about the danish cartoon with Mouhammed?

How about your previous president and his followers? Peaceful church-goers? Did he gather all his votes from fundamentalists?

Is the catholic church, popes, bishops and priests, are they still doing more good than bad? Really?

Religions are not necessarily the root of all evil. But it sure ain't the root of all good either, and it's not likely the root of such thing as morale, morale is much older than our religions are. Plus, the thing I still dislike is the fact that it too often gives man a reason to stop thinking rationally, just because.

[Golden AWe]

And whilst I wouldn't compare the actions of Dawkins to be on a par with any other the negatvie actions which you cite, I might point out that mankind's use of science hasn't always being positive - nuclear weapons, total warfare, and chemical warfare all spring to mind.

However, while listing the negatives, you have to remember that even the most negatives of them may do good in the long run. For example, nuclear weapons along with nuclear power, and things developed following that formula, could for example take some of us to another planet some day. Maybe when this one is not supporting us anymore. After that it would be kind of our saviour.

[Seshmeister]

Sesh, I hope you don't mind me asking, but why do you feel such a need to prove that god doesn't exist?

It's almost like you want to convince yourself.

It's obvious that shit's a fantasy. Only a fevered mind can believe such blatant bullshit. And you can't have a rational discussion with a fevered mind.

Cheers! :bottle:

This thread is 4 years old.

You aren't going to change the minds of the extreme people but there are plenty of moderate folk who are interested in hearing other points of view.

[binnie]

Well he does challenges a lot of experts from different fields in his books. And not only challenges, but looks at the subjects from so many perspectives. He doesn't really pick the lowest fence as you mention here. Read'em. Some of the most interesting parts are also about biology or physics too. Definetely not just about mocking someone, not at all.

No, he doesn't. I think he's more cuntcentraded on whether we really need all the superstitions and higher powers, all the supernatural sides of the religions to do all that good.

Unfortunately it's not the harmless churchgoers that have most of the power in the world. Who do you think cuntrols more power, the peaceful church-goers, or the strong-willed fundamentalists? How many dangerous fundamentalists do you need?

Look at Palestine and Middle-East. How many of them peaceful ones are making progress there? Do you think two atheist nations ran by Dawkins and the Mickey Mouse would do such damage? Do fundamentalist atheists blow up Twin Towers?

What about the peaceful muslims? Do they cuntrol the power? Did the peaceful ones gain cuntrol when the fundamentalists came up with their propaganda about the danish cartoon with Mouhammed?

How about your previous president and his followers? Peaceful church-goers? Did he gather all his votes from fundamentalists?

Is the catholic church, popes, bishops and priests, are they still doing more good than bad? Really?

Religions are not necessarily the root of all evil. But it sure ain't the root of all good either, and it's not likely the root of such thing as morale, morale is much older than our religions are. Plus, the thing I still dislike is the fact that it too often gives man a reason to stop thinking rationally, just because.

Dawkin's earlier work, like the selfish gene, is certainly more level-headed - but the 'God Delusion' is pure polemic, as are many of the TV shows he's done recently.

I would certainly agree with you that religion is not the root of all good, nor all evil, and that fundamentalism is a serious problem in our world - however, when the moderates are tarred with the same brush as the radicals I think it is grossly unfair for them. If they need their 'superstitions', and they're not trying to harm anyone as a result of them, then I don't think it's my buisness, or anyone elses, to tell them to move on.

As for the issues of war an persecution, religion has certainly had massively detrimental effects. However, if we lived in a world filled with atheists, ethic conflict would still rage. Hell, western powers persecute the weaker states of the world every day, whether through military intervention or unfair economics - the selfishness of human kind can be jutified in many ways. Like you say, religion is not the root of all evil. To my eyes, the branch of extremely de-regulated capitalism we have now is a far bigger problem in the world.

[Seshmeister]

I would certainly agree with you that religion is not the root of all good, nor all evil, and that fundamentalism is a serious problem in our world - however, when the moderates are tarred with the same brush as the radicals I think it is grossly unfair for them. If they need their 'superstitions', and they're not trying to harm anyone as a result of them, then I don't think it's my buisness, or anyone elses, to tell them to move on.

It is literally the business of churches to take childrens minds and fill them with all this shit. There is always a great emphasis on indoctrinating future customers whilst they are children because they know that unless they fill their heads with all of this at a young vunerable age it's unlikely to stick.

[binnie]

It is literally the business of churches to take childrens minds and fill them with all this shit. There is always a great emphasis on indoctrinating future customers whilst they are children because they know that unless they fill their heads with all of this at a young vunerable age it's unlikely to stick.

So you think that every cleric, every Christian parent, and every church is engaged in an over-arching conspiracy to fill pollute the minds of children? Now who's the un-thinking zealot?

And even those that do try and 'fill children's minds with shit' largely fail, no? Don't huge swathes numbers of people come away from a dogmatic religious upbringing to have very little to do with the church in future life? People learn to think for themselves - going to Church doesn't lead to a life-long closed mind.

[Seshmeister]

We're some of the lucky ones, most people don't manage to escape.

Your experience in being brought up in a largely secular society with 10% church attendance or whatever is not the norm.

[Seshmeister]

Children are genetically predisposed to take on warnings about going to hell or instruction on invisible cloud daddy's. The ancestors of the ones that aren't were eaten by sabre tooth tigers or fell off cliffs.

[Seshmeister]

So you think that every cleric, every Christian parent, and every church is engaged in an over-arching conspiracy to fill pollute the minds of children? Now who's the un-thinking zealot?

Not me.

It's not a conspiracy because it's not secret. They do it completely openly through religious schools, religious groups and sunday schools. They are brought up to believe that this somehow gives their children a moral basis when little of the teachings of the bible for example are useful for that and so pass on the virus.

[binnie]

I think that you might be quite surprised by the liberal nature of a lot of the teaching in British Christian schools - the fire and brimstone stuff is not as prominent as you might think. The fact that Church attendance is falling in our country also suggests that the 'indoctrination' just doens't work, so it really isn't the danger which you suggest it might be.

You might be right about the 'morality' of the Bible being specious, but is the moral fervour of our largely non-religious society really anything to write home about? Does the current education system really equip children to be any more open-minded, tolerant and accepting than a Christian one? The fact the we have BNP MEPs and an increasingly aggressive UKIP would suggest not, not to mention a society still reeling from the selfishness of Thatcherism (which Blair only exacerbated). What I am saying is that ALL education systems pass on the 'viruses' of their society - Christians are eqaully as guilty of passing on their prejudices as any other group.

[binnie]

I hope non of my posts are coming off as aggressive, Sesh. I'm enjoying this discussion, not trying to provoke you.

[Seshmeister]

I don't usually talk about family on the boards but let me give you an example of why I can get a bit irritated. My 6 year old kid is at the local state 'non demonational school'. Short of paying thousands a term going private then the only other option would be to send her to the state catholic school.

After 18 months at school she is a firm believer in god from what she has been taught in so called religious education. I think she is mildly worried about her parents saying that they don't but we haven't been laying it on to her much because we don't want to cause her too much confusion at this point. Because it is non demonational school which provides 'respect' and teaching for all superstitions last month she was representing 'The year of the dog' at assembly reading out the various attributes of people who are born in a particular year as a nod to the crazy fucking Chinese superstition. Arguably racist superstions at that. Maybe next month who knows maybe it's fucking scientology or the belief that everyone are lizards.

I find that objectionable. Actually in the US and Australia I don't think they do this as they sensibly keep superstiions out of school. A lot of friends in England have to pretend to be Christians in order for their kids to get into the best schools but this isn't even that.

[ace diamond]

two pages of this and we have not heard a response from his almighty unholiness, dark lord satan................i can hear him laughing his ass off..............he's enjoying this..........ok, carry on................

[Unchainme]

two pages of this and we have not heard a response from his almighty unholiness, dark lord satan................i can hear him laughing his ass off..............he's enjoying this..........ok, carry on................

Satan doesn't want you as a follower.

[binnie]

If Ace is a typical Satanist I don't think we have anything to worry about......