Richard Dawkins responds to The Pope's first speech on British soil, blaming Nazism on the atheists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_0kFU7IfPM

It goes ZING! quite a lot.

Richard Dawkins responds to The Pope's first speech on British soil, blaming Nazism on the atheists

So he turned around and blamed Hitler on Catholics... Fuck you, arsewipe — nice of you to ignore the Catholics who were persecuted, tortured and murdered for resisting the Third Reich. And I really?

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that a few people have taken the fake John Banks Twitter account for the real thing.

It's pretty appalling too that far too many media outlets have been sucked in and believe that Jim Anderton actually said "Only an earthquake could stop me from?

So he turned around and blamed Hitler on Catholics...

It would have been unwarranted had His Holiness not gone there first. After that, quoting Hitler's own testaments to his faith, and senior church leaders' testaments to Hitler, seemed fair enough to me — although I do understand your point.

However, as RNZ's Media Watch pointed out yesterday ...

People on the internet with half a clue had pointed it out two weeks ago. I suppose Clifton had the excuse of a long lead time to publication, but if she's going to make a cheap shot, she should have some?

It would have been unwarranted had His Holiness not gone there first.

Is Dawkins three years old? Plenty of people have condemned the Pope's foolish and intellectually dishonest comments without responding with equal foolishness and intellectual dishonesty. It was a cheap and nasty shot while preaching to the converted (and?

(and using his weird logic, Philip Pullman is still a sodding Anglican because he was raised in the CoE and, AFAIK, never "formally renounced" it)

But that was sort of his point: if you're going to claim everyone who was ever baptised Catholic as a practising member of the flock,?

I also had a nice guffaw when I saw Aaron Bhatnagar's indignant reaction in the paper this morning. Although I thought first of that dodgy anti-Hubbard ad left sitting on his website directory, rather than the Wikipedia episode.

Hey, can I help it that my regular Twitter followers frequently toot about drinking, swearing and heh-heh-hehing?

So he turned around and blamed Hitler on Catholics..

Umm I think the target was catholic theology. But if you want to take it personally be my guest.

Sir Rob has a heart of gold.

Pity he found it in the afterlife.

But that was sort of his point

It was not much of a point that could have been made, if it had to be, in less noxiously flame-trollish manner. The depressing thing about both Ratzinger and Dawkins is they're astoundingly intelligent men whose self-righteous and unearned intellectual arrogance feeds a?

Also, has anyone noticed that ACT's Peter Tashkoff looks like famed horror writer, Garth Marenghi? I find the resemblance very suspicious.

Muslim women in particular, are subject to distorted and dishonest caricatures.

By whom exactly? Or are we just going to trade silly comments.

Heavens forfend the truth about Islam — and it's enormously complex history — might be a little more complex and ambiguous than Islamophobes would have us belief.

?

So he turned around and blamed Hitler on Catholics... Fuck you, arsewipe — nice of you to ignore the Catholics who were persecuted, tortured and murdered for resisting the Third Reich.

He wasn't blaming Hitler on Catholics. You could perhaps draw the conclusion that he was blaming Hitlerism on Hitler's?

By whom exactly? Or are we just going to trade silly comments.

No, but the next time you try patting me on the head I'll bite off the offending digits.

Prize for getting it wrong is having your fingers cut off.

Prize for getting it wrong is having your fingers cut off.

There aren't many celebrities that'd use an actual mug shot as their display pic on Twitter.

I admit, I do love 50 Cent's Twitter. He comes across exactly like a 4chan-er, trolling and all. I could see him posting?

nice of you to ignore the Catholics who were persecuted, tortured and murdered for resisting the Third Reich.

And there were quite a few more of them than most people realise. Or perhaps care to realise, for those who love to paint these things in nice shades of black and?

And there were quite a few more of them than most people realise. Or perhaps care to realise, for those who love to paint these things in nice shades of black and white.

Venn diagrams to the rescue. Largely the second one.

nice of you to ignore the Catholics who were persecuted, tortured and murdered for resisting the Third Reich.

And there were quite a few more of them than most people realise. Or perhaps care to realise, for those who love to paint these things in nice shades of black and?

?He who sups with the devil should draw a long spoon – What tell'st thou me of supping?? – Shakespeare Comedy of Errors.

Ratzinger gives new meaning to, ?I just don?t give a ratz?. People getting serious about religion don?t?

I'm still more annoyed by Ratzinger's inflammatory decision to link atheism and the Holocaust in his first speech on British soil than I am by Dawkins' response.

The phrase "unspeakable crimes" didn't exactly go down well either.

It's pretty appalling too that far too many media outlets have been sucked in and believe that Jim Anderton actually said "Only an earthquake could stop me from winning".

The Listener ran it in Jane Clifton's page last week, others ran it as well.

However, as RNZ's Media Watch pointed?

Catholic League president Bill Donohue gets a bit too effing cute in this column:

The pope did not go far enough. Radical atheists like the British Humanist Association should apologize for Hitler. But they should not stop there. They also need to issue an apology?

They're just more of the same defensive mindset grounded in centuries of abuse of power. All Catholics should be insisting that change or at least?

I would like to see Donohue say this to the faces of some of the people in that programme. I'm actually feeling quite angry now.

I probably spend way too much time following Donohue's fragrant out-gassings, but he long ago jumped the shark from hack apologetics to outright sociopathy long?

That second venn makes no sense. Overlapping circles share both qualities, in this case good and bad. And including the entirety of Nazis in a circle called "good people" is just wrong.

I could see an argument for 'good people' and 'bad people' overlapping, if it's taken to mean "people?

How did Hitler manage
to make grammar errors in German that survived translation?

Although I'm loath to quote the Huffington Post (given its startling support for pseudoscience), this article on debates between atheists and theists is just the bee's knees.

Sorta. He sets up a pretty big straw man in the second paragraph there.

What the Pope Knew, demonstrated, there is good evidence that Ratzinger left child-rapists in place (or at the very least, delayed their removal for years and kept them from the police) for what he took to be the greater good of the church.

Which is perhaps what has galvanised such?

Aaron appears to have dynamited his blog. Whither now those of us who wanted to re-read the epic saga of how he won back the Auckland mayoralty for Banks?

Never fear, we collected it, though the NDHA access module is being upgraded, and it looks like you can't view the archived?

God and Hitler together? God wins.

Only if no one introduces Chuck Norris..

Only if no one introduces Chuck Norris..

You think Chuck would side with Hitler? Hitler did hate commies so maybe....

God and Hitler together? God wins.

Only if no one introduces Chuck Norris.

From Wikipedia:

[Norris is] an outspoken Christian...he has expressed that those who are troubled should turn to Jesus, and is quoted as saying "true patriots" do not stay clear of discussing religion and politics. He does not?

God and Hitler together? God wins.

I see what you did there. But the pope started it, comparing atheists to nazis and all that.

Bhatnagar's complaints paid off: the #johnbanksmayor account has been suspended.

Oh dear. That is very funny. Meanwhile, the fake account has changed its name to John Banks PR, to make clear the perhaps not-so-obvious.

Change Kyber Pass to: ? ???? ??? ?

More voter feedback: please reply yes or no.?

No, but the next time you try patting me on the head I'll bite off the offending digits.

OK, I'll be generous and put that down to feeling threatened because your religious beliefs are under attack.
But dont think you can casually throw in unsupported statements as a diversionary or?

Dawkins has been pressed on this issue and simply defines away the moderate Christians as being not properly Christian

Really? I've listened to Dawkins speak many, many times, read several of his books and seen his TV series and I've not taken that from any of his words. Hitchens on?

because the well being of the church took precedence

Sounds awfully familiar

Hitchens and Dawkins act like they know nothing of general theistic modes of belief

But ...... but what are those? I thought it was the mode of belief as prescribed more or less by one's chosen holy text and all attendant rigmarole. Maybe that was their mistake. The holy texts?

Bhatnagar's complaints paid off: the #johnbanksmayor account has been suspended.

Funny how the anti-PC brigade can't stand the tables being turned on them.

Mostly the aforementioned seem to have an edge, simply because debate requires the application of rationale, whereas religion requires that you suspend rational thought processes.

Look, even as an atheist, I find that statement offensive.

Do you really want to throw out, as evidence, the bodies of knowledge developed by?

I spent nearly 30 years of my life studying religion (and being heavily engaged with it – at one time I was ready to be a member on an enclosed Catholic order). I am?

Do you really want to throw out, as evidence, the bodies of knowledge developed by theists, in celebration of their faith, which looked for the patterns behind nature?

I think you are confusing very separate things. That the search for knowledge began in a celebration of faith doesn't, by logic,?

I'm not belittling people's right to believe what they want, but there is not any rational basis, especially in the early 21st Century, for someone to rationally and logically argue that we were created and are guided by a supernatural being.

This is the problem, though; not every theist believes?

people do, it seems, rationally choose to believe in the existence of a personal god (or gods)).

It contradicts. To do so they must by-pass rationality. I'm sorry but I think Islander summed it perfectly:

ALL of it based on an irrationality/unproveable scientifically initial posture – gods are/ is-

That?

...but I've yet to find a believer who can
rationally justify their belief in a diety

being part of the macro (and micro) biota diet, I find the evidence
for deities insubstantial and a little thin on the ground...
;- )?

This is why we'll never have threaded discussions.

Sounds like he's a member of that special church, for special people, the name of which I've never bothered to establish.

The Fellowship, aka The Family. There's a fascinating feature on the C Street House in this month's Vanity Fair.

They haven't put that online, but there's an interactive backgrounder?

That is irrational. It comes from a perfectly rational person, who has boxed off a part of his mind to that logic which tells him to trust his mind and evidence and instead that part of his psyche relies on and is justified by something altogether different.

But can we?

Oops, no, I've looked properly out your comment and this isn't the religious organisation you're talking about.

Nice of you to bother, considering my rather over-flippant tone there, but the best way I've found to deal with such folks is not to take them overly seriously. They're just a certain?

Many of us express essentially magical beliefs for one reason or another, and often as a means to an end.
I do enjoy the poetry of religion.
Amen (sorry hardline atheists) to that.

Hey I can do poetree!
With the right chemical mixture
All things are possible
And I become?

With the right chemical mixture
All things are possible

But can we agree he has the personal right to do so? Many of us express essentially magical beliefs for one reason or another, and often as a means to an end.

Of course. The starting point on this wasn't a criticism of faith and belief per-se, even if HORansome?

Science still can't properly explain

many things, including like, what Robin Williams would like sound like on on Coke.
Ooops too late

But I don't get why this is pitched as a bad thing when it comes to human consciousness.
What ever direction religion's gave us is now fatally flawed.?

cum priest

Is that what they're calling em now?

cum priest
Is that what they're calling em now?

Stop it, while Im trying to be sensitive. ;-)

(OK I'll stop now)

... that second paragraph actually does describe a lot of what is going on in the New Atheism (especially Hitchins and Dawkins, [along with Harris and Dennett] who are amongst the loudest atheists).

This article by Julian Baggini from last year is apropos of this discussion.

"Who'd have thought discussion about fake Twitter accounts could have taken such a turn ? This is why we'll never have threaded discussions".

Hardly surprising, Russell, surely ? I mean this thread goes from Twitter to Atheism/Religion; Long Will Be The Lunches (Aug 24) began with discussion on advertising?

Gobekli Tepe

I find this place endlessly fascinating.
I was gonna introduce it into the discussion arising from the comments on Ishmael and the fall of man a wee while back, but got sidetracked...

hey judeism...

Science still can't properly explain why I love Wilson Pickett singing Hey?

Priesthood is totally about power...

...and the glory, for ever and ever
aaaaah, men!

Alexandria anyone?

and the Americas, they probably burnt the codices to melt the gold
showing the priorities of the invading priories....

This article by Julian Baggini

In which he proudly professes his ignorance, and then goes on to say why he can, cause he's Julian Baggini and he doesnt need to waste his time.
Well bully for him, these fits of pique affect us all. Is the only lesson I take?

As for Baggini?s professed ignorance, I?

As for Baggini?s professed ignorance, I really doubt reading the books the ?four horsemen? wrote would make much difference to his case

Maybe not, I don't know. Im sure Sam Harris' and Dan Dennetts books would have given him some intellectual exercise. And to dismiss these authors as writers of?