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I am going to use the discussion points found on RichardDawkins.net as the basis of this feature.
Calilasseia is the author of the post and deserves many rich accolades for assembling so much useful information in one spot. This constitutes an open thread of sorts, please leave your opinions and observations in the comment section.
[1] Parroting blind assertions does not constitute “evidence”.
Let’s make this explicit, just so that even the most casual of observers of this thread cannot avoid having noticed it.
Mythology (and I don’t care how precious you consider your “holy books” to be, that is what they contain – mythology) merely erects unsupported blind assertions about the world, and presents those blind assertions as if they constituted “axioms” about the world, to be regarded uncritically as eternally true, and never to be questioned. Well, those who wish to adopt this view will find that they are given short shrift here. Because one of the fundamental rules of proper discourse is that whenever an assertion is erected, no one is obliged to regard it as valid unless proper, critically robust supporting evidence is provided for that assertion. Which means independent corroboration from an outside source, or a direct, methodologically rigorous, repeatable empirical demonstration of the validity of that assertion. Without this, any blind assertions, particularly those erected from mythology or mythology-based doctrines, can be dismissed in the same casual manner in which they are tossed into the thread. Failure to provide proper evidential support for blind assertions will result in a poster being regarded as an inconsequential lightweight. Just because you think that mythological blind assertions constitute “axioms” about the world doesn’t mean that everyone else does, and you’ll soon discover the hard way how much firepower is directed toward those who come here expecting the rest of the forum to genuflect before said blind assertions uncritically. Plus, in the case of supernaturalist blind assertions, parroting these and expecting everyone else to accept them uncritically as established fact in the same way that you did, constitutes preaching, and is a violation of forum rules. Learn quickly to qualify assertions properly when erecting them, unless you wish to be regarded as tediously sanctimonious, boring, and boorishly ill-educated into the bargain.
Oh, and while we’re at it, don’t bother trying to assert that your favourite invisible magic man is “necessary” for the biosphere or some other observed entity, until you can provide proper, critically robust evidential support for the postulate that your magic man actually exists. Given that 300 years of continuous scientific endeavour has established that the universe is not only comprehensible without needing magic, but is thus comprehensible in precise quantitative terms, you will be well advised to devote some serious time to providing methodologically rigorous support for all assertions concerning magic supernatural entities, because without it, you’re fucked from the start.
A fantastic start. Just the basics for any rational discussion, you need to back up your assumptions and arguments with verifiable fact. If not, you may as well be asserting that Unicorns and Dragons really DO exist just because you say so.
The vivisection of common creationist science continues as yet more baseless creationist assumptions are scrutinized and their vacuous nature exposed to the world.
I wonder how long they can keep it up? Although admittedly, making stuff up is much easier than actually doing science.
I run across this argument WAY to often. As a way to help set the record straight I post Non Stamp Collector’s Special investigation on the big three strawmen the religiously addled attempt to use when discussing history.
You would think the international laughter echoing through the halls directed at poor befuddled Pakistan would been a large enough hint for other countries to avoid looking foolish. I was wrong.
“Bangladesh has blocked social networking website Facebook over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad and “obnoxious” images of the Muslim-majority country’s leaders, officials say.”
Take that! We will take down facebook to preserve the honour of our omnipotent sky-daddy who is all powerful and all kno… wait… Apparently ‘Mo can’t do squat to a measly collection electronic of 0’s and 1’s on a facebook page. Perhaps the Mighty GOD of ISLAM is all powerful except when it comes to facebook (reasonable actually, even Superman had his Kryptonite) .
“The Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) said the site was blocked on Saturday because cartoons of the Prophet “hurt the religious sentiments of the country’s Muslim population”.
“Some links in the site also contained obnoxious images of our leaders, including the father of the nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman; current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and the leader of the opposition,” Hasan Mahmud Delwar, BTRC’s acting chairman, told the AFP news agency.
The move comes a week after Pakistani authorities banned access to Facebook for similar reasons. They also blocked the video website YouTube and 1,200 web pages over a row about “blasphemous” content on the internet.
Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favourable ones, as blasphemous.
Delwar said Facebook would be re-opened once Bangladesh had permanently blocked the offending pages.”
Not to write the same story, but wow guys, do your really think blocking facebook is going to save your pathetic delusion of a religion from the forces of rationality?
“Drawing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad is an attack on Islam and is extremely humiliating for Islam,” Hemayet Uddin, a Dhaka protest organiser, told thousands of cheering supporters.
You know what? Good. Show your opposition to Freedom and Reason. Show us how your particular religious delusion treats reasonable criticism. I say: Good for free speech, good for rationality, good for all the people who possess enough intellectual capacity to see your religion for what it is: a ludicrous, mendacious fantasy that ultimately hurts and impoverishes your society. Feel free to ignore modernity and progress. Happily flush your society down the batshite-crazy-swirly commode known as religion, just do not be surprised when we laugh at you.
Underage? Mo' says: "It's a go!" I'm holy after all!
Hey, if it worked in 1955 why shouldn’t it apply now…?
*headdesk*
I write this post out of a shared personal experience with a religiously addled graduate from university. Let’s call him, to be charitable, douche-nozzle or DN for short. As with most of the risibly sanctimonious religious turds out there DN believes he has a relevant, informed opinion on a myriad of topics. It must be nice to be able to answer the hard questions of life with the unctuous “goddidit” and not be laughed out of the room by your peers. DN seems to think that he can bloviate on about Especially Easy to understand topics ones Feminism and Post Modernism. Now DN, with his above average score in verbal rectaltude decided to strike up a conversation with my partner based on the All-Star thesis that “feminists have “gone too far” and really need to take a hard look at the direction of their movement.
Feminism has gone too far… Oh ya right! Magically, since DN was warming up to mansplain exactly how frakking peachy the womenz have it now. DN, despite a few inconvenient facts such as that the patriarchy, rape culture, rape, the pro-kyriarchy biased social, economic and political systems, not to mention ingrained cultural misogyny and….et cetera are still all going on full stream, began to explain how right the world was and how feminism had gone wrong. It was as if all the institutions that enslave, depreciate and and destroy women somehow disappeared, seemingly overnight and more importantly, are inconsequential because he is white and male and he frakking says so.
DN, even jebus knows you fail.
DN carries his privilege well. He is middle class and literally has both sides of the family falling over him to ensure a soft landing in what we like to call reality. One of his more egregious assumptions is that Intransigentia is just a mere girl and therefore does not have much going on in the grey matter. Not many things can be further from the truth. She possesses a quick wit and near encyclopedic memory of facts and argumentation which she often calls upon to dissect and dismember fuckwittery of a much greater calibre than DN could ever hope to offer.
DN got lucky though, as my parter was bereft of sleep and had a magnitude 8 headache. Even with her size 8 brain packed into a size five skull she put an end DN’s douchery. Simply by asking which feminist authors he was referring to and to back up his claim with some sort of reasonable example. It was amazing to watch how fast the conversation shifted.
“Uh-oh this one uses her lady-brain for more than just house cleaning, praising jebus, and bearing children to brainwash in order to propagate the frakking bloody car-wreak that is christianity.” – I’m sure this didn’t cross DN’s mind, but I’d like to give his withered rationality at least the benefit of the doubt.
I look forward to the day when the Feminist movement is no longer necessary. I work toward furthering the rights of women and educating people about the assumptions they take for granted, that necessarily hurt women but remain unexamined. There is a long way to go, I just hope we can take another step by firmly slapping down the mealy mouthed privileged mendacity that regularly spews forth from mouths of people like DN.
It amazes me how sometimes, when I criticize something in religion, the defence that theists supply are just as bad or worse than my original criticism. For instance, I have often said that the sermon on the mount promotes the idea of thought crime. Thinking hateful things is the same as murder and thinking sexy things is the same as adultery. If anything could show Christian dogma to be one of totalitarian fascism rather than of love, its the idea that you can be guilty just by thinking something.
When I point this out, I often get told that the message that I OUGHT to be getting from that passage is that, in the eyes of god, a sin is a sin. Sins are all equal under god’s divine judgment.
The first time I heard this, I did a double take. Even someone who’s had their intelligence ebbed by the retarding forces of religion should be able to see the horrible consequences of that little gem. Alas, once again, my optimism and charity were quickly deflated. That person was serious. So were the great number of believers who have told me the same thing since.
So, for them, and any who happen to think along the same lines, I would like to explain why it is so horrible. By saying a sin is a sin is a sin, and they are all morally equivalent in the eyes of god, the theist is equating the suffering a shop owner feels when someone steals a piece of gum from his store to the suffering felt by a rape victim. Indeed, if two people each steal a piece of gum, the shop owner has suffered from twice as many sins against him than the rape victim, so the shopkeeper has, by Christian math, been wronged more.
While I could go on at length why this is horrendous in the worst kind of way, I think if you can’t figure it for yourself, you are beyond any help that my postings can ever hope to give. But, to my amazement, the believers aren’t stumped by this. They say ‘oh, of course, to us humans one is much worse than the other, but I’m talking about in GOD’S eyes, not ours’.
They don’t seem to realize that their answer still doesn’t make anything better. They say that their god is perfectly good and just. If that is so, any difference between humans perception and that of their god would mean a deficiency on our part. That means, according to this abhorrent little bit Christian philosophy, rape victims are WRONG when they feel worse than the robbed shopkeeper. And our justice system is WRONG to treat the rapist more severely than it treats the gum thief. For if they were a bit more like Jesus, they would see that a sin is a sin and the right thing to do is to treat them equally.
If it’s morally reprehensible that a human take a certain view (like candy burglary is as bad as rape) then it would be just as revolting if a sky faerie took that view. So, not only does this sermon on the mount establish the ground rules for thought crime, it also, thanks to the defence posited by Christians, shows their god to be a despicable and morally bankrupt entity that belittles the suffering those who have endured the worst of crimes.
I’ve been on a bit of a roll as of late with how mind numbingly moronic religion is. The Draw Mohammad silliness, assorted catholic inanity and christianity in general. This is a take down video about a dude name ‘truthful christian’ who has an amazing tendency to get even the most basic of concepts wrong. TC uses his ignorance like a shield, warping arguments and facts to fit his own particularly deluded universe.
Consider yourself warned, the stupid upcoming is nuclear grade.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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