"The Trouble With Atheism.." A Favour For John..
Dec 21 2006
Hey
So I promised John. I would start a thread on this so he could vent his anti-Rod Liddle feelings in an appropriate setting.. 
So did anyone see this prog on Mon. On C4 and if so, what did you think...If you missed it and would like to catch it, it is being repeated tonight i.e Thu 21 Dec at 0220 am (so that is technically on the Fri..)
Love
LW X
Dec 21 2006
#2
It was exactly like the arguments I had with christians at school when I rejected religion at the age of about 17.
"you're just as extreme as them!"
"Hitler!" "Stalin!" "evolution is just a THEORY!"
It was also very obvious that the interviews with people like Dawkins had been hacked about to prove Liddle's thesis. I am assuming that the entire programme was made as a reaction to Dawkin's programme earlier in the year about religion.
There was possibly, on a microscopic level, the beginnings of a wider discussion about whether atheism is enough on its own and a critical look at "Rationalism"'s love affair with the scientific method in general and Darwin in particular.
But basically it was bollocks.
Dec 21 2006
#3
Of course atheists are capable of doing as bad things as religious people are.
The thing about Hitler is something that is regularly pulled out by believers, but is also utter nonsense.
Just so we are aware of the kind of atheist that Hitler actually was:
A.Hitler wrote:
My feeling as a Christian points me to my lord and saviour as a fighter.In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison
As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated...
As a Christian I also have a duty to my own people.
That is the sort of atheist that Hitler was.
Devrim
Dec 21 2006
#4
Oh yeah i just remembered someone he interviewed saying the complexity of existence 'proved' conscious design 
more like proves your inability to deal with complexity, you muppet. if anything, complexity proves an absence of design, as what is can only have emerged from chaotic processes and exists in tension between flux and stasis, as opposed to a simple 'god's plan' stasis. but then you can prove anything with reason, so really Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is just as valid, if you think about it
Dec 21 2006
#5
I hate that moronic bastard.
Dec 21 2006
#6
oh yeah and irrc he said that because physics can only offer theories on the nature of the universe then it's basically as dogmatic as religion i mean ffs steven hawking deals with this bullshit (including a theory that the universe consists of infinitely stacked turtles) in his best-selling pop science book, of which there was no mention it seems. fuck i hate relativism, of course there are dogmatic atheists, there are open-minded religious people too, doesn't mean the world was created in 7 days though does it. only blasphemy will do. jesusfuckingchrist.
Dec 21 2006
#7
the whole thing in 2 parts is on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSM7BUmx6hY
Jesus what a load of bollocks. There's plenty of room for criticising dogmatic atheists and bourgeois rationalists but for fucks sake this was the biggest pile of shit ever.
Liddle erected the mother of all strawmen, didn't listen to the people he interviewed (unless they believed in superstitious bollocks), and then made snide comments in shitty monologues to the camera to make it look like he'd torn their arguments apart. Moron.
Two main thrusts of his argument:
1- if you criticize religion you are "arrogant"
2- if you say religion is wrong you are "dogmatic"
Then he went and interviewed that christian cosmologist who was going on a about improbably complexity as evidence for design and just nodded his head as if the guy was talking sense and not absolute bollocks for which there is no evidence.
Oh and his bit about how evolution is "getting on a bit" because it's 147 years old was hilarious. Yes Rod, let's disregard the evidence for something and total lack of evidence for a better explanation simply because it's old, cos that's how science works. Wanker.
The end was possibly the worst part of the whole documentary
"blah blah the real scientific way to think about it would be to say "there may be a god, there may not be a god, why can't we just leave it at that""
That is fucking stunning in its sheer stupidity. "we don't know everything 1million percent so lets just embrace some irrational bollocks"
Dec 21 2006
#8
Lone Wolf wrote:
HeySo I promised John. I would start a thread on this so he could vent his anti-Rod Liddle feelings in an appropriate setting..
hey why do people get other people to start threads? Jack did the same thing, trying to get me to start threads and I did. Not bothered either way, just kinda weird.
John. you don't need approval to start a thread slagging Rod Liddle 
Dec 21 2006
#9
xConorx wrote:
That is fucking stunning in its sheer stupidity.
looks like i got the gist then. i mean he could at least be a consistent relativist and say, 'the world may or may not have been created by a sneezing hyena, why can't we just leave it at that?'. And tbf, gravity's pretty passe now too, i'm just gonna float down the shops now.
Dec 21 2006
#10
Personally, I think people who believe in gravity are a bit dogmatic, I mean most of them just dismiss out of hand that maybe, just maybe, people stay on the ground because shadows are heavier than air and thus pull us downwards. I mean I haven’t got any evidence or anything, and indeed everything we know about physics disproves me, but it seems plausible to my mind so I reckon that anyone who says otherwise is frankly just a little bit weird and should stop taking things for granted so much. In a minute, I’ll find an entirely plausible man who has impeccable taste in wizard’s gowns made from curtains to back me up, and then you’ll HAVE to take me seriously.
Dec 21 2006
#11
xConorx wrote:
Hey why do people get other people to start threads? Jack did the same thing, trying to get me to start threads and I did. Not bothered either way, just kinda weird.
John. you don't need approval to start a thread slagging Rod Liddle
I didn't ask anyone to do anything; i was happy slagging the cunt off in a thread in Feedback.
Dec 21 2006
#12
No Conor J. didn't ask!! See Feedback - I was just teasing him cos he wanted to rant a bit about Liddle in the TV Times feature (or wanted me to..)and I countered with how News features are meant to be neutral in tone to comply with lc guidlines..and that I would start a thread just for J. so he could rant in a rant appropriate setting.. so no, J. doesn't need permission or approval..
Tho - J. - you coulda thanked me for remembering to start the thread as promised tho - ( nothing too flowery - just "Cheers Lw.." ).. I could tell you enjoy slating the man... 
JK - Your ex fancies Rod Liddle 
- the lady's taste seems to have gone downhill a tad...
Love
LW X
Dec 21 2006
#13
Lone Wolf wrote:
JK - Your ex fancies Rod Liddle
more soft-on-mysticism liberal agnostics in general i think. but i digress:
Dec 21 2006
#14
Saii wrote:
Personally, I think people who believe in gravity are a bit dogmatic, I mean most of them just dismiss out of hand that maybe, just maybe, people stay on the ground because shadows are heavier than air and thus pull us downwards. I mean I haven’t got any evidence or anything, and indeed everything we know about physics disproves me, but it seems plausible to my mind so I reckon that anyone who says otherwise is frankly just a little bit weird and should stop taking things for granted so much. In a minute, I’ll find an entirely plausible man who has impeccable taste in wizard’s gowns made from curtains to back me up, and then you’ll HAVE to take me seriously.
Dec 21 2006
#15
and he looks like geldof. what a cunt.
Dec 21 2006
#16
Intelligent Falling, for teh win.
Dec 21 2006
#17
like this?
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512
Dec 21 2006
#18
Btw re: Hitler - Devrim is right - Hitler never said he was an atheist..so i don't know where THAT misconception came from..on the contrary much of the evil he wrought was hidden in the cloak of his own warped version of Christianity. He promulgated his own Bible.. the Reichsbible - that contained all the threatening-sounding Old Testament brimstone and treacle stuff and eliminated the entire New Testament stuff cos he didn't want peeps to read the bit about being nice to each other cos, of course, he just wanted to instil fear to maintain his power..He also promulgated his own church "the Reichschurch".. along similar lines... bet those services must have been jolly..
Stalin WAS an atheist and also ruled through fear as all fascist dictators/megalomaniacs will..whatever they call themselves..
As I have said before - it isn't what you call yourself that counts - it is how you treat others...too many peeps are fooled by words as opposed to looking at deeds..and this weakness is used by abusive peeps of course..who then act to "hammer home" this misconception by a variety of totalitarian actions... and then when (most peeps) realise..too late...anyway..off topic a bit but reckon I will start a thread on the use of falsehood disguised as truth to control in the New Year..Sorry if i have raised the tone of the thread...
Love
LW X
Dec 21 2006
#19
talking of cunts!
my ex (she's not the cunt!) has just come back from working on the U2 tour and apparently Bono "is a really really nice guy!", he gave her a new iPOD for christmas too, not that he doesn't have them falling out his arse!
Now i can't even bad mouth soo much!
Dec 21 2006
#20
revol68 wrote:
my ex (she's not the cunt!) has just come back from working on the U2 tour...
So it's true that all you Irish folk know each other?
Dec 21 2006
#21
Refused wrote:
revol68 wrote:
my ex (she's not the cunt!) has just come back from working on the U2 tour...So it's true that all you Irish folk know each other?
not quite, she's jewish, they just run everything.
Dec 21 2006
#22
The least you could have done was reference the irony in an Asian bloke asking if all you Irish folk are inter-connected.
Dec 21 2006
#23
Refused wrote:
The least you could have done was reference the irony in an Asian bloke asking if all you Irish folk are inter-connected.
I thought you were just blacked up?
Dec 21 2006
#24
Refused wrote:
The least you could have done was reference the irony in an Asian bloke asking if all you Irish folk are inter-connected.
I done that joke on you once before with a suicide girl.
The best one is the gays.
Actually that's not true the best one was Bobby asking two american girls if they knew his mate, who lived on the otherside of the country, lol.
Dec 21 2006
#25
Jack wrote:
Refused wrote:
The least you could have done was reference the irony in an Asian bloke asking if all you Irish folk are inter-connected.I thought you were just blacked up?
Browned up.
Dec 22 2006
#26
revol68 wrote:
Actually that's not true the best one was Bobby asking two american girls if they knew his mate, who lived on the otherside of the country, lol.
Bobby's a legend.
"Here Jess, do ye like Irish accents awye?"
I would post the picture of him wearing Zobag's scarf but I don't want RedWatch thinking he's a fruit.
People in the US actually asked me if I knew such and such Seamus McPaddy from Limerick and that type of balls. I mean, I know Ireland's small but there's still over 5million people in it!
Dec 22 2006
#27
Fuck, there's more than that many in my family.
Dec 22 2006
#28
I hope your not trying to imply that us fenians don't actually breed like rabbits?
Listen youse wouldn't stand a chance, remember for us every sperm is sacred!
Dec 22 2006
#29
Is that a fucking challenge, leprechaun?
Dec 22 2006
#30
You are not a fenian, you are a half-cast Revol, remember that.
i wandered in and out making snide comments at the TV while my ex swooned over Rod Liberal. as far as i can tell he was saying that because non-religious texts and ideas can be used theocratically (dogmatic adherence to marx in the USSR, and dogma-darwinists), and that atheists do things as bad as religious people (OMGZ Hitler!!11!), then who's to really know what to think. Seemed to be pulling the relativist agnostic card.
The catholic dude slagging off hitler smacked of pots and kettles on the witch-hunts alone, and cos the catholic church collaborated with the fascists iirc (in operation paperclip at least). This is what happens when you don't have a class analysis, and so forget the teachings of the scriptures that "the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas", whether that's the Pope or Stalin.
but like i say i didn't watch it properly, so maybe rod liddle said summat useful. hahahahaha