« Previous entries · Next entries »
August 8, 2007
Posted at 8:50 am by Richard and tagged atheism, dilbert, scott-adams, stupidity, thought-experiments. Popularity: 14% [?]
I’m really struggling with the fact that Scott Adams continues to display a dogmaticly ignorant view of atheism. I realise he’s generally writing just to stir people up (or, as the about atheism blog describes it: trolling), but that doesn’t make it acceptable.
I like Dilbert. I often enjoy Scott Adams’ blog posts, because they do make you think. Sometimes he actually comes up with some really good thought experiments. As another commenter on my blog wrote:
I always liked thought experiments that went beyond “I saw the flaws in this argument when I was three years old.”
If he stayed away from things he clearly has no idea about, or actually took on board someone else’s opinion every now and then, it would be fine. But I’m finding it harder and harder to stay away from the “unsubscribe” button…
Permalink
Share This
August 1, 2007
Posted at 10:32 am by del.icio.us and tagged atheism, bible, buddhism, cat, catholicism, christian, christianity, comparison, computer, creationism, death, ethics, evolution, god, humour, Links, lolcats, morality, programming, proof, religion, simulation, soul, starwars, summary, translation. Popularity: 55% [?]
Here are some of the sites I’ve been looking at recently, that I wanted to share:
Permalink
Share This
July 30, 2007
Posted at 2:41 pm by Richard and tagged atheism, belief, certainty, dilbert, god, pascal, scott-adams. Popularity: 23% [?]
I think Scott Adams (Creator of Dilbert) needs a bit of an atheist education. In his post “The Atheist Who Thought He Was God“, he makes two common misunderstandings/fallacies relating to Atheism. Can you spot them?
Perhaps there are more, but I think they boil down to the following:
- Few, if any, atheists claim to be 100% sure that God does not exist. (99.99999% IS good enough)
- Pascal’s Wager (which Adams’ post is based on - although perhaps not knowingly) doesn’t account for the multitude of beings which claim punishment for non-belief. Of course the other fallacies of Pascal’s wager are equally present in Adams’ post.
Permalink
Share This
Posted at 11:15 am by Richard and tagged atheism, belief, deaf, god, labels, negative. Popularity: 22% [?]
I started thinking after reading this comment - why do atheists feel the need to call themselves atheists at all? Certainly a hard/strong atheist would be justified in doing so since they have a specific belief to describe, but since most of us do not explicitly deny the possibility of God’s existence (and rather, claim that we simply “have no belief in God”), why should we have a label like this at all?
I don’t go around calling myself an “a-redhead” or an “a-woman”, or saying that I have “a-green” eyes, I’m not “a-artistic” or “a-Swahili-speaking” (feel free to translate these words into Greek for the proper effect). Similarly, a Deaf person wouldn’t go around calling themselves “a-hearing”. Why, then, do atheists insist on using a commonly misunderstood negative label to describe their lack of belief in God? Aren’t we just “not theistic”?
What other positive words or terms could we use to describe ourselves?
Permalink
Share This
July 22, 2007
Posted at 10:31 am by del.icio.us and tagged atheism, beer, bible, catholicism, christianity, debaptism, fundamentalism, google, humour, jesus, language, Links, map, mashup, mathematics, movies, pacifism, religion, spoilers, war, wwjd. Popularity: 37% [?]
Here are some of the sites I’ve been looking at recently, that I wanted to share:
Permalink
Share This
July 19, 2007
Posted at 4:58 pm by Richard and tagged atheism, australia, bob-maquire, father-bob, freedom, john-safran, politics. Popularity: 12% [?]
Given that most of the Atheist blogs I read are from the USA, I realise that discrimination against Atheists and the religious influences on politics are much greater there than in Australia. That said, we’re not entirely free from these problems.
I’ve been catching up on some podcasts recently, and caught an interview of Frank Gomez, the leader of the newly formed Freedom from Religion Party on John Safran’s weekly radio show “Sunday Night Safran“. For those of you who aren’t aware of the show (I’m aware there’s only a few Aussies who actually read this blog), on his show, Safran interviews many people alongside Father Bob Maguire. I’ve found a clip of the relevant part of the show (the full show is available here) - it’s a 16 minute interview, but it’s quite interesting.
Either way, looks like I might be voting for a new party come the next election…
(the 5mb MP3 is available for download here, in case the embedded player doesn’t work)
Safran vs Gomez [16:07m]:
Play Now |
Play in Popup |
Download
Permalink
Share This
« Previous entries · Next entries »
Posts
