Comments on: Imagine a world without religion

By: Dappy Nora

Dappy Nora — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:14:38 +0000

If they prove this by December … we’ll all be watching religions run for cover. Catholics might sodomise the Pope. Born agains will rape Billy Graham good.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 06:26:11 +0000

And when the Hadron Collider proves the BIG BANG, the first thing that will get banged is RELIGION. LOL!

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 04:40:57 +0000

And since altering genes would be difficult the next best thing is to remove the stimuli that induces the vice in the first place … which is RELIGION and DOGMA.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:19:44 +0000

“You need to hold people accountable for what they do, not for what others with a related belief system has done”.
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People cannot be held responsible for something beyond their control. Both altruism and selfishness are evolutionary traits that reside in our genes. Our DNA more precisely.In fact they are desirable phenotypes. This is not esoteric belief. If only you’d spend more time in biology classes and use more of that time looking for scientific evidence you would have found that out yourself. Every human is equally fallible as every other human. It is through legislation that we control freewill and we have done that successfully. Hopefully by 2 million AD “homo futurus” would evolve more empathic, sensitive and less selfish given all the social conditioning that we are rendered with today.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:15:20 +0000

Time to check out news on the Hadron Collider in the Swiss Alps.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:58:38 +0000

I find it profoundly amusing that you could not see your foot (aka red herring) slowly crawling into your mouth.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:57:01 +0000

correction…. the infamous Baltimore …….

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:34:28 +0000

1. “Yes, but “majority rule” is tempered, slowed and checked. It isn’t the absolute rule by majority.
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Agreed the US constitution has a system of checks and balances on the whims of the majority. So do parliamentary forms worldwide. Yet gaping loopholes do appear. Take for instance the famous Baltimore newspaper uproar of 1812, slavery, racial discrimination and more recently America’s role in the United Nations. All this despite the fact that the founding fathers of the US constitution were aware of the dangers of the Tyranny of the Majority(TOTM). Tyranny of the majority is inherent in Congress with the exception of the Citizen’s Initiative Assembly. Excessive largesse to congressional campaigns results in excessive influence on legislation. Why else would US foreign policy be guided by Wall Street? I am not saying that every legislation in America emerges out of the TOTM, but like all other democracies in the world there is no sure fire way to prevent it and for the most part every law or policy in a democracy is built around the principle that it will displease those who oppose it- an inevitable fact.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:12:43 +0000

The “guilt by association” bit was a tad of sarcasm, considering that atheists have apparently been wrongly implicated with Polpot and his ilk, as your ad hominem writeup seems to suggest. Sorry if I didn’t make that conspicuous earlier and am sorry too if you didn’t get the drift. If you knew it as a “fundamental logical fallacy” as you say, then why did you use it when you said “The Khmer Rouge did. North Korea has” for crying out loud? That had an appalling stench of the fallacy in practice however subtle, which seems to exhibit an emotional/fundamentalist outburst contrary to the muse that you portray yourself to be. As always, I stand corrected and please do spare yourself the ignoramuse label .

In a lighter vein, do look up a reason for your theism here :-

http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm

To make a long story short your inferences sound no different from these, but of course you get the drift :-

ARGUMENT FROM MASS MURDER
(1) Stalin was an Atheist.
(2) He murdered millions of people.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM NAZI DECEPTION
(1) Hitler and his Nazis were Atheists.
(2) Yes, they fooled a lot of people into thinking they were Christians. That was propaganda. They were Atheists.
(3) This proves that Atheists are the masters of deception.
(4) Revelation says that the antichrist will deceive people.
(5) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM NAZI EVIL
(1) Hitler and his Nazis were Atheists.
(2) I don’t care what the historical evidence says about their being Christians. Christians cannot be evil, and only Atheists would be capable of the Holocaust.
(3) So Nazis, like all truly evil people, are Atheists.
(4) Therefore, all Atheists are truly evil. They must be servants of Satan.
(5) Therefore, God exists.

ARGUMENT FROM COMMUNISM
(1) All communists are Atheists.
(2) All communists are bad; haven’t you watched the 6 o’clock news?
(3) Therefore they are wrong.
(4) Since the moral majority is theist and non-communist they are good.
(5) Therefore they are right.
(6) Therefore, God exists.

By: Dana Hanley

Dana Hanley — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:33:33 +0000

Yes, but “majority rule” is tempered, slowed and checked. It isn’t the absolute rule by majority.

We have multiple checks in our system, from the time it takes to pass laws (much less amendments) to the electoral college. All designed to check the passions of the majority.

You should read some of what our founding fathers had to say about democracy. And the majority. Here is a nice statement of the basic principle I am trying to get at, from Federalist #10:

If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the great desideratum by which this form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.

And, no, you don’t have to “keep shut” if you believe a bad leader is chosen. Else you wouldn’t have the freedom to speak here, to start a blog and the newspapers wouldn’t be full of criticisms of the President.

Are you trying to say this is all about Bush? We have to curtail first amendment rights so Bush or those like him won’t get elected? Certainly that is just a tangent, else you are a little scarier than the fundamentalists I know. At least they don’t think your first amendment rights should be curtailed. They just don’t think you should be allowed to any sort of power.