Sam Harris: The ‘Salon’ Interview
The last thing Sam Harris was ever likely to do was to grant an interview to Salon.com. Mr Harris has made an exception and the
FULL TEXT of the conversation is now a must-read article on his
blog. It's vital that you read the article there since Salon.com edited out the deservedly derogatory comments he made about the website's content.
Labels: Atheism, Christianity, Current Events, Extremism, History, ISIS, Islam, Israel, Jihad, Malala, Must-read, Palestine, Regressive Left, Religion, Sam Harris, Taliban, Terrorism, War
# posted by j @ 17:29 et / | 
Quotation of the Week
«Truth exists; only lies are invented.»
~Georges Braque
Labels: Atheism, Georges Braque, Life, quotations, Religion, Truth
# posted by j @ 17:10 et / |
Quotation of the Week
«Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?»
~Epicurus
Labels: Atheism, Philosophy, quotations, Religion
# posted by j @ 19:14 et / |
The evils of christianity
«I am often accused of fighting a battle that’s already been conceded with organised religion. In fact, this is the criticism levelled at many anti-religious thinkers: basically, that we’re beating a dead horse. Religion has moved on from its horrible past. In its current form, it’s something altogether more complex and intricate. So why spend time putting new bullets into an old corpse?
Unfortunately, the corpse is not really dead, is it? As recently as a month ago, there was a fanatical, right-wing Christian within spitting distance of running for the White House. There is still one in the White House. The Catholic Church continues to condemn countless thousands to the misery of life with parents who don’t want them. And that’s just off the top of my head.
So I present here a short and incomplete list of Christianity evils. Why them? Simply put, because the relative success of Mike Huckabee puts a chill in my bones. In 2008, this shouldn’t be possible. But it goes on. So it feels like it’s time to remind ourselves of all the madness this particular religion has brought into the world. Just so we can keep ourselves on course.»
Please read the rest at
the Mail & Guardian onlineNote: date unknown to meLabels: Atheism, Culture, Delusion, Philosophy, Religion
# posted by j @ 16:25 et / |
Anglicans and Benedict
pope Benedict XVI's proposed high Anglican enclave within the roman catholic church offers a half-way home to those who will never be reconciled to the progressive reforms in the Anglican Communion. good riddance to bad rubbish i say. the hypocrisy doesn't escape me either.
in any case, we're dealing with two deluded camps: believers in a deity which doesn't exist, myth as truth and horrid lies.
Labels: Atheism, Religion
# posted by j @ 00:22 et / |
Aquino, heroine of Philippine people power, dies
Former President
Corazon Aquino, whose «people power» revolution swept dictator
Ferdinand Marcos from power in the Philippines, died on Saturday after a 16-month battle against colon cancer, aged 76. She had recently announced she was refusing further treatment. Her family reported Aquino was leaving her fate to a deity, which was certainly a big mistake since there aren't any.
More at the Beeb and Reuters.Labels: Atheism, Memorial, Politics, Religion, Science
# posted by j @ 00:44 et / |
quotation of the week
bearing in mind all the horrors expected in china and india on account of the total solar eclipse experienced over these regions [yesterday]...
«The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.»
~Joseph Conrad
Labels: Atheism, quotations, Science
# posted by j @ 22:13 et / |
quotation of the week
«Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we
practise to believe.»
~Laurence J Peter
Labels: Atheism, Ignorance, Life, quotations, Religion
# posted by j @ 11:20 et / |
must-read entry: «an atheist responds»
it's splendidly refreshing to find reason and logic elegantly yet forcefully triumph over the blah-blah-blahs of theists like
Michael Gerson and in mainstream media of all arenas. please take a moment to read a most brilliant op-ed piece, published by
The Washington Post saturday, 14 july.
An Atheist Responds by Christopher Hitchens
It's uncommonly generous of Michael Gerson [«What Atheists Can't Answer», The Washington Post, op-ed, 13 July] to refer to me as «intellectually courageous and unfailingly kind», since (a) this might be taken as proof that he hardly knows me and (b) it was he who was so kind when I once rang him to check a scurrilous peacenik rumor that he was a secret convert from Judaism to Christian fundamentalism.
However, it is his own supposedly kindly religion that prevents him from seeing how insulting is the latent suggestion of his position: the appalling insinuation that I would not know right from wrong if I was not supernaturally guided by a celestial dictatorship, which could read and condemn my thoughts and which could also consign me to eternal worshipful bliss (a somewhat hellish idea) or to an actual hell.
Implicit in this ancient chestnut of an argument is the further -- and equally disagreeable -- self-satisfaction that simply assumes, whether or not religion is metaphysically «true», that at least it stands for morality. Those of us who disbelieve in the heavenly dictatorship also reject many of its immoral teachings, which have at different times included the slaughter of other «tribes», the enslavement of the survivors, the mutilation of the genitalia of children, the burning of witches, the condemnation of sexual «deviants» and the eating of certain foods, the opposition to innovations in science and medicine, the mad doctrine of predestination, the deranged accusation against all Jews of the crime of «deicide», the absurdity of «Limbo», the horror of suicide-bombing and jihad, and the ethically dubious notion of vicarious redemption by human sacrifice.
Of course Gerson will -- and must -- cherry-pick this list (which is by no means exhaustive) and patter on about how one mustn't be too literal. But in doing this, he makes a huge concession to the ethical humanism to which he so loftily condescends. The game is given away by his own use of G.K. Chesterton's invocation of Thor. We laugh at this dead god, but were not Norse children told that without Valhalla there would be no courage and no moral example? Isn't it true that Louis Farrakhan's crackpot racist group gets young people off drugs? Doesn't Hamas claim to provide social services to the downtrodden? If you credit any one religion with motivating good deeds, how (without declaring yourself to be sectarian) can you avoid crediting them all? And is not endless warfare between the faiths to be added to the list of horrors I just mentioned? Just look at how the «faith-based» are behaving in today's Iraq.
Here is my challenge. Let Gerson name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever. And here is my second challenge. Can any reader of this column think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first -- I have been asking it for some time -- awaits a convincing reply. By what right, then, do the faithful assume this irritating mantle of righteousness? They have as much to apologize for as to explain.
Essentially conceding that philosophy and secularism do not condemn their adherents to lives of unbridled selfishness, and that (say) the Jewish people did not get all the way to Mount Sinai under the impression that murder and theft and perjury were okay, and also that we could not have evolved unless human solidarity was in some way innate, Gerson ends weakly by posing what is a rather moving problem.
«In a world without God» he writes, »this desire for love and purpose is a cruel joke of nature -- imprinted by evolution but designed for disappointment». Again, he substitutes the wish for the thought. We very probably are, as he admits, not the designed objects of the Big Bang or of the process of natural selection. But this sober conclusion, objective as it is, is surely preferable to the delusion that we have been created diseased, by a capricious despot, and then abruptly commanded to be whole and well, on pain of terror and torture. That sick joke is one that we can cease to find impressive, that belongs in the infancy of our species, and gives a false picture of reality that we would do well to outgrow.
Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for
Vanity Fair and the author of
«God Is Not Great».
© 1996-2007 The Washington Post Company.Labels: Atheism, Recommendation, Religion
# posted by j @ 17:43 et / |
mardi gras 2007
ha ha! brilliant.
via PostSecret.Labels: Art, Atheism, PostSecret, Religion
# posted by j @ 12:59 et / |
spare me!
ananova reports today that american academy award-winning actress
halle berry believes in ghosts! she told a german magazine that she believes the dead come back to haunt the living. what's next? that she beleives in a supreme deity and worships it say, on sundays?! hahaha... or wait, what about the tooth fairy and father christmas? baloney! extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and this woman, naturally, has none.
Labels: Atheism, Commentary, Religion
# posted by j @ 10:51 et / |
