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970 Comments
- TimtheTaxMan, on 10/27/2009, -20/+689Debating with religious people is rather pointless since their beliefs are based on faith. Faith is not subject to logical scrutiny.
However, I think they should be free to believe whatever they like, as long as they return the favor. - pathouston22, on 10/27/2009, -79/+469What I've learned from reading non-religious Digger comments about religion:
Non-religious people aren't any more intelligent or open minded than religious.
/Atheist - DPDish12, on 10/26/2009, -26/+215"Thanks to the foolishness of the "intelligent design" faction, which has tried with ignominious un-success to smuggle the teaching of creationism into our schools under a name that is plainly stupid rather than intelligent, and thanks to the ceaseless preaching of hatred and violence against our society by the fanatics of another faith, as well as other related behavior, such as the mad attempt by messianic Jews to steal the land of other people, the secular movement in the United States is acquiring a confidence that it has not known in years, while many of those who put their faith in revelation and prophecy and prayer are feeling the need to give an account of themselves."
He hits Christians, Muslims and Jews all in one bad-ass (albeit long) sentence. Although, I have to ask why he chose to refer to Islam as "another faith" when swinging such a big stick. - Bloodwine, on 10/27/2009, -74/+247I'm agnostic, and a lot of atheists come off just as stubborn, narrow-minded, and judgmental as hardcore religious folks.
- JQP123, on 10/27/2009, -19/+175"If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people."
-House - waynefoolx, on 10/26/2009, -24/+176Hopefully, the religious folks learned something from debating him, as well.
- zip000, on 10/27/2009, -7/+146Eh. You can't base anything on digg users. We're all either functionally retarded, or behave as if we are when on digg.
- Smokeydabear, on 10/27/2009, -6/+144My grandmother, who was raised in Northern Michigan, would invite you to church, supper, and inform you that you might be going to hell.
- CoachWormer, on 10/26/2009, -69/+191Fuggedaboutit.
They haven't learned anything in 2000 years. - hauntedchippy, on 10/27/2009, -14/+108"My advice to any religious apologist who was been invited to debate with Christopher Hitchens, decline."
- Richard Dawkins - kspanks04, on 10/27/2009, -1/+81Is there a page 2? I'm not sure what the main point of his article was?
- Thrives, on 10/27/2009, -0/+68I can't tell if you're just joking, but you do get the meaning of the expression right? You're getting semantical and ignoring the point of the claim, which does nothing to help.
- v1c1ous, on 10/27/2009, -13/+78cause in the western world, you can bash christinanity and more than likely nothing will happen to you. freedom of speech and all.
try insulting islam in their own countries and watch what happens. - brickwall99, on 10/27/2009, -16/+81Please explain.
Because I don't choose to believe in something that has no evidence means I'm narrow minded?
"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." - Christopher Hitchens - kcp12304, on 10/27/2009, -11/+69*cough* Crusades *cough*
- DPDish12, on 10/27/2009, -9/+66*ahem* Gay Marriage *ahem*
- TheAyatollah, on 10/27/2009, -30/+84try insulting Christianity in the south and watch what happens.
- EthylAdded, on 10/27/2009, -2/+50A reasonable religious person is on a slippery slope to atheism.
- hauntedchippy, on 10/27/2009, -7/+54Truly if that were the case there would be no harm. But religion begets ignorance which the faithful try to insert in the classroom. It begets bigotry and intolerance (your god is false and you will burn, your lifestyle is abhorrent you will burn etc).
If people really did just keep it to themselves there would be no issue. - willanthony, on 10/27/2009, -5/+52my experience with a "saved" ex girlfriend...
me: i find these BMW suvs with jesus magnets on the back sort of silly.. i mean, wasn't jesus saying to live a life without "stuff" and gas guzzling suvs.. aren't they just stupid status symbols?.. with the pollution they contribute to, i mean what do they think? that the earth is just a waiting room to get into heaven so they can do whatever they want?
her: well.. yea.. will, you just don't get it. - Mujokan, on 10/27/2009, -1/+47But religion has a strong role in their desire for the land. That the state of Israel goes along with it is a separate point. He specified it wasn't all Jews.
- Thrives, on 10/27/2009, -9/+54I'd like to make a small point in that, as you and he probably know, Israel is trying to take Palestinian land, not "Jews". I'm aware it's a religious state, but it's important to always make the distinction that Israel is not the religion of Jews, Judaism is. One is bound by political ties.
- insertAliasHere, on 10/27/2009, -5/+48My favorite comic about Dawkins:
http://www.legorobotcomics.com/?id=14 - TimtheTaxMan, on 10/27/2009, -3/+44That's fine if they try to convert as long as I’m free to say no and I’m not harassed.
- digghasnoethics, on 10/27/2009, -15/+56What I've learned from debating religious people?
* they have generally never read or thought about the book they place all their faith in.
* you can can take their rational mind up to a point, then it shuts down with "I believe". The only chance to get them to think is to dance on that ragged edge.
* debating religious groups is never as effective as debating individually - there's groupthink.
* the thought process behind playing the lottery is very similar to the one behind religion - similar arguments work with both
* over half the people that say they 'believe' actually don't when you get down to it.
* the core 'true' believers in any religion are psychotic, just they've learnt a socially acceptable psychosis that keeps them from being locked up. - earthforce1, on 10/27/2009, -7/+48Hell actually sounds like a more interesting place - all the good bands would be there.
(Assuming this whole nonsense were true, which I don't believe for a nanosecond) - Khast, on 10/27/2009, -7/+47Problem with some of the beliefs in the world, they have faith that they are going to heaven...or whatever they like to call it. But to be allowed in, some sects have obligations to their faith to convert as many non-believers as they can in their life, or they might not be allowed into heaven. (AKA the blood is on your hands argument that is sometimes preached about.)
When I was a Christian, the pastor frequently preached about converting non-Christians, and it was put pretty much that you could get into heaven, but if you didn't try to "bring in the sheep" that the blood of the unsaved would be on your hands at the time of judgment day. - insertAliasHere, on 10/27/2009, -3/+41OK, first of all, the theory of evolution doesn't make any claims about the origins of life, just the emergence of diverse species.
Second, I'm tired of hearing the same argument rephrased: "science is based on faith too." It's *****, because while we may have faith in our theories, we actively test those theories and revise them. Religion says it already has all the answers there is to have. - o76923, on 10/27/2009, -0/+37you are suffering from the common misconception that a "theory" in the scientific sense is "just a theory" in the colloquial sense. Colloquially, saying something is "just a theory" implies it is little better than an educated guess. In almost all scientific disciplines (short of those very close to raw mathematics) a currently accepted theory is the closest thing possible to truth.
- Andrwmorph, on 10/27/2009, -10/+46The dogma is a lot less silly, though...
- Thrives, on 10/27/2009, -10/+46The answer is nothing. I grew up in Savannah, lived in Brunswick, and stayed in Statesboro for college. The stereotypical old fat built-like-a-bulldozer redneck exists, but 99% of people don't care.
- doublsh0t, on 10/27/2009, -3/+39This debate between Hitchens and Al Sharpton was first exposure I had to Hitchens and it was love at first sight.
http://fora.tv/2007/05/07/Al_Sharpton_and_Christop ... - BlueSun420, on 10/27/2009, -9/+45Yeah, except the difference is that the worst the non-religious think of the religious is that they lack critical thinking skills. Whereas the worst the religious think of the non-religious is that they deserve to burn in eternal fire for merely not having the same beliefs as them. One of these positions is a lot more hateful than the other.
I'd prefer someone that is upfront about their disdain for me than someone who secretly thinks I deserve to be tortured. - NeoSporin, on 10/27/2009, -4/+39You'd be surprised how similar religions are in the structured sense
- bsmang, on 10/27/2009, -8/+41Because Islam is "another faith"...
- mickman17, on 10/27/2009, -4/+35I hate Christians, the way they're always trying to make the world a better place and be nice to people -as long those poeple believe and behave in the exact same fashion as themselves
Fixed. - roostersheep, on 10/27/2009, -1/+32Though I'm also Atheist, I always saw hell as a very personal hell. It's what ever the most horrific and painful thing you could imagine it to be for eternity. For some it could simply burning for all of existence, or others it might be drowning forever. There might be more complex hells, where for the first few hundred years you'll be told that you're in heaven, and it seems how you imagined heaven to be. Then, very slowly you'll be disappointed by heaven, but you'll fight back those feelings, but after a few more hundred years you are undeniably miserable and then it suddenly hits you: You're actually in hell. Cue the pain.
The worst thing I could ever imagine is to not exist. For me, that's worse than any type of pain (clearly I haven't truly experienced the pain of hell!) Which is funny because, as an Atheist, I believe that's what will happen to me after death anyway. So even with the existence of a god, I won't exist after death. Unless, of course, that there is a god and we're all wrong about it. - Myztry, on 10/27/2009, -2/+33I'm open to the idea of a God but I totally reject the idea that any Church or religion knows or represents any such entity. Talk about humans putting themselves on a pedestal.
Any such being would make itself known me if it was meant to be. I can't imagine 'God' being some kind of dumb mute cripple requiring the services of humans to act on his behalf.
Either God does not exist, or he does not wish his presence be known. - aronwyrth, on 10/27/2009, -4/+34Poor attempt at sarcasm, combined with a myopic view of non-Christians; if that's the "right side", then I want to be wrong.
- IHaveIssues, on 10/27/2009, -0/+30I have to agree with thrives here even though I am an atheist. Lightburn, you're not adding to the argument by missing the essence of the expression - that upon the edge of dying religious types posit that people become religious.
- erhanaltay, on 10/27/2009, -3/+33roostersheep, may I console you with the words of Epicurus:
"Death is nothing to us. When we exist death is not, and when death exists we are not."
You shouldn't fear death any more than you do the sensation of the 13+ billion years of existence before you were born. You won't be aware of your own death after-the-fact so don't worry so much about it! - bdiggitty, on 10/27/2009, -0/+29Yes.
- rlwasabi, on 10/27/2009, -5/+34All religious people being Christians
/s - IHaveIssues, on 10/27/2009, -5/+33Yay for Stephen Fry: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/articles/a0000670. ...
- SookIt, on 10/27/2009, -5/+32What I learned from debating religious folk: People do not like being told they are wrong about something.
- Frost9999, on 10/27/2009, -4/+31Just looked for a debate between the two (found one on youtube) and can't see how anyone could conclude D'Souza won. He says things like 'the universe is set up with physics, and if we changed any known constants the universe would not exist, therefore doesn't that point to a designer?"
No, actually it doesn't. And for even thinking that is remotely logical, you lose such a debate. - firebhaal, on 10/27/2009, -5/+32When two incompatible beliefs are advocated with equal intensity, the truth does not lie half way between them. -Dawkins
- theonlywizdum, on 10/27/2009, -3/+29Killing all those people was really a metaphor for 'saving' them.
/s - hascat, on 10/27/2009, -6/+32While not all Jews are trying to take Palestinian land, all people trying to take Palestinian land are Jews.
- geodebug, on 10/27/2009, -6/+32Sorry, but you are wrong in your terminology. Hitches is vocal and direct but that doesn't imply blind acceptance of any 'anti-religious' dogma. Calling him a preacher is sort of accurate.
"Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from" -- decent definition from Wikipedia.
To make your argument you'd have to provide examples where Hitchens sticks to a belief when there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I think most atheists would change their minds if some physical evidence was provided of god's existence. Heck, it would be nice to think something is really out there taking care of us dust-mites, but there is no reason to believe that so far based on the lack of evidence. -
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