Well isn't that too effn' bad?

Check out the double standard:

"They're really in your face. It's not sort of....here's a nice sort of Atheism...it's much more 'Let's get rid of religion' " :  Alistar McGrath

He's certainly got a new fire and brimstone lecturing approach, but behind a 'Happy Face'  mask. You have to give him an 'A' for effort.

His comments on Dawkins are also embarrassing and ignorant: " I do think he overstates, I also think he's just a little bit disrespectful to people of faith. They're not mad or bad, they've thought this through...I think we have to be a bit more respectful in this discussion..." : Alistar McGrath

'Just a little bit disrespectful'?
'We have to be a bit more respectful'?

Double standard much??

I wonder what his opinion would be if we took the historic 'Christian Worldview' approach and started burning people at the stake as 'witches' and heretics for their 'nonbelief' in 'Atheism' (sic).

The funniest thing is that he's an 'Evolutionist', and not a Literalist Christian.

His comments on what he'd say to George Bush's feeling that 'god' was advising him to go to war were priceless...

This is from a Canadian show. I don't know if everyone will be able to view it.

I wasn't always as skeptical as I am now concerning supernatural claims. I've had a few experiences in life that caused me to think about possibilities beyond the mundane, but inevitably what would happen is that some time after the event, I would read,see or hear something that would offer a rational explanation for what I had previously entertained as paranormal. Unlike fans of SN and PN, I didn't find it disappointing to learn that the ghost the kids thought was haunting the house was in fact a stray kitten that had gotten accidently locked in the attic. I found it liberating and exciting.For example, I had a rather frightening experience that some of my religious and new age friends assured me was a succubus attack and I enetertained that idea until I learned what sleep paralysis is. Once I started reading about SP, it was very liberating and fascinating at the same time. You see, I'm one of those types of guys who likes to know how things work and what makes them tick. If I enjoy a horror, fantasy or sci fi movie, I'm always more interested in how the special effects were done than the intial feeling I got in the theatre when I saw the movie. One of the reasons why I only accept scientific evidence for things regarding the supernatural or paranormal is that it shuts off most of the avenues of subjective mistakes and strips the mystery "woo" factor out so we can look into what's REALLY going on.

In his book, Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris addresses Christian Fundamentalism as a national threat, he says, to the US and declares it a "moral and intellectual emergency". He cites polls that say as much as 50% of the US believe in Creationism over evolution. Harris cites other problems with fundamentalism , but doesn't end his criticism there. He criticizes liberals and moderates for providing a sort of "asylum" for fundamentalism, Bill Maher referred to liberals and moderates as "enablers" even "Mafia wives".

Critics, at least the ones that don't foam at the mouth or quake when they talk, say that fundamentalism and creationism and the other fallout from such are the atheist's "strawman argument", that the fundy threat is non existent and is just something that atheists build up to tear down.

(This admittedly avoids theists that have faiths that are not exclusionary and/or promises of good or punishing afterlives, though they are of course free to weigh in)

I'm sure this was brought up more than once before but I got into a discussion recently and wanted to see what others thought, and what theists might think about it. A basic question has to do with a slight variation on Pascals Wager, or at least how it's frequently used. The basic idea being of course that you should believe in a higher power and assent to its demands because if you're wrong, well there's no problem and if you're right there is a chance of reward. If you refuse to believe, then if you're wrong there is a great risk and there is no problem if you're right. What I find fascinating in this is that it is rarely applied outside the main religion or considered how it worked when used on similar principles by various pogroms instigated by protestant against catholic and catholic against protestant.

Dear Head Priest

My name is Quinton Christie, and I’ve written a book about you, amongst other Lighthouses of Faith.

It is not a very nice book, because I point my grubby little fingers at you a lot, while I insult you, and your faith, for more than 200 pages.

I make fun of your gods, and your scriptures, and I call you all sorts of terrible names.

I bring to my reader’s attention all the inaccuracies, the mistakes, and the deliberate lies your teachings and scriptures are laced with, and offer them alternatives to your nonsense.

That said, I am a fair man, and I believe in even-handedness, so here’s your chance to get even:
Why don’t you beg/pray/beseech, or even implore/ask/suggest to your god/s that he/they DROP AN ADULT BULL BLUE WHALE on my house?

I will give you the address (GPS coordinates), and the date by when this should be done, if you’re interested, and then we can sort out this god thing once and for all.

I’m sure if he exists he will already know where I live, heck, he GAVE me the house, if I understand your prayer/reward system correctly, but you might want to come and watch.

OK?

Why a whale, you might ask?

Well, any idiot can kill me, and claim it was his god’s instruction, and who’ll be able to ever refute that?

Atheists DON'T hate god because we don't believe he exists!  News at eleven.

I was sitting outside of my workplace last week when this young guy probably in his mid-twenties walked up to me and started talking.  He asked me if I was religious.

I thought to myself, "Here we go..."

Anyway, I tell him my story in a nutshell, that I was raised Southern Baptist, believed in it strongly until I was 25, started thinking about inconsistencies in the bible, thought about it for five years, and then realized I couldn't believe in the ridiculousness of religion any longer.

He tells me that he had been an atheist until about eight years ago.  And get this, he actually said that back when he was an atheist that he hated god.

What

The

Fuck

?

How the fuck can you hate something you don't believe exists?

I don't get this.

I don't care what other Christians tell you, I read the bible all my life and debated hundreds of law worshiping religions, and atheist. Its all the same, really! If you can read through all this, I will be impressed as most will stop reading in the first 4 lines as they share the same goals. 

First. 

All religions in the world go by good deeds, good scales and good works in order to go to heaven. You must do something; however, it seems strange that God been that almighty figure he says he is, would make people pass through all the bullshit other religions tell you to do, when he can simply do it himself and take care of the problem.   

Israel in the old testament always tested God, because they didn't believe in God; in fact many israelites believed they were Gods, therefore worshiping pagan Gods from other cultures, rejecting the God that brought them out of Egypt.   

The bible is meant to be a spiritual book, not physical. Laws in the 10 commandments were spiritual laws, but Israel took those laws to be physical. God was against them because they denied and questions his divinity, not because they sinned like most Christians will tell you. 

(1)  Axioms and theorems are deductively true, and therefore they are universal and necessary; scientific laws are inductively true, and we don't know for certain that they'll still be true in 10 minutes time.

(2)  Science presupposes logic; if a scientist didn't have the ability to make proper inferences, then s/he would not be able to practice his or her methodology.  On the other hand, as opposed to a scientist whose discipline requires at least a passing familiarity with logic, someone who's not a scientist can still be an expert logician.

(3)  The laws of logic are true at every possible world; scientific laws are true only in possible worlds where there's nature.

1. Agenda, the homosexuals want acceptability, recognition, and approval.
   1. Homosexuals want others in society to think like them (and behave like them?).  They are working hard to change moral, social, and political opinion to be more in line with what they want.  They are not content to be what they want to be.  They want others to accept them.  They want others opinions to change and conform to their ideology and behavior.  What gives them the right to try and change

Haven't even finished reading it yet, but this is so awesomely cogent I just had to post it right away: September 11, 2011