Sam Harris: The God Fraud

Sam Harris: The God Fraud

God May Be Dead But Damned if I Am

 

I n her recent outing in Foreign Policy Magazine, noted apologist, Karen Armstrong, says Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins:

  “  … are wrong … about human nature.

Homo sapiens is also Homo religiosus.

As soon as we became recognizably human, men and women started to create religions. We are meaning-seeking creatures.

While dogs, as far as we know, do not worry about the canine condition or agonize about their mortality, humans fall very easily into despair if we don’t find some significance in our lives.

Theological ideas come and go, but the quest for meaning continues.

So God isn’t going anywhere.

And when we treat religion as something to be derided, dismissed, or destroyed, we risk amplifying its worst faults.

Whether we like it or not, God is here to stay, and it’s time we found a way to live with him in a balanced, compassionate manner.

Or in other words, god may be dead but don’t let’s upset the natives – they’ve got guns and bombs and exploding underwear and if you’re unkind to them they might set them off.

So let’s pretend for the sake of a peaceful life that he’s not dead, okay? And after all, the human diddums is fragile and if we tell her there is no objective meaning “out there” diddums might cry.

I don’t know about you but when you read her article do you get the awful feeling of sly inauthenticity and wheedling manipulation all for the sake of her desperation for … what? Her own frantic need for a sense of her own meaning, probably. The fact that people may naturally, in a search for meaning, have conjured up an imaginary friend doesn’t make the imaginary friend either real, or worthy of respect or protection.

If there are no gods then there are no gods – end of story. No point in the prolonging the fantasy. And, by the way, there is no evidence that there is one.

Anyway, we can’t respond to the Armstrong nonsense nearly as neatly as Sam Harris’s reply:

“  In her article (“Think Again: God,” November 2009), Karen Armstrong discovers that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and I have mistaken “fundamentalism” for the totality of religion. (Sorry about that.) But do Richard and Christopher really hold religion responsible for “all human cruelty”? That is a surprise. I hadn’t realized that they were idiots.

In any case, I am hopeful that Armstrong’s winsome depiction of Islam will shame and enlighten them, as it has me. They will discover that Hassan al-Banna and Tariq Ramadan are paragons of meliorism and wisdom, while we are ignorant bigots who know nothing of theology (of course), politics (Christopher, are you listening?), human nature (what’s to know?), or the proper limits of science (um … narrower?).

[ … ]

But in Kenya elderly men and women are still burned alive for casting malicious spells. In Angola, unlucky boys and girls have been blinded, injected with battery acid, and killed outright in an effort to purge them of demons. In Tanzania, there is a growing criminal trade in the body parts of albino human beings — as it is widely believed that their flesh has magical properties.

I hope that Armstrong will soon apply her capacious understanding of human nature to these phenomena.

[ … ]

People will torture their children with battery acid from time to time anyway — and who among us hasn’t wanted to kill and eat an albino? I sincerely hope that my “new atheist” colleagues are not so naive as to imagine that actual belief in magic might be the issue here.

Read his whole reply here.

[Armstrong’s response to Harris is upsettingly whining, disingenuous, special pleading, illogical and just nonsense. She seems to want a “dialogue” about the existence or not of a god but the existence is not open to question.] 

 

R’Amen (and may his noodley appendage be upon you)

 

 

Richard Glover Lacks Sense of Humour About Atheists

Richard Glover Lacks Sense of Humour About Atheists

Brilliant French comedy: St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of French Protestants by Catholics,  1572  /  François Dubois

Hahahahahaha!

 

Yesterday on Richard Glover’s Drive (ABC local radio, Sydney), according to sources, Glover — who has built his considerable celebrity on unfunny puns and predictable punchlines — testily exhorted atheists to “get a sense of humour”.

How true!

Your Common or Lesser Spotted Godbotherer is such a hoot, after all.

Who can forget the hilarity of the Spanish Inquisition? Or the Taliban’s side-splitting public executions of women in the Kabul soccer stadium? Or al Qaeda’s laugh-a-minute comedy, 9/11 , with its follow-ups, World’s Craziest Suicide Bombings Parts I, II, III … (N) … directed by Allahu Akbar?

George W. Bush’s Iraq War II, of course, was a comedic tour de force in the grand tradition of The Great Crusades: Episodes I to IX.

And that girl being stoned to death for “adultery” should have been caught on Somalia’s Funniest Home Videos! (After all, the girl being merely whipped for leaving home without a male escort made it onto Paki-Standup-TV, didn’t she?)

Yes, the religious are so much more relaxed and chilled out and ready to laugh.

 

 

The Mohammedans, for example, were significantly more giggle-ready when they saw those atheistic Danish cartoons than any of your straight-laced, po-faced atheists would ever be if confronted with a satirical image of their own atheist god, Charles Darwin.

Chuckling behind his bushy pantomime beard, Groucho Marx eyebrows and silly dress-up turban, Ayatollah Khomeini was virtually doubled-over with mirth as he delivered his sidesplitting fatwa on Salman Rushdie.

Thanks, Richard, for the depth of your wisdom, for your fair and balanced advice, and for not letting your personal opinion get in the way of your deadpan public pontifications.

And for being a real chucklehead we can look up to. 

 

 

 

Bundy Rum 2011 NSW Election

Bundy Rum 2011 NSW Election

 

Swine Flu, brought to you by SPAM 

 

It’s all the rage these days. Not so long ago, as we were basking in the great spiritual joy of the Wetchex World Youth Day, we reflected also on the overwhelming success of the then recent Crown Casino Anzac Day Marches throughout Australia. It all seemed such a long way from the heady days of the shocking and awe-inspiring overture to the News Corp Iraq War.

We look forward to the 2010 Mercedes Benz Anzac Day celebrations with the planned ceremonies at the Coca Cola Cenotaph. We ourselves hope to be able to take our seats in the Fosters Stand at the Qantas Commemorative Site for the Toshiba Dawn Service where the highlight for us will, of course, be the sounding of the Acme Funeral Services Reveille.

We now call on Marvel Comics to do the right thing and become a corporate sponsor of the Australian War Memorial so that each evening at sunset we can hear the Daily Bugle Last Post.

 

 

Burma Railroaded

Burma Railroaded

 

“ Why, stap me, sir! Thou’rt the vewy scoundwel of a knave! And if thou continuest in thy wecalcitwance, why, I might .. I might … flick thee with my perfumed kerchief! Or at the vewy least I shall mightily consider doing so! So there! What sayest thou to that?”

 

– “Get fucked ya mincin’ pansy!”

 

“Ooooh! Thou’rt so stwong and naughty a wogue! Therefore, suh, pwepare thyself for our most fiercest wesponse! We shall gather about our person others of like mind and we shall ALL vewy sewiously consider glowering at thee in the most focused way, wiggling our eyebwows and waving our perfumed kerchiefs at thee in unison! What sayst thou to that, sir?”

 

– “Bugger off, will ya? I’ve got a fuckin’ country to despoil and a still-born democracy to rape.”

 

“Vewy well, suh. Thou sadly leav’st me no alternative but to deploy my most fearsome weaponwy.
Shouldst thou persist in thy vicissitudes I shall not like thee any more and I shall … I shall … I shall … IGNORE THEE.”

 

Yes, sadly, foreign ministers and presidents the world over are collectively shaking their scented ruffles at the insane Burmese generals – or are forming a committee to discuss considering doing so.

There has been a veritable chorus of condemning, regretting, dismay-expressing, ambassadorial calling-in, message-sending, and outrage-huffing, done with all the dramatic impact of the flourish of an embroidered hanky.

It is, of course, a white hanky. On a stick.

Australia’s Foreign Minister, Lord Fopplington-Smythe Stephen Smith, waved his hanky in the sternest possible tones.

Mr Smith said Australia would maintain sanctions against the military Junta.

“Australia will now consult closely with the international community, including the United Nations and Australia’s ASEAN partners, on the need to put even more pressure on the Burmese regime to move down the path of democracy,” he said.

“Australia maintains financial sanctions against the Burmese regime.

Do you understand how grateful you ought to be for the Burma-facing glowering of the Australian Government? Do you have any idea of the powerful effect these sanctions have already had?

No.

Neither do we.

The glowering and hanky-waving is all done at a safe distance and harmlessly enough that no boat is rocked, no blow actually landed. Only the perfume of our sophistication wafts gently up the nostrils of the madmen of Myanmar.

This pissweak, stylised footstamping by international dandies playing an archaic game by pre-Enlightenment rules makes us – and, we think, most people – sick to the stomach. It is a betrayal of who we are and of the values that make us Australian. It is a betrayal of our responsibilities as citizens of the world.

But wait!

The Government will now move to update these [sanctions] and keep them focused for maximum impact.”

Oh, gosh! Updated sanctions! Focused sanctions! He is going to purse his lips even more tightly as he blows air in their direction! What a difference this will surely make! What do you get when you multiply an impact of ‘0’ by 100? That boy in the back? Fopplington-Smythe? That’s correct! ‘0’!

All of this pompadoured, powdered, pantalooned, silk-stockinged posturing has had exactly no effect whatever. More of the same will gain even more of the same: nothing. The Burmese generals always do what they always intended with impunity because they know that all the reaction they ever get is a waft of poudre kicked up by the phony outrage of a softly stamping, buckled shoe.

Dawkins For Tony Blair

Dawkins For Tony Blair

Richard Loves Tony

  Richard Dawkins, in the New Statesman finds himself supporting war criminal Tony Blair who had recently written of his hopes and plans for the eponymous foundation based on his evidence-free beliefs.
“ Dear Person of Faith   Admittedly, there are one or two problems remaining to be ironed out there, but all the more reason for people of different faiths — Christian and Muslim, Sunni and Shia — to join together in meaningful dialogue to seek common ground, just as Catholics and Protestants have done, so heart-warmingly, throughout European history. It is these great benefits of faith that the Tony Blair Foundation seeks to promote. “We are focusing on five main projects initially, working with partners in the six main faiths” Yes I know, I know, it’s a pity we had to limit ourselves to six. But we do have boundless respect for other faiths, all of which, in their colourful variety, enrich human lives. In a very real sense, we have much to learn from Zoroastrianism and Jainism. And from Mormonism, though Cherie says we need to go easy on the polygamy and the sacred underpants!! Then again, we mustn’t forget the ancient and rich Olympian and Norse traditions — although our modern blue-skies thinking out of the box has pushed the envelope on shock-and-awe tactics, and put Zeus’s thunderbolts and Thor’s hammer in the shade!!! We hope, in Phase 2 of our Five-Year Plan, to embrace Scientology and Druidic Mistletoe Worship, which, in a very real sense, have something to teach us all. In Phase 3, our firm commitment to Diversity will lead us to source new networking partnership opportunities with the many hundreds of African tribal religions. Sacrificing goats may present problems with the RSPCA, but we hope to persuade them to adjust their priorities to take proper account of religious sensibilities. [ … ] “We are working with the Coexist Foundation and Cambridge University to develop the concept of Abraham House” I always think it’s so important to coexist, don’t you agree, with our brothers and sisters of the other Abrahamic faiths. Of course we have our differences — I mean, who doesn’t, basically? But we must all learn mutual respect. For example, we need to understand and sympathise with the deep hurt and offence that a man can feel if we insult his traditional beliefs by trying to stop him beating his wife, or setting fire to his daughter or cutting off her clitoris (and please don’t let’s hear any racist or Islamophobic objections to these important expressions of faith). We shall support the introduction of sharia courts, but on a strictly voluntary basis — only for those whose husbands and fathers freely choose it. [ … ] With so many of the world’s problems caused by religion, what better solution could there possibly be than to promote yet more of it?  

 

Also in the
New Statesman, A C Grayling, professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, says the word “god” …
… brings to mind the man-made phenomenon of religions, whose net effect on humanity now as throughout history has been, by a considerable margin, negative. It would be so just because of the falsity of belief; and the consequent absurdity of behaviour premised on the idea that there exist supernatural agencies who made this very imperfect world, and who have an interest in us that extends to our sex lives and what we should and should not eat on certain days, or wear, and so on. But it is worse than false: it is far too often oppressive and distorting as regards human nature, and divisive as regards human communities. It is a frequent source of conflict and cruelty. Monstrous crimes have been committed in its name. And more often than not it has stood in the way of efforts at human liberation and progress. [ … ] I would wish people to live without superstition, to govern their lives with reason, and to conduct their relationships on reflective principles about what we owe one another as fellow voyagers through the human predicament ““ with kindness and generosity wherever possible, and justice always. None of this requires religion or the empty name of “god”. Indeed, once this detritus of our ignorant past has been cleared away, we might see more clearly the nature of good, and pursue it aright at last.
We, for one (or is that two? Now I’m we’re confused…) wholeheartedly endorse this last paragraph. (Except for the pompous “aright”…)   Both articles are worth reading in full at the links above.