The Hazards of Belief

Galvasean

Dawkins said the S-word! :eek:

Nodin

Campaigners have attacked a "war on women" being waged by religious organisations before an international summit on family planning to be held in London this week.
The conference, co-hosted by the Department for International Development (Dfid) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, plans to raise money and awareness to bring contraception to millions of women and girls in the developing world.
This weekend Melinda French Gates, the wife of the Microsoft founder and one of the world's richest women, tried to deflect controversy around the summit. In an interview to be broadcast on CNN on Sunday, she said giving women better access to contraception had become her lifetime's work.
Gates, who is a practising Catholic, has been targeted by religious groups, which have described her mission as a "blatant attack on morality" and an elitist effort at population control.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/07/melinda-gates-family-planning-summit

Mad that this kind of crap is going on in the 21st century....

joseph brand

Galvasean wrote: »

Dawkins said the S-word! :eek:

It was Cox wasn't it?

[-0-]

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0708/afghanistan-conference-aid-tokyo.html

joseph brand

postitnote wrote: »

Afternoon all, some Giants Causeway updates for you

Reading through the comments of the Belfast Telegraph
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/richard-dawkins-creationism-at-giants-causeway-is-intellectual-baboonism-16181959.html

Just reading through a few of the comments in support of creationism in the above link is embarrassing. They're CreatioNUTS!

I for one choose to believe in the biblical account of creation by a Creator God (who was there) in six literal days. It makes much more sense and there are a lot less unanswered questions than is the case with the theory of evolution by scientists (who were not there).

I don't even . . .

joseph brand

[-0-] wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0708/afghanistan-conference-aid-tokyo.html

And people say that travelling back in time is impossible. Just fly to Afghanistan and BOOM! You're in the past.

The international community needs to flood that country with smartphones and let them sort themselves out. (Access to world news, Atheism forums and such)

recedite

a Taliban member shooting the kneeling woman five times to cheers from a crowd of around 150 men

What, no cheering women?

joseph brand

recedite wrote: »

What, no cheering women?

They were disguised with fake beards and cheered in a lower tone.

muppeteer

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-exclusive-abuses-surface-legion-school

Dozens of women who attended a high school run by the disgraced Legion of Christ religious order have urged the Vatican to close the program, saying the psychological abuse they endured trying to live like teenage nuns led to multiple cases of anorexia, stress-induced migraines, depression and even suicidal thoughts. The women sent a letter this weekend to the pope's envoy running the Legion to denounce the manipulation, deception and disrespect they suffered at the hands of directors barely older than themselves _ trauma which for some required years of psychological counseling that cost them tens of thousands of dollars.

joseph brand

Grand isn't it? Hundreds if not thousands of gimps people sending you envelopes with cash inside. After the back breaking job of standing in front of people and talking absolute bull every Sunday, (Bullday more like). Nice work if you can get it.

magicbastarder

dlofnep wrote: »

Richard Dawkins on BBC Radio Ulster discussing the Giant's Causeway Creationist claim: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b01kf6zl (Skip to about the 43 minute mark).

yer man at 53 minutes is fantastic.

joseph brand

magicbastarder wrote: »

yer man at 53 minutes is fantastic.

A cantankerous and ignorant oaf.

That air-head woman that came on after him is living in La-La land. She's a member of some Creationist society up there?

robindch

joseph brand wrote: »

That air-head woman that came on after him is living in La-La land. She's a member of some Creationist society up there?

Mrs White?

...sounded like she was straight out of some bizzaro Monty Python sketch.

Galvasean

joseph brand wrote: »

What the heck does he need 70k for?

Sarky

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it's for settling out of court with furious parents.

FouxDaFaFa

Today is the 21st anniversary of the murder of Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of "The Satanic Verses".

I wasn't born when Rushdie published the book and the big furore happened so I don't know what it was like to live through it but it's always stood out as one of the most disturbing news stories I've read about.

The vitriol and violence spouted by many Muslims (to this day) against Rushdie and the tepid inaction in the West for fear of offending anybody, the fatwa against Rushdie by Khomeini, the attempted murders of translators and publishers, the bombings of bookshops in California. It was complete madness.

Japanese Muslims applauded the murder and declared that "even if the murder was not committed by a Muslim, God made sure that Igarashi got what he deserved." Knife attacks on two other Rushdie translators, Ettore Capriolo for the Italian edition and William Nygaard for the Norwegian one, seriously wounded them. Nygaard declared at the 1994 Book Fair in Frankfurt that the only correct reply to the terrorists was to stand firm for freedom, and that his way to do this was to translate and publish yet another blasphemer's book, Taslima Nasrin's Shame

www.meforum.org/395/the-rushdie-rules

Galvasean

Galvasean wrote: »

What the heck does he need 70k for?

Membership fee for the Super Adventure Club?

Jimoslimos

Galvasean wrote: »

What the heck does he need 70k for?

To pay off debts and interest accrued on gambling away $60k?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

http://themoderatevoice.com/152626/calls-start-in-egypt-to-destroy-the-great-pyramids/

According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt’s Great Pyramids—or, in the words of Saudi Sheikh Ali bin Said al-Rabi‘i, those “symbols of paganism,” which Egypt’s Salafi party has long planned to cover with wax.

added points of awesomeness for the first comment below

kylith

It'll never happen. Destroy the pyramids and you destroy Egypt's tourism, which is probably a large part of the economy.

Nodin

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

http://themoderatevoice.com/152626/calls-start-in-egypt-to-destroy-the-great-pyramids/

added points of awesomeness for the first comment below

The muslim brotherhood aren't that extreme. Article loses vast amounts of credibility by referencing Daniel Pipes.

Knasher

kylith wrote: »

It'll never happen. Destroy the pyramids and you destroy Egypt's tourism, which is probably a large part of the economy.

I wouldn't say never. If Egypt gets very fundamental then the tourism trade is going to dry up to a large extent, meaning their worth to the Egyptian economy will largely disappear. I couldn't see their destruction happening today, but neither could I see it happening in 1970's Iran immediately after their revolution, it is far more plausible in 2012 Iran however.

Besides there is some historical precedent for it, the large vertical gash in the north face of Menkaure's pyramid was caused at the end of the 12 century when they tried to demolish that one.

MrPudding

kylith wrote: »

It'll never happen. Destroy the pyramids and you destroy Egypt's tourism, which is probably a large part of the economy.

Look at you talking all rational and applying rationality and logic to things.

Stop for a moment, think about what these people actually believe, immerse yourself in the idiocy and backwards thinking that colours every single aspect of their lives. Think about the decadent whores and their unmarried infidel whore lovers that the pyramids attract, mull that over for a while and then tell me it will never happen.

MrP

seamus

There was a time when I would have said that money talks, and any government would happily ignore religious nonsense so long as it keeps the economy afloat. As such, an Egyptian government would never cut off their primary source of income.

However, I have learned that governments are more interested in their own power and wealth rather than the country's. And governments are rarely more powerful and more wealthy than when their country's economy is in ruins and the people are poor and ignorant.

Funnily enough, that's exactly the same kind of political situation in which theocracies thrive.

kylith

Knasher wrote: »

I wouldn't say never. If Egypt gets very fundamental then the tourism trade is going to dry up to a large extent, meaning their worth to the Egyptian economy will largely disappear. I couldn't see their destruction happening today, but neither could I see it happening in 1970's Iran immediately after their revolution, it is far more plausible in 2012 Iran however.

Besides there is some historical precedent for it, the large vertical gash in the north face of Menkaure's pyramid was caused at the end of the 12 century when they tried to demolish that one.

You're probably right. It's too depressing to think about.

Sometimes, only sometimes, I think that invasion and colonisation mightn't be a bad idea. Unfortunately that'd probably bring worse fundamentalism in the long run...

magicbastarder

which Egypt’s Salafi party has long planned to cover with wax.

i would pay to see this.

joseph brand

Apparently there's a new church in Firhouse, Tallaght which cost €12 million to build.

I don't have a link but I think it was in The Sunday Times.

Anyway, here's a link to their site.

As luck would have it there's a donations page. They make it soo easy.

"Me n Earl just done donated 5 bucks Hyuk Hyuk".

I joke but it's not really funny. These cult-like churches, here!

seamus

It's been around for a little while now, at least 12 months. I run by it when I'm out scouting for unattended babies to eat running.

Not exceptionally busy, they obviously hold mass there which seems to have an overwhelming majority of black people in attendance, so presumably it's quite an evangelical setup.

It's not plastered with Jesus stuff all over it, it looks more like a fitness centre from the outside. I've heard mixed statements about what's inside. You can rent out space for running things like evening classes. Some people claim that they're quite pushy about the christian stuff. Other people say that they've encountered no evangelism while either holding or attending things in the centre.

It claims to have a Starbucks, but I can confirm that this is a coffee shop with a starbucks machine, so not a real starbucks.

To be fair to them, the site claims a congregation of 1,000 people. So he's probably a fairly savvy guy if he's managed to claw together €12k per follower to build this place.

It's even set down into a hollow, below road level. So you can't properly see it unless you're walking past the fence. I was initially a bit iffy about it, but it's no worse than any Catholic church.

joseph brand

seamus wrote: »

I was initially a bit iffy about it, but it's no worse than any Catholic church.

While I agree with what you're saying (as always), I just feel like it's a step backwards. But since it functions as a place of worship for what seems to be mostly Africans maybe it's not so regressive. They're in a foreign land and there's the whole community gathering attraction.

I'm still getting over the initial shock of discovering that there were creationuts up the North and then I find out, there's some sort of Mega Church down the road from where I grew up. :eek:

What next?
Mormons have christened me without my knowledge? :pac:

The Mad Hatter

Galvasean wrote: »

What the heck does he need 70k for?