Controversial Islamist author slams Darwin

You do realise the parallels you're drawing there right? You acknowledge that Santa is bollocks, and say children are happy to believe in him - ignorance is bliss huh? Apply the same logic to religion, if you can, and you'll see what we mean when we talk about religion.

Also, I never hear people preaching Santa to be true, nor using it as an excuse to kill others and whatever other stuff.

it true, im open to the fact that both can be bollock but hey a lot of good has come out of it.

its true people have used religion to kill people, but 1000s of people have been killed in U.S.S.R and China becuase of atheism, 250,000 people were killed in france because of athesim, thousands of people have been killed because of nationalism, republicianism, marxism, need for oil, need for gaining popular vote! my point is people will kill people because of anything! becuase 1 kills for their own warped image of religion, 5 have been killed because of other beliefs too, 100 others have been killed over money. also dont forget that people have been saved from death because of religion. becuase of the work of chruches in this country many peoples lifes were spared.

even not allowing abortion (no matter what stance you have on it) has "saved" many people lifes over the years! yes religion can be used to kill, but it can also used to save.

Sorry, what?! I've never heard of anyone say "I am going to kill all of these people because of a god I don't believe in". Just because a person is atheist, doesn't mean that what they do relates to the fact that they don't believe in any god. It's impossible because the fact that there is no belief means there is no reason to kill another person.

LOL

Cognitive Dissonance. The process of holding two incompatable beliefs becomes so painful that a person will twist one or both of the beliefs to fit together.

Atheism had nothing to do with what motivated Stalin and Mao to do what they did. They just happened to be atheists who did awful things. To blame a lack of belief in something as a motivating factor for doing something makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

And as TA said, Richard Dawkins et al, do not preach atheism. They promote turth and rationality. Enourmous difference.

Interesting read indeed, them books getting published and spread around the world at such a rate is pretty worrying. Butters has basically hit a home run over and over again with his comments, I couldn't have relayed anything as good as that and I'm on the same boat as him. As for the Richard Dawkins comments he's simply putting out the truth about religion and strong evidence to suggest there is no god, hardly preaching. Religious books on the other hand have no foundations (well there are the imaginery one's) and are put across to people as if they are fact which I find disgusting.

Its a good point about the 'fact finders', there are people who believe outside the realm of logical thinking and set God apart from any logic, so that covers it a little but I'm sure there's a few reasons why scientists, astrologists etc believe in a God for personal reasons or whatever. There's never gonna be a totally one sided universally accepted view in people's beliefs no matter what field your in (I'd be pretty confident in that).

Atheists being converted in later life, well people are different and the one thing religion can provide is comfort with the idea of heaven, god looking over you and people think religion can provide them with morales to live their life by (how its got to the point of people thinking morality is exclusive to religion I don't know) and so on. So its not hard to see why its appealing to some people at any stage of their lives. I was expecting some sort of smiley after the child abuse comment, Santa is only the outlet for the presents/gifts they recieve at Christmas although I have to admit its a magical story that gets kids all that more excited.

ok so are your trying to tell me that 1000s of catholic priests killed in China has nothing to do with that fact that they were preists? and chinease governement is communist and dont believe in religion?? are you telling me that 1000s of religious people killed by stalin in the U.S.S.R werent killed because of the communism? millions more are dead for other reason but many deaths were because they believed in God and saying it wasnt because of atheism is either ignorance or not wanting to believe the truth!

the french tried to set up and atheist state back in the 1700s or 1800s im not exactly sure when, and that lead to over 1/4 of the population being killed becasue the refused not to believe in God!

o come on! are you really that niave? i really hope not! did you really think that if people get rid of religion that there will no more killings? people kill people everyday, 1000s of people are killed all over the world for 100 different reasons, if its not over god then its over your country, if its not over your country then it is over money, or its over the plain fact people like killing people! everybody believes in something be it money, god, nationalism!

i could have swore i heard the same thing from one of the crazy bible guys in belfast street yesterday lol!

anyways if off to bed, got jury duty in the morning! god i hate it! lucky i get the choice to swear on the bible or take an oath!

o one political note for ya,

when you see the prime minister talking in the commons he is always putting one hand on a red box while talking! do you know what is inside that box!! lol

nice talking to ya folks, im surew ill pick this conversation back up tomrrow!

I'm atheist, and though I don't like religion I wouldn't kill a religious person. The fact that a person who might do that is atheist has nothing to do with why they would do it.

Where did I say that? Show me! I know that people have many reasons to kill, many excuses - but throughout the course of human history religion has always been one of the major reasons that people have killed each other. Hell, it even happens today, with so many people who die from AIDS because the catholic church won't advocate the use of condoms.

Also, you might want to stop calling people naive whilst you believe in fairytales.

Don't get me started on those baffoon's, pain in the ass is an understatement. At least make it interesting fantasy and read chapters from Lord Of The Rings or something jeez......

im a catholic, i wouldnt kill and antheist! many reasons why someone like stalin killed 6 million people, but i think it very foolish to argue that some people werent killed because thye believe in religion and he wanted to get rid of religion. Same goes for Mao in china and the french men!


throughtout the course of history money has been one of main causes of deaths, look at oil! people argue thats what iraq is about, 1000s deing there very day,

as for not allowing condoms, here in the U.K. i bet everyone (with sense) doesnt have unprotected sex, yet AIDS is on the rise,

would it help if the RCC let them be used, yes it would, and there is investigations being conducted by them at the minute on it! and id say they will be allowed soon, better late than never! but condoms are not 100% effective against AIDS, if you want to have a family then you will rish spreading AIDS on anway! people say the only way to combat aids is for effected ppl not to have sex! which is unethical and extremly bad view! also we can wait on a cure, which lets hope will arrive in the next few years!

sure anyway u not here the story that it was the vatican that invented aids to punish gays!