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MCalavera
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15 Oct 2013, 7:31 am

lol @ "highly reliable witnesses"



Jono
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15 Oct 2013, 7:41 am

How did a thread about Richard Dawkins turn into a discussion about flying saucers and aliens again?



GGPViper
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15 Oct 2013, 9:04 am

Jono wrote:
How did a thread about Richard Dawkins turn into a discussion about flying saucers and aliens again?

Image



fibonaccispiral777
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15 Oct 2013, 10:09 am

Jono wrote:
How did a thread about Richard Dawkins turn into a discussion about flying saucers and aliens again?


Because Cyberdad said he did not like Dawkins due to his arrogance regarding extra-terrestrial beings.



cyberdad
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15 Oct 2013, 6:46 pm

Jono wrote:
How did a thread about Richard Dawkins turn into a discussion about flying saucers and aliens again?

That's my fault I'm afraid



cyberdad
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15 Oct 2013, 6:48 pm

MCalavera wrote:
lol @ "highly reliable witnesses"

I think there was a nuclear facility near Rendlesham so technically the world was reliant on the "reliable" judgement of these men to protect the free world from nuclear warfare.



fibonaccispiral777
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16 Oct 2013, 6:05 am

cyberdad wrote:
Jono wrote:
How did a thread about Richard Dawkins turn into a discussion about flying saucers and aliens again?

That's my fault I'm afraid


It's okay, I like conversations going off on random tangents. :)



MCalavera
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16 Oct 2013, 7:47 am

cyberdad wrote:
MCalavera wrote:
lol @ "highly reliable witnesses"

I think there was a nuclear facility near Rendlesham so technically the world was reliant on the "reliable" judgement of these men to protect the free world from nuclear warfare.


Testimonies are testimonies and prone to a lot of errors even by people you deem to be expert at testimonies (if there's even such a thing). Especially when it comes to very extraordinary claims, one should not just trust what people say they saw.



Moviefan2k4
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16 Oct 2013, 9:41 am

I've heard many people use this description about Dawkins, and it still works:

"This is what happens when a biologist is allowed to leave the laboratory."

I'll take common sense over the word of a self-important anti-theist any day of the week.


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16 Oct 2013, 10:24 am

Verdandi wrote:
Dawkins is a racist and a sexist and there are far better people who say what he does, only they say it better without defaming entire cultures.


Specifically what racist things has Dawkins said or published.

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16 Oct 2013, 10:27 am

schizoid26 wrote:
I don't like atheism because it in itself is a religion. Very hypocritical. Someone made a good point, communism was the great evil of the 20th century, more people died under communist rule than any other. They were not atheists though, communism was the religion, albeit secular.


Atheism is NOT a religion. It is a principled refusal to accept the beliefs of the religious in the total absence of substantial empirical data supporting their religious beliefs. Do you believe the earth is flat? Do you believe the Sun goes around the earth? Does your refusal to accept these propositions constitute a religion?

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MCalavera
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16 Oct 2013, 10:27 am

Moviefan2k4 wrote:
I've heard many people use this description about Dawkins, and it still works:

"This is what happens when a biologist is allowed to leave the laboratory."

I'll take common sense over the word of a self-important anti-theist any day of the week.


What common sense?



mikassyna
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16 Oct 2013, 10:57 am

ruveyn wrote:
Atheism is NOT a religion. It is a principled refusal to accept the beliefs of the religious in the total absence of substantial empirical data supporting their religious beliefs. Do you believe the earth is flat? Do you believe the Sun goes around the earth? Does your refusal to accept these propositions constitute a


Atheism may not be a religion but it is certainly a meme. I would love to debate Dawkins on that were he to claim otherwise.



fibonaccispiral777
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16 Oct 2013, 11:27 am

mikassyna wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Atheism is NOT a religion. It is a principled refusal to accept the beliefs of the religious in the total absence of substantial empirical data supporting their religious beliefs. Do you believe the earth is flat? Do you believe the Sun goes around the earth? Does your refusal to accept these propositions constitute a


Atheism may not be a religion but it is certainly a meme. I would love to debate Dawkins on that were he to claim otherwise.


It may be a meme but the fact that it is culturally memetic does not make it any less true because of that. In fact, as an idea, it is probably so memetic because people are starting to realize that perhaps religion is irrelevant to the twenty first century.



fibonaccispiral777
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16 Oct 2013, 11:32 am

Moviefan2k4 wrote:
I've heard many people use this description about Dawkins, and it still works:

"This is what happens when a biologist is allowed to leave the laboratory."

I'll take common sense over the word of a self-important anti-theist any day of the week.


But the fact that he has left the laboratory and begun criticizing the role of religion is due to the fact that the biology and religion have become entwined when they should not have. Religion states that it has a right to propose theories about our biological evolution(creationism) even though such theories do not have any basis in objective reality or have been empirically proven and so I guess Dawkins then thought it would be his responsibility to utilize his biological knowledge to show that such theories are false, especially when so many creationists in America are trying to pollute the education system with theories about the origin of the universe have not been tested and can never be tested. You could say Richard Dawkins should stay in the laboratory but he is only trying to do so because creationists are trying to get into the laboratory :lol:



fibonaccispiral777
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16 Oct 2013, 11:35 am

MCalavera wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
MCalavera wrote:
lol @ "highly reliable witnesses"

I think there was a nuclear facility near Rendlesham so technically the world was reliant on the "reliable" judgement of these men to protect the free world from nuclear warfare.


Testimonies are testimonies and prone to a lot of errors even by people you deem to be expert at testimonies (if there's even such a thing). Especially when it comes to very extraordinary claims, one should not just trust what people say they saw.


This is a fantastic video demonstrating a psychological experiment that was done in 1999 demonstrating the invalidity of eye witness testimonies and how fallicious the brain can be when perceiving reality. Thought you might find it interesting :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo