« Links With Your Coffee | Main | Links With Your Coffee - Monday »

The Chaser's War on Everything

tip to Chris

Tags: god, religion

Posted by Norm on August 1, 2009 2:13 PM | Permalink

Comments

Cosmo | August 1, 2009 2:53 PM | Reply

It wasn't always like that in the US. Even in the 70s, fundamentalists were a minority pretty much only in parts of the South, and everyone other Christian thought it was crazy to interpret the Bible literally. Thanks to Reagan et al, holy rollers became fashionable, and politicians realized they could use religion and fear together (again!) to have their way. It's just insane now.

Jef | August 1, 2009 2:53 PM | Reply

That's great! Thanks Norm!

Doug | August 2, 2009 4:52 AM | Reply

Sorry to see that is the last episode of the Chaser's after a brilliant four year run.

I get the same response from the fundies. Either I'm taking a simple quote they've never heard of out of context, or it doesn't apply any more, but everything else does.

Fundies are stupid, and predictable, perhaps that's why Brits like Sacha Cohen, and Aussies travel to the South to make fun of them.

Tim | August 2, 2009 9:29 AM | Reply

Like shooting fish in a barrel. And yet the supply of fish is seemingly inexhaustible – I see them all over the cars in my town.

MarcW | August 2, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply

In case you were unaware, the Guardian of London notes that "Atheism can express intolerance and hatred quite as well as religion. Sam Harris proves it." Enjoy the fallacies of logic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/jul/31/religion-atheism-harris-collins-witchcraft

Marc | August 2, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply

In case you were unaware, the Guardian of London notes that "Atheism can express intolerance and hatred quite as well as religion. Sam Harris proves it." Enjoy the fallacies of logic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/jul/31/religion-atheism-harris-collins-witchcraft

jonathan becker replied to Marc | August 3, 2009 8:27 AM | Reply

that's a well done article. its' well argued and "balanced" in the sense that the criticism isn't coming from the side of religion, but from "simple decency".

trouble is, he failed to convince me that harris said anything wrong. harris is a utopian, not a totalitarian. he's just staking out a philosophical position, not dictating a political agenda, and he's very logical about it. especially this quote the author tries to use against him :

"restraint in the use of torture cannot be reconciled with our willingness to wage war in the first place"

this is clearly anti-war, if anything, not pro- torture. its' also logically completely sound. and yes, i've seen it argued by harris in context, on video even. ah em kaling ze boolsheet.

rational thinker | August 2, 2009 5:54 PM | Reply

In case you were unaware, the Guardian of London notes that "Atheism can express intolerance and hatred quite as well as religion. Sam Harris proves it." Enjoy the fallacies of logic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/jul/31/religion-atheism-harris-collins-witchcraft

kiteless replied to rational thinker | August 2, 2009 9:02 PM | Reply

It's true that either "side" can have intolerance and hatred promoted in their name. The sad part is when one side has a spokesperson who says things like "love thy neighbor", "Love thy enemy", "Turn the other cheek" but is ignored by the followers.

Doug replied to rational thinker | August 3, 2009 3:41 AM | Reply

Wow, a Christian found a single Atheist who said something nasty about Francis Collins therefore Atheists can be meanies? Yeah, there are millions of Atheists out there and not all of them are the nice sort of Atheists that keep their mouth shut.

Was that the point of the article? Was there are previous belief that all Atheists were kind folks that spent their days gathering flowers and petting bunnies?

RedSeven replied to Doug | August 3, 2009 7:52 AM | Reply

You should know your place, Doug.

Erick replied to Doug | August 5, 2009 9:39 PM | Reply

I think the intolerance claim comes from a quote in Harris' book The End of Faith on p52-53 which reads:

"Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them."

Sam has responded to this controversy:

This paragraph appears after a long discussion of the role that belief plays in governing human behavior, and it should be read in that context. Some critics have interpreted the second sentence of this passage to mean that I advocate simply killing religious people for their beliefs. Granted, I made the job of misinterpreting me easier than it might have been, but such a reading remains a frank distortion of my views. Read in context, it should be clear that I am not at all ignoring the link between belief and behavior. The fact that belief determines behavior is what makes certain beliefs so dangerous. When one asks why it would be ethical to drop a bomb on Osama bin Laden or Ayman Al Zawahiri, the answer cannot be, “because they have killed so many people in the past.” These men haven’t, to my knowledge, killed anyone personally. However, they are likely to get a lot of innocent people killed because of what they and their followers believe about jihad, martyrdom, the ascendancy of Islam, etc. As I argued in The End of Faith, a willingness to take preventative action against a dangerous enemy is compatible with being against the death penalty (which I am). Whenever we can capture and imprison jihadists, we should. But in most cases this is impossible.

dave replied to rational thinker | August 3, 2009 5:15 AM | Reply

Yup. You got me. I am an atheist, and I HATE the fundies, with their ignorance, intolerance and hatred based on their own ridiculous interpretation of the bible.

Actually, I don't hate them. Too strong a word. How about this - I am intolerant of their ignorant intolerance of others.

This 3-minute segment was hilarious!

leftbanker | August 5, 2009 5:20 AM | Reply

In case you were unaware, the Guardian of London notes that "Atheism can express intolerance and hatred quite as well as religion. Sam Harris proves it."

So one article in the Guardian (actually just a blog article) puts today’s atheists on a par with religions that have been polluting the minds of humans for thousands of years? Sam Harris proves it because he, evidently, is an atheist and he speaks for all of us. Ironically enough, I am currently watching an episode of Los Simpson in which the teaching of evolution is banned in Springfield. My episode of Los Simpson trumps your Guardian blog article.

So you probably hold the bible sacred (I can’t even stand to put it in upper case). Do we stone the midget to death or don’t we?