[Uncledave]

In before the ping

[Uncledave]

Yes, victory is mine!!!!

[Pokey78]

Steyn ping!

[Kenny Bunkport]

How does he do it?

[r9etb]

A thinking atheist ought to be able to appreciate the benefits the secular world derives from monotheism — for example, the most glorious achievements in Western art and music.

Not to mention the distinctly Judeao-Christian idea that individuals matter as individuals -- which just happens to be the basis for what's now called Western Civilization....

[TX Bluebonnet]

bookmark to read complete article later.

Oh goody! I see he's bashing my least favorite song - "Imagine"

[sima_yi]

The single worst idea in human history? I vote...communism.

[Mr. Blonde]

For a big-ideas guy, Watson is missing the bigger question: something has to be ‘responsible for most of the wars and bigotry’, and if it wasn’t religion, it would surely be something else. In fact, in the 20th century, it was. Europe’s post-Christian pathogens of communism and Nazism unleashed horrors on a scale inconceivable even to the most ambitious Pope.

Gotta love lines like this.

[cgk]

Excellent article. Thanks for the ping!

[GSlob]

Since the global warming would not be happening on my [or their] watch, why should they be so exercised about it? I see a gross inconsistency here.

[redgolum]

The Krauts are so slumped in despond that they’re running some Teutonic feelgood marketing campaign in which old people are posed against pastoral vistas, fetching gays mooch around the Holocaust memorial, Katarina Witt stands in front of some photogenic moppets, etc., and they all point their fingers at the camera and shout ‘Du bist Deutschland!’ — ‘You are Germany!’ — which is meant somehow to pep up glum Hun couch potatoes.

I am ethnically a Kraut. I have never known very many of my relatives to ever be optimistic about much. Something in the culture I guess. But to show a bunch of but buddies dancing around the Holocaust memorial as an ad campaign? What are they trying to do, increase suicide rates?

[Truth is a Weapon]

Ping!

[r9etb]

This modest thought provoked Paul Z. Myers, professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, into paroxysms of scorn ... the s*** would just pile up (this would explain his written output, though).’

Everything I need to know about Paul Z. Myers is summed up in this little quote.

[HOTTIEBOY]

‘the single worst idea in history’
"The idea of one true god. The idea that our life and ethical conduct on Earth determines how we will go into the next world."

I have to say I agree with him.

"Okay,’ wrote Engel, ‘let’s imagine that; let’s imagine six billion people who believe that flesh and blood is all there is; that once you shuffle off this mortal coil, poof, you’re history; that Hitler and Mother Teresa, for example, both met the same ultimate fate. Common sense suggests that such a world would produce a lot more Hitlers and a lot fewer Teresas, for the same reason that you get a lot more speeders/murderers/rapists/ embezzlers when you eliminate laws, police and punishment. Sceptics and atheists can say what they like about religion, but it’s hard to deny that the fear of an afterlife where one will be judged has likely kept hundreds of millions from committing acts of aggression, if not outright horror. Nothing clears the conscience quite like a belief in eternal nothingness.’ "


Wrong. I think he is confusing fear of what will happen with simple compassion for fellow man. I have no fear of what might or might not happen after I am gone, but that does not influence how I act why I am here. General compassion for my fellow man makes you live after death in the legacy you leave behind.

[Viking2002]

It's like I've always said: let's suppose, for one moment, that I believe in God, but you don't. And 40 years from now, we both drop dead in our tracks simultaneously. If you're right, then I'm nothing more than a bug condo under two yards of dirt. Trouble with that is, you won't be here to rub my nose in it, and I won't be here to admit I was being silly. However, if I'm right and you're wrong, then you got some quick 'splaining to do to someone who's heard it all before.

Now, you really wanna keep walking around and acting like a horse's ass? Be my guest.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

He is brilliant with words. I love this column!

[siunevada]

‘Du bist Deutschland!’ — ‘You are Germany!’ — which is meant somehow to pep up glum Hun couch potatoes.

Maybe that's what got them so depressed in the first place. Someone didn't think that campaign all the way through!

[MNJohnnie]

Just Wow. He just keeps getting better and better and better.

[RobFromGa]

When does this man sleep? Does anyone come close to his output? Franklin? Twain?

[bondserv]

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