The Skeptics Guide to the Universe Forum

Quote from: Quetzalcoatl on November 27, 2023, 01:08:23 PMI think his books and his documentaries are his legacy. Very fine output.

But in any case, nobody has so far answered why they don't consider Dawkins to be Christophobic, despite that he has criticized Christianity more than Islam (he knows it better) and that much of his criticism is directed against the concepts of religion and faith in general.

We already told you a dozen times. He's a racist. Christians aren't arabs, so he's not christophobic. You keep asking this same stupid question, as if you've never heard of racism. It's been like 10 years, for fuck's sake.

The suffix "phobia" defined as an "irrational fear" is a third-grade level of bullshit semantics, for starters. That's not what those words mean.

He gets called an islamophobe because he is a fucking racist. It's not that hard to understand.

He has lost the status of "public intellectual" over 10 years ago, and is now a reactionary moron.

Now he is suing Media Matters, saying they are looking for hateful content on purpose, in order to drive advertisers away from Twitter. Hilarious.

Quote from: Quetzalcoatl on November 20, 2023, 01:56:29 PMSpeaking of Richard Dawkins, he has commented on the conversion in the form of an open letter:

Quote from: Richard DawkinsOpen letter from Richard Dawkins to Ayaan Hirsi-Ali

Dear Ayaan

As you know, you are one of my absolutely favourite people but . . . seriously, Ayaan? You, a Christian? You are no more a Christian than I am.  I might agree with you (I actually do) that Putinism, Islamism, and postmodernish wokery pokery are three great enemies of decent civilisation. I might agree with you that Christianity, if only as a lesser of evils, is a powerful weapon against them. I might add that Christianity has been the inspiration for some of the greatest art, architecture and music the world has ever known. But so what?  I once got into trouble for extolling the beauty of Winchester Cathedral bells by comparison with the "aggressive-sounding" yell of "Allahu Akhbar" (the last thing you hear before the bomb goes off, or before your head rolls away from your body). I might agree (I think I do, although certainly not in its earlier history) that Christianity is morally superior to Islam. I might even agree that Christianity is the bedrock of our civilisation (actually I don't, but even if I did . . .) None of that comes remotely even close to making me – or you – a Christian.

This is some wild shit. He's coming right out and saying it; "hey I know we are both giant islamophobes and racists together, but ..."

Is there a category of fallacy for this? Appeal to fuckheadism?

For once his conclusion is correct -- she is no Christian -- but that is by pure chance because none of his arguments are sound.

Plus, what counts as "radical"? 200 years ago, the mainstream political view in the USA was that slavery was fine, and a majority were voting in that way. So I guess the anti-slavery activists were all stupid dumb-dumbs?

This opinion piece about a survey is not useful or applicable to real life, by any standard.

Quote from: Wigglebug on August 16, 2023, 11:14:36 PM(...)The moment you fall asleep your jaw muscles relax causing your mouth to automatically shut
(...)

Not true. When your muscles relax, they stop holding your jaw closed and your mouth opens.

What you are doing is clenching, all through the night. Probably bad for your teeth as well.

Quote from: Quetzalcoatl on August 19, 2023, 10:54:44 AMReferring to the courts and the government is not appeal to popularity.

It's an appeal to authority instead. Doesn't make your argument look any better.

Quote from: gmalivuk on August 08, 2023, 02:43:52 PM

Quote from: Quetzalcoatl on August 08, 2023, 01:58:46 PM

Quote from: Rai on August 07, 2023, 07:00:16 PMEspecially not in a sheltered place like Scandinava where they are yet to reach a level of civilisation where they can start confronting their white supremacist biases.

Shouting at swans again, are we?

LOL if Sweden is even more racist than Canada then I'm not sure what you're acting so proud of.

No, he's right. Our mosque shooter only killed like 5 or 6 people. The mass shooting in Sweden was like 90 kids or something? So we are slightly less racist than Sweden.

Quote from: Quetzalcoatl on August 01, 2023, 02:40:10 PM

Quote from: Rai on August 01, 2023, 12:45:01 PMWe have not had an infestation this big since the good old days when we debated them with Mosin-Nagants and when the only platforms given to them were gallows.

You forgot the part where you made a deal with them.

You forgot the horseshoe theory is fake, and the soviets were not communists.

Quote from: jt512 on August 01, 2023, 06:03:06 AM

Quote from: Rai on July 31, 2023, 11:35:21 AMIt is good to see that both Sweden and Denmark are now looking into how to stop these acts of fascist  violence from happening, having realised that it was  mistake to let such acts fester and cause tangible harm to marginalised communities.

Phrases like "tangible harm" or "real physical pain" give away that was no actual harm or physical pain. After all, if there were, there wouldn't be the need to state that the harm or physical pain was "tangible" or "real."

When you break your arm, you don't have to explain that your pain was real and physical; when you want to make exaggerated claims about the effects of someone's speech, you do.

You heard it here first, folks. Real harm is not real. Only broken bones are allowed to count as harm.

Saw Barbie. Had no expectations; I don't care about the toys and am mostly against them as a concept. I am extremely surprised to report that this film turned out to be pretty great. They even took the piss outta Mattel; meaning the big bosses let Gerwig realize her artistic vision. Lotta feminist theory being quoted that most people probably miss. Strangely I may have been the perfect audience?

They coulda cut it by about 30 minutes tho. But that's pretty much the same for everything Hollywood makes, these days.

Tesla is the worst car company. They pushed out the other electric car makers with their proprietary charging stations and set the whole sector back by more than a decade. If Tesla hadn't come along, we'd have more electric models from the rest of the industry and would be better off. I don't believe for a second the narrative where Elon was the one who kickstarted that sector. If anything he made it artificially narrow.

I don't think making the same cars as before, but electric (and without unionized labour), is especially forward-thinking. Personal vehicles are a wasteful, backwards technology that needs to be phased out.

Commercializing space is downright wrong. Take the profit motive out of science and exploration.

The GF saw it and she says it's bad. Did not care about any of the characters, the thing was too long and meandering, and was like a weird sensational summer blockbuster over a non-subject of little interest.

The map thing is really strange. After all the discourse online, I expected the red states to be mad at the feminist Barbie, and to flock to the oscarbait americana biopic of Nolan's. This is backwards. I guess the conservative MRA assholes underestimated women's spending power yet again. If you want to make money, market to women.

Anyway. I guess I'm going to see Barbie tonight. I still have no interest in the "-heimer" part of this double-header.