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Richard Dawkins to Appear on Doctor Who
Ravalox writes "In an interview with The Independent, current curator of the Doctor Who legacy Russell T. Davis announced that distinguished evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins would be making an appearance in the new season of Doctor Who. To quote Davies: 'People were falling at his feet ... We've had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins people were worshipping.' Dawkins is the author of many best-selling non-fiction books, from The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker to The God Delusion, and a renowned advocate of both Darwin's evolutionary theory and the merits of atheism."
I just thought I'd mention that Richard Dawkins is married to Lalla Ward, who played the Time Lady Romana (second version) in the original series. She was also married to Tom Baker for a short time.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
He is going to be holding a toilet plunger and be shouting "Exterminate!! Exterminate the believer!!"
Dr Who: Richard, what are you doing with that fish, duct tape and four lizard legs?
Dawkins: What, you think evolution *just happened*?
Task Mangler
There is no god, and Dawkins is his prophet.
This is NOT a signature.
We've had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins people were worshipping.
Kylie Minogue was on the set and people were chasing Richard Dawkins??? Wow, that show really IS for geeks.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Agree with the message above, priest/xaman/rabi is the only job where your boss doesn't exist.
Even Dawkins admits that, strictly speaking, he's an agnostic. He doesn't know that God doesn't exist. But there's any number of things that could just as easily apply to. No one says they're an agnostic with respect to unicorns. They just say "Unicorns aren't real." Only when it comes to this "God" concept, does everyone become such a pedant. If we applied the same standards to God that we did to unicorns, no one would take Dawkins to task for saying he's an atheist. He explains this all in "God Delusion." I suggest you read it.
Most atheists are aware that you can't prove the absence of God, anymore than you can prove his presence.
So most atheists could be called agnostics, but we are as agnostic about the Christian Yahweh, as we are about Thor or Shiva.
So yes we are technically agnostics, but that may confuse us with those who actually give some credibility to these superstitions.
Almost all atheists, are saying "There is no (credible reason to believe there is a) God"
Remember, Atheism is "Free of Theism", not "God does not exist"
This is NOT a signature.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
There is no distinction at all between any fictional beings, except perhaps that deities happen to be less likely to exist than unicorns. With the unicorn, the FSM, or the yet unseen sub-atomic particle you only need to admit (as a skeptic) that you cannot prove or say much about it, since no evidence for the positivity of it's existence has been shown.*
.22 that religion cannot win.
With gods and such, particularly the monotheist version,you just have to sit back and ponder on the entire scheme of the religion at hand to see how bizarre the underlying philosophy is. People think it's the tenets of faith/the law that makes religion un-likable, but that's not really it. I would be willing to accept any of that, but it is the "god" bit itself that is disgusting. Thousands of religions, each thinking they are "right", the others are wrong, their god is the Truth, all of them required of "believe" that. All of them expected to live and die by those respective "beliefs", those "leaps of faith" that become a microcosm of existence for each, sending them to the limits of insane behavior. And all of them not recognizing that it is their respective god that is responsible for this sick scenario, assuming we forget everything we know about physics and the dynamics of the world. Islam, the most philosophically advanced theology of the monotheist faiths(abstract god, non-deification of humans including prophets..etc), had its second Caliph arrest and kill anyone who talked about destiny/determinism debate. He had good reason to do so. The only gods that are not six-year-old in mentality happen to be the ones that do not "want" you to do things.... they sidestep the philosophical debate entirely. And by doing so, they warrant no attention from us as well - i.e the only sensible gods do not matter. It's a catch
Religion is a simplistic, silly idea that has no place in the free world of today. We have strong instincts for it, sadly, but I hope one day we no longer need them to emotionally survive. The world is beautiful without deities. Let's grow up and forget about them.
* This is in contrast to mathematical logic, where you can indeed make statements about provability, both negative (there does not exist...) and positive(there exists...).
Hey if God was proven to be real one day, I think every major religion would be shattered, not just Atheists.
All those religions. Not all of them can be right.
By proving that God exists you destroy hundreds of faiths overnight.
IMO, that's the *only* viable option. On one extreme, no one can prove that no gods exist. On the other, if you lower your standards of evidence to accept one religious claim, you have to accept them all (or else be hypocritical about it). So the only options are ordinary atheism (as in "I don't believe anyones religious myths") and self-delusion.
FWIW, 'agnostic' seems to have come into use due to a shift in the popular meaning of 'atheist'. Acording to Wictionary, the term didn't even exist before 1870. If people would try to quit reading more into a-theism than the word actually suggests, we wouldn't need a term for the neutral category.
But in excessively religious societies like ours, people tend to interpret atheism as yet another competing claim, rather than merely a rejection of other people's claims. For me, atheism isn't a religious belief; it's a *lack* of religious beliefs. I suppose you could call it "a belief", but only in the same sense that my lack of any particular reason to believe in Bigfoot is "a belief" about Bigfoot.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Atheists come out? Hardly! Reading all the replies to this article, I think the ratio was about 100:1 atheist to theist. On Slash, atheists rule the roost. So, actually, I'm going to come out as a theist.
Hi! I'm not scary, I swear! I don't think you're going to hell, as long as you're nice (i.e. I believe in the idea of the anonymous christian). I believe very strongly in evolution, and I think gays are perfect just the way God made them. However, I am very much a Christian. I have a calling in life, God has given me a task, and I need to follow it. Jesus died for my sins, and- I believe- yours too. He loves us, and when we sin it pisses him off. I don't feel smug, and I think of atheists as my brothers and sisters; we're all in this together. So please, please, please, you guys, don't talk about my religion like it's evil. Sure, when religion gets mixed up with politics it's a terrible mess (viz. Bush/Khameni) and it's caused a lot of problems in the past. Sure, there are a tonne of idiots in my church, and in others, who believe that you're all evil, and so are all the gays, and the Jews, and the Muslim. Sorry some of my people have tried to convert you. Sorry they don't look at science and realize the immense beauty of the way in which God has chosen to bring us into being. Sorry they've killed some of you for your beliefs.
What more can I apologize for? What can I possibly say to make you accept that I know we've done wrong? All I can say is this: when you deride religion, when you say it's "the opiate of the masses" or "the cyanide" as someone else put it, when you mock me for my beliefs, and when you brand me as some fundamentalist nutjob, it really, really hurts. It's not fair to me. It stereotypes, and it shows the same kind of logic that fundamentalists use. If you said "all blacks are criminals, they should go back to Africa", or "homosexuals are girly, they should all just be straight like me" you'd have everyone on your back, berating you for your insensitivity. It's the same thing with theists. Respect us, please, we have the right to practice our faith in peace. And if the fundy brigade comes with their wacko wagon and starts telling you that you're going to hell, and trying to shove a bible down your throat, I'll be right next to you, fighting those assholes off.
> the universe was created by a tea pot orbiting Venus
don't they call that Scientology?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Then you are not a Christian. See Matthew 25:41.
I think gays are perfect just the way God made themThen you are not a Christian. See 1 Corinthians 6:9
You may think you are a Christian, but you are clearly a heretic who preaches that some of your Bible's most clearly laid out laws can be ignored.
**TODO** Steal someone elses sig.