Tom

College is not top tier Enco. Details matter. Pay attention and try not to misrepresent what people say or repackage them to suit your world view.

your broad assertion that there are no out Gay athletes in the entire Western World

Enco…stop with the misrepresenting what people say. You failed to read what I said clearly (as you often did). I said out athletes in top tier European football leagues or in the North American leagues: NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB. Pay attention to what people say Enco.…[Read more]

No I do not think that Europe has a bigger problem with racism than the US. The US is an exceptionally racist society and the fall-out, especially with African-Americans is atrocious. Just walk around a black inner city in most cities. There are no non-racist societies anywhere in the world. A few countries are slightly less outwardly racist.

But…[Read more]

Autumn is completely right about the shit-cake of fans. In most of European top-tier football (remember once again, that place where the thousands of gay players of which none are out of the closet), most teams, at least in Western Europe, after interviews find fellow players mostly indifferent to or actively wanting players to come out to show…[Read more]

The Progressive Left thinks mere words…

Blah blah blah. Meaningless stupid ridiculous overgeneralisations. Just stop Enco. Please. Seriously. WTF? I would react the same if someone said such vacuous nonsense about “the reactionary right”. Hyper overgeneralisations make us all less intelligent.

The Progressive Left thinks mere words

Just stop…[Read more]

Putin and those who help keep him in power are completely uninterested in the long term anything per the Russian economy, security, regional stability, quality of life and so on. And they are just as uninterested in what Russians think (they are telling them what to think under threat of severe penalties otherwise). Until a significant threshold…[Read more]

Putin and those who help keep him in power are completely uninterested in the long term anything per the Russian economy, security, regional stability, quality of life and so on. And they are just as uninterested in what Russians think (they are telling them what to think under threat of severe penalties otherwise). Until a significant threshold…[Read more]

Oh that’s a great one I had never seen

Could we maybe change the website to:

http://www.cranktank.wtf ?

Despite being left handed, I was instructed to play all sports with my right hand/arm: throwing, hockey, football (both kinds), bowling, tennis etc. Even in the martial arts you are almost invariably instructed to grip with your right hand/arm (predominantly). There was definitely no left handed mouses back when I learn’t IT. I insisted on…[Read more]

We actually have a very strong union

Get out of here! I am left-handed and I have never received an invite. They must have gotten my email address wrong or something. Or maybe this is just “elementary school team selection” all over again !!!

Not sure if I belong in either category, but can at least say that not all Atheists are as alike as many others might assume.

Indeed. You must all know by now how much I deplore overgeneralisations about atheists. When most people say such things, they are for the most part referring to Western sceptical rational atheists, which are actually a…[Read more]

Tell me about it. I start a Hi-how-are-you thread and all of a sudden

Yeah…you started with a Hi how are you and were greeted cordially, and then you made some dubious blanket statements on atheism later and were fairly challenged. You are a moderator of discussion boards, you should know that such replies are not unusual nor unreasonable.

I’m b…

[Read more]

 Am I allowed to point out that the advent of the secular, rationalized, managed society hasn’t produced the freethinking utopia we’d expect if religion were the sole source of all our woes?

Could you please not misrepresent what I have said. At no point have I said “freethinking utopia”. However yes, a secular society with a minimal sets of righ…[Read more]

Hey, if it doesn’t make sense to us, that’s probably why we’re atheists.

It doesn’t make sense to us because we live in a secular environment where we are allowed to question religion and openly state it doesn’t make sense and not pay serious or dire consequences. Most religions ruthlessly persecute those who question believing in either that…[Read more]

Ironically, this is the same blind spot that many atheists have toward what we call reality. To my way of thinking, if someone can’t deal with metaphor or ambiguity, they’re mistaking the finger for what it’s pointing to.

This is post-modern rhetoric. If a metaphor cannot be explained, then it is poetry and should be enjoyed as something poeti…[Read more]

Okay. If we’re going to dog fundies for being literal-minded, we should avoid being similarly literal-minded. That’s all.

You haven’t elucidated anything there.

I don’t see why not. Daniel Dennett observed that from the point of view of the religion, there’s no difference between a Muslim who prays five times a day because he literally believes in a literal Allah and the literal truth of every word of the Koran, and a Muslim who prays five times a day because that’s what Muslims do. It’s the behavio…

[Read more]

there appears to be a growing contingent that isn’t all that strict about biblical literacy

Indeed, that is why I said “at least some” instead of all. Some religions are more nebulous about some claims than others, or the totality of claims that are important. However, when you no longer hold a certain number of core claims as literal, you can n…[Read more]

note to mod: I hit edit instead of reply to Istvan’s message and I don’t have emails of posts, could someone restore his original message please?