Simon Mathews

SteveInCO wrote:

This is why I get a little irritated by people who try to co-opt “atheism” by implying the only “correct” way to be an atheist is to adopt their particular agenda [(*cough*)Atheism Plus(*cough*)] on logically unrelated matters. That’s not to say that I don’t have positions on issues, but if you disagree with me, that doesn’t mak…

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The reason that I would personally argue that atheism is not a worldview is it is directed at a very specific part of life (belief in God/Gods).

For me, a worldview should be a general approach, e.g. the best way to evaluate the truth of something is rationally based on available evidence or the most moral way to treat people is to be…[Read more]

I think it would be quite hard – having to keep praising “The Lord” and all of that stuff. However, I would undertake to try and make my flock think a bit more about the roots of the religion and not just regurgitate passages from the holy texts. Obviously in my role I could not say I did not believe in God but I would encourage people to question…[Read more]

As others have stated I think “phobic” is the wrong term. Phobic is an irrational fear and it is not irrational as an “infidel” to fear some of the doctrines of Islam (specifically the ones calling for our heads to be cut off).

However, of course, the majority of Muslims do not go around cutting off infidel’s heads. I think the term is used by…[Read more]

I will be sad to see @drbob go. It may be there are plenty of shitty sites with shitty apologists but Dr Bob is not one of them. He is an apologist of a rarer type with more quality.

As such I got a lot from the debates I had with him. I obviously don’t know everything that happened but I’d appreciate if someone in the know could fill us in. I…[Read more]

Hi Keith. I have more respect for the position of Deist than that of Theist. I can see it’s appeal. However, don’t forget the Anthropic principle when discussing why the laws of nature appear to be so systematic and ordered. If they were not, we would not exist and therefore could not ask the question. It’s possible there are billions of other…[Read more]

GM, you must be willfully trying to misunderstand, there’s no other explanation.

In all three of your points you refer to gun murders. @unseen, and subsequently @steveinco and I, keep referring to OVERALL murder rates as @unseen did in the original post.

I’ll admit the title of this post is misleading because it says murder-by-gun statistics…[Read more]

Gallup’s Mirror wrote:
The fantasy figures you provided indicate the overall murder rate increased due to “gun control”, which shows a relation between them, not the lack of any relation whatsoever.

The figures, as I took great pains to point out, were simply to illustrate the point. I could just as easily have the overall murder rate decre…[Read more]

@gallupsmirror My take on this thread can be illustrated by the following simple figures that I have clearly made up for illustrative purposes.

Before gun control:
Gun murders: 10
Knife murders: 5

After gun control:
Gun murders: 3
Knife murders: 14

These figures are consistent with the conclusion that gun control reduces gun-related murders…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
That’s an unusual question related to basically a statement of a bunch of statistics. Do you ask Davis what his agenda is for his posts on Pluto?

I’m just pointing out that when you start to look for correlations between guns per capita and gun murders, you enter a morass that seems to be beyond interpretation. My agenda, if you wil…

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Your conclusion is expressed clearly enough but I assume there is an agenda behind making the point. Could you let us in on it?

@earthheart, I think your definition fits well with what you wrote in your original post. Here is a definition of spiritual from good old Google that fits more with my understanding of it:

Spiritual: relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.

The emphasis here is on things that are not material…[Read more]

@earthheart, “spiritual” is one of those terms that people use freely without defining what they mean by it. The two examples you have given seem like they are talking about experiences being emotional rather than spiritual. In which case the question would be “Can an atheist be emotional?”. To which the answer is obviously yes.

Would you be able…[Read more]