Comment by Ashli Axtell on October 23, 2009 at 11:35pm

I think her sweater is boring.

(That's about as deep as her entire commentary.) What the hell is a "joyous cannibal," anyway? Is she making us out to be some sort of tribal, primitive naked persons, toasting up missionaries for dinner?

Maybe she should be out critiquing theme parts or romantic comedies.

I love that she compares groups of individuals requesting freedom of religion and expression to Jerry Falwell calling Tinky Winky gay. Also, I find it interesting that she repeats that Hitchens and Wilson are white men, and points out that they're middle-aged. "Unhumanizing?" What's more human than two humans talking?

Then there's this, the last paragraph in her article:

This week Harvard's humanist chaplain Greg Epstein comes out with Good Without God, a book arguing that people can have everything religion offers—community, transcendence, and, above all, morality—without the supernatural. This seems to me self-evident, yet the larger point is important. We need urgently to talk about these things: ethics, progress, education, science, democracy, tolerance, and justice—and to understand the reasons why religion can (but does not always) hamper their flourishing. This new conversation won't be sexy, but let's face it: neither is two white men in a pub sparring over God.

Does she even understand the words she's typing here? What do these sentences even mean when strung together?

There are plenty of folks discussing "ethics, progress, education, science, democracy, tolerance, and justice." I bet even Dawkins and Hitchens have said a thing or two about them...

Comment by a7 on October 24, 2009 at 9:38am

nice piece mate. This shows me that we have these brainwashed braindead fuckers on the run, lets get the largest knife we can find, I am sure such a knife will be found in the US, stick said knife in and twist till their screaming.

Man American atheists really have it tough and lets be honest atheisim has to take a really good foothold and have effect on policy.

Although not a die hard atheist the president has taken the word of science in stem cell research,

regg, I have to disagree, surley the fanatical muslim are the number one danger in a world wide sense.

Ashi, what the fock is all this nonsense about tinky winky being gay ? no way man, if any of the tubbies are gay its the one with the right gay hat.


keep safe lassie's and laddie's


george

Comment by Reggie on October 24, 2009 at 10:54am

regg, I have to disagree, surley the fanatical muslim are the number one danger in a world wide sense.

What I had meant by saying that other religions were not a threat was that they are not a threat to Christian faith. Christians can happily believe in their particular faith while next to a Muslim who has different views, but are still religious. Atheists challenge the foundation of religions by attacking the very concept of a god or gods, something most other religions leave well enough alone for obvious, self preserving reasons. Also, they can now explain away other religions by saying that they all worship the same god, in truth. But atheism won't allow for this scam of a deity. That is what I meant by reason and science being a threat to Christians (or any religion).

And I don't disagree with you about Islam being a major threat in that different sense.

Comment by Craig Nomazlab on October 24, 2009 at 11:32pm

Funny how Atheists usually seem to have reason and proof in their arguments while the average religious argument is something like "I'm right, you're wrong" or "You're going to hell, blasphemer."

Comment by Ashli Axtell on October 25, 2009 at 12:08am

@a7 - Yeah, well, Jerry Falwell wasn't really all together now, was he? :) I concur with your hat theory.

I was thinking today - what bothers me most about this article is probably the "joyous cannibal" remark. She kind of glosses over it with snitty sarcasm, but it's the same thing that religious groups have done for centuries in order to make themselves appear better than the groups they're trying to silence - or in far worse cases (which aren't ours), enslave or slaughter - they try to make them seem inhumane.

By referring to atheists as joyous cannibals, it draws a parallel with the immoral and indecent and automatically places atheists and atheism in a negative position when compared to religious followers or religion itself.

That's so irritating.

Comment by Reggie on October 25, 2009 at 9:56pm

Jerry Coyne weighed in on this very article on his blog Why Evolution is True. He brings up some other good points about Miller's hypocrisy and then ends it nicely with:

Perhaps Miller could devote a few words to explaining why you don’t need faith to be moral, a position that doesn’t seem so “self-evident” to many Americans. Now that would be doing her readers a service! Instead, she feeds them intellectual pablum. But where is the religion editor who does otherwise?

Comment