Posted by Cristian on Mar 04 2007 under Religion | 4,878 Views | 
Atheist scientists who made the mistake of giving credibility to religious apologists by debating with them are often accused of upholding a hypocritical position when they maintain that faith cannot be a valid source of knowledge, while at the same time denying the existence of God. No one can disprove his existence, goes the argument of the religious, not by any experiment and not even on logical grounds, so the Atheist must resort to faith too, since he doesn’t really know either. The fact that nobody has ever been able to prove that God exists doesn’t mean that he really isn’t there. And the pious have their faith to back their position, while Atheists claim they don’t rely on faith. It sounds so reasonable. So, they ask, can one still deny that God exists without taking that on faith? Well, duhbviously!
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Posted by Cristian on Mar 03 2007 under Religion | 4,808 Views |
It is often an argument of those who object to Atheism that the worst man-made catastrophes to have befallen the world in the 20th century, Nazism and Communism, have been the direct result of Atheism. Intermittently, Pol Pot, Slobodan Milosevic, Mao Zedong and others accompany Hitler and Stalin on the objectors’ list of evil Atheists, as if to issue a more damaging remonstration, but for our purposes we’ll stick to Adolf and Joseph, since they are much more accessible to most of us. One would think that when somebody makes the accusation that tens of millions died because of Atheism, they’d bring some solid proof of correlation. Fortunately, the missing link between Atheism and the atrocities imputed to it is pretty visible to anyone honest who’d care to take a closer look. To start, Hitler and Stalin had in common more than the Napoleon complex. They both aspired to the same career when they were young, and it wasn’t firefighting, it wasn’t being a doctor, nor was it being Motley Crue’s drummer. It’s too fucking easy: they wanted to be preachers.
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Posted by Cristian on Feb 05 2007 under Politics | 4,694 Views |
This is a picture I took in Amsterdam in January. Bulgaria and Romania have been admitted into the EU on January 1st, 2007. I couldn’t help but think “Wait another couple of months, I wonder if you’ll be laughing then.”
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Posted by Cristian on Dec 13 2006 under Religion | 8,246 Views |
In the wake of the surprising success that atheist books like The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris and Breaking the Spell, by Daniel C. Dennet have had, a new phrase was coined to describe these authors and others like them: The New Atheists. Awesome, sounds badass, so far so good. In general, the criticism for these books has been directed not as much towards their actual content (few honest folks could disagree with them on logical or factual grounds), but towards their manner. It’s not the essence, but the style that offended many people. Newsweek, Wired Magazine, The NY Times and others have published columns which object to the vehemence of the books. Granted, the books are unequivocal in calling bullshit bullshit, the authors express their opinions unapologetically and they assert — and then go on to prove — things that most of us would find “intolerant.” It’s right there in the title, God is a delusion. That alone rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Not necessarily the content of the assertion, but the fact that someone actually says it is considered intolerant. Religious views are sacred, they’re not supposed to be attacked or defended, says popular wisdom. Our religious convictions are taboos that no one should break. Douglas Adams describes this better:
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Posted by Cristian on Nov 26 2006 under Politics | 5,207 Views |
Liberalism is comparable to the Solar System, in terms of the good it did for humanity. It encourages and sustains progress and it is only because of progress that we don’t stone adulteresses to death, think that bleeding is the best cure for everything or buy and sell people anymore. I am a Liberal in the strict sense and a progressist in all senses. Of course, Liberalism, just like any other socio-political set of philosophies, errs from time to time and there are a few issues over which modern American Liberals hold views which puzzle me. Here they are, in no particular order.
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Posted by Cristian on Nov 26 2006 under Other Stuff | 1,775 Views |
Promiscuity, by my reckoning, is one’s habit of having frequent and, to varying degrees, indiscriminate sexual relationships. What I’m trying to understand is why, assuming that promiscuity does not come accompanied by cheating, neglect of duties, emotional imbalance, or other obvious inadequacies, why, then, we regard it as something negative. What’s wrong with getting laid?
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