Comments for Majikthyse

Comment on Killing her softly…….. by Michael K Gray

Michael K Gray — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:29:54 +0000

Oh, Dr. Aust!
Without the so-called reasonable theists, the radicals would have no-where to hide, and would be incarcerated in a mental institution.
It is the hordes of salad-bar theists that directly enable the religious lunatics.
I give them no ‘due’ whatsoever, apart from perpetuating and directly aiding genocide, rape, murder, mutilation, paedophilia, subjection etc.

Comment on Killing her softly…….. by Majikthyse

Majikthyse — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:07:57 +0000

Dr Aust – that’s a very important point that had hitherto escaped me. It applies to just about every irrational belief system I can think of.

Comment on Ancient Poppycock by Majikthyse

Majikthyse — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:26:49 +0000

Of course it is. Prayer has been repeatedly tested in clinical trials without any robust evidence emerging. The trial I like the best is the study of European royal families. They all get prayers for their health every Sunday, but get sick just like the rest of us.

Comment on Ancient Poppycock by LimeyBlimey

LimeyBlimey — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:36:32 +0000

A stark reminder that the privileged in the west who choose “alternative medicines” can fall back on an evidenced based system if the going gets tough. A poignant blog post Majikthyse and one we should remember. Just a thought but isn’t praying for someone to get better just another form of CAM?

Comment on Ancient Poppycock by Majikthyse

Majikthyse — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:34:33 +0000

Thanks Joe, but I remain unrepentant. It’s a good hospital and medical college, but that doesn’t justify the enormous harm done by the Catholic Church over millennia. The secular hospitals I visited in India were just as good, and at least they were not adorned with sickly posters of Jesus all over the walls.

Comment on Killing her softly…….. by draust

draust — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:21:48 +0000

Yes, to give religious folk their due, they are obviously not all as frankly deluded as the Newmans It is actually regarded as a theological error and even a sin to “put God to the test” in the way that they did. That is the point of the famous joke that Rick repeats.

The thing I always say to my religious friends (including a few scientists) when these cases come up is this: what do “mainstream” religions (or at least the moderate bits of them) do to rein in / correct what they agree are the misapprehensions and belief distortions among their more extreme adherents? The answer I usually get is “nothing”, bearing out my own sense of how it all works.

A key weakness of all systems based on faith is that you cannot have “too much” faith. Thus the moderates will hardly ever say the more extreme believers are WRONG.The extremists or the deluded ALWAYS claim what they are doing is “based on their strong faith”, so that they have to be all the more zealous in their adherence to what this faith tells them to do.. This is another of the places where I see a parallel between real religions and faith-based pseudo-scientific cults like homeopathy.

Comment on Ancient Poppycock by Joe

Joe — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:20:19 +0000

Don’t say “regrettably” rather say “thankfully it is run by Christians who believe God gave them brains ’cause he wanted them to use them to understand his creation”.

I may be an atheist but I have the greatest respect for the nuns and priests that taught me science. Not all Christians are nutjobs.

Comment on Killing her softly…….. by Majikthyse

Majikthyse — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:15:36 +0000

Thanks Jerome for your comment, and for correcting me about Weinberg and Dawkins. I’ll leave the post as it is, relying on your correction.

Comment on Killing her softly…….. by Rick

Rick — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:09:18 +0000

Why can’t they at least acknowledge that modern medicine is a gift from their god?

It reminds me of the old joke: a man is tossed overboard in a storm, and knowing he is stranded thousands of miles at sea, he starts praying. As he does so, a fishing boat approaches. “Its ok,” says the man “god will save me!”. So the boat goes away.

Next a helicopter hovers in, “Its ok,” calls the man “my god will save me!”. So the helicopter goes away.

Finally a dolphin approached and tries to lift the man onto it’s back, the man pushes it away, insisting that his god will save him. But it’s too late and he drowns.

Up in heaven, the man pleads with god “My lord why didn’t you save me?”.

God replies “I sent a boat, a helicopter and a friendly dolphin! What more do you want?”

Comment on Killing her softly…….. by Michael K Gray

Michael K Gray — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 06:12:15 +0000

I had thought that the USA was the sole western example of the willful cruel murder of infants.**
Until my fellow Australian residents Thomas and Manju Sam brutally, torturously and callously MURDERED their infant daughter over an extended period empowered and excused by the insane religion of Homœpathy.

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** It is hard to make that judgement, given the scope of state-sanctioned genocide that various western countries encourage.