Godless conversation tonight!


My recent video stirred up a lot of comments, so I’ll try to address them in a YouTube live video tonight. Feel free to jump on me! I’m even willing to send a zoom link to anyone I trust if you want to get on camera with me — email [email protected].

Comments

  1. birgerjohansson says

    A question: if we translate this to European time, will this be 1 am in London and 2 am in most of Western Europe?

  2. Reginald Selkirk says

    My nominations for the worst theistic arguments are:

    #2 Pascal’s wager
    #1 Why are there still monkeys?

  3. Reginald Selkirk says

    @1: I couldn’t tell you, because the “Watch on Youtube” overlay is hiding the time zone from me.

  4. birgerjohansson says

    Human-created language.
    Ahem, as it is past midnight it will be ante (am) -very early in the morning- for us Europeans but very much pm for Americans. Which is why I have started to enjoy descriptions like 01.00 or 20.00 instead of the Swedish descriptors fm and em (same as am and pm) to avoid confusion. It is like “is it my left or your left?”.

  5. John Morales says

    In Australian news: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jul/10/religious-group-accused-of-killing-elizabeth-struhs-believed-god-would-heal-her-diabetes-queensland-court-hears-ntwnfb

    A religious group accused of killing an eight-year-old girl believed “God would heal” her diabetes after they withheld life-saving insulin, a judge has heard.

    The group of six men and eight women, including the girl’s parents, refused to enter pleas to either murder or manslaughter in the Brisbane supreme court on Wednesday.

    Elizabeth Struhs died at the family home in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, on 7 January 2022 after her parents and 12 others allegedly withheld her diabetes medication for six days.

    Instead they prayed next to her and did not alert authorities as the girl’s health deteriorated, police alleged.

    Elizabeth died while lying on a mattress on the tiled floor of the downstairs living area in her family’s Rangeville home.

    That was one painful and lingering death, filled with physical suffering. Not a pretty way to go.

    (But they did pray next to her, so there’s that)

  6. gijoel says

    @1 it depends on whether the train you’re on is coming from the north or the south. :)

  7. Hemidactylus says

    I liked the video. Too bad it was too late for me to haunt the chat. Kinda more into the dynamics of so-called New Atheism melting down than the bad arguments against atheism.

    Interesting you brought up Hitchens who definitely had some baggage (eg- Iraq invasion), but the one thing I absolutely love about him is his unabashedly Israel-critical approach toward Levantine issues very much in the news now. As that relates to New Atheism I would say Hitchens’ views on Palestine are kryptonite to Jerry Coyne if properly unfurled. Coyne talks him up as a great writer. I seriously doubt Coyne has deeply reflected on everything Hitchens has written as he would quietly deep six further mention of Hitchens if he read the essay “Broadcasts” in the book Hitchens and Edward Said edited together Blaming the Victims. Hitchens’ take on Zionism in Hitch-22 is eye opening too. No mention of either on WEIT when Coyne and his parrots ritually osculate Hitch’s derriere. My bringing these very awkward things up here might reduce the chances Coyne points on his blog to this blog with a link. I would so love to see him forced to come to terms with the thoughts about Palestinian issues by such a great writer as Hitch.