Hi! I'm a tech guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS and science of all stripes. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.
I have opinions. So do you. You want to share them with me. I would like to do likewise. Please don't expect a platform for proselytizing that will go unchecked and unchallenged, though. Contact me via the clicky thingies under my banner.
The commenting rules are simple: don't piss me off. This rule has worked for me for a decade; I have never found a need for any other rule, because any other rules leads to rules-lawyering. Just remember --
this is my property, not yours.
Rational people should know by now that arguing with deluded people is futile. I admire Dennett, but I wish he would shift his considerable intellect into ending the religious abuse of children. This is where we can have the most leverage. Every child we divert from religious mind control programs means depriving the deluded from their future generations also.
How do we do this? In every family there are witnesses to the abuse. Intervene. Quietly help children see what is happening to them. Let them know that god is just pretend, like Santa Clause. Encourage them to think rationally. Be subversive if need be, because subversion would not be needed if parents were not deluded and incapable of rational discussion.
Indoctrinating vulnerable children in superstition and dogma is unethical. If adults want to assume a faith, so be it, but forcing it on a vulnerable child is wrong.
Children are not stupid, just gullible. If the institutions capitalize on that fact, there is nothing wrong with countering it. Speak out against the casual acceptance of child mind rape.
It’s all fine and dandy to say that the religious ought to be able to debate rationally, but we all know that the majority if them are entirely unable to, it’s like trying to debate with the clinically insane. They have nothing else but their insanity, trying to get them to critically defend said insanity against detractors is a pointless exercise in futility.