Dawkins is wrong. Religion is rational

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Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on December 30, 2012 at 12:56pm

Hmph ... just who the fuck IS this wingnut ... and when faith and reason can "walk hand in hand," I'll eat my hat.  :-P~~~~~~

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Permalink Reply by Ligia Hougland on December 30, 2012 at 12:58pm

He's the same wingut who says non-Muslims live like animals and is also for Iran's nuclear program.

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Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on December 30, 2012 at 1:29pm

Oh ... THAT wingnut.  [groan!]

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Permalink Reply by James Kz on December 30, 2012 at 1:37pm

More specifically, Mehdi Hasan is the political editor of Huffington Post UK. He is well-known for his . . . ah . . . colourful quotes.

According to Wikipedia : Medhi Hasan

In response to criticism over the use of the term "cattle" to describe non-believers, Hasan wrote in his New Statesman blog: "The Quranic phrase 'people of no intelligence' simply and narrowly refers to the fact that Muslims regard their views on God as the only intellectually tenable position, just as atheists (like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris) regard believers as fundamentally irrational and, even, mentally deficient."^[15] The Islamophobia Watch website argued Hasan was the victim of a "witch-hunt", writing that these allegations of extremism were "aimed at getting him dismissed from his job".^[16]

In November 2009 Hasan wrote a column denouncing suicide bombing from an Islamic perspective.^[17] Hasan argued that "There is, in fact, nothing Islamic about so-called Islamic terrorism… So why are many Muslims so reluctant to condemn such cold-blooded tactics of terror?"

In April 2010 Hasan wrote a piece condemning the controversial Islamic advocacy of the death penalty for apostasy in the New Statesman.^[18] He states that "The sharia (or Islamic law), it is claimed, sanctions the death penalty for any adult Muslim who chooses to leave the faith, or apostatise. This is an intellectually, morally and, perhaps above all, theologically unsustainable position."

He wrote an article in The Guardian in September 2011 condemning the Iranian regime for its proposed execution of an "apostate."^[19] "The death sentence given to Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran is an affront to universal moral values and a disservice to Muslims."

In July 2010 Hasan wrote an article supporting the concept of secularism. ^[20] "Ultimately, a diverse polity such as India can prosper only if it has faith in the inclusive and religiously neutral model of governance established by its founders in 1947."

James.

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Permalink Reply by Ligia Hougland on December 30, 2012 at 7:19pm

Thank you for the information.

On another note, the European versions of the Puffington Host manage do be even less relevant than the US edition.

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Permalink Reply by booklover on December 30, 2012 at 4:46pm

Lucky for you Loren, you'll never have to eat your hat! :)

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Permalink Reply by James Kz on January 2, 2013 at 12:33am

I'm glad i didn't have to eat my New Year's hat.

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Permalink Reply by Napoleon Bonaparte on December 30, 2012 at 2:53pm

The full Al Jazeera interview is 50 minutes.

http://www.atheistnexus.org/video/dawkins-on-religion

Dawkins is correct to say faith is to believe in something without evidence. Descartes, Kierkegaard, Hegel, Rousseau, Leibniz and Locke were not unthinking irrational idiots as Hasan would like to think Atheists think. They pre-date Darwin and modern science.

Hasan says he believes in winged horses. He believes in the supernatural, is a Muslim and provides no rational argument to support his absurd views. There aren't ' plenty of good, rational and evidence-based arguments for God.' Anyway, he see's Darwin as the devil.

Hasan says it aptly 'In short, most of us who believe in God do so not because we are irrational, incurious or immature but because He is the best answer to the question posed by Leibniz more than 300 years ago: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" In other words, the God for what we don't know yet.

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Permalink Reply by Ligia Hougland on December 30, 2012 at 7:17pm

Thank you for the link.

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Permalink Reply by Ligia Hougland on December 30, 2012 at 7:24pm

What Hasan doesn't get it is that, although it might be justifiable to believe in the possibility that there's a god, it's not rational to believe/have faith that there's a god. 

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Permalink Reply by Greg on December 31, 2012 at 10:36am

Well said. Still, that leaves us with a narrow percentage possibility with as many zero's as you personally prefer - also known as a WAG (Wild A$$ Guess)

.0000000...%

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Permalink Reply by Ligia Hougland on December 31, 2012 at 7:51pm

:-)

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