Sunday, January 28, 2007

Local lad makes good

Greatness has been thrust upon me. I have been attacked by Ian Wishart in the pages of his illustrious magazine, Investigate.

Not so long ago, I got into a fight with Ian on his blog about whether Bethlehem and Nazareth existed at the time Ian's Redeemer was supposedly born in the one town and supposedly lived in the other. For me, this a relatively trivial matter. I will not fall on my knees if I am proven wrong; I doubt that any archaeological or historical evidence is likely to prove that this man was indeed the son of God, even if it were to show that such a man lived. The numerous contradictions, inconsistencies and inaccuracies of the books of the Bible are a matter of interest but are not the basis of my faithlessness.

For Ian, on the other hand, matters like this are crucial. The Bible is the inerrant word of God and so all the evidence available must support its claims. Never mind that the Gospels contain several different accounts which contradict one another (how many angels were in the tomb; how many women saw the resurrected Christ; and who were all those Marys?) Never mind that there is not a shred of evidence to support the story of the Hebrew captivity in Egypt, which we were taught so often in Scripture classes as an historic fact. Never mind that the Crucifixion was marked by the dead rising from their graves and roaming the streets of Jerusalem (Matthew 27:52-53), yet no-one who was around at this time thought it necessary to record the event. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as all good fundies are taught in their Apologetics classes. As for the apparent inconsistencies, they are merely the fault of the reader who has not studied the Scriptures with sufficient scholarship; the reader who, unlike Ian, does not have "something in the region of 150 mostly-hardbound books in Christianity and religion" in his "personal library."

I grew tired of my spat with Ian quite soon after I had started it. Biblical Archaeology is not my subject and I have no wish to write one of those dismal Atheist tracts that claim to refute the entire Christian faith on the grounds that the Bible is not quite a work of history. It really doesn't matter to me. The argument took a turn onto more favourable ground when Ian claimed that Immanuel Kant was an agnostic but I soon realised that no amount of quotations from the Critique of Practical Reason would change his mind on that point. So I left the arena.

Lo (and behold) Ian is still fighting this battle. In the February edition, Ian has written a piece called Atheism for Dummies. And it is all about me. Well, its all about my opinions on the Bethlehem-Nazareth matter, Immanuel Kant having been forgotten. Ian concludes that Atheists like me have not read the right books and come to the right opinions:
What saddens me however is that most of my non-believing critics have probably never actually read a 1000 page systematic theology text or gone through analyses of the so-called "discrepancies" in the Bible to work out whether they really exist or not. Nor have they checked the ancient Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic words the Bible was written in and understood the many variances and permutations of words used.
As I said, it is not that important to me. I shall not be spending my Summer learning Hebrew and Aramaic. I have learned enough of the Bible's history to know that it was put together by committees, centuries after the events it describes were supposed to have occurred, from sources that contradicted one another and which could hardly be described as reliable.

Even if it were all true, if all the literature fitted all the history seamlessly, that would not make me a Believer. Admittedly, I would give pause for thought if a first-hand account of the zombies in Jerusalem came to light but I think that unlikely. I know enough about History to realise that it is a modern invention, dating from the 18th Century, as does most of the modern world. Before then, most accounts of events were written to persuade, not to describe (you could also say that about a lot of modern works that claim to be History, but that is another story). Writers in the First Century did not think historically; they didn't sift evidence and try build an argument from facts. They wrote stories.

The difference between fact and fiction which we post-Enlightenment types value is not a feature of the ancient world. Even the Roman Historians (who are about the closest to reliable sources we can find) were writing propaganda for the Emperors who were their patrons. They would not have let an inconvenient truth get in the way of the story. The writers of the Gospels were less disinterested still: they had no access to historical documents and no concern with them. They weaved stories from what they had heard or read elsewhere.

I could go on, but it is hardly worth it. Believers like Ian want to convince others that their faith has grounds in fact, that it is reasonable in the same way that a belief in the sun rising tomorrow is reasonable (despite David Hume's arguments to the contrary). I don't think that Faith with a capital F works like that. Its beliefs are in the supernatural and cannot be correlated with the facts of the world around us. As Gibbon observed, God in His wisdom decided to stop producing miracles a long time back. Since then, He has not done much to help his adherents prove their arguments.

I won't go on for another reason: I have another fish to fry. In giving me some free publicity and potentially a new readership of soy milk-abstainers, Ian refers to the Fundy Post as an online journal for fundamentalist atheists. I am sorry, but did I miss something? What in heaven or on earth is a fundamentalist atheist? I don't know about you, but the only thing fundamental about my atheism is that I do not believe in a supreme being. Neither do I believe in ghouls and ghosties and long-leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night, but that is beside the point. I don't disbelieve in one God, maker of heaven and earth. I don't specifically deny the existence of Ian's God or of any other. What makes me an atheist is not disbelief but an absence of belief.

My atheism is of the 'now leave me alone' variety. I have as much difficulty explaining this to some Humanists as I do to believers. I am not interested in the elaborate arguments constructed by some atheist philosophers to disprove the existence of God (who for some reason is almost always the Christian God with a capital G, rather than any other kind of lower-case god). I don't think they prove anything beyond the bleeding obvious, that God defies logic. Any Jesuit could have told you that.

I do not have an alternative belief system to offer in place of a religious belief. Please do not ask me for a reading list. I have no shortage of opinions and preferences about all manner of things but I have no answers to the Big Questions, for the simple reason that I do not think they make sense.

I am also uninterested in making converts. I have several friends who are Christian (although their Christianity is very different from Ian's) and I am not going to insult them by trying to prove them wrong. Their Christian beliefs are very important to them and don't seem to have done them any harm. They have beliefs I do not share; but so what? We have more in common than we have differences, which is why we are friends. It doesn't bother me that other people hold religious beliefs. They can and they will.

Finally, in case we should meet and you have a religious belief you want to share, I am not interested in lengthy arguments about said belief; I find them tedious. It's not about you. It's just that I like arguments to have sound premises and conclusions. I do not think arguments for religious belief are well-formed. If that sounds harsh, I don't think they should. Faith is not the same as other forms of belief. If it is any consolation, I do not think that arguments against religious beliefs are particularly enlightening either. It still bewilders me, after many years of such arguments, why so many believers and non-believers alike assume that God must be good. I also think Metaphysics is a load of tosh, but that is another story.

All this might come as a disappointment to Ian, who holds that Atheism is a faith-based belief system. If he were to read the Fundy Post, he might just realise that it is not about Atheism as such, or any belief system. I write it because I don't like people who use their religious beliefs to stick it to others who live according to their own precepts. I don't like small-minded authoritarians, religious or otherwise, who demand that everyone think the same was as they do. I don't like bigots who disguise their prejudice as theology. The Fundy Post is not about religion. It is about religious politics.

Friday, January 19, 2007

The weekend starts here



I shall be away this weekend, along with fellow members of the vast left-wing conspiracy. We are attending a social democratic/democratic socialist training camp at a secret location deep in the bush. To save you having to read right-wing blogs, I have set some homework.

1. Compare 14 points of Fascism from Old American Century with Umberto Eco's Eternal Fascism: Fourteen ways of looking at a blackshirt.

2. Consider these aspects of Fascism in relation to the policies and activities of religious conservative groups in New Zealand.

Please write your answers on one side of the screen.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Monster of the Nation

On Public Address, Fiona Rae has discovered the fun to be had with a talking head and a pause button. She may think it's all fun and games but such antics can reveal the darkest of secrets.

This exclusive screenshot from TV One News in August 2005 has uncovered the truth: Judy Bailey is a reptilian shape-shifter.

The Illuminati don't want us to know this but they wouldn't, would they? Now all the clues fall into place. Now we know how she managed to negotiate such a high salary.

Someone should tell David Icke.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Suffer the children

If you do not read the comments to these posts (and you really should: they are very good), you will not have seen this link , posted by PW who doesn't like the Mint Chicks, about yet another custody case involving the Exclusive Brethren. The court has decided that the estranged father (a backslider who has joined the Open Brethren) has access rights to his children but must not expose them to the modern world. This includes television, radio and people who are not Exclusive Brethren. Both parents are also "banned from discussing or denigrating each other's faith in front of the children."

The case is another example (if any more are needed) of how far this ghastly little sect will go to hang on to its membership. Justice Benjamin's decision may seem peculiar but it is interesting that he should tell the Exclusive Brethren that it is time for them (in the words of The Australian ) "to give up their fight, through a series of well-funded custody battles over the past 30 years, to stop defecting members getting access to their children."

He also told them, "It must surely not be beyond your intellect and wit to find a dimension in your beliefs so that they may reconcile with the law of this country and the need for children to know both of their parents." I think he is optimistic: such charity is not beyond their intellect but far beyond their generosity.

Looking on the bright side, the next time the children pester their father to take them to McDonalds, all he needs to say is "sorry, the Judge won't let me."

Meanwhile, the Brethren's new champion has thought up, all on his own, a name for me; I haven't heard that one since school. I suppose Mr Whaleoil is just trying to say that, even if he could find me, he would not know what to do with me.

He also needs to ask a grown-up what 'erstwhile' means; but he would much rather tell us about the contents of his toybox.

Vroom, Vroom. Enough of this schoolboy stuff; lets go to Red Confectionery for some girl-on-girl action.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

In trouble again

In an idle moment, I was browsing an edition of The Open Society, Journal of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists, when I came across a footnote to an article by Noel Cheer, Chair of the Sea of Faith Network. It read, in part:

The website associated with The Open Society http://www.nzarh.org.nz/ has a feature called 'The Fundy Post' of which they say 'we read this crap so that you don't have to. Now if you really must read it you can. The Fundy Post Newsletter [sic] provides links to all the best stories about religion, from New Zealand and around the world.' Some of the idiotic things done in the name of a religious path of faith are written up in what are called 'best stories.' My reader is invited to look for any intellectual merit at all in this approach.

Mr Cheer is a little confused: the text he has quoted comes from the Fundy Post Newswire, which I compiled for the NZARH website. It was no more than a list of links to online stories with my comments attached but I like to think it was educational, informative and entertaining. The Newswire was removed from the site at some time after my departure from my job as Spokesman. Obviously nobody there thought it worthwhile providing this sort of service, so I will do it here. My readers (I have more than one) are invited to look for any intellectual merit at all in this approach.

To start, I expect you are wondering what is happening to the Exclusive Brethren. The good news for them is that they have a champion in the shape of local blogger Whaleoil, who complained to the Human Rights Commission that members of the Government were threatening their religious freedom by criticising their political activities. The HRC's response was disappointing to Whaleoil, who is now compiling further evidence of harassment.

Meanwhile, in England, The Bishop of Southwark was found throwing toys out of a stranger's car.

In Mexico, the miraculous survival of some fishermen is beginning to look unconvincing.

On Air New Zealand, that film about The Queen was shown with references to God bleeped out. It is reassuring that they are sensitive to the feelings of Atheists, although perhaps they should have thought of the Republicans and not shown it at all.

On the other hand, if you want Jesus as your co-pilot, consider flying with Christian Aviation, which has had a plane land on a wing and a prayer.

The LA Times has revealed who is profiteering from the War on Christmas.

Elsewhere in America, a televangelist has been called to account for her claim that she has cured cancer

Have you found Jesus? It turns out he is on a train station in Sydney, looking a little like a Francis Bacon self-portrait.

Blast! I have gone and done it again: that last one really finished my claims to intellectual merit. I will try to make up for it with something philosophical: on Brain Stab, Eric Olthwaite writes about Objectivists. If that is not enough, here is some literature: The Literary Review's Bad Sex Writing awards.

SHOUT, SHOUT, let it all out

If the NetGuide Web Awards had a category for Best Thyroid Crisis of 2006, a strong contender would be the New Zealand Equality Education Foundation, which has been set up to educate people about the concept of Equality, which is central to democracy, but very poorly understood."

This is not, you will quickly realise, the "I have a dream" type of Equality. No, this is the "seething resentment at the unfairness of it all," kind. And why is it all so unfair? Because of women, that's why. The NZEEF is the work of one Peter Zohrab, whose concept of Equality is summed up neatly by his tagline: "feminism is a simple idea that has got into women's little brains."

On the front page, Mr Zohrab promises international resources on such diverse topics as:
Men's Rights, Fathers' Rights, and Racial Equality. Topics covered: Access to Children, Activism, Boys' Rights, Child Abuse, Child Support, Child Welfare, Choice for Men, Circumcision, Country-Specific Issues, Custody, Dads' Rights, Domestic Violence, Elderly Men, Employment and Leisure, False Allegations, the Fathers' Movement, Female Violence, Feminism, Fetus Rights (Abortion), Gendercide, Gender Equity for Men, Grandparents' Rights, Humour and Satire, Irrationality, Language, Legal Issues, Male Education, Masculism, Media Bias, Men's Health & Longevity, the Men's Movement, Men's Rights, Military Service and the Draft, Parental Alienation, the Politics of Research, Racial Equality, Rape, Reproduction Rights, Stupidity, Theory, Women's Lies, the Women's Movement, etc..
Nothing there about spanking, but I suppose you cannot have everything. What you do get are Mr Zohrab's opinions on:

The Lesbian Mainstream Media and Education System
Female Academics' Power and Control over Male Academics
Indoctucation by the Media-University Complex
The Media-University Complex Backlash against Freedom of Speech
Gender Equity and Efstratiou v Glantschnig

You might notice other distinct features of the site: that Mr Zohrab has more lawyers than OJ Simpson and that, like Mr Simpson, he has written an inadvisable and unpublishable book with a chapter on rape that has been censored for the web. I dread to think what the original, politically incorrect, version contained.

You might also notice while reading all this that Mr Zohrab uses a lot of red and green on his pages. Now, I used to work for a Government Department in Britain, where one of my jobs was managing responses to complaints about some of our more dubious activities. When my staff received the daily post, they divided the letters into three piles: those written in red ink, those in green ink and those written by sane people. As a general rule, letters in red ink are the work of paranoiacs, while those in green are written by the delusional. The authors of letters in both red and green ink (usually in very cramped script on both sides of very thin typing paper) are criminally insane.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Thank you for the music

To my grave disappointment, tickets for the Big Day Out sold out on the first morning of sales. I know; it is terrible. It is really hard to believe that so many people would want to spend a day listening to such bad music.

There is a lot of good stuff on the schedule, but I doubt that anyone is scrambling to buy tickets for John Cooper Clarke, The Mint Chicks and David Kilgour. It is the headliners that count and this year we have My Chemical Romance, Jet, The Killers and, worst of all, Tool. My feelings about The Killers are reflected by this cartoon, which was noticed first by Southern Dave. My feelings about Tool are inexpressible.

Could have, would have, should have

I am still seething about the NZARH submission on the Draft National Statement on Religious Diversity.

Before anyone concludes that I have accepted any deity into my heart, I want to make it quite clear that I think the Draft National Statement on Religious Diversity is very silly and quite inappropriate for a secular society. What annoys me is that the Council of the NZARH has made an official response which displays petulance, sloppy thinking and a woeful ignorance of the English language. An opportunity for the Association to shine has been lost. But that is their problem; far worse is that anyone reading this document might think it represents Atheist thinking.

It is not just the curious absence of the Monarchy nor the Education Policy On a Theme by Pol Pot that really bothers me, but the pompous section on Definitions. I shall now examine each definition in turn, venting my spleen as I go. Please indulge me while I get this out of my system. If you don't have the patience, you might instead want to look at some pictures of kittens.
The word “faith communities” is obviously a politically correct substitute for the word “religions” and I see no need to use it instead of the word “religions”.
It is obviously not so. A religion is a system of belief in and reverence for a god or gods. A faith community is a community of people who share a religious belief. The people are not the belief. The Exclusive Brethren are not a religion; they are a community of people who hold a religious belief and practice it in a particular way. Catholicism is a form of Christian belief; Catholics are the people who hold that belief. This priggish little sentence is really irksome for making an accusation of political correctness, which is the sort of slur one would expect from talkback callers, not an organisation with pretensions of intellectual respectability.
The word “shall” is used often in the draft Statement. It ought to be replaced with “should.”
We should have an argument about grammar at this point but I shall keep my peace.
The word “belief” should not be used interchangeably with the word “faith”. This is because the word faith means belief in something without proof or evidence. Faith is an adjective that describes the belief.
We will have an argument about grammar at this point. Faith is not an adjective. It is a noun. Faithful and faithless are adjectives formed from that noun. In any case, faith does not solely mean a belief that does not rely on proof or evidence. It can also mean a confident and reasonable belief or it can mean loyalty. I have a friend called Faith, in whom I have faith for good reason.

Enough of grammar; the next sentence of clarification is tolerable grammatically but otherwise repugnant.
Rationalism, Humanism and some versions of Buddhism are examples of non-faith based belief.
I would continue but this statement deserves a post to itself. At the risk of losing my readership to narcolepsy, I will write about this claim later.

Normal service will now be resumed.

Monday, January 08, 2007

One of us is a robot

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Sunday, January 07, 2007

Portrait of the Artist as a Tyrannosaurus Rex




Quite. This illustration comes from Dinosaur Comics, which I find ridiculously funny, for reasons I cannot quite explain. In fact, it is the only illustration used at Dinosaur Comics; only the words change.

When you have done that, go to Whispered Apologies in which Ryan North, the non-artist of Dinosaur Comics, invites artists to submit comic strips, to which he and his friends add dialogue. This man is brilliant and possibly very lazy or a very bad artist.


Underwater you and me

Pamziewamzie has done that thing she does, again: tagged me with one of those quizzes that are so popular with us geeky Internet people :-) LOL. Normally, when she does this I hide behind the sofa until she goes away or pretend to be busy with something really important. However, this time Pam has tried to get my sympathy by spraining her ankle. It worked.

So, here are five things you probably didn't know about me. You probably won't care either.

1. My nickname used to be Fluff.
2. The thought of being under the sea or up a mountain makes me feel ill.
3. I have not seen The Sound of Music, Gone With The Wind or Titanic.
4. I once met Margaret Thatcher at Number 10 Downing Street.
5. I suffer constant low-level pain in my left arm and shoulder: RSI.

I am going to tag nobody with this. I am sorry Pam, but it has to stop. It just can't go on. If it did, eventually everybody would know everything about everyone else. Besides, nobody would get any work done.

The title of this diversion is a song by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, to which all the cool kids are listening at the moment. You can hear it here.

Accountancy can be fun

Sunday is the Fundy Post's day of rest, so there will be no religious politics today. Instead, here is an enthralling story from the New Yorker about Enron and intelligence gathering.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Art during wartime




If, like me, you are tired of righties telling you what a marvellous job the President is doing in Iraq, I suggest you visit Project for the Old American Century. Along with a lot of good reading, the galleries are full of detourned propaganda posters, which are free to download and distribute. Go on, waste your boss's bandwith.

Friday, January 05, 2007

Technical Notice

A reader says he could not post a comment here. I suspect that is because the new version of Blogger is weird. If you cannot post, or if you want to say something you do not want to share, email me at:
fundypostATgmail.com
You have to replace AT with the squiggly thing; but I don't need to tell you that: you are smart people.

Men without shorts

"God has no pleasure in the legs of a man:" The Sydney Morning Herald reveals that the Exclusive Brethren are not allowed to wear shorts. If this sounds like an un-Australian activity, you should read what else they have been doing. I thought they were banned from wearing ties but it looks as if they are alright for elders. As they say, "we are not luddites."

The SMH journalist had a meeting with Brethren elders, from which came this philosophical comment:

The tricky part of this meeting - conducted with gusto by these elders - was following the logic that says Brethren are forbidden by God to vote but it's fine for them to urge others to vote. How so? "For exactly this reason," said [Daniel] Hales. "I see it as a sin and you don't. So I'm very happy for you to vote because to you it's your obligation to the community. But to me, it's my conscience that doesn't allow me to vote."


For that reason, Mr Hales ought to be happy for gays to have sex together, since they do not see it as a sin; besides it might be an obligation to the Community. Sadly, Mr Hales pines for the days when homosexualists went to jail.

More interesting still, Senator Bob Brown is calling for an inquiry into the Brethren's "tax breaks, government funding for its schools, the impact on families of excommunications" and its political activities. Now, there's an idea whose time has come.

With thanks to NZ Party Babe

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Thrown and altered

The Fundy Post sends its congratulations to Lewis Holden, author of Holdenrepublic, who has been elected President of the The Republican Movement of Aotearoa New Zealand. The announcement has provoked a response from Archbishop Boniface Grosvold of London, Ontario. His Grace cannot comprehend the idea of a Republican organisation existing in a Monarchy. But then, His Grace is an Archbishop of the Old Roman Catholic Church, which broke away from the even older Catholic Church in 1870 because its members could not stomach the idea of Papal Infallibility, a surprisingly new notion promulgated at the First Vatican Council.

Meanwhile, back in New Zealand, my former employers have released their Submission on the Draft National Statement on Religious Diversity, which you can download from their home page . The Draft National Statement is something devised by the Human Rights Commission in a moment of ecumenical hand-wringing. Quite what it is supposed to do is beyond me, other than prompt a fresh blossoming of smugness among leaders of faith communities. The Prime Minister thinks it will stop the fundies fighting each other and us, which is a little optimistic.

I mention it here only because the NZARH submission includes this little gem:

“New Zealand has no state religion.” This is not strictly true. New Zealand is a Constitutional Monarchy, and our Monarch is the head of the Church of England. Furthermore, our Parliament opens with a prayer, our Flag has three Christian crosses on it, our public holidays are Christian, and our National Anthem refers to the Christian God.

I would recommend that the Government remove the prayers in Parliament, change the flag to something people from overseas will recognise, and find a more musical National Anthem.


We will leave aside the peculiar comment about the crosses of the flag. What troubles me is that something seems to be missing from the recommendations. Can you spot it? The Anthem goes, the flag goes, the prayer goes... but what about the Monarchy? After all, the Monarch is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England (and a member of the Church of Scotland when she is on holiday). More to the point, she is Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. Not only is she obliged to be an Anglican, she is Queen because God Himself chose her ancestors to Defend the Faith. Surely, if we want New Zealand to be a secular nation, we will have to let her go.

Not so fast. The NZARH may be trying to balance religious influence in government, law, state etc, but it is not going to try that hard. Getting rid of the Monarchy is a step too far and is not to be mentioned.

There is a reason for this timidity. Although the Rationalists for years had been a haunt of every kind of lefty, the dominating influence on the NZARH these days is Dr Bill Cooke, now Vice-President of the NZARH and Editor-in-Chief of the Association's unreadable "journal." Dr Cooke has many passions and among these is Our Own Dear Queen. Since the NZARH Council would not dare contradict him, the not inconsequential matter of the Divine Right of Kings cannot be spoken.

This is not the first time that the vexed issue of Monarchy has arisen. When news came of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the NZARH Council decided to send a message of condolence to HMQ, without asking the membership. Bill Cooke, who has confessed to having shed tears when Princess Barbie died, was the instigator of this collective act of forelock tugging.

What is extraordinary about the submission is that the NZARH would be happy to see religious schools closed down and religious parents prevented from educating their own children but avoids the obvious matter of the Head of State. The NZARH Education Policy is new to me (and possibly the membership) but it hardly represents the commitment to "promote a tolerant, responsible and open society" which is enshrined in the Association's Objects. When it comes to a relevant Constitutional problem for non-believers, however, the Association's response is silence.

As Dr Cooke said in the Autumn 2001 edition of the "journal"

I make no attempt to justify my commitment to the monarchy on rational lines. It is a purely emotional attachment. I don't see this as in any way compromising my commitment to Rationalism


The NZARH's commitment to Rationalism, on the other hand, can always be compromised when it comes to Dr Cooke's attachments.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Watch this space

Fundies Say the Darndest Things!

A reader has asked for a list of fundy websites. I shall post mine soon, once essential repairs are completed. In the meantime, I suggest you visit Fundies Say the Darndest Things by clicking on the geek interpretation of Mantegna's Crucifixion above.

Thread of Heaven

Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones once did a parody of a spaghetti western in which a stranger walks into a saloon very slowly, approaches a cowboy at the bar and, after a very long pause, says "wanna talk real slow?" The cowboy stands and stares for an equally long time before saying "yup."

Discussions on internet threads can be a bit like that. On the other hand, there is little else to do in Summer, so here are some threads you can join if you want a very slow fight:

On Public Address System, a discussion about God, Science and stuff

On Ian Wishart's shiny and new Faithpoint, lots of topics to discuss with fundies.

On Ian Wishart's other blog, The Briefing Room, talk about pagans and Jesus.

On The Panda's Thumb, a lengthy discussion about Richard Dawkins and religion

On Clouds of Heaven, the absurdity of Atheism

On Andrew Norton's blog, the Exclusive Brethren and the Greens in Australia

On No God Zone, Hell Pizza among other topics


That's your lot for the time being. Let me know if you find other good threads out there. Now go forth and comment, but come back y'all.