Dear Squeers,

I wrote: Atheists know that the mumbojumbo of an afterlife is nonsense. Atheists know that pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by simply isn't so. Death is forever. This life is the only life we have so it is precious.

You wrote: They "know" no such thing. They are perfectly justified in their disbelief but knowledge is another matter. This is not splitting hairs.

I made a statement which I was not justified in making. Atheism is the lack of belief in God. The opinion or knowledge in other matters including consciousness or an afterlife is irrelevant since it resides outside of a definition of atheism. Atheists may have any opinion regarding an afterlife or consciousness. Since I was not justified in making the statement I rescind it.

I accept your distinction between knowledge and belief.

I had no right to speak for atheists in areas other than lack of belief in a deity. I see no reason to believe in an afterlife or in consciousness without a material basis for it.

Dear Diver Dan,

Your connection of homosexuality and atheism convinces me that you have problems. I am not prepared to deal with those problems and do not wish to engage with you on other matters

>>Bell's Theorem is illogical<<

No it isn't. Bell's Theorem rules out locality at the quantum level which seems counter-intuitive to you and I because we are subject to decoherence and evolved and live in a world of classical physics. But there isn't anything illogical about it.

>>Perhaps, in the not too distant future, we shall find that the hearts of other living species are similar to ours in this respect and even that our liver or some of our other giblets demonstrate similar properties.<<

I don't know about livers but you have a 'second brain' in your gut: the enteric nervous system. It can operate autonomously of the central nervous system. Check it out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_nervous_system

>>The toxic nature of this debate is well illustrated by the Craibe event where he is merely restating the general Christian proposition that the wages of sin are death, but that the reward of a Christian life is eternal life. There is not the slightest suggestion that he is suggesting that gays ought to be put to death, or even suffer an earlier human death.

The death is a spiritual death.<<

Is it? Here is a transcript from the interview:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/salvos-victorian-spokesman-major-andrew-craibe-speaking-to-gay-radio-station-joy-fm/story-fn7x8me2-1226407035593

Yes it is Tony. The transcript is behind a paywall so I can't access it, but I heard excerpts at the time and am well aware of the verse and what it means. You might also like to look at the Salvation Army response: http://www.salvationarmy.org.au/about-us_65047/media-centre/current-media-releases/joy-fm-interview.html

Given the nature of the Salvation Army and its work, one would have to be very biased against Christianity to take as the base position that one of the Salvo's officers would suggest that people of any group ought to be killed. Unless one was so dense as not to realise that the reference to "Army" in their title is itself metaphorical.

And if that is the base position, then you would look behind the hate speech that is spilling out of the gay lobby and others to find out what he really meant. He's guilty of being clumsy, not of inciting a riot.

david f,
you take a rationalist view that I sympathise with and respect.
I similarly take the view that there's little to be gained from idle speculation, and indeed that preoccupations with the next world too often tend to neglect and indifferent exploitation of this one. The insane obsession with human procreation, for instance, at the expense of all other species and a generalised degradation of the planet.
Religion encourages an eccentric separation of body and mind that's nothing less than deviant, since whatever the nature of consciousness we are Earth-bound. We ought to respect and fear the clay we're comprised of, and dependent on, at least as much as the spirit we flatter and dupe ourselves with.

"There is a great deal too much in the world, of the "heavenly-mindedness" which expends itself in the contemplation of the joys of paradise, which performs no duty which it can shirk, and whose constant prayer is to be lifted in some overwhelming flood of Divine grace, and be carried, amidst the admiration of men and the jubilance of angels, to the very throne of God" (Henry Trumbull).

Brian Rosner asks, "To what end is my sense of justice and my yearning for transcendence, and so on, in purely evolutionary terms?"

The responses from atheists so far I don't think have really addressed this question.

Remember what Dawkins said, ‘We live in a universe which has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.’

If the universe is indifferent why should you care?

david f:

...You cannot preach atheism from an ivory tower david f. When you come out in public places such as this site, it is pretty cowardly to walk away from a challenge, by offering a personal insult as response. That puts you on a low level Dave!

...This article in its opening lines references marriage of homosexuals; I respond! I am not out of order here to do that. Linking the homosexual lobby with atheism and those proponents of it, such as you set yourself up to represent, is simply stating the obvious. It is no secret that atheists and the homosexual lobby, are joined at the hip in their relentless attack on religion.

...I would suggest david f, it is sadly factual that it is “you” with a closed mind on this issue. But adding to the sadness of your state, you further demonstrate an inability to educate yourself and refuse to acknowledging the reference of two high quality books, debunking your theory that consciousness is conclusive at death.

...Both books were written by a scientist, Darrel Reannie, a molecular biologist with a long and distinguished record in scientific endeavor.