Comments by "Mikko Rantalainen" (@MikkoRantalainen) on "Intelligence Squared" channel.

  1. Yes, and the instructions should have also included "if you start a lecture or give a statement instead of asking a question, we'll mute your mic and will not retry".
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  2. To play devil's advocate (pun intended), the religions may have some value in "metaphorical truth". For me, Sam Harris explained the concept the best when he explained that proper firearm handling requires that you first verify that the gun doesn't contain ammunition but you still handle the firearm in a way that the if it were to fire, it wouldn't shoot towards any human being (or any other target you wish not to destroy). The real truth is that there is not ammunition inside the gun once it has been inspected, but the metaphorical truth is that you still handle it like there was live ammunition inside the gun – and we do this to reduce fatal results of any possible mistakes in previous steps. Similarly, the fact that religions have survived for so long suggests that there's some value in behaving as if the religion were true (metaphorical truth) even if it should be obvious given the current knowledge that the religion cannot describe the literal truth. That is, the meme of religion has survived despite the evolutionary pressure to get rid of things that do not matter in reality. In long term, the obvious target should be to get rid of the superficial and supernatural cruft and only keep the parts that are valuable in religions.
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  3. I think if you've been brainwashed since child, it may be too much to ask to go directly from devout catholic to against, so maybe those people put the undecided vote in the box instead?
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  4. It seems that in every debate such as this, the more the church speaks, the worse their support goes.
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  5. Catholic church probably pays for ads on any video with words catholic church in the title of the video.
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  6. Only every religion ever.
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