Comments by "Neil Forbes" (@neilforbes416) on "Big Think" channel.

  1. In previous time when I've "come out" and declared my atheism in letters to a newspaper letters column, almost invariably I would find letters in my mailbox telling me to "believe in god", and often quite abusive in their tone, and in EVERY instance, anonymous with no return address, often hand-delivered. I rank such letter-writers among the cowards of the world.
    12
  2. Sorry, Oh Lawd, but atheism is the absence of belief. You can't have a belief system without something in which to believe. I think the word "theism" has Greek origins(I read it somewhere, perhaps in another YouTube comment elsewhere) and if you add the 'a' ahead of the word, the meaning is negated, thus: theism = belief(in anything); atheism = no belief(in anything). As also said elsewhere, to call atheism a "belief" is like saying "off" is a TV channel.
    4
  3. John Smith: Good point, well made!
    3
  4. By saying atheism is a belief system you would, in effect say that 'N' is a gear in an automatic-geared, or even manual-geared car. 'N' means "Neutral", literally, no gear.
    2
  5. I could tell an Irish joke about the 'N' gear but I'll save it for another time.
    1
  6. First 55 seconds I thought Penn Jillette had either lost his marbles or betrayed his common sense......THEN....... KA-BANG! Oh Penn (open?) You are such a kidder! LOL
    1
  7. I'm an atheist, I'm also an egalitarian. I bristle at the term "elite". To me a person who claims he/she is "elite" is someone who thinks that because he/she has been born into a wealthy, privileged family with aristocratic bloodlines, he/she is better than the rest of us poor plebs. Thus I prefer to use the phrase "best-qualified" to describe a person at the top of his/her profession. So I must disagree with Richard Dawkins on this one point. Elites, to me are those pompous aristocrats whose superiority is all in their own minds and nowhere else.
    1
  8. Well, he's not "gay", he's "homosexual". To be "gay" is to be cheerful, happy, elated, and the opposite of "gay" is "morose", to be miserable, dejected, sad, dismal. The only real reason homosexuals use the word "gay" to describe themselves is verbal laziness. "Gay" is a single syllable word, "homosexual" has 5 syllables.
    1