Jordy Brouwer

Who was it who said "Jota the Slotter"? I liked it. Pithy and accurate.

I'm sick of the high line. If we have Tyler Morton in our midfield can we just drop it back!!

I want to admire Leed's gung ho approach but it doesn't fucking work.

You're seriously asking for examples of the ways in which religion has tainted and poisoned our existence? Actually no, I was asking you what religions has done to you. Do I need to be assailed daily, or just occasionally? Does it need to happen to me personally, or can it be other people, perhaps in other countries? Really weird attitude. It has to be happen to you personally if your assertion is "religion taints and poisons our existence in so many ways." "Our" has to include you. I was trying to see what is bother you personally or how religious people are bothering you personally. You can answer if you want. Atheism isn't exempt from having negative agency, but you would need to demonstrate it has negative agency. You can't just say "An atheist did this, therefore he was motivated by his atheism". Quite, in that and all other cases. When Chinese communists were purging their society of the clergy, were they doing it to advance the cause of reason? The cause of scepticism? In their own minds, yes most likely. We know why suicide bombers or any other religious-inspired terrorists do what they do, because they tell us. They tell us they are motivated directly by their faith, and because they hate the permissiveness of our society and so on. Serious researches of suicide bombers such as Robert Pape ("Dying to Win) have identified resistance to foreign occupation as the primary factor with religious motivation secondary. Until recently the organisation that used the most suicide attacks were the Tamil Tigers a Sri Lankan socialist organisation. But even if atheists were doing things because they are atheists, it still wouldn't mean that God exists. Which, after all, is the main point. That's correct, god doesn't exist. However, atheists aren't per se better than religious people and the contrary conceit is what gets me. Its all bullshit. What originally pissed me off was people like the late Hitchens going on about how terrible religion is and how it leads to wars when Hitchens supported every war going and histories bloodiest ideology. To use religious language Hitchens saw the mote in his neighbour's eye and not the beam in his own. Its always better to mow one's own lawn than worry about the state of one's neighbours' and if peacefulness is the concern then the likes of Sam Harris and Hitchens always had more than enough of their own business to be getting on with.

I think the point is that religious people have made it our business what they believe, because religion taints and poisons our existence in so many ways. Can you give examples? Don't atheists sometimes stick their noses into what people believe (I'm asking that rhetorically)? Are you daily assailed by religious people trying to convert you in this oh so religious country? How are those dastardly religious people victimising you? Atheists are flawed like any other person, but - crucially - they are not flawed because of their atheism So atheism is except from having negative agency and religion isn't? So when Chinese communists killed religious people specifically because they were religious and specifically for atheistic reasons that isn't atheisms fault merely the fault of individual atheists, but when a Muslim straps a bomb to himself that is religions fault in general terms. THAT, my friend, is sleight of hand. It is playing silly buggers with agency - where one's tribe always magically comes out clean. Militant (literally militant) atheism has indeed been an historical phenomenon. Spoiler alert- there are no clean tribes. Just people.

Yes all the time. Absolutely all the time. Some have made lucrative careers about it on the internet so great is the market for it. Some atheists have also gotten over themselves and realise its not their business what other people believe. There are as many athesisms as atheists (that's also of religion by the way). Bit of a "no true Scotsman" on the second point there. Atheists are just people. Like religious people. Flawed and frail people. Some of the most swaggering and posturing atheists illustrate that. Very much like Christopher "never supported an intellectual trend that didn't fail and leave oceans of blood" Hitchens.

Yes that's my point. Whether one has faith or not doesn't matter. A corpse killed by a communist is the same as a corpse killed by a Christian.

erm?? !! wow

Okay now lets run up our goal tally

I don't give a shit we didn't stop play. Fuck em.

Thaigo was shit twice in that move that lead to their goal.

No that's not what I was saying. What I'd say his he was very useful to the Bush administration and more so than any other British public intellectual. "He fell for all the lies"? Okay I'll just file that in my groaning filing cabinet marked "it doesn't actually matter that much whether a person is religious, what tends to matter is other qualities of mind". Follow up question, since Hitchens also once called Saddam Hussein "perhaps the most visionary Arab statesman since Nasser" - https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2011/12/hitchens-iraq-foot-blair did he fall for all the lies then? Did he fall for all the lies regarding Communism? Final question - if the guy kept falling for every lie going isn't that proof that being an atheist doesn't make that much difference and that we atheists shouldn't swagger about how much better we are without any actual track record to back it up? Just something to chew on.

I'll ask you a good faith question. When did Hitchens admit he was wrong about Iraq. I'd genuinely like to see it.

The made the idiotic venture more "intellectual" for the Yanks by speaking in favour of it in an eloquent way (I'll give him that) and a British accent. The yanks ate it up - I remember it clear as day.

He copied and pasted his views on religion from his days as a Trotskyist. He didn't have to change them one iota. He found success with them because there was a huge market of people desperate to believe they are better than some group of people. Hitchens own life shows how little it matters whether you are religious or not. You can attribute all the negative agency to religions and religious people you want, Hitchens spent the best years of his life supporting histories' most murderous ideology (Communism) and even when he left it he attached himself to the murderous ideology of neoconservatism. Everything the guy ever supported was more steeped in blood than any ranting zealot could muster. I'm a lifelong atheist, have never believed in god for one nanosecond and I know I'm not better than all the religious people. Hitchens could never figure that out despite the stupendous piles of bodies in his ideological wake.

I didn't see that but it hardly makes much difference. He was one of the most influential British cheerleaders of a war which killed a million people. That's too big to be a "whoopsie daisy".

That's a fallacy of irrelevance. Hitchens supported the Iraq War. It stands condemned on its own terms. I never ever understand why people revere that guy.

Who was one of Britain's biggest proponents of the Iraq War which killed a million people. Standards - if you say so.

Yeah, Occam's Razor and all.

Finally some relief in the "other football" suckage - thankyou Mark Steel thank you Crystal Palace.

We'll shit em.

Its us next so.. yep yep.

This weekends other football has been a load of arse.

Holy shit is that real?

Bit much no?