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__________________
The invisible and the non-existent often look very much alike. --Julia Sweeney
Q: What's red and invisible?
A: No tomato. -- Anonymous


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John is keeping his options open, just in case you know . I read the article, I didnt realise he had two freinds.

"How I wished that I had brought along my Italian friend Marco, a nuclear physicist, who might have, from the perspective of a profound belief in a creative God, brought the room to silence with a few reflections on nothingness. I believe he would have halved the membership of Atheist Ireland in half an hour."

What exactly would Marco's argument be, I wonder? Waters feels no need to elaborate it for some reason. Reason probably being that t has been dealt with a million times. Probably even in all those pub discussions Walters took part in.

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Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

Thats rich. A christian calling Atheists 'reactionary'. Its isn't atheists who've arranged a £1.5billion tax on Ireland to pay compensation (an inadequate word) to abuse survivors.

It wasn't an Atheist who turned up at the Dail with ash on his forehead and after morning mass and set about enriching himself, pulling criminal strokes, avoiding tax and blatantly lying to the electorate.

It isn't Atheists in Washington or London either who concocted a false war in which hundreds of thousands have been killed.

There are a lot of people in Ireland who describe themselves as christians merely because it gives a ready made excuse for narrow minded bigotted views and a bizarre idea that they have the right to decide laws.

John Waters should go and f*ck himself and his Cloud God into the Liffey.

It's the auld 'appeal to authority'. You can get away with that kind of thing a lot easier when you don't have to worry about it being pointed out by the third post.

and it was waters who defended the guttersnipe Bertie as a decent fella. that alone is reason enough to ignore him imo.

I don't like John Water's writing as he writes as if he has some sort of omniscient view on whatever subject he has chosen. And the sneering tone of this piece is a real turn-off.

I wasn't at the Atheist Ireland meeting, so I have no idea whether his report has any accuracy at all. I will say though that sometimes I do find that some atheists can be equally sneering towards people who have religious faith and I don't like that either.

I read the coeliac analogy with a little ironic smile because as a coeliac, I was given an early experience of doubt about transubstantiation - if the host was really the body of Christ how come I couldn't eat it as bodies don't contain gluten, only bread does.

Because only the nature of the bread changes, not the substance.

(don't blame me, I don't make this shite up)

Waters talks an awful load of sh!te but dont let the messenger blunt the thrust of the message which atheists/secularists really need to heed.

His opening line encapsulates the two problems I see about atheism (and have been rabitting on here about for ages): Delusions of intellectual superiority and unfunny mockery of religion show up the limitations of atheist ideology.

Now, I wouldnt say that they show up atheisms "limitations" but they are two of its problems. And two of the reasons why atheism will struggle to get its message across. A message packaged in arrogance, mockery and divisiveness will never be palatable to the middle ground, which is the vast majority of this country, who have all but rejected religon but are not quite ready to move across to a sniping, sneering and jeering form of atheism. If you could tailor the message appropriately and not frame yourselves as what you are against (stupid fairy worshippers) but rather what you are for (pluralism, respect for all but above-all, the performance of Govermental functions free from religous or areligous influence), there is no reason why the atheist/secular movement cannot become a real player. But I fear that the "peurile reactionary" element within atheism will hold sway and will set your agenda back.

I hope this post is taken in the spirit intended. I am one of the middle ground. I believe in secularism. But until the prevalent attitude of Atheism Ireland and many vocal atheists is fundamentally changed, I cant see myself getting involved. I expect I am not atypical of the type of person whose support any secularist movement should be seeking to attract.

I wrote a letter to the IT: