an atheist viewpoint

This is Getting Ridiculous

theealex — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:52:28 +0000

Facebook complaint

In a move that will surprise absolutely no-one, Bob Sorensen has once again abused the ‘report’ function on Facebook to get me suspended. The first time he did this it was because I’d posted a screen shot of a Posterous 404 ‘page not found’, and you can read about that here. The second time, earlier this week, he reported me for posting a link to an image that HE had posted on a public group….the image wasn’t reposted, it was merely hotlinked from the Facebook page for the Question Evolution Project. Amusingly, the notification I received showed only the link as the ‘infringing’ material, which kind of answers the question I presented at the end of this post.

This time, as you can see in the screen shot above, Bob has reported me for posting a reproduction of an email I sent. Yup, it’s an image that Bob has no intellectual claim to whatsoever. Unfortunately it seems that Facebook aren’t very good at policing abuse of the report function, and apparently everything is automatically pulled after a complaint, and the ‘offender’ banned without any hope of appeal.

To be honest, I’m sick of writing about Bob – he’s a pathetic no-mark who does more harm to the reputation of Christianity than I could manage in a million years. I’m only posting this now so that the whole thing is written down, allowing others who might one day fall foul of the gnomish little sadsack to see that he has a well deserved reputation as a total fuckwad.

I Laughed

theealex — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 14:04:56 +0000

“An atheopath was caught using an image of mine. (Actually, my wife snapped it.) I told him to take it down. It’s mine, not his. Pretty simple that even this simpleton could understand it. He refused. I reported it to WordPress (Automattic). They made him take it down.Then he put it up again. I filed another takedown notice with WordPress. It came down.I found up that he put the thing up again a third time. Pretty arrogant, “Nobody’s gonna tell me what to do!” attitude, he felt that he was in the right, despite what the law and what the WordPress Terms of Service said. Guess what? Looks like the third strike, he’s out.”

So said Bob Sorensen, over at his risible ‘Stormbringer’s Thunder’ last month, after he frivolously filed a DMCA claim against both this blog and Gods That Don’t Exist.
Do you think he’ll be altering his article now I’ve successfully argued ‘Fair Use’ and had all the material reinstated?

The lesson is – stand up to bullies like Bob, they’re all bluster and no follow through.

Eric Hovind’s Joined Up Thinking

theealex — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 20:47:43 +0000

From Facebook, 18 hours ago -

“But there are a few morons out there who must think it’s cool, even though they don’t believe the same thing.”

From Twitter, two hours ago -

“Referring to people as morons is always a great way to win the debate.”

Brilliant.

An Update on Bob ‘@piltdownsupermn’ Sorensen’s Lies

theealex — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 22:33:02 +0000

In this article, entitled ‘Dumping Posterous’, Bob ‘I’m a HUGE liar’ Sorensen claims that he voluntarily ditched his Posterous account, before making the following statement -

“An atheopath is claiming credit for that one site on Posterous being down. But since he is famous for lying, libel and defamation, I doubt that it’s true.”

Really, Bob? Well here’s a screen print to prove it.

But you knew that already, didn’t you Bob? And you know that you’re lying to your reader by claiming otherwise.

Amazing Spin from Bob ‘@piltdownsupermn’ Sorensen

theealex — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 16:17:30 +0000

Incredible, read the following from Cowardboy Blob -

“These are primarily Web and Facebook postings, I didn’t violate the privacy and stalk individuals (unlike some people) to put screen shots of their pages up.” (from here - http://www.piltdownsuperman.com/2013/02/a-word-of-thanks.html *)

Really Bob? You don’t do that? Well what about the page that used to be here? The one that your little fan Jason Petersen has reproduced here? In fact the ONLY reason you can say you ‘don’t’ do that is because the evidence you DO was erased from your Posterous account after you got whacked with a DMCA!

And so the endless dishonesty of Bob Sorensen continues.

*how long before the paranoid nutcase starts claiming that even quoting his words or posting URLs is a copyright infringement?

Bob Sorensen Thinks an Empty Page Accurately Represents His Intellect

theealex — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 18:26:53 +0000

Today Bob has stepped up his paranoia, and has complained to Facebook, resulting in me being blocked for three days – all for posting an image. What was this image you wonder? Why, it was a screenshot of a Posterous 404 ‘Page Not Found’ error with Bob’s Posterous URL in the address bar! Apparently Bob believes this to be an infringement of his intellectual rights! Naturally I have queried this with Facebook, asking how the page can contain Bob’s property when it is the generic ‘no content’ page for Posterous. I hope that FB will see reason and recognise that Bob’s claim is entirely malicious, and lacking in any actual credibility.

Here’s a recreation of the screenshot, using a page that doesn’t exist. If anyone at Posterous doesn’t want their 404 page shown in this article, please email me and I’ll take it down (Bob, you don’t work for Posterous, so you can’t, sorry)

Not Bob’s page, but practically identical to the image he claimed as his.

I assume he’s done this because he was upset at having the page pulled down after a valid, and successful, DMCA claim from myself. On that page he had posted numerous screen shots of my, and others, intellectual property – tweets, facebook updates, blog posts, and (most importantly, as the other parts could be maybe considered public domain in some cases) photographs that I own the copyright on. Given that Bob is very fond of false take down notices, I don’t know why he should have a problem with a legitimate one.

I find it sad that Bob is so bereft of honour that he stoops to actions like this. But I also find it amusing that he has effectively admitted that his ‘intellect’ is equal to an empty webpage.

Joe Cienkowski, Liar

theealex — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:23:27 +0000

Obama said “if political winds turn ugly, I’ll stand with Muslims” & “Future doesn’t hold for those who insult prophet Muhammad

The above is a tweet combining two of arch fundie dick bag Joe Cienkowski’s favourite ‘Obama’ quotes. As with everything else he says, thinks, or writes it isn’t what it appears.

The first ‘quote’ is taken from ‘Dreams of My Father’, and the context completely changes what Joe claims is being said. Here’s the full text (I have emphasised the section Joe quotes) -

“Whenever I appear before immigrant audiences, I can count on some good-natured ribbing from my staff after my speech; according to them, my remarks always follow a three-part structure: “I am your friend,” “[Fill in the home country] has been a cradle of civilization,” and “You embody the American dream.” They’re right, my message is simple, for what I’ve come to understand is that my mere presence before these newly minted Americans serves notice that they matter, that they are voters critical to my success and full-fledged citizens deserving of respect.
“Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” [Page 260-261] . . . ‘Dreams of my Father’

Notice there is not a single use of the word ‘Muslim’ in that text. Also notice that the context of what’s being said completely changes the meaning from that suggested by Joe.

What of the other ‘quote’? That ‘Future doesn’t hold for those who insult prophet Muhammad’ line? The actual text, from a speech reproduced in its entirety here, runs like this -

“The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied.”

Yet again, notice that the context is completely different from that suggested by Joe. Also notice that there is no mention of the word ‘Muhammad’ in the original.

Joe Cienkowski is a liar.

On Presup

theealex — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 08:37:24 +0000

Seems that here would be a good place to reproduce the bulk of a lengthy email I’ve just written. In it I explain the basic points of presubullshit, and why it is nonsense.

Hopefully this will be helpful for some -

———-

If you’re unfamiliar with Presup, it’s simply a variation on the Transcendental Argument for God (TAG) which goes as follows -

P1. For logic to exist the Christian god must exist

P2. Logic exists

C. The Christian god exists

Obviously, as you can see, the TAG is entirely circular, and rests on an unproved assertion

Eric (Hovind) has taken hold of the even dafter version that Sye (Ten Bruggencate) peddles, which goes a bit like this -Sye/Eric: I can prove that god exists. To do this I begin by presuming that he does.

Seriously – that’s the whole argument!

They usually use the question ‘is it possible you could be wrong about everything you know?’ as an ‘in’ when discussing this with non-believers. Faced with this for the first time, most unbelievers will be entirely honest and reply that it IS possible that they may be wrong about everything they know – despite the fact that they’re not. Eric and Sye will then say ‘if you don’t know everything how do you know there isn’t something that will disprove everything else?’, following up with ‘you have no certainty in your worldview, so your worldview is absurd!’. This is usually attached to ‘if you could be wrong about everything you know, then how can you know anything??’. They then claim that THEY have certainty because they have a ‘revelation’ from their particular version of their particular god. To get to that they will ask ‘Is it possible that an omnipotent being could reveal things to us in such a way that we may be certain of them?’ – the unwary may answer ‘yes’, at which point Eric/Sye have made their hit and they smugly baffle the unbeliever into submission.

Then they’ll acknowledge that, clearly, the atheist DOES know things, and that this is proof that god exists……even though it isn’t, and no matter how much they nakedly assert this it does not become true.

They will also chuck in a load of bullshit along the lines of ‘do you reason your reasoning is valid’, and ‘how do you know your reasoning is valid? Your reasoning? That’s viciously circular!’. They’ll finish by stating that the atheist actually DOES believe in the Christian god, citing Roman 1:18-21 (“¹⁸The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

Now, the argument they present fails on several levels -

1. It is NOT possible that we’re wrong about everything we think we know – we can know with absolute certainty that we are thinking, as the very act of considering it self verifies. Once we have identified that we can know at least one thing for certain we can use this to confirm the Primacy of Existence, recognising that a thing has to first exist before it can consider the existence of itself or other things. The Primacy of Existence (basically ‘reality is real’) is the bedrock for all subsequent knowledge, allowing us to measure and describe the Universe, and leading us to ever increasing understanding…..all without the need for ‘absolute certainty’ that Eric/Sye claim we need

2. The Presupper claims that they are also unable to gain certainty, but that they have access to a being with perfect knowledge which has revealed himself to them. However, they face a major and insurmountable problem – by the very argument they present they CANNOT know ANYTHING for certain BEFORE they receive this ‘revelation’, including whether the source of the revelation is genuine – they have to accept the ‘revelation’ BEFORE they have the knowledge they claim they need to be able to confirm its accuracy. The ONLY way they could possibly be able to confirm they weren’t just hallucinating, or being misled by a ‘being of sufficient power’ (the ‘Evil God’ hypothesis) would be if they too were omniscient and were able to fact check the source of the revelation to verify that it’s genuine. When asked about this both Sye and Eric have floundered, whilst their fellow pressupper, Dustin Seger, mumbled out some nonsense about the revelation not being bounded by temporality! I think he was trying to say that the knowledge of the validity of the ‘revelation’ could be projected back in time or something, so that you could be certain of it before you were certain.

3. even if the presupper was able to make a valid point, it would bring them no closer to WHICH god had given the ‘revelation’, proving that it is their particular version of the Christian god is still entirely impossible – in short they are still stuck at step one.

_______________________

Hopefully that’ll help if you’re faced with presubullshitters.

Jason Petersen: Liar for Jesus

theealex — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 18:29:41 +0000

I was going to write a long article addressing the torrent of dishonesty in this post from a Creationist simpleton we shall call JP, but I just can’t be bothered to get worked up enough about it. Go read it, then I’ll just answer the biggest lies.

Back? Good.

Lie 1. that I posted an ‘edited’ image of a discussion

The truth: I posted a screen shot of the first few messages from a longer conversation (which can be seen here), the sole purpose of which was to prove that I had not instigated the talk of a debate with JP. Once the full conversation was posted by the other person involved, it did nothing to contradict my initial claim.

Lie 2. that I ‘went out of my way’ to hide the other messages in the conversation

The Truth: I hid nothing, I simply posted the part that was relevant to the point I was trying to make. As you can see from the full conversation there was nothing in the ‘hidden’ part that changed any of the meaning of the section I posted. (EDIT: JP has subsequently claimed that I ‘hid’ part that showed me ‘dodging’ a written debate, but the screen shot at the bottom of this post shows that to also be a lie)

Lie 3. that I am avoiding a written debate because I am scared of JP

The Truth: I have never shown any interest in written debate, and have always preferred to be able to speak to someone live. I find written debates dull and, as I stated before, often see Creationists hiding in the format and avoiding answering questions.

Lie 4. well, not so much a lie, as JP relying on the opinion of Bob Sorensen, a man with a hatred and fear of me that verges on the pathological.

We all know Bob’s opinion of me, we also all know that his opinion isn’t worth the weight of the pixels that present it on our screens. That JP has hooked up with such an outright nutter should be enough to tell you everything you need to know!

Lie 5. that I am ‘wilfully lying’ about the debate that never happened in an attempt to gain ‘e-cred’ (whatever the fuck THAT is!)

The Truth: The only person being dishonest here is JP, who seems to be spinning events harder than Alastair Campbell in an attempt to save face in front of his small gang of followers.

To be honest, the whole of JP’s article reeks of desperation, desperation to turn events into something that they are not. Here’s his last paragraph -

“Alex should probably stop spreading falsehoods and making unfounded assumptions regarding events in which you can’t verify yourself. It might save you from being bitten on the rear again. If I were him, I’d be feeling pretty embarrassed after reading this.”

Jason, I don’t feel remotely embarrassed….well, not for me anyway! I DO feel deeply embarrassed for you after you’ve made such a meal of trying to cover your arse. Disagree? You know my Skype user name, and you know where I am.

Oh, the comments are a shower of shite as well.

Anyway, that’s enough on this blog for this year!

EDIT: Petersen is now trying to spin this further! Unfortunately for him he seems to be forgetting what he’s previously said….compare the top comment, from two hours ago on Facebook, with the highlighted section from his blog post -

Ooops!!

ADDITIONAL EDIT: Jason is NOW claiming that he HAS debated me. So he’s flipflopped back to his original claim, the one he then stated was incorrect. How strange -

EDIT 2

And another!

DOUBLE OOPS!

EDIT 3

Might as well point this absolute honking failure by one of JP’s fans -

TRIPLE OOOOOOPPPPSSSSSSS!!!!!

EDIT: More spin from Petersen today, this time claiming that a back and forth on Eric Hovind’s facebook wall was a ‘debate’. Nice try, JP, but no dice. I’m through with dealing with him, and will be ignoring the insane creationist minnow from now on.

Fundamentally Flawed, and this Blog

theealex — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 20:57:05 +0000

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t posted much recently and, if you listen to the podcast, you’ll notice I’ve not been a regular on that either in several weeks. The reason is simple – I’ve nothing new to say.

I feel like I’ve gone ever the same subjects over and over again on here, and likewise on the podcast – there’s only so many times one can sigh at the idiocy of people who believe demonstrable nonsense.

So I think I want to quit. What used to interest me enough to write many articles a month now bores me rigid, and what used to amuse me enough to churn out hours and hours of the podcast now just makes me dread the thought of recording another show.

A few people will have noticed that they can no longer contact me on Facebook, that’s because I’ve cut the people I’m ‘friends’ with back to those I either know in real life, or those who’ve interacted enough with me for my interest in what they’ve got to say to continue. If I’ve deleted you and you feel offended by it, please don’t – I had to clear my timeline of an almost endless stream of negative posts against religion.

I don’t want to be an ‘atheist personality’, I don’t want to be known only for what I don’t believe about a single subject – ultimately it doesn’t make very much difference to the wider world….the stupid will continue to be stupid, and they will continue to try to control the lives of others. Frankly they disgust me, but I’ve lost my desire to fight them. Let them continue to deny reality in their sad little lives, I’ve got better things to do.

Writing this blog, and being involved in the podcast, feel like a chore, and I don’t want to keep doing something I’m not enjoying.

So I guess I’m through.