Sunday, July 18, 2010

The Enemy Within


by Pat Condell

9 comments:

  1. The book he talks about was published by World Net Daily. I agree with a lot of what he says, but ....

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  2. <span>I'm with you. WND is not a source of reliable information.  Amazon's book description begins with 
    </span>

    <span>"You've heard about the courageous young investigators who covertly videotaped officials of ACORN advocating illegal activities. Now, get ready for an undercover exposé even more daring..."</span>

    <span>That's enough for me to disreagrd the book.</span>

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  3. Wow, that has to be the fastest destruction of credibility I've ever witnessed. "Muslim Mafia", really Pat? You might want to do some research on that book, considering that it's been debunked, and the "undercover investigation" shown to be completely fabricated. As Atheists and Skeptics, we pretty much put our reputation on the line by claiming that we, as opposed to our ideological opponents, follow the evidence where it leads. We respect the facts. We do not let ideology (read: religion, there is no difference) drive the facts.

    So we'd better make damn sure that we don't push "facts" which have already been categorically debunked in support of our position, or, as in the case of Pat here, we LOSE ALL CREDIBILITY. And for one Atheist to lose credibility, unfortunately, means that we all lose credibility to some extent.

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  4. I knew when I watched it that I disagreed with it, long before he pimped the book.

    And then Coughlan666 weighed in and confirmed my gut reaction. ;)
    http://www.youtube.com/v/IOrLrXwusL8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="170" height="140

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  5. Ah and all the Atheists here start sh*ting themselves the moment their left-wing politics are threatened.  Step aside.  Let the REAL atheists handle this one.  You know, the one's are are willing to be labelled assholes if it means being honest.

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  6. Hi Andrew. I support the war against Saddam in Iraq, the war against the Taleban in Afghanistan and a minimal government and I still think Pat Condell is a disingenous and dishonest polemicist who couldn't reason himself out of a paper bag nevermind deliver a funny punchline for the last 6 months.

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  7. Martin.  You are right.  I looked into the book he was pushing and now well, I was wrong to trust that Pat Condell had done his homework simply because the facts and claims he had made in the past have checked out.  I was operating on a heuristic, where I assumed he had good cause for his statements, and this was reinforced by things like Dave's comment dismissing the book based on an amazon.com review.

    I guess another reminder for me to remain skeptical, expeciially when someone is right on 90% of what they say, because that'll just prime me to be fooled more easilly by the other 10%.  Oh well, for some reason I still want to respect Pat, so I hope he makes some kind of retraction or correction.  Here's hoping anyways.

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  8. WND = xtian nuts...not real atheists.
    And the website often has promoted conspiracies such as the birther nonsense and that Iraq moved its weapons to Syria.

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  9. Anybody can get snookered but what is bothering most is the commenting defend this wrong headed commentary like a bunch of brain dead apologist.
    The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as it were. We all can get tricked and trapped by the non-stop bullshit machine we face. We shouldn't just accept what our friends say as gospel nor dismiss our enemies as fools. You can never turn off the bullshit detector, especially when you are hearing what you want to hear.

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