tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-134391163512201092024-02-07T05:58:46.910+00:00skeptipedialatsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-53506010734782032352009-07-07T10:51:00.002+01:002009-07-07T11:11:24.193+01:00Greed behind crisis, warns Pope<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8137849.stm">Greed behind crisis, warns Pope</a>, from his lavish palace, dressed in all his finery, with his hot and cold running choirboys and his golden hat.<br /><br />The article makes hilarious reading:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>He began writing [the letter] two years ago but has had to amend it considerably.<br /></p></blockquote><p>I get writer's block myself sometimes, but two years seems a bit excessive for a letter. When he got stuck, he should have put in an anecdote about the neighbours' dog or something. That's what I do.<br /></p><p></p><blockquote><p>The Pope told a group of priests in Rome at the beginning of the year that he did not want to give simplistic answers to complex questions concerning the world economy.</p><p></p></blockquote><p>Yeah, right. He <span style="font-style: italic;">has </span>the answers, he just doesn't want to tell anyone, because they wouldn't understand. Perhaps we aren't holy enough to hear the secrets that will save us from disaster, or our hats aren't pointy enough or something. It sounds more plausible when you consider that he has the secret to preventing AIDS but not only doesn't <span style="font-style: italic;">tell </span>anyone, but uses his organisation to actively spread lies to <span style="font-style: italic;">encourage </span>the spread of AIDS.<br /></p><p></p><blockquote><p>But he will single out human greed and selfishness as the root causes of the economic crisis.<br /></p></blockquote><p>Of course, human greed and selfishness is the root cause of economic booms as well, but I didn't notice him complaining then.</p><p>Why on Earth does this ridiculous old man believe he has anything to contribute?<br /></p>latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-17024374506845330982009-05-20T13:55:00.002+01:002009-05-20T14:04:25.395+01:00IdaThis is a retarded article about the Ida fossil: <a href="http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Missing-Link-Scientists-In-New-York-Unveil-Fossil-Of-Lemur-Monkey-Hailed-As-Mans-Earliest-Ancestor/Article/200905315284582?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15284582_Missing_Link%3A_Scientists_In_New_York_Unveil_Fossil_Of_Lemur_Monkey_Hailed_As_Mans_Earliest_Ancestor">http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Missing-Link-Scientists-In-New-York-Unveil-Fossil-Of-Lemur-Monkey-Hailed-As-Mans-Earliest-Ancestor/Article/200905315284582?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15284582_Missing_Link%3A_Scientists_In_New_York_Unveil_Fossil_Of_Lemur_Monkey_Hailed_As_Mans_Earliest_Ancestor<br /></a><br />and the comments are even more retarded, even correcting for the fact that this is sky news.<br /><br />Ida is important, but the media have misunderstood and dramatically overstated that importance. It's not important as evidence for evolution, because there is already an overwhelming amount. It's evidence for a part of the tree of life, which just happens to involve animals quite closely related to us. Exciting, but not for the reason the media seems to think. This article exemplifies the complete misunderstanding of this story by the media.<br /><br />Want to know what's even more retarded? <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/05/19/ida-missing-link">Answers in Genesis</a> chose this article as the one to illustrate the whole business of Ida. They didn't choose any of the ones in the scientific press that explained the significance of the fossil more accurately, they chose a cartoon. <br /><br />Want to know what's even more retarded than that? Answers in Genesis lists several bullet points supposedly showing 'The Creationist Interpretation'. All of those points appear verbatim in the comments section of the sky news article, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">purportedly</span> from different authors.<br /><br />Perhaps lots of people read the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">AIG</span> site and each chose a different comment to cut and paste without reference into the sky news comments. Or perhaps someone at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">AIG</span> harvested some comments from sky news and quoted them without reference.<br /><br />Or perhaps someone is lying for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">jesus</span> again?latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-75054547259729212622009-05-15T08:56:00.004+01:002009-05-15T09:09:07.582+01:00Those catholics are just such an easy target<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2009/05/if_you_dont_believe_what_i_bel.php">http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2009/05/if_you_dont_believe_what_i_bel.php</a><br /><br />Cardinal <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Cormac</span> Murphy-O'Connor, the most senior catholic in England and Wales believes that I'm not fully human. You see, I'm an atheist and therefore don't have an urge to believe in what Murphy-O'Connor calls 'the transcendent'. This is really just a fancy word for god that allows him to include people of other religions and people who call themselves 'spiritual', because that makes his club look bigger. To not yearn from the transcendent makes me not fully human, in Murphy-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">O'Connor's</span> words.<br /><br />He doesn't make or imply any threat by this, but there's something astonishingly sinister about a hugely influential religious leader declaring that anyone who doesn't believe - without evidence - what he believes doesn't count as human. Doesn't that surely mean that atheists shouldn't be allowed the same rights as catholics? However I parse it, it seems to come out that way to me.latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-35345021913186005162009-05-14T13:51:00.001+01:002009-05-14T13:53:33.950+01:00Catholic priest yawningly writes sex advice book<span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8049853.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8049853.stm</a><br /><br />I have nothing to say about this except what a friend wrote :<br /><blockquote>do what you want to each other, because by bumming each other, you are bumming jebus - BUT FFS DON'T USE JOHNNIES</blockquote></span>latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-47807189608291163112009-05-11T15:49:00.002+01:002009-05-11T15:52:22.695+01:00off topicA comment I posted on Secular Thought for The Day. I'm not sure why I'm reposting it here, except that I've always had an eerie sort of feeling about why there are no photographs of me as a child:<br /><br /><blockquote>There is exactly one photograph of me before I was about twelve years old. It is a picture of me at about 18 months being dunked in the cold water near a waterfall in the north of england in winter and (not entirely surprisingly) crying. I may also have been crying a bit about the outfit I was wearing, this being the 70s.<div class="content"> <p>I'm the youngest of four children. There are hundreds of photos of my siblings - you can almost make a flipbook animation of them growing up. By the time I came along, it's safe to say that the novelty had worn off.</p> <p>It is interesting that this one photograph of me has branded me as a troublesome baby. Since I'm crying in the only picture of me, everyone agrees that I must have cried all the time. People probably *tried* to get a photograph of me not crying, but they'd have had to be a damn fast shot before I was off again.</p> <p>Photographing things in order to remember them is a curious pursuit, especially as it tends to change people's memories rather than reinforce them. </p> <p>Or maybe that's the point. As a trigger to sentimentalism - even over-sentimentalism - photographs are great.</p> </div></blockquote>latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-43667485858513480162009-05-06T16:03:00.000+01:002009-05-06T16:04:20.957+01:00do this<a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/daughters_need_letters.php">http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/05/daughters_need_letters.php</a>latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-45434592495665252442009-05-06T10:26:00.002+01:002009-05-06T10:33:18.953+01:00Pandering to idiocyA family reportedly believes their house is haunted because the floor got hot.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3309936.html">http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3309936.html</a><br /><br />This is fairly standard nonesense. The part of the story that stands out is this:<br /><p> </p><blockquote>But Italian experts have revealed there were no geological or scientific reasons for the freak temperatures in Riesi, Sicily.</blockquote><p></p>This is an appallingly stupid statement. First, it doesn't say what they were experts <span style="font-style: italic;">in.</span> Secondly, if they said that they were no geological or scientific reasons for the high temperature, then the only thing we can be sure of is that they were not experts in geology or science. Apparently geology is now not a science.<br /><br />Of course, the experts - assuming they exist - will have said no such thing. They'll have said they don't know. There's nothing in the story to suggest that the 'experts' actually went to the scene. It seems more likely that a journalist called a random expert and asked "why did this floor get so hot?" and they said they didn't know. For journalists, this translates to "no scientific reason", especially when it means they get to write a story about the supernatural, which are known to sell very well.latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-30661291398086306432009-05-05T06:45:00.003+01:002009-05-05T07:21:18.427+01:00Dying of (your parents') ignoranceThis is a heartbreaking story:<br /><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/dead-babys-parents-ignored-advice-qc-20090504-asmt.html?page=1"><br />http://www.smh.com.au/national/dead-babys-parents-ignored-advice-qc-20090504-asmt.html?page=1.</a><br /><br />A nine month old girl died of septicemia when her eczema became so bad that her skin constantly broke, resulting in a fatal infection. I suffer from (comparatively mild) eczema myself and it's very safe to say that the condition is extremely apparent. You just can't fail to notice if your baby's skin is breaking open. Add to that the fact that severe eczema is a very unpleasant condition, especially for a young child. This one would certainly have been in constant discomfort, with unbearably itchy and painful skin (and unable to scratch effectively). You can be damn sure she would have let her parents know about this in the only way she could: constant crying. In fact, the he Crown prosecutor, Mark <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Tedeschi</span>, QC, says exactly this:<br /><blockquote>"Gloria spent a lot of the last five months of her life crying, irritable, scratching"<br /></blockquote>How can this story possibly be made worse? Gloria's postgraduate-educated parents were advised first by a nurse and later by their GP that they should consult a skin specialist, but they refused in favour of homeopathic 'medicine'. The father is a homeopath and presumably believes in his particular brand of snake oil, but <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Tedeschi</span> says that on the few occasions they tried conventional treatments, Gloria's condition improved and they immediately reverted to homeopathy. Sadly, this is a common pattern. It's a desperate and probably unconscious attempt to rationalise beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary and we see it in all kinds of quackery and superstition. The man's sister allegedly pleaded with the father to send Gloria to a proper doctor and he said "I'm not able to do that."<br /><br />The parents are currently being tried for manslaughter by gross criminal negligence, which sounds about right to me. There can be no justification for such abuse and neglect, regardless of superstitious belief and no justification for others respecting superstitions of this kind. Proper treatments for <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">eczema</span> demonstrably work. Homeopathic ones demonstrably do not.<br /><br />As heartbreaking as this story is and as angry I am at Gloria's parents for her needless suffering and death, I still find myself feeling sorry for them. These are people who are handicapped by a self-reinforcing belief system that has many of the hallmarks of a religion. It encourages believers to be selective of evidence: rejecting proper medical trials and accepting without question anecdotes and circumstantial evidence. For example, believers in homeopathy often (as this couple did) give their 'patients' conventional medicine at the same time as homeopathic <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">jollup</span>, yet attribute any recovery to the latter. Sadly, I suspect this is what happened in Gloria's case. For this reason, I consider the parents victims. They are victims of their own hubris as much as victims of a cynical industry that trades on and delights in ignorance.<br /><br />However, they are not so much victims as their poor daughter, who died needlessly, helplessly and in torment. If they are found guilty, I hope the judge throws away the key.latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-52258797878462131122009-04-12T06:58:00.004+01:002009-04-12T07:31:03.646+01:00<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BentoXVI-30-10052007.jpg">Darth <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Ratzinger</span></span></a> shows us what is wrong with the catholic church with admirable economy of words:<br /><blockquote>"We are shocked to see to what levels of brutality human beings can sink. Jesus is humiliated in new ways even today."<br /></blockquote>Brutality is all around us. There are parts of the world where nobody can feel safe. There are people who lock up and rape their daughters for decades. There are regimes that oppress the majority of the population with extreme, unthinking violence. There are people who seem not to value human life at all and who use suffering as a cold-blooded tool for personal gain. Others rape the planet in various ways, apparently not caring about the implications or the suffering and poverty of future generations. Brutal too is the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">condemnation</span> to death of an estimated 80 million people from AIDS over the next 15 years on the basis of dubious interpretation of a bronze age work of fiction.<br /><br />But <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Ratzinger</span></span> isn't concerned with human suffering. He's concerned that the lord of all creation, the omnipotent, omniscient master of the universe, might feel a bit sad because people laugh at him. And well they might, with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Ratzinger</span></span> as one of his chief advocates.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Edit:</span> The article also has a typical quote from the Archbishop of York, the equally insane John <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Sematu</span>:<br /><blockquote>"[Christians now] have the daily challenge of living by a set of values that the world thinks are mad".<br /></blockquote>This is very much in the same vein as Ratty. For the most part, nobody thinks that Christian values are mad. The vast majority of people - Christian or otherwise - tend to share them for the most part and even many who don't still seem to regard them as desirable. What we regard as mad is the set of core beliefs Christianity requires, with its magical sky god, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">pathogenic</span> priestesses, wizards, spells, unicorns, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">resurrections</span> and so on. The world is starting to recognise that you don't have to believe in these childish fictions to be a moral person. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Sematu</span> - as he seems to do every time he opens his mouth in public - is being deliberately disingenuous. He's petulantly creating a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">strawman</span>, sitting in his palace and pretending to be under attack. You aren't under attack John. You just aren't relevant any more. Don't blame <span style="font-style: italic;">us</span> - isn't it <span style="font-style: italic;">your </span>job to spread the word?latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-31139510147540920132009-04-11T10:23:00.002+01:002009-04-11T11:26:35.961+01:00Theists in foxholes<a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKTRE53923U20090410">Reuters reports</a> that one "Father <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Raniero</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Cantalamessa</span>, who is officially Preacher of the Papal Household" has decided - apparently through a marathon of wishful thinking - that the <a href="http://www.atheistbus.org.uk/"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Atheist</span> Bus Campaign</a> has backfired.<br /><br />He says that it has reminded people that faith is important, especially when times are hard. This is typical of the religious mindset. Apparently <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Cantalamessa</span> can't understand that the purpose of the campaign is not to convert the religious, but to make the fence-sitters think and to counteract the unavoidable deluge of theist adverts that has become part of the furniture of our lives. The campaign is saying "Hey, look, it's OK to talk about atheism as well. It's not a taboo subject. There's nothing wrong with it." And of course it is also promoting atheism as a desirable way of life. From this point of view, it's unclear to me how the campaign could have 'backfired'. If it made atheists become theists or convinced fence-sitters or secret agnostics/atheists to convert en <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">masse</span>, then I guess we might call the campaign a failure, although I'm not sure I'd say it had backfired as such. But of course, there is no evidence whatsoever that any such thing has happened. We don't know how successful the campaign has been in terms of its actual, stated goals and we don't know how successful it has been in <img src="file:///C:/Users/nras8/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg" alt="" /><img src="file:///C:/Users/nras8/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.jpg" alt="" />terms of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Cantalamessa's</span> fictional made up goals. The only difference is that atheists aren't lying about it.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Cantalamessa</span> continues in this blithering vein, making some truly bewildering statements:<br /><blockquote>"We should almost thank the people who promoted that advertising campaign. It has served God's cause more than so many of our apologetic arguments,"<br /></blockquote>This seems to highlight massive and widespread incompetence among the ranks of the religious. Is this <span style="font-style: italic;">really </span>what he means to say? And what does he mean by 'almost'?<br /><br /><blockquote>"It has demonstrated the poverty of their reasons and has helped stir so many sleeping consciences,"<br /></blockquote><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Cantalamessa</span> has no evidence for this. He probably doesn't realise that he needs it. He's in a position where he gets to act as though he's for all practical purposes infallible: perhaps he's forgotten that his own wishful thinking doesn't make things automatically true.<br /><br /><blockquote>"Suffering is certainly a mystery for everyone, especially the suffering of innocent people, but without faith in God it becomes immensely more absurd,"<br /></blockquote>This is exactly the wrong way round. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Sufferening</span> is not at all mysterious in a world without god. Earthquakes and tsunamis happen because of plate tectonics, sometimes leading to great suffering. People suffer from oppressive regimes, which are a result of human greed and the need of individuals to force their (usually religious or quasi-religious) beliefs on everybody else. People often suffer from more personal and immediate greed, when they are burgled or mugged. They suffer when attacked by animals or disease.<br /><br />None of this is mysterious in the slightest. It is only when you try to reconcile this with a god who loves all his people that you start to scratch your head. Without a god, there really is no mystery.<br /><blockquote>"Even the last hope of rescue is taken away. Atheism is a luxury that only those with privileged lives can afford."<br /></blockquote>Personally, I feel that atheism <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> the privilege because it frees me from nonsensical closed-reasoning like this. Even so, there is something very strange about <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Cantalamessa's</span> statement. <br /><br />In the context of his remarks about suffering, he seems to suggest that humans need god to turn to....<span style="font-style: italic;">whether he exists or not</span>. It doesn't seem to matter, as long as you believe in him anyway.<br /><br />It is depressingly characteristic of religious thinking: we humans are unworthy; we're incapable of getting ourselves out of difficulties; we are neither master of fate nor captain of soul. We can't possibly hope to understand the world or control our place within it, so we shouldn't try. We should throw our hands in the air, say god did it and pretend we are better off as a result.latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-36691043063916235682009-04-11T10:22:00.001+01:002009-04-11T10:22:48.136+01:00published on secular thought for the day<a href="http://www.secularthought.org/node/59">http://www.secularthought.org/node/59</a><br /><p>We humans tend to agree on what tastes sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. Nobody suggests that our taste is religiously inspired.</p> <p>Although famously we have no way to confirm it, we seem to have a more or less common frame of reference for perceiving (or at least talking about) colour. I haven't yet known anyone to say we get our sense of colour directly from the bible or from any other holy book.</p> <p>We each see, hear, smell, touch and taste the universe in a sufficiently similar way to have an almost infallible common frame of reference. Does anyone suggest that we get this from the bible?</p> <p>We more or less agree when it is hot or cold, when we are amused or creeped out, even in what angers or sates us. There is never the slightest suggestion that these more-or-less common responses are based on the bible or on any other holy book.</p> <p>And yet the religious delight in telling us that our equally common sense of morality is biblically inspired. Can anyone explain why this sense is singled out?p</p>latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-22671473382964402682009-04-08T08:02:00.003+01:002009-04-08T08:35:30.460+01:00NHS funding religious discriminationThe National Health Service spends around £40m a year on <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7988476.stm">hospital chaplains</a>. I have no doubt that many religious people take great comfort from their <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">presence</span> at a difficult time. I have no doubt that the job is emotionally demanding and requires special training. But their being funded by the already financially troubled <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">NHS</span> should astonish everyone. It's a testimony to the grip religion has on the population that more people - including the religious - are not outraged.<br /><br />First, there is no equivalent service for the non-religious. If, as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">NHS</span> trusts are claiming, chaplains are an essential part of hospital care, then are hospitals not failing in their duty of care of non-religious patients? If they are not essential, then why is the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">NHS</span> paying for them in the first place? Needless to say, churches are tripping over themselves to point out that the chaplains are there to care for the non-religious as well. The phrase<span style="font-style: italic;"> <span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span>I've seen crop up most often is "we provide religious and spiritual care." Unfortunately, I do not possess a spirit as there are no such things as spirits. I'm therefore at a loss as to how somebody might care for it.<br /><br />Second, I'm at a loss to explain why the cash-strapped <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">NHS</span> should pay for this service, when by their own admission, <span style="font-style: italic;">this is what churches are for.</span> All the hospitals I know are surrounded by churches, synagogues, mosques etc. that are packed with priests of various kinds with a mandate to minister to the sick. They are registered charities and so their staff are indirectly paid for by the people who wish to use their services. Why on Earth should the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">NHS</span> - and ultimately the taxpayer - foot this bill?<br /><br />It's another example of almost unconscious <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">privileging</span> of religion. There's no reason to expect that priests have any more expertise than a random person off the street and yet they defend their tenuous position by claiming they are there for patients of all faiths or (literally) god forbid, none.latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-62063028046810457192009-04-03T16:23:00.000+01:002009-04-03T16:24:19.555+01:00posted on secular thought of the day<a href="http://www.secularthought.org/node/59">http://www.secularthought.org/node/59</a><br /><p>We humans tend to agree on what tastes sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami. Nobody suggests that our taste is religiously inspired.</p> <p>Although famously we have no way to confirm it, we seem to have a more or less common frame of reference for perceiving (or at least talking about) colour. I haven't yet known anyone to say we get our sense of colour directly from the bible or from any other holy book.</p> <p>We each see, hear, smell, touch and taste the universe in a sufficiently similar way to have an almost infallible common frame of reference. Does anyone suggest that we get this from the bible?</p> <p>We more or less agree when it is hot or cold, when we are amused or creeped out, even in what angers or sates us. There is never the slightest suggestion that these more-or-less common responses are based on the bible or on any other holy book.</p> <p>And yet the religious delight in telling us that our equally common sense of morality is biblically inspired. Can anyone explain why this sense is singled out?</p>latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-27370609899366895892009-04-03T14:44:00.004+01:002009-04-03T15:34:20.183+01:00Richard Dawkins on the Tony Blair Foundation<a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/tony-blair-faith-children">http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/tony-blair-faith-children</a><br /><br />Very good, very good.<br /><br />I find the Tony Blair Foundation hilarious in its insane ambition in principle (to unite all the world's religions in peace and love, presumably with a Catholic look & feel) and yet its total lack of ambition in practise (representatives from various religions endlessly talking to each other with no view to actually achieving anything and absolutely no clue about how this is to contribute to the uniting part).<br /><br />I find it horribly disturbing for almost the same reasons. I can't imagine what good would come of uniting all religions (whatever that might even mean). I can't imagine what religions have to tell us at all, other than to warn us against convincing ourselves that preserving dogma is more important than alleviating suffering.<br /><br />Organisations like this are concerned with helping supposedly moderate people feel better about supporting harmful policies (such as the Catholic Church's policy on condoms). They can't achieve any good in even the long term, because they don't even have a coherent idea about what 'good' is.latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-86101941528832101082009-04-01T08:25:00.003+01:002009-04-01T08:40:12.161+01:00Catholic church invents a new reason to discriminate against homosexuals<a href="http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25250874-952,00.html">http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25250874-952,00.html<br /></a><br />As part of its response to the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">paedophile</span> scandal, the Vatican is *ahem* 'recommending' that it's various churches test the sexuality of all prospective priests and dismiss any that 'appear homosexual'. I'd love to know what kind of test they plan to use: as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">PZ</span> Myers has pointed out, they'll probably see an increase in people signing up just to take the test.<br /><br />There are three serious problems with this of course. First, tests for homosexuality are by no means conclusive and I'm especially skeptical about what kind of test the catholic church might employ. I don't think it would be too much of an exaggeration to expect that anyone with a lisp would be ruled out straight away.<br /><br />Second is the fact that homosexuality is in no way akin to paedophilia. As far as I'm aware, homosexual priests are no more likely to molest children than are straight ones. This barbaric attitude is damningly typical of churches in general and catholics in particular.<br /><br />Third, and most importantly is the fact that this is a clear <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">exercises</span> in scapegoating. In doing this, the church is saying "It's not the <span style="font-style: italic;">church's </span>fault that all those children were assaulted, it's these damn gays that have <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">infiltrated</span> us."<br /><br />This is beyond disgusting: it's bad enough excluding women from the priesthood as a matter of idiotic principle, but to exclude 10% of the male population as well simply as a <span style="font-style: italic;">bad public relations <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">exercise</span>!</span> No other organisation could get away with this and rightly so. Meanwhile, children will continue to be abused at the hands of priests and like a murderer, the catholic church will continue to cover it up.latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-8982073404828326042009-03-30T11:59:00.001+01:002009-03-30T12:01:10.689+01:00Morality without a compass<p><a href="http://www.secularthought.org/">Posted at Secular Thought For the Day:<br /></a></p><p>We’re often told that atheists have no reason to be good. We have no god-given absolute standard of morality and no fear of eternal punishment, so no reason to act morally. Others have dealt with the absurdity of this position: atheists seem to be as moral as anyone else; no particular brand of believer is a clear winner in the naughty-or-nice stakes; and prisons are lousy with the faithful.</p> <p>I’m not very interested in these old arguments. My concern here is with the word ‘reason’. When people do good, I’m not sure they think of the reason for it. In religious terms, I doubt they decide to do something good in the hope of reward from god. In secular terms, I doubt they weigh the costs and benefits. We all just do what we feel is right.</p> <p>We might all rationalise our acts after the fact in terms like this, but I doubt they are our motivations at the time.</p> <p>I suspect we tend to act morally because we evolved that way. Indeed, what we call moral behaviour tends to be more or less universally agreed, regardless of creed or lack thereof.</p> <p>The religious often claim that without the threat of divine punishment they’d commit terrible acts. I don’t believe that. Very few people would stop being essentially decent if their belief in god were to evaporate. I think they’d just need to find a new way to rationalise or explain why they do good things without what they previously considered a ‘reason’.</p> <p>Preferably, they’d lose the idea that there needs to be a reason at all and just carry on trying to be nice to people.</p>latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-53895336645272315432009-03-30T10:28:00.004+01:002009-03-30T21:35:46.836+01:00What's worse than an honour killing?This is:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/women-told-you-have-dishonoured-your-family-please-kill-yourself-1655373.html">http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/women-told-you-have-dishonoured-your-family-please-kill-yourself-1655373.html</a><br /><blockquote>When <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Elif's</span> father told her she had to kill herself in order to spare him from a prison sentence for her murder, she considered it long and hard.<br /></blockquote><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Elif</span> had declined an arranged <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">mariage</span> because she wanted to continue her education. Her loving family sentenced her to death for this imagined crime. This story is common enough: according to the article, government figures report more than 200 honour killings in Turkey, accounting for fully half the number of murders. What makes this worse is the fact that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Elif's</span> father wasn't even prepared to accept the consequences of his actions.<br /><br />Fortunately, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Elif</span> escaped murder, but has been on the run ever since, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">pursued</span> by her family. The article reports that one of the shelters she stayed at was raided by armed family members. It also reports that such forced suicides are common and on the rise.<br /><blockquote>...women who are told to kill themselves are usually given one of three options – a noose, a gun or rat poison. They are then locked in a room until the job is done.<br /></blockquote>It's difficult to see how this constitutes suicide rather than murder in all but the letter of the law. The use of the technicality both depersonalises the act and protects the perpetrators in a society lenient on honour killings.<br /><br />This kind of coercion is entirely despicable, but it gets worse. The article also discusses the case of 17 year old <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Mehmet</span>. A family council decided that his stepmother and her lover should die and that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Mehmet</span> - as the youngest member of the family - should kill them, since his punishment would probably be more lenient. He refused and ran away, but was caught by the family and threatened until he finally did turn the gun on his stepmother and her boyfriend, killing the latter.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Mehmet</span> was jailed for two and a half years. He said that there were many other honour killers in prison and they were treated by respect by other prisoners and by the prison guards.<br /><br />Some people will argue that this is not the fault of religion, but of society. How they can make such a claim is beyond me, however. The rules determining what constitutes a breech of honour are religious. The societal systems that enforce and perpetuate them are religious. The punishments to be expected if the rules are broken are religious. The attitude of women and children being property stems from religion.<br /><br />That religion can inspire someone to kill another for imagined breech of insane rules is hardly a surprise. That they can believe afterwards that they acted correctly is beyond question but starting to stretch belief.<br /><br />That someone could torture another into killing either themselves or someone else solely to save themselves the inconvenience of a prison sentence is so far beyond my experience as a human being that the steps from here to there are almost impossible to imagine.<br /><br />What else but religion could screw up an otherwise sane person in this way and even <span style="font-style: italic;">encourage </span>him to screw up his offspring as well?latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-83317815027038518502009-03-29T07:48:00.002+01:002009-03-29T07:50:21.980+01:00Is intellectual honesty the same as morality?<p>(Posted at <a href="http://www.secularthought.org/node/54">http://www.secularthought.org/node/54</a>)<br /></p><p>I spend more time than I should arguing with creationists. I can't help it: I'm offended by intellectual dishonesty and to be a creationist is to both ignore swathes of scientific evidence and yet to elevate pure speculation to the status of absolute proof. Creationists have no monopoly on intellectual dishonesty, of course and I don't mean to demonise them. However, the interesting part is that I suspect they tend to place more value on honesty than does the population in general.</p> <p>I don't mean by this that they are more honest than the rest of us. I mean that creationists probably think about honesty more and hold it up as more of an ideal. I'm sure they don't think of their beliefs as intellectually dishonest, but when creationists are presented with evidence and proper argument, dishonest is what they become.</p> <p>This leads me to the question of whether intellectual dishonesty is akin to immorality. It gives us an excuse to pick and choose what we want to be true and invent myths to back up any particular choice. We can't do that if we're intellectually honest. We have to go with the evidence.</p> <p>Is intellectual honesty any different from the absolute standard of morality claimed by religions? Yes, because it is built on evidence and subject to peer review, rather than being defined in advance.</p> <p>Does this distinction mean anything much in practice?<br /></p>latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-27237760735322950392009-03-11T10:34:00.002+00:002009-03-11T11:35:15.470+00:00More catholicism. Less delusional but more pathetic<a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5859797.ece">Here</a> the ironically-named Richard Owen of the Times provides us with a pointless little article that rests entirely on what appears to be a deliberate lie and which may constitute libel:<br /><blockquote>The Vatican has rejected the claim by Richard Dawkins, the biologist and campaigning atheist, that evolutionary theory proves that God does not exist.<br /></blockquote>It should hardly be necessary to point out that Dawkins has never said anything of the sort. He is well aware that you can't prove the non-existence of any god (or the celestial teapot, faries, the invisible pink unicorn, the giant green space-lobsters Esmerelda and Keith or the flying spaghetti monster).<br /><br />What Dawkins <span style="font-style: italic;">has </span>said is that evolution means that a creator god is exceedingly unlikely and that there is <span style="font-style: italic;">almost certainly </span>no god. There are two reasons for this. The first is the rather weak argument that evolution leaves very little room for the existence of god. God is unnecessary because evolution would work just fine without one. Applying Occam's razor, evolution means there is no need to hypothesise a god to account for life. The second argument is logically unassailable. Dawkins calls it <span style="font-style: italic;">The Ultimate 747 Gambit</span>. Fred Hoyle is reputed to have said that the likelihood of evolution being able assemble organisms is similar to that of a hurricane in a scrap yard happening to assemble a fully functional Boeing 747. I don't know whether Hoyle really said it, but it is gleefully repeated by opponents of evolution the world over, each apparently convinced both that they are saying something profound and that everybody hasn't heard it before. It is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution and can be discounted at a stroke. Evolution is like a ratchet, locking in the complex structures that have developed so far and modifying it slightly. You don't have to account for the full tale of complexity for each new species because it rests on complex structure that already exists.<br /><br />However, there is an extension to the 747 argument that applies to god. Evolution is the only way we know of for things like life to arise. If god created life, then that god itself must have either been created also or have arisen through something like natural selection. In other words, the god hypothesis can't be an <span style="font-style: italic;">alternative </span>to evolution: at best it just delays the moment where evolution has to be applied. This is just a slightly more sophisticated form of the question that every schoolchild asks: <span style="font-style: italic;">who created god?</span> It's a good question and tends to be all-too-glibly dismissed by adults that don't know the answer either. They say things like "god exists outside time" and "god has always been there", even though they must be aware at some level that this is really no answer at all.<br /><br />And this is Dawkins' position: not that evolution proves god doesn't exist, but that it renders it very, very unlikely. Now that's cleared up, we can get to some more idiocy in the article.<br /><blockquote>Vatican theologians said while Christians believed that God "created all things", the Vatican "does not stand in the way of scientific realities".<br /></blockquote>This is a frankly astonishing statement. It's hard to imagine a scientific reality that it hasn't stood in the way of. This is not just in the past, of course. Tell the scientists working on stem cells that the Catholic church doesn't stand in their way.<br /><blockquote>"recent declarations by Popes have asserted the full accordance of Catholic doctrine and evolutionary biology".<br /></blockquote>Of course they have. Because denying evolution is <span style="font-style: italic;">madness</span>. They had to eventually and grudgingly admit Gallileo was right, too. After a couple of hundred years.<br /><blockquote>He noted that Darwin had never been condemned by the Catholic Church, and that <i>On the Origin of the Species</i> had never been placed on the Index of forbidden books.<br /></blockquote>And they seem to think that they are doing us a <span style="font-style: italic;">favour</span>! You didn't actively ban our books or persecute us, so we should be <span style="font-style: italic;">grateful? </span>This is really how the Vatican things. It's astonishing.<br /><br />Of course, this is all a smokescreen to hide the fact that there is no evidence for the existence of god. What the Vatican is doing is lying to raise a false controversy in the full knowledge that it is entirely irrelevant. They are saying "Ha! Look! There's no proof that god doesn't exist!" At no point are they saying that there's actually any evidence <span style="font-style: italic;">for </span>the existence of god. They're hoping nobody notices.latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-50654673248186887512009-03-10T12:40:00.004+00:002009-03-10T14:04:04.172+00:00Catholic BeastsIt doesn't have a great record. The Catholic church is one of the most deeply unpleasant organisations in history. It forbids contraception then complains about the resulting abortions, poverty, miserable children and the spread of AIDS. It has a long standing tradition of collaborating in <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">atrocities</span> with fascist governments and hushing up the activities of paedophile priests then protecting the perpetrators rather than the victims. There's all the torture and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">inquisition</span>ing to take into account, of course, plus the persecution of scientists through the ages and the continued willful <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">mis-education</span> of the masses.<br /><br />For these reasons, I shouldn't be surprised about the following story, but I am. Basic humanity simply cannot help but rebel against what the church is doing in the strongest possible terms.<br /><br />The story concerns a nine year old girl who has been raped by her stepfather since she was six years old. At nine, it was discovered that she was pregnant with twins. The consequences of her carrying those babies to term are simply unthinkable and thankfully the foetuses were aborted. This is perfectly legal in her home country of Brazil in cases of rape or when the mother's life is in danger, both of which were obviously true in this case.<br /><br />Surely anyone would hope that the tragedy would end there and the family could attempt to put its lives back together. The Catholic church is having none of this, of course. It opposed the abortion in the strongest possible terms, believing that it had the right to interfere in the business of families, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">medicine</span> and the law. It didn't: the abortion went ahead.<br /><br />But the church doesn't like being messed with. It has taken the hump big-style by saying it will excommunicate everyone involved, including the doctors and the distraught mother. It has graciously exempted the girl herself on the grounds of her age (merciful, eh?).<br /><br />Let's just examine this for a moment: Catholics believe that being excommunicated automatically consigns them to hell. I cannot imagine the anguish this girl and her family must have gone through in this tragic episode. Can you conceive of the guilt her mother must be experiencing over the abuse? She probably feels that she somehow allowed it to happen or that she should have known. As hideous of the girl's treatment was, we shouldn't forget that the mother is also a victim. If she is a Catholic, she probably also feels guilty about the abortion itself, although as far as I can tell, she hardly had a choice in the matter. Can you imagine the support the child will need, probably for the rest of her life? You might think that a mother not crippled by guilt and supported in turn by the organisation that claims to have her best interests in heart might be the best person to (hopefully) help her daughter to overcome this trauma and move forward to a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">fulfilling</span> and happy life. Well, <span style="font-style: italic;">wouldn't you</span>?<br /><br />I can only guess how the church's trying to prevent the abortion added to the tragedy and to the anguish of both mother and daughter, nor how it might have crippled the recovery of everyone involved. And now, the mother has been made to believe that she is going to hell for the crime of protecting her daughter in the only way she possibly can. This seems unlikely to help matters.<br /><br />I find it impossible to determine any morality at all in the church's actions and I'm certain that virtually every human being on the planet feels the same way. Could anything other than religion skew <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">someone's</span> sense of morality so badly that they feel that the church is even remotely justified, let alone taking the high ground?latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-22735579024999590822009-02-25T13:47:00.003+00:002009-02-25T14:42:05.030+00:00Even more comfortRay Comfort wants to debate Richard Dawkins and has offered him $10,000 to accept. Richard replied that he'd do it for $100,000 donated to the Richard Dawkins Foundation, with the condition that Ray brings up the banana argument and he gets to film it.<br /><br />Much is hilarious about this and I'm dribbling with anticipation. <br /><br />People have raised a few concerns about the whole business, but I think they're taking it too seriously. I prefer to see the thing as Richard seems to be: it's money snatched from idiots hands and put somewhere it can do some good.<br /><br />There's always the concern about giving people like Ray Comfort the oxygen of publicity, but when you can offset that with a decent contribution to charity and what's bound to be <span style="font-style: italic;">hilarious </span>footage for all, I say let the fun commence.<br /><br />Richard will wipe the floor with Ray and Ray probably won't realise it. Ray will already have worked out his strategy. He'll say something <span style="font-style: italic;">blithering </span>about evolution, Richard will correct it and Ray will cry persecution. Richard will explain that Ray is ignorant of something and Ray will try to turn it into an ad hominem rather than a specific point about a specific argument. <br /><br />Richard knows this. He also knows that anyone that matters - anyone who might be swayed away from idiocy by rational argument - will see clean through Ray and at the least realise that there's something very badly wrong with his arguments.<br /><br />I say go for it. I won't be contributing to the fund though because I'm certain that creationists will come up with the money themselves: it's worth more to people like Ray than it is to people like Richard. <br /><br />Whatever happens, it will be entertaining.latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-85593068590704073552009-02-19T12:19:00.003+00:002009-02-19T13:43:17.730+00:00a bitter ray of comfort<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkucszhRjnA&feature=player_embedded">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkucszhRjnA&feature=player_embedded</a> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br />You may have come across <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Comfort">Ray Comfort</a> before. He's the guy who claims that evolution is false because <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z-OLG0KyR4">bananas are so well designed</a> for being eaten by humans. Presumably he doesn't know (or doesn't care) that the bananas we buy in the shops are - like most other things people eat - bred by humans for the very traits he mentions. Wild bananas are very different indeed and not nearly as convenient or palatable. This is just one example of Ray's particular affliction. You'll find countless others if you look.<br /><br />In this video, Ray cajoles, bullies and generally creeps out two teenagers who plainly know nothing at all about evolution. Eventually, they say something he deems laughable so he ridicules them. It's a familiar tactic with this kind of evangelist and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">noticeably</span> the precise opposite of what a responsible teacher would do. Ray then uses these highly edited videos to illustrate the ridiculousness of evolution and the stupidity of the people that believe in it.<br /><br />That's right: Ray misrepresents the poorly-informed opinions of ill-educated children to make his point. If he'd had an <span style="font-style: italic;">actual </span>point, he could have asked a biologist or even a teenager who understands evolution and played the interview in full, then systematically point out the errors. Better still, he could have discussed his views with the biologist: if the problems with evolution are so obvious and glaring as he says, he'd have run logical rings around the biologist, right? Well this is why he took the cowardly option of using rather ignorant children instead.<br /><br />Ray claims that god made us with six senses, the sixth being 'common sense' (you see what he did there?) Regardless of the fact that humans have far more than six senses (temperature? pressure? time?) atheists are apparently born without this sixth sense and that's why we believe in evolution. Of course, belief in evolution is equivalent to atheism in Ray's mind and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">atheism</span> is equivalent to immorality. It's important to bear this in mind as we consider the two arguments he makes against evolution:<br /><br />1. Nothing 'just happens'. Everything has a creator. Show me a building without a builder, a painting without a painter etc. This weak argument fails on purely logical grounds right out of the trap. Ray himself believes in a creator without a creator. So much for that argument. But it fails on numerous other grounds too. I'll only go into one of these here. Ray's argument hinges on the erroneous idea that evolution 'just happens' - that organisms spontaneously pop into existence fully formed or that they spontaneously and randomly evolve from, say a crocodile into, say a duck. If you think I'm exaggerating or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">mischaracterising</span> Ray's stance, don't forget the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oI9kI_xc_k"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">crocoduck</span></a>. This position is obviously false: no organism is significantly different from either its parents or its offspring. Evolution is defined as a gradual change in the frequency of genes in a gene pool. Over time, this results in changes in the members of that population. Evolution doesn't 'just happen', it is a matter of differential survival of genes.<br /><br />2. When an organism evolves, it needs a mate. The mate has to be in the same place at the same time and be behaviourally and biologically compatible. His assertion is that (since he claims evolution states that new organisms somehow pop into existence spontaneously) this is very unlikely. A dog is born to parents who are presumably nothing like dogs and needs a mate that is also a dog, happens to be of the opposite sex and also presumably born to parents who are nothing like dogs. This is indeed rather more than unlikely, but once again is not at all the way evolution works. Once again, Ray cannot get past the idea that species are not fixed entities but something we humans decided upon by convention. There is nothing special or magical about a species, it's just a convenient label. Something only becomes a new species when we decide to call it one and the problem Ray highlights simply doesn't exist.<br /><br />I find it almost impossible to accept that someone like Ray, who spends <span style="font-style: italic;">so much </span>time talking about evolution, is genuinely so ignorant of it. The points he makes are more than laughable and are easily and simply refuted. It is literally unbelievable that he could continue to genuinely hold these views after all these years and I don't buy it. As I said earlier, Ray thinks he's on a mission from god in a war against atheists, who he believes are evil (regardless of the statistics, which show <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">unequivocally</span> that atheists are no less moral than anyone else). In his mind, belief in evolution leads to atheism, so lying for <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Jesus</span> is a means that is justified by the end. How he squares this with his criticism of atheists as liars is not clear, but I daresay there's a tortured chain of 'logic' in there somewhere.<br /><br />Pat Robertson, needless to say, laps this up like a dog returning to its vomit.<br /><br />Have a little class, Ray. Stop bullying children and misrepresenting the truth. If there's really something wrong with evolution, why do you need to hide behind children? Why are you so afraid to engage experts on their own ground? I'm sure most would be delighted to sit down with you in a spirit of friendly discussion and explain how evolution really works.<br /></span>latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-67261782545392626422009-02-12T06:13:00.005+00:002009-02-12T14:08:49.942+00:00The wrath of godIt had to happen. The religious are <span style="font-style: italic;">shameless</span> at using tragedy to score cheap points in dubious support of their blinkered views. The current situation in Australia has caused an enormous amount of suffering, with 300 dead and hundreds of houses destroyed, communities shattered and lives disrupted.<br /><br />While the first thoughts of most of us are with the victims, certain religious people are rubbing their hands together with glee because they can blame it on 'sin', in this case, <a href="http://catchthefire.com.au/blog/2009/02/10/media-release-abortion-laws-to-blame-for-bush-fires/">abortion</a>.<br /><br />It is unclear why god would choose to punish humanity for allowing new abortion laws to be passed in Victoria and even less clear why he would do so in just about the least just way imaginable. You'd have thought he'd find a less cryptic and more merciful way to point out the error of his creation which - naturally - he already knew would happen.<br /><br />But there you go. There's nothing new in this kind of thing and no logic has ever been required. The tragedy in New Orleans was blamed on one lesbian comedian who lived there (you'd think god's aim might be a little better than that). Following the tsunami in 2004 that killed 350,000 people, the religious were falling over each other to blame it on various brands of what they considered sexual immorality. Even the floods in the North West of England in 2005 was blamed - by Anglican bishops - on pro-gay legislation.<br /><br />It's amazing that homosexuality continues to be practiced with all this smiting going on.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Edit: </span>the pope recently promoted <a href="http://richarddawkins.net/article,3570,n,n">this guy</a> to bishop. He's quite a charmer, blaming both Katrina and the Tsunami on unspecified sexual immorality.<br /><blockquote>"It is surely not an accident that all five of New Orleans' abortion clinics, as well as nightclubs were destroyed,"</blockquote>he wrote, neglecting to mention that New Orleans had one of the most highly religious populations in the world or that churches were also destroyed. Cartoonishly, he also has it in for Harry Potter for spreading a slightly different brand of witchcraft to him.latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-90796692761260285822009-02-11T13:27:00.003+00:002009-02-11T13:59:32.390+00:00faith restored, but i expect normal service to be resumed asapIn a week that has brought us the circus of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeni_Barnett">Jeni Barnett</a> promoting<a href="http://www.badscience.net/2009/02/bad-science-bingo/"> anti-virus quackery</a> on her radio show, shouting down anyone who disagreed with her and then seemingly deleting dissenting comments from her blog (which by the magic of the internet are nevertheless <a href="http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2009/02/jeni-barnett-have-you-lost-something.html">still available</a> if you know where to look) it is nice to have my faith in journalism somewhat restored:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/09/charles-darwin-anniversary">http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/09/charles-darwin-anniversary<br /></a><br />You can tell it's not going to be a run-of-the-mill article from the opening paragraph:<br /><br /><p></p><blockquote><p>The Daily Telegraph called him "the greatest naturalist of our time, perhaps all time". For the Morning Post he was "the first biologist of his day". The Times saluted the rapid victory of Charles Darwin's great idea and said that "the astonishing revelations of recent research in palaeontology have done still more to turn what 20 years ago was a brilliant speculation into an established and unquestionable truth". The Manchester Guardian said that "few original thinkers have lived to see more completely the triumph of what is essential in their doctrine". The St James's Gazette predicted that England's children would one day be taught to honour Darwin "as the greatest Englishman since Newton".</p>These responses appeared in print on 21 April 1882, after the news of Darwin's death at his home in Down, Kent. </blockquote>The author makes the point that the writers of these stories knew the bible and that their readership was mostly devout, many still remembering the original conspiricy on publication of Origin. Neither they nor Darwin knew of the enormous evidence that has amassed since, from the fields of biology, geology and physics, including the understanding of heredity; the discovery and description of DNA; and enormously painstaking work in comparative anatomy.<br /><br />It is interesting, then, that a similar survey of the media on the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, would be unlikely to yeild such praise. It would speak of the 'controversy'. It would make it seem as though the theory was in some doubt.<br /><blockquote>There can be no such equivocation in the week of a survey which showed that only around half of all Britons accept that Darwin's theory of evolution is either true or probably true. In a democracy, citizens should respect each other's beliefs; and citizens have a right to express their beliefs. But in a democracy, a newspaper has an obligation to what is right. The truth is that Darwin's reasoning has in the last 150 years been supported overwhelmingly by discoveries in biology, geology, medicine and space science. The details will keep scientists arguing for another 200 years, but the big picture has not changed. All life is linked by common ancestry, including human life. The shameful lesson of this 200th anniversary of his birth is that Darwin's contemporaries understood more clearly than many modern Britons.</blockquote>It <span style="font-style: italic;">is </span>a shameful lesson. We should all be ashamed for the state we've allowed ourselves to get into: creationists for denying what is evidently the truth and the rest of us for letting religion achieve and remain in such a position of power that we admire blind faith, treat delusion with respect and inexorably march away from the truth.latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13439116351220109.post-68685998272073542322009-02-03T16:26:00.002+00:002009-02-03T16:32:11.713+00:00Dawkins"Twenty-first century evolutionary science, if Darwin could return to see it, would enthrall, excite, and amaze him. But he would recognize it as his own. We are just coloring in the details. For my money, the most important thinker the human species has ever produced was Charles Darwin…. Darwin raises our consciousness to the sinewy power of science to explain the large and complex in terms of the small and simple. In biology we were fooled for centuries into thinking that extravagant complexity in nature needs an extravagantly complex explanation. Darwin triumphantly dispelled that illusion."<br /> -- Richard Dawkins<br /><br />Agreed. I'm glad I live in a time where physicists are just about starting to suffer from biology envy. It's about time. Richard - with beautiful quotes like this - has catalised this process.latsothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416425323815902310noreply@blogger.com0