1. A biologist reviews an evolution textbook from the ID camp

Comment #255155 by mandelstam on September 27, 2008 at 1:23 am

A lot of people are stupid, even some quite clever ones.... I can understand people who have a precious idea or feeling that is undermined by evidence questioning conclusions from that evidence. Scientists have been known to do this. Even ones as distinguished as Einstein. But what is deeply shocking and scary is not the stupidity but the dishonesty. It is this characteristic that pervades all of the Intelligent Design arguments. It is a habit of mind, and not just regarding evolution, that is insisted upon by ID's proponents and it will lead to terrible places and terrible actions. This is much bigger than just the status of evolution, and as an outsider (not from USA) I really worry about what can happen to that country. Mine too as the poison inevitably spreads....

2. An Original Confession

Comment #207289 by mandelstam on July 9, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Everybody should read Origin, and then read Osip Mandelstam's (not me, I just borrow his name) essay "On the Naturalists" and it's Addenda. It's an interesting & original view of Darwin, and indicates that at least sometimes, in some cultures, C.P. Snow's two culture criticism did not apply.

3. The death-of-god debate

Comment #148444 by mandelstam on March 23, 2008 at 5:17 am

It is easter so once again religion is given it's special place. I am like most atheists happy to accept that christians celebrate this festival, and assign it any meaning they choose, and gain any comfort they can from it. However, I am not glad that on the basis of a quite absurd faith (please go to the vatican website and look up transubstantiation as an example) an individuals views on scientific questions are front page news and an important ethical & scientific debate is trivialised by his ignorant intervention. I refer to the Sunday Herald and the debate on the Human emryology bill, I'm sure the articles will appear here in due course meantime go to: http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2140437.0.0.php
I like Simon Jenkins article; the assumption that a religiose persons point of view is worthwhile on that basis alone needs to be challenged at all times. It needs to be restated frequently because it is not yet understood as being the main cause of the recent upsurge in "Atheist" literature. I do not wish to convert anyone to anything except reason, and to trust in the human mind, and understanding it's complexities.
Lastly, Michaelangelo always turns up for some reason. I love the pieta, but if only people would look at it, and not decide what it is about. Does it looke like the mother of a 33 year old man cradling his corpse? Does it matter that it has a religious explanation, any more than Apollo & Daphne, or any other mythology?
Oh. Rant over.

4. The atheist delusion

Comment #144076 by mandelstam on March 15, 2008 at 3:15 am

Once again someone completely misses the point. I would get angry at how lazy these articles are if I was not overwhelmed by exasparation and ennui....

Just to be clear. I am an atheist, you are a (insert religion here). I do not claim any special dispensation for my opinions or arguments because I am an atheist, and I do not grant you any because you are a (whatever). I do not wish to convert you to anything except reason. I will examine the basis of your arguments reasonably. I will not quietly allow you to make laws on the basis of your religion, or to protect your religion. Feel free to say, believe or even poroseltyse anything you choose, but accept all the above.

Now go and read what Bishop Devine or the president of Iran have to say. Grant them special privelage for their religiosity if you wish, but grant me the right to say that because of their religion, they are ignorant, bigoted & potentially harmful. But I feel no impulse to compel them to silence, I just want the freedom to be able say that without fear of retribution or spurious accusations of "offending" them. This modest claim makes me a fundamentalist?

5. God's Still Dead

Comment #64728 by mandelstam on August 21, 2007 at 1:22 pm

Again this point that keeps coming up, the point that atheistic dictarships are as bad or worse than theistic ones. And yet we can examine atheistic dictatorships and reach our conclusions. Nobody wants to be a nazi....


Except they do.

The single most important agreement between Hitchens and Dawkins is that religions, all of them, are untrue. Even the secular ones. An examination of what it is to be human, and what it is to be good can only start from there.

I don't think it's very hard, but I'm obviously wrong....

6. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #63011 by mandelstam on August 12, 2007 at 10:35 pm

John c

Not all roman engineers were roman, nor all greek philosophers greek. The point is that the use of a religious definition is wrong. It is used as a justifacation by association. Perhaps we could say that the the current use of "Common Era" in place of "Anno Domini" is a good illustration, although ironically this has been in part to appease islamic sensitivities.

7. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62933 by mandelstam on August 12, 2007 at 11:12 am

In reply to epeeist & Freind Giskard

You could argue about a list of Catholic scientists that would include Galileo. It would be about as pointless, but at least the irony would be more easily apparant...

8. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62918 by mandelstam on August 12, 2007 at 10:04 am

Greek philosophy & Roman engineering yes but not polytheist, Jovian or Jupiterian engineering & philosophy. Arabian Science, not Islamic.

I'm not sure how minor it is. Religion gains much of it's credibility by insinuating itself as essential to certain ideas that it has no claim on.

A present bugbear of mine is that on the BBC website there is a "Religion & Ethics" section, and that makes no more sense to me than coupling religion & science. But the pairing is a very useful tool for religious apologists. Its all about consciousness raising, as a good man said.

9. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62910 by mandelstam on August 12, 2007 at 9:28 am

John C:
Yes I have. But it is always refreshing to be the recipient of that most attractive of human gestures, the sneer...
I did not say the article called for islamic science. I said that it and the debate miss the point that there is not and never has been such a things as :

"Islam's scientific greatness"
"Islam's magnificent Golden Age in the 9th, 13th centuries brought about major advances in mathematics"
etc, etc,

Often religious appologists use this type of appelation to maintain that religion is at the centre of things.

The article is very brave & it's conclusion could hardly be argued with.

10. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62892 by mandelstam on August 12, 2007 at 8:12 am

The article and most of the posts miss the important point. There are no achievements of muslim science. There are no acheivements of greek, christian or jewish science(refer to Richard Feynman, if you must). There is science, sometimes done by muslims, jews, christians, greeks; all sorts really. The science is essential, the religion, where it is not actually harmful, is inessential, irrelevant. A debate like this only serves to put the religiose where they like to be, at the centre of things. Nothing in what they assert about the nature of reality merits such consideration.

11. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #62860 by mandelstam on August 12, 2007 at 1:56 am

In reply to comment 1 by Donald: see this

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2147103,00.html

Scary.

12. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62738 by mandelstam on August 11, 2007 at 4:52 am

To paraphrase: some time in the distant past some people in a place where Islam was the predominant religion did some science and mathematics of value. Then religion won the day & it stopped.

Science is essential, Islam is not. It is really very simple.

13. All the mistakes of the godly are merely metaphor

Comment #57467 by mandelstam on July 19, 2007 at 12:48 pm

I don't think christians are all stupid, but..
I had a friend (no longer) who is an evangelical christian and says the bible is literally true. It isn't stupidity that appalls me but the intellectual violence he and others like him must do to themselves. It is truly dreadful, and frightening, because that violence they feel mandated to inflict on others. And most "civilised" countries encourage it being done to children.

14. A force for good?

Comment #55151 by mandelstam on July 10, 2007 at 5:54 am

"They offer a caricature of religion and then say, there, it's absurd."

and with no further comment, from the vatican website:

"The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation."

15. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #48774 by mandelstam on June 9, 2007 at 3:18 am

I agree that this should be read with respect, but only because it is a moral duty to listen to our fellow humans. But I do not agree that it is honest. The dishonesty of the religiose has roots in the intellectual violence they must daily inflict upon themselves. You can view this with sadness or pity or contempt. But it does not engender respect.
Atheists are atheists because there is no god. We are active because we fear the assertion that because some person or idea is religious there should be legal protections for them, special powers to interfere in our sexual lives, scientific debates, and any aspect of our lives they see fit to pronounce upon. That these special treatments should be considered a fit subject for legislation is horrifying. The real battle is not the misrepresentations of Sacks last paragraph, but for a reasoned debate about the powers of religion in society.

16. Why Christopher Hitchens is not Great

Comment #40864 by mandelstam on May 15, 2007 at 5:56 am

One thing about the abstinence/ condom thing. Hitchens points out that a religion must have rules or standards you cannot meet. Then you are in perpetual supplicant mode. They love the missionary position, those christians.

17. Nisbet and Mooney in the WaPo: snake oil for the snake oil salesmen

Comment #32024 by mandelstam on April 15, 2007 at 9:20 am

I think that the obvious conclusions of an educated (however that education was acquired) interest in science is atheism. But atheism is nothing. Even the word does not define anything concrete, it is a negation merely. So if you do not see how that can be frightening, and respect that fear, then I think that you lack some aspect of empathy, therefore of humanity. This is the root of the pointless anger that arises in any religion/ science debate & it is this that, clumsily I think, the original article tried to address.

18. Is God poison?

Comment #30863 by mandelstam on April 10, 2007 at 5:40 am

Apart from the standard misrepresentations of Prof Dawkins I welcome the fact such articles are written. They are at least temperate & present arguments that can be answered. Also it reminds me that while it probably is true that we can not really expect religion to die (or even, god forbid, be killed)in the foreseeable future, we can expect "faith" to be examined critically, even by some of the faithful. And much, much more importantly we can begin (or maintain) the essential process of establishing that it is not acceptable to conduct social policy, establish legislation or otherwise exercise power over others on the justification that it is required by one's religion, no matter how moderate. I think that even Bethune implicitly accepts that.