1. Biology Enters 'The Matrix' Through New Computer Language

Comment #219869 by Cyboman on July 27, 2008 at 4:29 pm

This strikes me as pure hype. The abstraction and modularity requirements of a problem domain (protein in this case) can be implemented in almost any modern programming language. Secondly, any programming language can "build things for you". Nothing new about that. Thirdly, the artificial intelligences implications implied in the article are not new either. We've had artificial neural networks and reasoning algorithms for decades that can get "smarter".

It may be useful or more efficient to work with a language that is specifically targeted to your problem domain (not really, but people think that anyway). However, a new language will not do much for science other than make the life of scientists a little more convenient.

2. Six 'uniquely' human traits now found in animals

Comment #184101 by Cyboman on May 23, 2008 at 3:47 pm

"It's all a matter of degree. Animals have less morals, less personality, less tool use, etc. But they have them to a certain degree.
So, nothing special about humans!"

Even still, most people believe it is justifiable to use animals for painful experimentation and to raise them in cruel factory farms where they're treated like farm equipment.

3. 2007 Audiobook Download of the Year: The God Delusion

Comment #99189 by Cyboman on December 15, 2007 at 9:10 pm

I didn't know Infidel was on Audible. I'll have to get that next.

Heathen Dan:
I don't see those titles on Audible. I guess I'll have to keep my eyes open in the audio-book section of bookstores.

4. 2007 Audiobook Download of the Year: The God Delusion

Comment #99091 by Cyboman on December 15, 2007 at 1:40 pm

I agree with Jesus4Dawkins. If I'm correct The God Delusion is the only audio book Dawkins has made. I would immediately get the rest of his books on Audible if they were available. Same with Dennett and Hitchens (they do have God is Not Great). Both of Sam's books are on Audible.

5. 2007 Audiobook Download of the Year: The God Delusion

Comment #98863 by Cyboman on December 14, 2007 at 7:04 pm

Matt7895,
If you are a audible member you can get 2 books for free if you pay for paying $20 a month. So I was able to get this book on audible for $10. I recommend the service.

6. Sam Harris seems like a nice fellow, but very confused

Comment #77292 by Cyboman on October 9, 2007 at 1:08 am

I agree with Sam. The word 'atheist' is semantically illogical (as others have said). To be an atheist is to approach a religious claim the same way you would approach any claim. That is, with a justifiable measure of skepticism. So it makes as much sense as the word 'afairiest' does. I think that we are debating this is silly though. If you want to call yourself and atheist there is no reason not to. Despite it being inherently illogical it is, in the context of our world, undoubtedly useful. However, I think it is useful advice to just consider oneself rational, justifiably skeptical and therefore not persuaded by religious claims.

7. Orthodox Call on Sinners To Give Chickens a Fairer Shake

Comment #66857 by Cyboman on August 31, 2007 at 8:54 pm

I'm surprised there isn't more of this kind of thing. One of the central theological tenets of the Old Testament is animal sacrifice. It seems like on every other page someone is killing an animal to take care of there sins and Leviticus (if I remember correctly) is almost principally concerned with the proper way to perform animal sacrifices. Factory farming has reached moral standards that would make most people become vegetarians if they knew how they operated. I'm concerned that our religious traditions prevent us from seeing how immoral our treatment of livestock animals is because people can say "There's nowhere in the bible that says we have to treat animals nicely".

8. CNN Request for 'I-Reports' on religion

Comment #65259 by Cyboman on August 23, 2007 at 11:35 am

Here's mine

I don't need to live my life by faith. Faith is belief without evidence. Therefore, faith is a psychological need not a pragmatic one. The fact that people have acquired a psychological need to circumvent their faculty of reason suggests to me that faith is a psychological problem of sorts.

I believe that faith is under attack by modern society because modern societies have benefited from the Age of Enlightenment which championed reason. Faith is under attack anytime people embrace reason and evidentiary thinking.

People should be allowed to believe whatever they want (an idea that is attributable to modernity but that could never be attributed to an Abrahamic religion). However, if the West wants to continue to enjoy its standard of living we must keep the religious impulse well tamed. This was recognized over 200 years by Thomas Jefferson when he erected the wall between church and state. If people want to tear down this wall, poke holes in it, or destroy it in any way they should realize that there are other countries with well established theocratic governments where they may be able to enjoy a more pious life.

Obviously I have no pictures of myself worshiping a supernatural deity that demands worship because I'm convince there is no evidence to suggest there is one. However, if the jealous, genocidal egomaniac of our Abrahamic faiths manifested himself in the real world for people to worship it would probably look and feel something like this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3dC2aDHtEqk

9. Resisting peer pressure: new findings shed light on adolescent decision-making

Comment #59083 by Cyboman on July 27, 2007 at 8:18 am

What would the world be like if a safe drug could be developed that could strengthen these decision making connections. Could unjustifiable conformity be ended? Would children stop smoking to fit in? Would gang related behavior diminish? Would radio and TV be better? Would war hysteria be harder to achieve? Would religion die?

10. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58712 by Cyboman on July 25, 2007 at 11:49 pm

My god that was obnoxious! I guess someone has to ask these questions though.

11. Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton

Comment #53357 by Cyboman on July 1, 2007 at 2:01 am

oxytocin
You may be right and I may be nuts. But Hitchens claims not to be interested in ending religion the way Harris and Dawkins are. He's very interested in "taming" it. I think the people he is trying to persuade aren't religionists but rather secularists and fence-sitters that are unsure how seriously patent irrationality ought to be taken. He knows his arguments are well received by secularists so there's no need to win a debate which in reality was won centuries ago. No matter how air tight your case for atheism is the religionists will always make up the most elaborate and fanciful excuses for believing what they believe. Don't get me wrong though, I think the debate is one of the greatest things going on right now.

12. Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton

Comment #53344 by Cyboman on June 30, 2007 at 9:54 pm

I don't think it is that important for Hitchens to directly answer the questions he's asked in a "debate" against religion. This may sound nutty but let me explain. It's not really a debate when Sharpton argues positions he can't possible provide evidence for. It's just a charade. It's more important for Hitchens to highlight and emphasize key arguments, answer questions he would like to be asked and be entertaining. Either people get his arguments and are motivated by them or they can't be reached. Hitchens seems more interested in galvanizing the zeitgeist toward enlightenment ideals than responding directly to the silly arguments people continually make. Not that he is always evasive by any means it's just sometimes he would rather answer (and I would rather hear) a more interesting question than the one that was asked of him. If someone can be argued out of religion it will take more that 20 minutes.

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

Comment #48766 by Cyboman on June 9, 2007 at 2:44 am

It's nice to finally see some intellectual honesty from a religious apologist.

14. Scientists divided over alliance with religion

Comment #45967 by Cyboman on May 29, 2007 at 9:33 pm

This is a gut reaction but reason should stand its ground. Reason shouldn't negotiate with unreason. This would make reason look week. It would validate unreason. Ostracize unreason and let it die in the wilderness. In the educated world there are enough reasonable people to do this if they are steadfast.

15. Despite what the scholars say, God isn't dead yet

Comment #44237 by Cyboman on May 23, 2007 at 8:00 pm

"Nazism's propaganda was written with the help of a legion of scholars from the hard and soft sciences, from anthropologists, philologists, psychologists and economists to biologists, zoologists and doctors."

It's interesting to note that religion has it's own "scientists" eager to implement its own *ideologically* sound science. ID scientists, young earth geologists and astronomers (one would have to assume), Scientology's approach to mental health, faith healing doctors, physics/metaphysics etc... Religion also has its own version of history, its own ideas about literature, aesthetics, anthropology, etc... It would also eagerly begin work on a legal system if given free reign. There is no reason to think that a religious form of economics couldn't be devised. In short, religion is an all encompassing world-view with all the "intellectuals" it needs to create a totalitarian theocracy just as irrational and sinister as the Nazi state.

16. Would the World Be Safer Without Religion?

Comment #43494 by Cyboman on May 21, 2007 at 6:38 pm

First I think one of the things we will first be seeing is religious people starting to deal with the serious charges that are being brought against their irrationality. This article is a positive example of this.

Second there is a contradiction in the article:

"This seems to be the view in Europe, where rates of religious observance have been in sharp decline for a century"

"Some people would say yes, and since it's impossible to conduct this experiment, as faith is definitely not going away, we can't be sure"

I think faith will go away as the original quote implies.

17. Dogma

Comment #40722 by Cyboman on May 14, 2007 at 7:34 pm

This is great. Next time I am in an online discussion and somebody brings up the old "well atheists are evil too" routine I can use this. Thanks.

18. Anderson Cooper interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #39781 by Cyboman on May 11, 2007 at 11:03 pm

Of course religion can be extirpated. %80 of Sweden is already atheist. Religion has never been properly confronted. When it is properly confronted it will surly die.

19. Lou Dobbs w/ Hitchens on Al Sharpton's Bigoted Remark

Comment #39775 by Cyboman on May 11, 2007 at 10:54 pm

Unintentional conversational intolerance. Splendid!

20. The Debate: Can We Live by Reason Alone?

Comment #39771 by Cyboman on May 11, 2007 at 10:43 pm

I have to say I really enjoyed this. Its amazing how good RD is in an interview. I guess it takes 3 theists to respond to him.

21. The New Atheists loathe religion far too much to plausibly challenge it

Comment #38391 by Cyboman on May 8, 2007 at 1:10 am

"Does religion still have an important role in human wellbeing? In recent years, research has thrown up some remarkable benefits - the faithful live longer, recover from surgery quicker, are happier, less prone to mental illness and so the list goes on. If religion declines, what gaps does it leave in the functioning of individuals and social groups?

This isn't the kind of debate that the New Atheists are interested in"

Sam Harris has said that it is "incumbent upon us to create a science of human happiness". He also talks at great links in The End of Faith about using science and Buddhism (as a starting point) to discover ways to be happier, more empathetic, etc..

22. God Exists. A Formula Proves it.

Comment #37811 by Cyboman on May 5, 2007 at 7:42 pm

Did anyone else see the banana in the equation. Clearly a link.

23. Religion & Culture Panel

Comment #36301 by Cyboman on April 30, 2007 at 9:25 pm

I saw this on Book TV last weekend. I don't know if the video clip had enough resolution but on TV you could see he was holding a sign and presenting it to the crowd. It wasn't clear what it said.

What was interesting was when Jonathan Kirsch explained to Hitchens that the problem with his critique was that he didn't understand the moderates half-believe their (apparent) faiths - as if that is the normative way to be religious. The thing is, of course, that it is true. Moderates do half-believe in their religions (religion being their explanation to the most important questions about the universe and ethics). But how is this not a problem (though actually believing fully would, of course, be much worse).

24. Two idiots get a forum

Comment #35933 by Cyboman on April 29, 2007 at 11:19 am

That was the most erotic explanation of ID I have ever seen.

25. Pundit Christopher Hitchens picks a fight in book, 'God is Not Great'

Comment #35819 by Cyboman on April 29, 2007 at 1:43 am

It may be read only by the choir and a few religious, but curious, people. What it's really going to do is help release new, better arguments and ideas into our meme-pool. Books like these are written for societies, not individuals. Strong atheists, are learning to argue better. Journalists are invoking names like Dawkins, Harris and so forth when interviewing conservatives. The so called "college" discussions about the validity of religion are getting more interesting and lucid. Ideas about atheism are getting exposure in news papers. These are just a few reasons these books are important and effective.

26. Bill O'Remix

Comment #35321 by Cyboman on April 26, 2007 at 9:20 pm

The remix didn't make Bill look anymore ridiculous but at least it had nice music.

27. NEXT MONDAY: Bill O'Reilly interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #34334 by Cyboman on April 23, 2007 at 8:18 pm

I disagree with must of the negative appraisals that have been posted here. I think this event was terrific. First, the important thing here is that RD got his message out to this wide audience. This is much more important than FOX, O'Reilly and the republican propaganda machine. Secondly, Of coarse Bill's remarks were a little ill conceived (I may be being a little nice here) but consider this. If Bill were any more passive would you believe you were actually watching the "Factor". Bill seems more welcoming of atheism than we may be able to believe.