1. Richard Dawkins interviewed by John Humphrys on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor

Comment #177970 by Sargeist on May 10, 2008 at 4:49 am

Verylee:

Indeed, just what I was going to write. I can't help feeling that these things (in this case, a churchman saying that non-believers should be respected {apparently}) are reported so loudly for the basic reason that we simply *don't* expect those people to respect anyone.

A paradox of the "impartial" news is, I think, that one can actually see exactly where partiality lies by examining those things that are deemed newsworthy.

2. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177044 by Sargeist on May 8, 2008 at 1:48 pm

It's not just me, thank goodness: This is just pages and pages of meaninglessness.

3. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #171528 by Sargeist on April 28, 2008 at 2:35 pm

Tomorrow's Daily Mail headline:

"Monkeys stealing hard working fishermen's jobs"

4. Does science make belief in God obsolete?

Comment #170838 by Sargeist on April 28, 2008 at 5:01 am

Could someone enlighten me as to when the idea that God is perfectly good arose? It seems that in the OT God is simply a very powerful being that wants to do whatever he wants (and he really is a "he"), and there is no real concept of being good or bad, just powerful and desirous of being obeyed. Very much like the Greek pantheon, even down to not knowing everything (such as not knowing Adam and Eve would disobey, and not knowing where Adam was in the garden one day.)

5. Does science make belief in God obsolete?

Comment #170835 by Sargeist on April 28, 2008 at 4:56 am

Talking to a Catholic yesterday, I was struck by the thought that there might not actually be *anything* that could occur that would make her question whether her god was perfectly good or not. It doesn't matter if it's earthquakes, tsunamis or plane crashes, nothing rocked her belief that god was basically wonderful.

When I mentioned the Big Flood she said: "Well, he did promise never to do that again". And when I mentioned the recent tsunami she said, "Well, not as many were killed that time."

6. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170062 by Sargeist on April 27, 2008 at 10:25 am

I'm afraid that I find the idea of a t-shirt with "women should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen" quite amusing. But if I saw someone wearing it I would no doubt assume it was some kind of postmodern savage irony.

"Worship Satan, Not Jesus": now *that's* something I can definitely support!! Black metal PROVES that the Devil has all the best tunes.

7. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170061 by Sargeist on April 27, 2008 at 10:22 am

Bonzai,

Bonobos *and* dolphins? What terrible sites are you visiting?

I'm sorry to say that I've only just caught up again with the various posts made since I left last night. Phew! It's hard work this site.

I'm still not sure how I would have behaved if I had had to make a decision on the t-shirt. Perhaps this is why I am not a judge. I think, though, that I would most likely have told him he was not permitted. And then say back and laughed at the whiny Christians who objected.

This thread has made me realise once again, though, that the people who visit this site have a large variety of interesting things to say. I learn a great deal almost every time I come here (to catch up on 3 million comments...)

8. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169658 by Sargeist on April 26, 2008 at 1:35 pm

MaxD,

I am always rather conflicted here. I agree with your post almost entirely, but then I find myself agreeing with the converse positions of some others! Perhaps this is a good thing - it avoids me being overly dogmatic!

I am bothered by laws against hate speech. I'm afraid I cannot remember who said it (I've not got a lot of time right now to go searching) but it was said earlier that the people who are responsible for actions should be the people who carry out those actions. If I stand on a stage and tell people to go and kill their parents, and no one listens to me, am I guilty of incitement? What if the Beatles at the height of their fame were to do the same? I contend that a number of parents would have wound up dead as a direct result. If both I and the Beatles *want* to cause people to kill their parents, but only one of us has the power, does that mean only those with the power are to be held accountable?

(sorry, may be a really crap example - I hope you get my gist)

9. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169655 by Sargeist on April 26, 2008 at 1:31 pm

newskin,

I think it has been said here on a number of occasions by the lovely, learned populace of this site (grovel grovel) that it is a fun idea to have society move on collectively towards a greater tolerance and understanding of each other, to try to achieve the maximum amount of happiness for everyone.. and then to watch with glee as the goddists have to *really* mangle their ancient teachings to get them to fit in.

10. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169652 by Sargeist on April 26, 2008 at 1:29 pm

PGFM: sorry, I was being a little exaggerated (but only a little, I do still go around filled with hate for much of the population - the ones with the hoodies, stupidly low jeans, and loud mobiles mostly) in my earlier post. It may not have been the funniest thing, I admit. :-/

11. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169647 by Sargeist on April 26, 2008 at 1:25 pm

I've been trying to work out how I think I would have reacted to the student's t-shirt. On the one hand, as people have said, it might be useful to let everyone see what sort of man this student is. On the other, offending people in that fashion cannot be something to encourage.

On balance, and because children don't have any sense, and because they still need to be taught how to behave, and because we eventually lose the chance to control them when they leave school... because of all these things, I think that I have to come down on the side of those who would not have permitted him to wear it.

But... I am still torn! One thing the story didn't make clear was whether the Day of Silence was something that all the students were expected to join in with. Would the not joining in signal an attitude similar to the wearing of the controversial t-shirt? I never got involved in Comic Relief at work or college because I didn't want people telling me who I should prefer to give any charitable donations to. And sometimes it is just nice to go against the flow, to assert the illusion of free will a little.

12. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169642 by Sargeist on April 26, 2008 at 1:05 pm

Hmmmmmm,

If I may, I'd like to tease out a little of what my reaction is to the sentence:

You make some good points within that area, but it diminishes the importance of the problem to lump it in with, for instance, "being skinny".

13. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169634 by Sargeist on April 26, 2008 at 12:40 pm

I'm thinking about some of the points that have been raised. I am obviously biased in my views about certain types of bullying. I know what the feeling is like to have people surround you calling you names. Is this worse than my ancestors being enslaved? Well, I've not much of an idea about who my ancestors were or what happened to them. Maybe if I had been told that I need to find out about them in order to have more self worth things would be different. As it is, I am left in adulthood with a lingering paranoia that anyone who looks my way could well be thinking that I look "funny" in some way. But we are all the sum of our experiences, and it's meaningless to wonder if the person I am now would like to be the person I would be if I had been treated differently.

The idea of the hate behind the abuse is an interesting one. I don't see that we can infer a motive from the abuse, only from what people say about why they are doing it. I do indeed doubt that any skinny, red-haired or unathletic teens were actually hated. But, conversely, I doubt that all teens who are called "gay" are being hated. Or is it okay to call someone gay so long as they are heterosexual?

This is one of those topics like the abortion one - it's a minefield to dare to wander into. At least no one has yet said: "You don't know what it's like to be X, Y, Z, so you have no right to comment."

14. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169622 by Sargeist on April 26, 2008 at 12:17 pm

Peace:

I do, of course, think that racist comments are appalling, but I'm afraid that I shall have to be unpopular in my opinion here and stick to my guns! (well, until I get persuaded of my errors, no doubt)

Anyway, I was in Tesco last Friday and an Indian/Pakistani guy went past me using sign language to the friend he was with. A white kid near to me thought it was funny to say "Paki" to him as he went past. The humour, it seems, coming from the fact that the abusee would not have heard him. Now, this got my blood boiling so much that I had to leave the shop for fear of getting my head smashed in after confronting said abusive cretin. It occurs to me that I might not have been quite so filled with rage if the abuse had been, say, of a ginger-haired person. I don't know, of course. But this could just be a social conditioning.

15. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169612 by Sargeist on April 26, 2008 at 12:06 pm

Steve: No of course not. But I did get called a "runt" quite a lot, which did get me very upset, and did lead to a (not very long lived, I admit) period of self harm. So, I'm afraid that I don't see your point at all.

Is it, basically, that the *history* of the abuse makes any current re-enactments more serious? So, it's not the mere abuse itself, but what we feel it might become? I suppose I can sympathise with this. But my being called a runt would never have got any interest from the police. And I just thought, this is something I shall have to get over. Maybe this has been good for me: I eventually managed to realise that those people's opinions didn't matter. But this could have been because I didn't have society on my side.

16. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169603 by Sargeist on April 26, 2008 at 11:46 am

When I was at school, I got bullied verbally and physically quite a lot for being:
bad at sport
tall and skinny
having bad glasses
bad hair
being top of my classes
and it always pissed me off that people could insult the lanky guy, and the red haired guy, and the fat guy, but god help you if you made any comments about a person's colour. Ooh, no, cos *that* would be really naughty. If the bullying still affects me to this day, as it no doubt has done for many many others, why should it be less serious than racism? Is it because I could have become better at sport, put on some weight, got a better haircut and tried hard to do less well in exams? Should I change so as to avoid their ridicule? Or is the difference simply one of degree? No one was murdered or persecuted on a large scale just because they were tall and red haired, so we don't have to watch out for a ginger pogrom?

Actually, I am no doubt answering my own question: it must be that, deep down, we know that we humans would mostly love to do away with certain types of people. And we're afraid of that. So we have to try really hard to avoid the temptation.

Similarly, there have been lots of comical parodies of George W Bush's facial expressions, comparing him to a chimpanzee. If Obama were to become president and turn out to be an imbecile, too, would we see similar humour being employed?

17. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #169561 by Sargeist on April 26, 2008 at 9:53 am

teratornis:

Great post. I enjoyed it immensely.

I do tend to shake my head in wonderment, though, at the (apparent) lack of any media interest in things such as peak oil, food price increases, house price increases (in the UK) and the absurd levels of credit being doled out to people.

"Shall we put these on the front page? Nah, there's some woman dropped a sausage roll and was fined for it, that's got *much* more human interest..."

Cretins.

18. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169407 by Sargeist on April 26, 2008 at 2:39 am

First Cradle of Filth, now Marduk! This is indeed a great occasion for lovers of black metal everywhere.

(even though CoF are not 'true' black metal, and are certainly not 'kvlt')

Marduk have a pretty good song on one of their albums titled "Christraping Black Metal".

19. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168994 by Sargeist on April 25, 2008 at 1:57 pm

I've had to skip 12 pages because of my not being able to keep up, but I am saddened to see that someone is still here. Someone earlier suggested that we should stop responding, and I am now seeing the wisdom of this suggestion.

20. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168971 by Sargeist on April 25, 2008 at 1:39 pm

3760. Comment #167797 by The Reverend Dark:

I have noticed a trend in your posts, much in the way that a Rhinocerous would notice if you rammed an arm ups its arse and then gave the St Crispin Day speach in sign language.

21. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #168961 by Sargeist on April 25, 2008 at 1:34 pm

j.mills:

"Jesus is a c*nt" is a t-shirt for the (so-called) black metal band Cradle of Filth.

I've seen another t-shirt around with "Jesus loves you... but I think you're a c*nt" on it.

I like that one, but I think I'd rather like a nice simple "There is no god" slogan.

22. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #167563 by Sargeist on April 24, 2008 at 7:02 am

Cartomancer:

Seeing as we're vaguely off-topic for a mo: I agree with you entirely.

23. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #167561 by Sargeist on April 24, 2008 at 7:01 am

irate,

I admit it, I am scared by even the *thought* of touching your dog collar.

24. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #167541 by Sargeist on April 24, 2008 at 6:41 am

Woo! I've just noticed that I was used as an example of atheist violence!

This is superb! Have at you, Diacanu and irate - you've been angry for longer than me, and it was me he mentioned! Hurrah! More exclamation marks! Me, me, me! Oh, how my life now has meaning!

Bollocks.

25. Judge orders La. school district to stop Bible giveaways

Comment #167366 by Sargeist on April 24, 2008 at 1:02 am

I'm with Avzen on this one. I appreciate that there is limited time in the school year to teach *everything* one might want to, but religion is such a prevalent thing that it seems odd to me that people can't be taught about it.

Is it perhaps the gung ho attitudes of the religious in the USA that would make it unworkable? By this I mean that a more secular environment might find it more straightforward to discuss a variety of topics without having to sneeze the word "bullshit!" every time a religion other than Christianity, say, was mentioned.

26. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166437 by Sargeist on April 23, 2008 at 8:46 am

I have not arise.
You will not arised.
I cannot arisen.
I should not have wished to be arisicated.
Who is he who seeks the house of Marcus Licus?

27. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166405 by Sargeist on April 23, 2008 at 8:15 am

This really pisses me off. None of it makes the blindest bit of sense!

Remnant: *what* is it that I am going to get on judgement day for my nonbelief in god?

28. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166360 by Sargeist on April 23, 2008 at 7:37 am

There are so many irritatingly smug bloody ways that the goddists can get out of any problems we-who-are-not-entirely-cretinous raise about the flood:

Oh the animals were vegetarians on the ark
Oh, God made it so they didn't need as much food
Oh, God made it so that they didn't need their usual habitats

So many excuses, really, that I am left wondering why God didn't just make all those nasty horrible humans just vanish into thin air. Why all this dicking about with floods, and pillars of salt, and volcanic blah.

One of the main troubles with the god-botherers is that, I think, they actually *lack* imagination. Their God is just a human with the power turned up a bit. cf. my usual comments about the banality of miracles. What's that Jesus? Liquid into liquid again?! Woopee-fucking-do.

29. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166355 by Sargeist on April 23, 2008 at 7:34 am

gr8:

There was a letter to one or other of the broadsheets a while back (sorry, cannot recall exactly) that said, essentially, that creationism makes one viable prediction: that the geographic distribution of land animals should be rotationally symmetric about Mount Ararat.

30. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #166288 by Sargeist on April 23, 2008 at 5:07 am

One of the most infuriating things about (most?) theists is the way you can almost literally *hear* the ears shut, and the brain close off at the slightest hint of anything that draws attention to inconsistency in their thinking.

One of my girlfriend's friends is exactly like this. Quite willing to believe any old bollocks about Father Pio's spirit hanging around looking after her (said to her by her - surely - psychopathic father), about how people have been saved from tsunamis by making the sign of the cross. And just constant constant bullshit about faith this and faith that, and faith coming out of my fucking ears. Raaaa! It is all I can do sometimes not to smack their overly fucking smug faces in.

*deep breath*

31. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #166270 by Sargeist on April 23, 2008 at 4:27 am

Barry,

Your comment reminded me of the bit in The Mummy, where the greasy sort-of-bad guy uses all of his lucky charms one after the other to protect himself.

32. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #166261 by Sargeist on April 23, 2008 at 4:18 am

The title of this article is a trick question, right?

What's that? It's not? We're supposed to take the question seriously? Oh, okay then:

Yes.

(next!)

33. Resentment Over Darwin Evolves Into a Documentary

Comment #165713 by Sargeist on April 22, 2008 at 5:07 am

Steve,

I'm so glad you said tha, because I've been waning for so long o say i myself, and I wasn' sure if I would be able o wihou rying to make some ill-advised sarcasic remark.

hanks!

34. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163925 by Sargeist on April 19, 2008 at 9:42 am

Goodness, this cut and paste insanity does become rather wearing, doesn't it?

I confess that I find it rather hard to think myself down into the mindset that thinks that "ooh, organs must have evolved one at a time, in their modern forms" is meaningful in any non-retarded sense.

Can anyone reassure me that this cretinism is not contagious?

35. Flea of the week

Comment #163545 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 1:45 pm

Diacanu,

Amazing! I was just looking at this:

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13739-babelfish-to-translate-alien-tongues-could-be-built.html

36. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163367 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 8:44 am

Vaal,

One of my favourite jokes:

It's easy to distract fat people.
It's a piece of cake.

37. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163344 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 8:16 am

It's not about children being morons, it's about the fact that they cannot necessarily distinguish between truth and fiction. She worked out pretty early on that there is no Santa, but I think that the realisation that it was a made-up story might have been harder to come by if every adult she met had continue to tell her it was true.

Now, in my girlfriend's situation, she *did* scoff when taught about Muhammad's bargaining down from huge numbers of daily prayers to 5 a day by arguing with god (possibly an idea nicked from Lot?), and she did question the stuff about virgins, and ask what the women got out of it, and wasn't convinced by stories of Muhammad and the old goat producing milk - but her reward for questioning things was to be branded a trouble-maker, to get detentions and to get into trouble with her family.

38. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163328 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 7:48 am

The reason why it is dangerous to tell children certain things is evidenced by the time I told my niece that the reason I am so tall is that I was stretched by the doctors as soon as I was born. Her unquestioning belief in what I was saying as a member of her family caused me to immediately tell her I was joking. But that was the occasion when I realised exactly how careful one has to be.

39. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163317 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 7:39 am

Further to what I was just saying, but with all the necessary caveats about data collection and so on (and the warnings in the text itself) have a look at table 1.11 in:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/36496/0029047.pdf

40. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163314 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 7:31 am

Bonzai, re: indoctrination:

I had always assumed it was because of the (apparent) fact that, e.g., almost all Catholics are the children of Catholics.

Likewise Muslims. And, I suppose, why religions are organised into blobs covering large areas, rather than there being a randomish mix in all countries.

41. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163301 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 6:59 am

"power that is"?

42. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163281 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 6:10 am

Brian,

Is that the Palle Yourgrau one? "A world without time"? I've got to get around to reading that.

43. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163276 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 6:07 am

Cheers, Steve. I should have just wiki'd. But sometimes asking people makes me feel in touch with my past :)

44. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163269 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 5:49 am

Steve,

In various books I have read about Goedel, there has been mention of how Einstein accompanied him to his American citizenship hearing, and there was a concern about Goedel being considered a bit crazy because he had come up with a loophole in the US constitution. This is a story I have read a few times, but there is never (annoyingly) any mention of what this supposed loophole is/was.

Any ideas?

45. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163264 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 5:42 am

\begin{offtopic}
Given that I have been having the urge to go and redact history by removing my possibly ill advised posts from above, I was wondering what people thought about maybe having some mechanism by which comments and their edits could be tracked somehow?

It would probably not be fair to prohibit people from deleting their comments, but maybe a placeholder could be left so that we don't have the fleabytes syndrome of referring to comment 7508, say, when later on that is a different set of text.

I know we already have the #nnnnnn numbers, but these are not thread-specific. Also, an indication of when edits to a comment were made might be interesting (even if we wouldn't say *what* those edits were).
\end{offtopic}

46. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163254 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 5:25 am

I wouldn't want people to think that I am as gosh-darnedly nice as I may well be implying - simply because this would be inaccurate. I am no doubt projecting my own fears of my own volatility on other people, for which I apologise.

47. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163237 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 5:02 am

Allan:

My #163229 was replying to your #163225. I wasn't referring earlier to your #163212.

48. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163235 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 4:57 am

clodhopper:

I probably shouldn't have said anything - I was typing before thinking. I think I just got a bit narked. I can see that people do indeed dodge questions etc, and refuse to engage in a sensible debate. It's just the way it had appeared to me.

49. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163230 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 4:49 am

phatbat,

It's just an overall impression I've been getting. There have been a lot of "are you going to call it?" type of comments, which I had interpreted (maybe incorrectly) as "when are we going to say the time of death?" or "when are we going to label this person as a fucktard?"

It just occurred to me that, from where I'm sitting, this is not the most useful way to behave. Some people, with whom most of the commenters here disagree, appear and say things, and then maybe disappear off again for a while, not replying immediately to things that have been said to them. Some of them come back later, but before that they have already been assumed to be too afraid to return.

From my point of view, it seems that those people who are generally agreed with will come and go at their own speed, and people don't comment on how this means they have seen how stupid their comments are. They are merely doing other things with their lives. I don't get the impression that this is applied to those with whom the majority disagree.

Just my two-pennorth. Sorry.

[edit: typo]

50. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163229 by Sargeist on April 18, 2008 at 4:44 am

Allan,
I can see that it might often become very infuriating to see the same arguments trolleyed out again and again, but I am (currently) immoveable with my feeling that throwing abuse doesn't help anyone. Whatever happened to ridiculing the beliefs but not the person? Shouldn't we be aiming for that?