1. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #171882 by IanG on April 29, 2008 at 1:16 am

More stuff in line with David Hume's dictum that, "..no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish."

However, although Maurice Bloch's suggestion seems eminently sensible, and is far more believable and far less unlikely than there being a God, we shall no doubt experience the usual howls of derision from those of faith who can't believe how atheists can be so daft as to be taken in by such stuff.

The comparison of humans with other animals and the degree to which we see ourselves as unique still interests me.

Although the opening sentence states:

Humans alone practice (sic) religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved imagination.

it is also true that Skinner's Box demonstrated what we might describe as superstitious behaviour in animals, e.g. pigeons.

If it's the case that all animals are prone to such behaviour because of the critical importance of pattern recognition to survival, and that type 1 and type 2 errors are the attendant risks, then surely we are back to the case that our abiding concept of "religion" may just be a post-hoc rationalisation arising out of our subsequent development of language and reflective thought? We attribute significance and sometimes get it wrong because attributing significance and sometimes getting it wrong is what we do, because, historically it's been the least worst solution that our genes have generated to cope with the problems of staying alive. And those who didn't have that gene-driven inclination are, er, dead; extinct.

On that basis we can at least speculate that the fact that animals behave as if they understand and think about fairness and as if they have imagination and can speculate, and as if they have thought-through ethical codes doesn't mean that they do necessarily have these attributes.

And if it's that hard-wired into all of us, presumably one practical course of action would be to seek to neutralise or minimise any potential harm to others by finding ways of resisting or compensating for the erroneous consequences of this particular aspect of our evolution rather than dreaming of some future "end of history", when religious and superstitious behaviour will have all but disappeared?

Ah! Down with the Religious State. Down with the Atheist State! Long live the Secular State!

Long live Freedom!

:)

2. Evolution fray attracts top scientist

Comment #162218 by IanG on April 16, 2008 at 11:27 am

I must say that I'm beginning to wonder more and more about the validity of the "theory" label as regards Darwinism and Evolution.

I've recently listened to an "In Our Time" podcast from BBC Radio 4 on Newton's Laws of Motion.

The point is that Newton's Laws are taken as axiomatic and self-evident after which everything else follows, subject to testing, including putting a man on the Moon. Nevertheless, I'm sure that there was vigorous debate within Newtonian mechanics in earlier days about what was the most valid way to do the sums when you were building an aeroplane. (I don't think I need to introduce Einstein's subsequent advances into this particular argument.)

Whatever the debate about specifics like punctuated equilibrium, or selection at the group level, or even the nature of the first replicator, surely it's not unreasonable to talk about "Darwin's Law of Evolution"? Group selection, for example, is just one theory regarding the "How", isn't it? Albeit not a well-supported one, on the basis of mathematical testing.

A natural Law simply says something like, "In these circumstances, this is what happens at the highest conceptual level." As in "Apples fall, (masses attract one another).", or "Things don't move unless something moves them.", or "Given some variation in high-fidelity replication processes, the results best-suited to a constraining and potentially lethal environment will prosper at the expense of those less well-suited."

Isn't it time to start talking about "Darwin's Law of Inherited Adaptation", or "Darwin's Law of Evolution", or something similar?

Senate Majority Leader Dan Webster, R-Winter Garden, said the theory of evolution "had flaws."

Answer: "No it doesn't! Darwin's Law of Evolution has no more flaws that Newton's Laws of Motion. There are some competing theories about the "how" of some aspects of the process of evolution, and they do not include magic, God, ID and Creationism."

3. Get out of here, atheists!

Comment #157404 by IanG on April 9, 2008 at 3:57 am

Ah! There seem to be two threads on this issue.

My main thought was:

In the US in December 1955 a black woman was told to get out of her seat because people of her skin colour had no right to be there.

This was one of the memorable moments of a movement that led to black people in the US gaining civil power.

In the US in April 2008 a black woman used that power: she told a man to get out of his seat because people of his belief had no right to be there. She went so far as to say that it was dangerous for children to even know that his view existed. She was applauded.

A timely reminder of the Lord Acton's dictum that, "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Thankfully, because of Rosa Parks and others, Monique Davis will now find herself judged by the content of her character rather than by the colour of her skin.

She will be found wanting.

An unreserved and genuine apology for such an intemperate and emotional outburst of intolerant bigotry is the only course of action open to a civilised human being.

In the absence of such an apology people will draw their own conclusions as to the true content of Monique Davis' character.

4. Rep. Davis: The Worst Person in the World

Comment #157382 by IanG on April 9, 2008 at 2:53 am

In the US in December 1955 a black woman was told to get out of her seat because people of her skin colour had no right to there.

This was one of the memorable moments of a movement that led to black people in the US gaining civil power.

In the US in April 2008 a black woman used that power: she told a man to get out of his seat because people of his belief had no right to be there. She went so far as to say that it was dangerous for children to even know that his view existed. She was applauded.

A timely reminder of the Lord Acton's dictum that, "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Thankfully, because of Rosa Parks and others, Monique Davis will now find herself judged by the content of her character rather than by the colour of her skin.

She will be found wanting.

An unreserved and genuine apology for such an intemperate and emotional outburst of intolerant bigotry is the only course of action open to a civilised human being.

In the absence of such an apology people will draw their own conclusions as to the true content of Monique Davis' character.

5. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #150109 by IanG on March 26, 2008 at 1:10 pm

A man whose name can be rearranged to make phrases like:

"Drawn-in Catholics drink."

and,

"Christian Crownland Kid."

Was born to cause trouble with the faithful.

It was written in the stars.

Many Happy Returns, Professor.

Regards,

Ian

6. The science of religion: Where angels no longer fear to tread

Comment #148568 by IanG on March 23, 2008 at 10:08 am

Clearly God exists because the Afterlife exists and the evidence is provided by the fact that Tommy Cooper has been reincarnated in at least one person on this thread.

An egg joke on this Holiest of Days!

Rejoice!

:)

7. The science of religion: Where angels no longer fear to tread

Comment #148562 by IanG on March 23, 2008 at 9:55 am

Comment #148527 by Dr Benway

If there is a more general principle of information replication at work, with genes being merely one example of a more general "unit of replication," you might be able to get group selection to work.

Dr. Benway, thanks for that reminder of a fundamental question for any aspiring alternative hypothesis to address!

8. The science of religion: Where angels no longer fear to tread

Comment #148546 by IanG on March 23, 2008 at 9:23 am

Steve,

Indeed!

:)

9. The science of religion: Where angels no longer fear to tread

Comment #148530 by IanG on March 23, 2008 at 9:05 am

Steve,

OK. Thanks.

So it's Occam's Razor with "selfish genes" providing the simplest and most accurate description of the largest amount of observable data and predicting future observations accurately?

I had thought that there were some growing questions in this area that were causing the "selfish gene" idea to stumble. I don't know what they are.

Is this like MMR where virtually every knowledgeable person on the planet dismissed this idea, and one or two people sold their bugbear to an uninformed population, or is the current cream of evolutionary academe significantly split on the issue of group selection.

10. The science of religion: Where angels no longer fear to tread

Comment #148522 by IanG on March 23, 2008 at 8:48 am

Steve,

So is it your view that the hypothesis of Group Selection playing a part in evolution is indeed fallacious and has been unambiguously refuted?

I'm just seeking data here.

11. The science of religion: Where angels no longer fear to tread

Comment #148492 by IanG on March 23, 2008 at 7:54 am

Oh dear. Another attempt to sneak group selection in.

Yes, That thought occurred to me too!

However, I think there are some positives to take.

Firstly, it's up to those who still think there may be a way in which group selection may be a factor to prove their case. Is the current refutation specifically that it is mathematically unrepresentable? Or, more relevantly, mathematically demonstrated to be fallacious?

Or, more simply, has there been a convincing refutation, full-stop?

If so, is this conclusive or is there any possibility that continuing to look at the matter is still worthwhile? I wouldn't waste time on the idea of an Earth-centred universe; is group selection in the same class?

Secondly, the fact that this article appears seems positive.

This piece is the sole occupant of the Science and Technology slot in this week's The Economist. Usually there are a number of topics.

It necessarily only scratches the surface but it touches on some provocative issues.

Its publication seems to me to be another encouraging indication that interest in this area is arousing progressively greater interest, rather than being seen as un-newsworthy or insensitive.

As a proportion of what churches spend on supporting religion, I guess 2 million Euros is a fractional figure that is insignificantly different from zero, but it's a start!

It also lays the lie that scientists are closed minded and not prepared to investigate religious claims seriously.

It's also perhaps a bit of an antidote to the "Expelled" farce.

12. Fleabytes

Comment #142244 by IanG on March 12, 2008 at 7:21 am

Steve,

Once upon a time along time ago, I knew a bit of Chemistry.

All that's left of it these days is the mist.

13. Fleabytes

Comment #142237 by IanG on March 12, 2008 at 7:18 am

Richard Morgan,

If I weren't fascinated I sometimes think I'd be despairing!

Such is the life in the dawning of my age of short-term, er, damn, "memorabilia" loss?

Shit, have I lost my running medals?

Ah, "memory" loss.

14. Fleabytes

Comment #142233 by IanG on March 12, 2008 at 7:11 am

Dr Benway,

But we ought never surrender the right or the duty to criticize ideas.

I agree wholeheartedly.

It seems to me to be almost one of our duties or responsibilities in a society.

My argument, as I think you see clearly, is that we can be more effective by being more relentless in our pursuit of the issue. I have absolutely no problem with a theist saying that I have deeply offended them and that I am unspeakably rude, because I have disagreed with their ideas and have argued about their consequences.

I can dismiss their criticism as a manifestation of their own intolerance.

However, they are justified in criticising me if I have been gratuitously rude towards them personally.

Difficult to maintain that high goal, sometimes!

15. Fleabytes

Comment #142210 by IanG on March 12, 2008 at 6:44 am

Steve,

I accept your criticism entirely.

I'm not talking about everyone, or all the time.

I also include myself in doing the things I don't think productive.

I'll try to be less generalising or to say when I know I'm generalising but not suggesting it applies to all!

:)

16. Fleabytes

Comment #142199 by IanG on March 12, 2008 at 6:29 am

I feel much in agreement with the comments of mjswalker and Richard Morgan.

It seems to me that theists aren't always being intentionally provocative although they will almost inevitably feel that way to us because they fail to deal with our questions about evidence. More annoyingly they just don't see things the way we do. Oh, God, aren't they such stupid, pig-headed bastards!

We assume that the way we see things is obvious because it is rational and sceptical. Therefore, those who respond in ways that are not consistent with our models of the world are just being deliberately irritating. Or hopelessly stupid. Either way, they aren't as good as us; or at least, not as fortunate as us. Hmmm, maybe they aren't bastards, the poor dears.

It's mutual:

We patronise them by saying that, deep down, their lives must be so bleak and miserable and that they must just be so scared of us and of the idea of there being no God that they can't handle it. The implication is that they seem scared of acceptance and the resulting happiness. One implication is that maybe we should try to be kinder to them and then maybe they will see the light and will grow up and see that there is no Daddy and that life can be fun without him.

They patronise us by saying that, deep down, our lives must be so bleak and miserable and that it must be so awful for us to be faced with pointlessness and a final end. The implication is that we seem scared of acceptance and the resulting happiness. One implication is that maybe they should try to be kinder to us and then maybe we will see the light and will grow up and let go of the childish resentment that Daddy doesn't always give us what we want, and then we'll stop being so oppositional and rejecting of a loving authority-person and find that life can be fun to be an adult with an adult Dad.

To avoid any doubt as to where I stand on the God issue, I'll repeat what I said a few days ago, simply on the assumption that most folks won't have read what I said and it saves time for me to clarify now. My position is:

I am happy to be a rational sceptic and to say that I regard the views of theists as unfounded, misguided and potentially, intrinsically dangerous because of their foundation on faith in defiance of evidence and their view of knowledge as an interesting culturally relativist phenomenon. I'm less happy to then slip into the generalised ad hominem that, because I regard my views as sounder and of better intrinsic quality than theirs, I am therefore a superior form of being. So: their views are inferior, so they are inferior, so their motives, personal qualities are dubious. This is just another road to Hell.

Now, let me give you the experience of one rational sceptic, (me), that has happened over the last few days.

I have been reading The Blind Watchmaker again.

In the chapter entitled, "The Power and the Archives", RD is talking about the "reading" of genes into different cell-types. He explains how gradients of chemical concentration influence this process. So, one particular distribution of cellular chemicals may cause the reading of genes to produce a liver cell in one case and a kidney cell in another. He says, "these diverging processes are best thought of as locally autonomous", and goes on to add, "rather than as coordinated in some grand central design."

As I read this I was struck by what I guess a theist might call a "revelation". I was suddenly aware of the growth within me of the extraordinary powerful feeling, (certainty, knowledge, call it what you will), that all this really was obviously wrong.

Evolution? You've got to be kidding. Little variations in chemical concentrations, acting to create local autonomy like in a cake recipe without any overall grand design, create perfect kidneys and perfect livers and perfect eyes, in the right place at the right time? And we end up with people, time after time after time?

No. This is unbelievable. This is utter, fantasising bollocks. This all has to be designed, even if we can't explain who created the Designer.

Secondly, I was caught in a parallel reflective process, noticing myself doing this and wondering where it came from.

Thirdly, I was aware that another part of me felt that this idea of the Designer was wrong, whilst being disturbed by the intensity of the feeling that Evolution was unbelievable.

I was mainly just fascinated by what was going on in my head.

The resolution came quickly as I returned to our own shared reality that WE ARE NOT WIRED FOR THIS STUFF.

Contemplation of eons of time with primitive replicating molecules becoming pond scum becoming human beings is not what we are wired for; because it is not the way we experience things. Ditto Relativity. I was once a decent runner but I never had to get used to the sensation of getting heavier as I ran faster, or the fact that the watch on my wrist started to do funny things when compared with the clock at the finishing line.

So, in some ways, it's natural to see Evolution as unbelievable.

The difference is how we and theists resolve this.

Paula references Baggini and I would quote/summarise as follows:

Faith is not belief; nor does it plug the gap between knowledge and belief. Belief is what ensues when we encounter consistent, falsifiable evidence for something - knowledge. Faith is what is required when there is no observable evidence for belief.

We atheists resolve the unbelievable through the act of a journey to belief based on knowledge based on evidence. Theists resolve the unbelievable through an act of faith based on the unbelievability of the unbelievable. They then redefine faith as belief and say that we and they just have different beliefs.

But they mean what they say. They are not taking the piss. (Well, some are, but that applies to both sides, so let's discount that angle rather than tarring everyone with the same brush.)

My sense of disbelief, whilst reading those words in "The Blind Watchmaker" was real and incredibly powerful.

I resolved it one way and can well understand why theists resolve it in another way.

Even though I believe, (in fact, I KNOW), that they are misguided.

I call many theistic ideas, "daft" or worse. I'm probably not going to stop doing that because that's what conversational relationships are like. However, face-to-face, I moderate myself and I say that I don't agree; that their views are unfounded, that they create an environment that undermines discoverable truth, and causes immoral behaviour and harm. For example, the UK government using taxpayers' money on homeopathy when people are denied anti-cancer drugs on budgetary grounds.

As regards the way forward, others have alluded to conflicts like the Middle East.

One pretty well-established fact in human society is that the physical fighting doesn't stop until the verbal insulting stops and people work at communicating in a non-insulting, non-demeaning way with people whose views they disagree with, loathe or despise. Even if the other side provoke them.

We call it political diplomacy and people who, for example, scorn politicians who try to do this simply have never had their own feet held to the fire of having to wrestle with unblinking reality.

The Prisoner's Dilemma figures in "The Selfish Gene".

Surely our goal is mutual co-operation.

Which is not only not incompatible with a civilised stable, secular society; it is essential to it.

Surely mutual co-operation begins with mutual respect?

17. Fleabytes

Comment #140941 by IanG on March 9, 2008 at 6:33 am

Steve,

Does anyone have any ideas about the motivations of so many of the theists who post here?

It seems to me that, as with anything else, people are diverse and their reasons for doing things are diverse. We are all different and we are all the same.

Secondly, we may be seeing a self-selecting sub-population although I'm not sure that I can work out what, if anything, that might allow us to infer.

It occurs to me that your question may illustrate at least part of the issue: it invites the inference that we see ourselves as different from theists and so may be inclined to think that their motives may be different from ours.

People engage in discourse for a whole range of reasons: to learn, to interact, just to engage, to rehearse their ideas and arguments, to get angry, indignant, happy, self-righteous, triumphal, to affirm their existence.

I think we are all the same from that perspective.

And I do appreciate that, nevertheless, some of our theist fellow-humans have been infuriating on this thread recently.

I think that we sometimes get rather full of it when we engage with theists or talk about them; we do sometimes sound patronising and superior, and, of course, we just KNOW that we are justified; after all WE ARE RIGHT. AREN'T WE?

THEIR VIEWS ARE DAFT. AREN'T THEY?

We speak of them in tones of contempt.

I'm unconvinced as to the value and wisdom of this approach, when it arises. Not only does it harm our case, outside our own group of the faithful; it is also potentially self-harming. We risk poisoning ourselves.

I am happy to be a rational sceptic and to say that I regard the views of theists as unfounded, misguided and potentially, intrinsically dangerous because of their foundation on faith in defiance of evidence and their view of knowledge as an interesting culturally relativist phenomenon. I'm less happy to then slip into the generalised ad hominem that, because I regard my views as sounder and of better intrinsic quality than theirs, I am therefore a superior form of being. So: their views are inferior, so they are inferior, so their motives, personal qualities are dubious. This is just another road to Hell.

The evolutionary arguments have been well-rehearsed, so this is the last site to rake them over in detail. The bottom line is that our perceptions of ourselves and of others who are different, and our behaviour towards ourselves and them is, at least in part, a tribal behaviour.

As Richard has said, part of our challenge as humans is to rise above our evolutionary heritage.

I'm even aware that the above paragraph almost invokes a presence or an authority. As you know, I've commented before on the short shrift that we sometimes give to those who don't hold our views, don't ask the questions we think they should ask, and don't come to the conclusions that we regard as obvious.

The above is all general comment. Not addressed specifically at you, and not everyone does all the above. Secondly, I include myself in my comments about "us".

Finally, an apology: I have posted and will not reply for hours, if at all, today. I apologise for the rudeness of butting in and then departing, rather than staying in the discussion. It's just that I felt that this issue would probably be dead if I left it until later, and it is an issue that interests me.

Regards

18. Fleabytes

Comment #136424 by IanG on March 1, 2008 at 6:42 am

My goodness! Richard and Paula. The Guru and his ananuensis. All in one morning!

Thanks again for all the work, Paula. And the piece in Free Inquiry.

Steve, I look forward to hearing more about "Just Six Numbers."

I don't know whether either of you have read "Bad Thoughts - A guide to Clear Thinking", by Jamie Whyte. He's a New Zealand philosopher. I think it may have been republished as "Crimes against Logic."

He goes for a whole range of stuff, with chapter titles like: "Authority", "Prejudice in Fancy Dress", "The Right to your Opinion", "Coincidence", and "Shocking Statistics."

In Shocking Statistics he shreds a Times article which said, "Anorexia nervosa affects about 2% of young women and kills a fifth of sufferers". Whyte demonstrates that this means that around 14,000 young women aged between 15-25 die of anorexia each year. He then points out that the total number of all deaths, from all causes, of women in this age group in one particular year was 855. His question is how anorexia kills sixteen times more people than actually die. He concludes by advising us that the real figure of deaths in this group from anorexia, per year is 13. Yes, thirteen, not 14,000. The Times figure was out by a factor of 1000. They did not print his letter to the Editor, nor did they print a correction.

He has some very good stuff that I find useful in dealing with the faith brigade.

There's a lovely end to the chapter "Prejudice in Fancy Dress". The chapter ends with: "If you start to feel in a discussion that you not so much incorrect as insensitive, then you are probably dealing with a respectable bigot. Only a thug would expose him."

19. Fleabytes

Comment #136402 by IanG on March 1, 2008 at 5:09 am

Steve,

Ha! There I go making assumptions again. I read your query as seeking advance info rather than as having read it.

It's a great book. I can't engage competently in the "fine structure constant" issue. I did like his casual elegance in the part of the chapter on The Illusion of Design, where he explores the patterns of leaves and flowers and ends with the laconic statement, "However, it turns out to be simple physics - the minimization of potential energy."

So much for supernatural explanations. Stenger's take on it: "A ball will roll to the bottom of a curved dish. Leaves and petals do the same in energy terms. What's so complicated about that?"

20. Fleabytes

Comment #136386 by IanG on March 1, 2008 at 4:09 am

Comment #136369 by Steve Zara

Has anyone here read Stenger's book "God, the failed hypothesis"? I would be interested in opinions....

Steve, I've read it and enjoyed it a great deal.

It's very considered, organised and rational.

There's no point in my trying to review it in detail. I do recommend that you get it. It is money well spent. He takes an implacably scientific methodological approach to getting hold of each issue in turn and testing it.

Also, I guess you will find some bits striking a chord, given your obvious scientific knowledge. There's some stuff in the chapter entitled "The Uncongenial Universe". I would suspect that it's stuff that you already know, but interesting to see it addressed nevertheless.

Enjoy!

21. Taking evidence seriously

Comment #135749 by IanG on February 29, 2008 at 8:47 am

Comment #135713 by cincyatheist

But at least they don't kill each other fighting over which herb cures athlete's foot! :)

Sadly, when they divert NHS funding that then doesn't pay for anti-cancer treatments and for more nurses, they do cause the avoidable suffering and deaths of other people, in the name of something for which there is no evidence or other good reason to believe.

Spending other people's money, (taxes), on something that suits a personal whim that lacks evidence, to the detriment of others who are suffering is immoral.

If they want to pay for the athlete's foot herb themselves, or even kill each other over it, that's up to them. Do you think we could convince them that a significant quantity of oral Belladonna is the best cure for the discomfort of Athlete's Foot?

22. Taking evidence seriously

Comment #135482 by IanG on February 29, 2008 at 2:50 am

Comment #135478 by Steve Zara

Steve,

I'm sure dowsing will do the job for you.

All you need is a bit of string and a bit of something heavy.

Make sure that you Feng-Shui the room first.

23. Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts

Comment #135466 by IanG on February 29, 2008 at 2:19 am

This seems to me to be a good example of understanding the need sometimes to choose between the lesser of evils.

Or, as I am inclined to say, "Which problem do you want?"

Right now this is probably the best that we could have hoped for and I feel that we should welcome it and support it. If it means that we get challenged with supporting religious ideas, that will be the time to clarify our underlying values and longer-term wishes.

It is encouraging to ponder the possibility that a main stimulus to this Turkish initiative is the need for the country to become acceptable to the European society that it hopes to join. We should use the peer-pressure of civilised democracy as much as possible.

It is, equally, worth bearing in mind that, once inside the European Union, it would not be contrary to the long-established precedent of Islamic behaviour for this movement to go into reverse, having gained the tactical advantage from short-term political accommodation. Otherwise known as "keeping your powder dry".

I am delighted for the people of Turkey, particularly the women.

I am cautiously optimistic for the rest of us, rather than being joyfully ecstatic. Gift horses merit continued attention even if provisionally welcomed!

24. Taking evidence seriously

Comment #135448 by IanG on February 29, 2008 at 1:37 am

Frankus 1122

The NHS conducts a sound, double-blind, airtight, scientific experiment to test whether or not homeopathy works.

I would heartily support your excellent suggestion, which I take to be a proposal that we shut the world's homeopaths in a darkened, airtight box and then wait awhile and see what happens.

Teratornis

I suspect physicians prescribe inappropriate antibiotics because they know patients expect the doctor to do something, and it's easier to write the useless prescription than to educate the patient, who would probably just doctor-shop anyway. Nobody wants to pay the doctor only to hear what their grandmother could have told them. "You have a cold. Get some rest, drink plenty of fluids. If you're not better in a week to ten days, come back here."

Other contributions in this thread suggest that you may be overoptimistic about the level of scientific understanding of some of the medical profession. Richard Dawkins writes, in the introduction to the new edition of The Blind Watchmaker,

If more doctors understood Darwinism, humanity would not now be facing a crisis of antibiotic resistance.

25. My Argument With God

Comment #131739 by IanG on February 23, 2008 at 5:19 am

He expanded on some of this with his usual wittiness in a programme on Radio 4, a while ago.

He said it came to him that his Mum, "realised that she couldn't be around all the time to keep an eye on me and keep me out of trouble, so she told me that there was this bloke called God who was watching me whatever I did. She realised that God was a brilliant babysitter. Basically, she made me be good for years without having to watch me all the time. Clever, eh?"

I can't promise that I've got the quotation exactly right as it was a while ago, but this is pretty close.

26. Fleabytes

Comment #130731 by IanG on February 21, 2008 at 7:57 am

Thanks Paula, for such a thorough and useful resource. I look forward to the book you are researching.

I've had a different reaction from many other posters, (that they are glad that you have gone through the pain and relieved them of the need). I am personally left in no doubt that I have been lazy and avoiding the issue: I now need to read this flea stuff myself.

Thank you for giving me the prodding that I needed and for demonstrating by example that it is possible to do so and to remain sane.

27. Archbishop's 8 March centennial message: Let Sharia Law govern women's lives, Amen!

Comment #128680 by IanG on February 17, 2008 at 3:14 pm

Good article.

I wholly agree with her penultimate paragraph.

Despite the smokescreen of weasel words that were used afterwards, Rowan Williams' main theme was a clear dislike of the dominance of secularism and of the principle of one rule of law for all.

He quoted Sharia because he didn't want to be seen as indulging in special pleading on behalf of Christianity and hoped that he could hide behind, "I'm not talking about Christianity, of course. I'm just so worried about all those poor Muslims who are feeling so alienated."

Nonsense. His speech was an amateurishly disguised condemnation of the secular state and its central proposal was that we roll back time and the barriers between the secular and the religious and let religion back in to having an increased role in the running of the State.

28. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120668 by IanG on February 2, 2008 at 9:10 am

Artful_Dodger:

Given that Wittgenstein is particularly known for his musing on the possibilities and meanings of words, can we ensure that there is no misunderstanding of your own words here?

When you say:

I would commend Wittgenstein's advice to those on this site who have had no experience of God
"whereof we cannot speak thereof we must remain silent".

Am I correct in translating this into plain English as:

"Those who don't believe in God should shut up."

Hardly gives the impression that you feel that you’re winning the argument.

On the other hand it certainly validates those seditious, counter-religious ideas like free enquiry and freedom of expression.

29. Happy Birthday Josh Timonen!

Comment #118793 by IanG on January 31, 2008 at 1:53 am

Happy Birthday Josh,

Thanks for a great website in a great cause for a great guy!

It augurs well that we are becoming more widely known not just for our views but for the Website itself. I imagine that this, in itself, may increase the numbers visiting the site and learning more about what we think and why.

If interest in the website itself leads to an increased interest in its content then we have potential access to a whole new population.

Did you ever see yourself as a missionary?!

All the best.

Ian

30. Atheism and Violence

Comment #118078 by IanG on January 30, 2008 at 9:48 am

Just picking up on my comment about killer arguments against the Hitler/Stalin thing.

Firstly, thanks to those who have made comments and suggestions, particularly pedlar.

My intention in that comment was not necessarily that we've got it wrong, or that we haven't got a point. I'm looking for help, really. It's just that, whilst Richard and others do present the arguments against the comparison, I personally feel that somehow they lack something. If I knew what it was, then I'd have the answer!

On many of these issues, we've all seen an argument or refutation put up that we just know it's solid and satisfying, and that we know we can use with comfort. It almost doesn't matter if the other side just refuses to hear the point; we still know it's sound and irrefutable.

I guess it is the fact that comparing Atheism with Religious theology and Political ideology is not so much comparing different beliefs, as comparing different things altogether; they are not items within the same category in the first place.

Maybe that's the starting point.

Sorry, just thinking aloud here!

OK, not thinking...........rambling!

31. Atheism and Violence

Comment #117991 by IanG on January 30, 2008 at 6:47 am

Seriously. Ignore. Those tapping away fiercely to condemn and take to task this bullshit have already granted it too much importance here (including me).

I'm with you Styrer on this one, but like you, I still can't resist wasting just a few seconds on this tosh.

The piece opens with a fallacy:

Belief in God causes violence. The obvious corollary to this thesis is almost too absurdly risible to merit formulation,…... If only atheism would take hold as the majority view throughout the globe, humans would lose their propensity for violence, lion would nestle beside the lamb, children would regain their long-lost happiness, swords would magically turn into plowshares, churches would empty and the resultant collapse in the market-price for incense would alone reverse global warming.

All that follows is predicated on this false premise in relation to what Atheists say and believe. False both because it arises out of fallacious non-sequitur and false because it is refuted by the existence of atheists of whom not all, if any, say they hold this view, and by absence of any other good reason for thinking that they might.

Just to make sure we understand the rock upon which his arguments are founded, this Master of Muddle, (sorry, extra-specially qualifed and erudite priest) reminds us at the end:

But who can take seriously these recent tub-thumping accusations that believers are the sole source of violence,…………….

On the basis of the invalidity of this stated premise alone, the whole article can safely be ignored.

However…………, let us not fall into trap of ad hominem attitude that we accuse our opponents of. Because Edward T. Oakes has spouted a lot of nonsense which at least he, presumably, understands and "believes", doesn't mean that everything that he says is worthless. George Orwell did once chide his Socialist friends with the words, "Just because the Daily Telegraph says that today is Tuesday doesn't mean that it isn't."

Firstly, despite repeated attempts by many people, I still haven't heard an answer to the Hitler and Stalin argument that makes me go, "Ahhhh, yes! That's it! At last the killer refutation."

Secondly, John Lennon's "Imagine" is jejune. That's not to say that it doesn't have some merit but it basically cute, mawkish fantasy. This sort of stuff appeals to most of us when we're in the right mood, if it's well done; and "Imagine" is well done. But, at bottom, it's Utopian rubbish. Just listen to the whole thing if you have any doubt. It's like "Away in a Manger".

OK, OK, that was more than a few seconds.

Damn.

32. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117188 by IanG on January 28, 2008 at 11:47 am

If you're going to make such an assertion, please provide examples of this.

Fair challenge, annabanana.

Part of my objection is that the article is messy and confused in this area with the result that it feels like he either contradicts himself or must be using words differently. I don't feel up to pulling it into each of the pieces and then carrying out a detailed textual analysis.

I've outlined in more detail below the way this article just doesn't work for me. Hope this gives you a better idea as to where I'm coming from.

He seems to suggest that religion can exist without dogma and, possibly, without faith, in the sense of faith meaning belief without evidence, rather than faith meaning faith born of evidential experience.

However, it seems to me that the generally used definition of religion implies belief, (in the without evidence sense), in the supernatural, and, it also seems to me that dogma inevitably arises from having faith that is not based on the experience of evidence. You either have evidence, or you have tenets that are "given", without evidence - dogma.

If religion is not being defined in this way and means the embracing of some set of ideas for which there is evidence or other good reason to believe in, and which is also a set of ideas that is open to challenge and change in the light of new evidence, then this is not consistent with any definition of religion that I've ever seen. It's a description of rational scepticism.

To misquote Spock from Star Trek, "This may be Religion, Jim, but not as we know it."

By the way, I'm not averse to the idea that framing ourselves as being anti-dogma might be useful. It has a more specific feel and is cleverly manipulative, which is always useful when operating in the political arena. Not many people would want to be seen as defending dogmatism.

Does my answer go at least some way to addressing your concern?

33. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #117157 by IanG on January 28, 2008 at 10:45 am

Seriously, what good is rationality if we are all going to die anyway? Once we are dead, it certainly won't matter to any of us what we happened to believe while we were alive. People will believe whatever makes them feel good.

I don't disagree with the attractiveness of the logic to some, Teratornis.

However, after, "God the all-knowing, the all-powerful." it's a bit of a come-down to "God, the Placebo Effect."

34. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117149 by IanG on January 28, 2008 at 10:33 am

I have the unhappy feeling that there may be less to this than meets the eye.

I'm no philosopher, but I've learned by now that apparently successful attempts to square the circle ultimately founder upon the eventual discovery of a confusion about the meanings of words. More specifically, a particular word gets used to mean two different things but in circumstances where context and subject matter conspire to create a confusing fog through which it is difficult to see what has happened.

The word "faith" is notoriously prone to this sort of dual-meaning use and I think we are in the same place again, with the added distraction of the meanings of the terms "dogma" and "religion" serving to confuse still further.

This looks like an attempt to create some sort of accommodating environment within which the problems of the co-existence of secularity and "faith" are defined away so that we can all pretend that it's not really so bad after all: if only these anti-dogmatists could get their sloppy thinking and sloppy language straightened out and be a bit more clear-headed and a bit less personally dogmatic, peace and harmony would break out world-wide.

Stephen Jay Gould's proposal of Non-Overlapping Magisteria, (NOMA), was one such attempt. It failed because it was a fudge, like so many other appeasing, peace-making initiatives.

This new attempt by Benjamin O'Donnell initially appears more practical than NOMA and, at first glance, seems to offer genuine hope of an improved conceptual framework. But, if it looks to good to be true, maybe it is.

It seems to me that O'Donnell plays around with a number of different meanings for the words dogma, faith and religion without ever specifying precisely how he is using each word each time.

To appropriate his own words: by being sloppy in his language, I fear O'Donnell is unwittingly misrepresenting both the views of the new "anti-dogmatists" and the true nature of the on-going problem.

During my working life I saw repeated attempts to reorganise or redefine existing problems out of existence. That's not to say that sometimes changes weren't needed. However, oft-times the most rational approach would have been to say that any option has advantages and drawbacks and maybe we just need to accept that some sustained heavy lifting is needed to keep things moving forward.

I think that may be going on here. We have a workable robust model; it's called the tension between the secular and the supernatural. We have a tested, currently running, tentative solution: it's called the secular state, affording freedom of conscience and expression within the rule of law and based upon scepticism, evidence and trial. We have a known consequential problem: it's the tendency for the supernatural bit to keep trying to infiltrate the secular processes. We have an established process to handle this: it's called sustained heavy lifting and it involves courage and robust argument. For those who query the word courage, I would only comment that the toleration of intolerance isn't tolerance; it's cowardice.

My vote goes to continued courage and continued heavy lifting, rather than to casuistry and conceptual confusion.

35. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #117079 by IanG on January 28, 2008 at 8:12 am

I've had the same impression, Laurie.

It's a complicated issue when we try to figure out the motives of others.

I agree with you that fear of doubt and uncertainty is a likely factor. My hunch is that manifestations of anger, contempt and loathing may well feel more palatable substitutes than allowing oneself to acknowledge that the truer, underlying feeling may be closer to embarrassment, sadness, fear or despair. Speaking purely for myself of course!

The fear of uncertainty and doubt seems a reasonable working hypothesis for some of the behaviours of some of the faithful some of the time.

I think that for those who have been deeply and consistently indoctrinated in these views from birth, we should acknowledge that it takes extraordinary personal courage for them to reject something that is so deeply interwoven into the fabric of their model of the world. To your specific point of dislodging the idea in such people I do wonder whether it actually goes beyond courage: it seems to me that it may genuinely be simply inconceivable and unimaginable.

If I can't imagine my life without faith, how do I go about imagining what I can't imagine? You could say that I should carry out the experiment of investigating, observing and questioning others who clearly manage well without faith, but that's easy to say.

I think there may be another sub-group that manifests the same belligerent behaviours but for different reasons. It seems to me that all humans have a Bullshit Detector that functions with varying degrees of effectiveness and is also subject to the way it has been calibrated in the first place. We all have amazing insights and ludicrous blind spots.

I think there are many Believers who know instinctively at a deep level that what they believe and say is highly likely to set off quite a few BS Detectors. They have now placed themselves in a double-bind:

1. If I am polite and agreeable when they trot out their stuff, they have the problem that they need to feel hurt or angry because they just know, deep down, that my likely take on what they are saying is that it's really no different from professing belief in the Tooth Fairy or Zeus. So I'm being a patronising, superior, sneering bastard, although at least I've got the good manners to keep my mouth shut. But they still go away with the embarrassed feeling that they've just made a fool of themself. Rather than take ownership of spouting nonsense, they choose to suppress this feeling by projecting the blame for the lingering bad feelings onto me, although I did nothing.

We all realise that we've made fools of ourselves sometimes and it can be very tempting to try to divert attention onto someone else! All the better if we can make out that the whole episode was all their fault as well.

2. Alternatively, I am open about not sharing their views, whilst being civilised enough not to be gratuitously rude. Now they have the problem that, however I have worded it, I have made public the fact that I think that the most cherished foundation stone in their model of the world is indistinguishable from a child's conviction that the Tooth Fairy will come. And, deep down, they know that the point is inarguable except as a ridiculously implausible exception to a general rule that fanciful nonsense is fanciful nonsense.

So now I'm an incredibly rude, mocking person who has just drawn the entire crowd's attention to someone who has just made a public spectacle of themselves, so that we can all have a good laugh.

To look at it another way, it's as if they've just said that they can run as well as anyone, and I've pointed out that, ever since the road accident ten years ago, they've had to walk with a stick and can't get further than 50 yards without a sit-down. I should have better manners than to refer to the facts when these facts are unpalatable even is someone is making a bigger fool of themself by saying something that just makes us all feel awkward.

Either way, with 1. or 2. the result is that I end up on the receiving end of uncalled-for belligerence, because of the unallocated embarrassment that was generated by the initial avowal of the Tooth Fairy.

36. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #117023 by IanG on January 28, 2008 at 5:25 am

One of the speakers at the CFI London Inaugural Conference had an interesting take on this faith and fear thing.

He said that research shows that, given the choice between:

An irrational offer of certainty, and a rational offer involving doubt.

Many people instinctively choose the former.

So: "Believe in God and Eternal Life is guaranteed", is seen as more attractive than, "Live your life to the full because an afterlife is extremely doubtful."

This example shows the sheer power of what Daniel Dennett refers to as, "Belief in Belief, itself."

37. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #116782 by IanG on January 27, 2008 at 11:46 am

Hi, The Smart Patrol,

Seems like a good time to untangle this and to make peace. You've no need to apologise for robust discourse but, in the event that you so generously have, I would like to accept and respond likewise with my own apology. My reply was a bit short and, whilst I am responsible for my own behaviour, the Rioja was still coursing in the veins when I sat down at this screen after lunch!

38. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #116779 by IanG on January 27, 2008 at 11:33 am

…………….I sense a unhealthy consequence of what must be a degree of Dawkins hero worship.

When calling attention to the smell of the large, dead, decaying animal in the middle of the conference table stirs things up it seems to me a good example of invoking the greater good and the lesser evil.

I absolutely love this website. I have a very good life but there are times when I do experience the loneliness of feeling that I am a stranger in a strange land, out there in the everyday world, where people believe unbelievable things and do unspeakable things to one another.

This website is a haven of sanity and intimacy, (in the Eric Berne Transactional Analysis sense – whoops, probably started a whole new discussion of Freud et al there!), and, although I visit less frequently than I might, it is always a joy to share even a few moments of conversation.

We simply cannot go on ignoring the development of a culture that seems to scorn that with which we disagree and to regard with contempt those who don't agree with us or who don't talk to us in the right tone of voice and ask us and our sacred priests the questions that we think they should.

I stress that I do not suggest for one minute that Richard or any of the others see themselves in that light: this is down to us. We are in danger of becoming like that which we oppose.

I just detest the whole tone of local radio: that determinedly cheerful, exaggerated, loud delivery. I always feel as if they're about to enjoin us to get up and do the okey-cokey any minute. It's no good - give me the dulcet tones of Radio 4 any day!

Hi Paula, spoken like a true trooper! The quality of life would definitely be impoverished if we didn't have Radio 4. I'm just observing that many people do get enjoyment from local radio and I'm just glad that Leeds got more than might be the norm.

My comment wasn't a dig at you and I didn't infer anything about your views of the interviewer. Your comment was simply a good starting point for my own thoughts. Liz Green actually got through quite a lot of stuff, by listening and responding knowledgeably, in a very limited amount of time. I wonder whether I would have done as well, on air, in the time available, on a subject that was complex, widely misunderstood, and about which I knew little.

39. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #116744 by IanG on January 27, 2008 at 10:22 am

Oh Dear!

Just enjoyed a nice Sunday lunch and then this!

Thank you Steve Zara for your customary balance and sanity.

In response to The Smart Patrol (Oh, that soubriquet is so tempting):

First, let's deal with interviewers and the way they do their job. She could have been sycophantic to Richard in which case no doubt the prevailing view on this thread might have been that Liz Green excretes toothpaste. Alternatively she would have been ignorant of the issues and hostile in which case she'd have been something different, but I try not to use that sort of language.

The interviewer should try and put the thoughts and questions that might occur to an engaged listener. Get real folks, this website is esoteric arcana to most of the world out there.

I repeat emphatically, Liz Green showed more engagement with a layman's understanding of the issue than we could reasonably have hoped for. I suspect that she really doesn't spend a lot of her time thinking about this stuff the way some of us might!

Secondly, my command of grammar and syntax must be slipping. Please point me to where I said John was articulate. Although, on reflection, I don't think he was stunningly inarticulate, just expressing daft views with averagely muddled competence.

What I said was that this interviewer was smart enough and professional enough to mug up on the subject and to get the participants to say what they thought. Given the norm of this sort of radio I'm happy to repeat that I thought she was an unexpected pleasure.

The result was that John articulated, (Oh God, do I have to say "stated" in order to avoid being accused of labelling him as articulate?), his views clearly enough, although some of us might have done better. He was then hoist by his own petard: he made a fool of himself and can't claim the "Paxman-Harrassment" defence.

Likewise, Richard was able to speak, and was able to respond to the points that Green put to him as those which other listeners might have thought of.

I thought she did a good job. S'pose that makes me an undiscerning, intellectually challenged idiot.

40. A Letter From Hell

Comment #116672 by IanG on January 27, 2008 at 3:32 am

You can download podcasts of In Our Time.

But beware: the BBC have a policy that they only make their stuff available for download for about 7 days following broadcast. You can still listen afterwards, but you can't download it.

This differs from Point of Inquiry where their interviews stay available for download indefinitely.

41. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #116671 by IanG on January 27, 2008 at 3:26 am

I think John's been sufficiently done to death to not require any additional comment from me on the matter!

Ned Flanders, I love the Euripides comment. That's definitely one for future use!

I'd just like to inject a positive aspect as regards this particular thread.

Like Paula Kirby, (hope the wine was good, Paula!), I have no great liking for Local Radio, but clearly many folks get something from it. After all, they have phone-ins, and we have this website; each to his own.

My point is this: I thought that Liz Green's conducting of the whole of that segment was intelligent and skilful. Her questions and comments reflected someone who had taken the trouble to find out about the subject and to understand the issues. Both Richard and John were able to articulate their ideas clearly and were asked to expand or clarify where appropriate.

Liz Green addressed an important and interesting topic with intelligence and a nice light touch. Her audience were well-placed at the end, to reflect upon what they had heard and how it might incline them to think, or research further on the issue. There was none of the gratuitous "noise" that frequently infects and confuses interviews carried out by self-important or antagonistic interviewers.

Leeds folk are fortunate in their local radio service.

42. A Letter From Hell

Comment #115882 by IanG on January 25, 2008 at 1:34 am

Is this a historical movie, from the first half of the 20th century?

Leni Riefenstahl lives.

Hitler is become God.

The Gestapo are become his Angels.

43. Islam in Europe

Comment #114654 by IanG on January 22, 2008 at 2:12 pm

There is a true Prophet after all.

They just got the name wrong.

Can I call my Teddy Bear, "Pat Condell"?

44. Violence fear over Islam film

Comment #113794 by IanG on January 20, 2008 at 3:18 pm

Sorry, it seems to have dropped the last bit off the address.

If you use the link, go to the top left hand search box on the page, type secularism test

Then press enter.

45. Violence fear over Islam film

Comment #113792 by IanG on January 20, 2008 at 3:14 pm

This weblink may be of interest in the discussion of religion's inclination to demand special status related to respect and offence.

http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/search?q=secularism+test

It suggests the simple test of substituting the word "political" for the word "religious" and then noting how outrageous the demand becomes.

46. Mandrake: Charles's letter in support of Islamic 'fundamentalism'

Comment #113697 by IanG on January 20, 2008 at 10:55 am

…..proper fundamentalism is in the best interests of the future of our world.

There is much to be done……..!

Great! Nothing like the enlightened musings of an hereditary ruler. It seems that we have a particularly penetrant selfish gene or meme mapping through a particularly identifiable phenotype and resulting in a particularly self-interested carrier-robot behaviour.

Despite the fact that this article refers to a letter written in 1996 I think it's still relevant because:

Firstly, Mr. Windsor is still the next in line to be Head of State in the UK and has not, so far as I am aware, repudiated his stated views on this topic;

Secondly, it appears that this letter is now current news, having just been published in Malaysia in the memoirs of a man who has apparently claimed that the Jews, "rule the world by proxy";

Thirdly, far from supporting secularism, (i.e. neutrality on "Faith" issues and a separation of Faith and State), Charles Windsor repeatedly affirms that he will be a champion for the elevation of all faiths in public life, when he becomes King. It's pretty clear that he doesn't mean that he'll champion Atheism as well. The opposite, in fact.

The good news is that many of those who are not amongst his most ardently faithful disciples regard him as a severely intellectually-challenged, self-important, petulant hypocrite, who is away with the fairies. He never troubled the scorers much, academically.

This is the man who, on a visit to the US, asked for a cup of tea. When it arrived it was a cup with the tea-bag in hot water on a string. He didn't touch it throughout the whole of the meeting. When asked, "Why?", afterwards, he said he hadn't known what it was or what the custom was for dealing with it. He was socially embarrassed by not being aware of this particularly arcane ritual. He also reputedly has someone to put the toothpaste on his toothbrush each morning. He really knows how the rest of us live………….not,………….. as Bill and Ted would say.

The bad news is that there's nothing worse than a fool with a platform: he meddles incessantly and incontinently, thinks science has taken us away from our roots in Nature, and emits naïve, utopian blatherings that can be capitalised upon by folks who are far smarter than he. He really does seem to believe that the world was a better place hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.

You will note that he has the laser-like perception to see that any anti-Islamic sentiment is down to the Tabloid Press, not the people who treat women as either domestic pets or agricultural livestock, who believe that homosexuals should be slaughtered, (and necessarily more unpleasantly than the way we slaughter sheep or pigs), who threaten to kill anyone who does or says things that they don't like and, ultimately, who fly planes into buildings and blow other people into bits of dead meat or into living grotesques. And then go off to enjoy their manly rewards of heavenly rape.

Wonderful. More of this really would be in the best interests of the future of the world. Go, Charley, go!

Charles is a theocrat, which is not surprising if one accepts that nurture and nature both play a part in the development of the individual. Communism, Fascism, Islam and Christianity are all theologies aspiring to the establishment of theocracies that will bring about the end of history. It is merely the case that the first two are secular theologies. They are all Utopian visions requiring only that the appropriate faulty aspects of human nature be eradicated – at any cost, in pursuit of the greater good.

The failed Islamic states and movements such as Iran, (and the Taliban), know for certain that the problem is the insufficiently rigorous, (i.e. fundamentalist), application of Islam, rather than the espousal of this mediaeval philosophy in the first place. Entirely reasonable, of course, given the detail of this charming world-view, if you are completely self-interested, lack any perspective of a bigger picture and are heterosexual male.

Charles understands this to the very core of his being.

He does get one thing right, although it is, characteristically, by accident: he is, albeit unwittingly, correct when he says that, "Important issues are reduced to farce": he is the Prince of Farce, (a quasi-homonymic nod towards his late wife's self-chosen soubriquet). It is not by coincidence that he cultivates the endearing habit of imitating the characters in a mid-twentieth century BBC radio show called "The Goons".

To all those outside the UK, please be assured that the peculiar views of our own unwanted, national domestic pet do not necessarily reflect those of the wider community, although I do have to say that our family cat, Skippy, has more coherent intellectual processes than does Charley W.

47. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #111573 by IanG on January 15, 2008 at 3:08 am

Dear George,

Some years ago, Salman Rushdie warned us all that, if we weren't prepared to die for short skirts and dancing, then we risked losing a battle against a deadly enemy of freedom.

When another, earlier, deadly enemy threatened our freedom you and many others were prepared to give your lives in the battle against the evil that was abroad at the time.

Because of what you and your comrades did, I have lived my life in a free society. I have never had to face the horror of war and violent death, nor have my wife and I had to endure seeing our three sons, aged 19 to 22 years old, go away leaving us wondering whether we would ever see them again.

Your practical commitment to the idea of a secular society and to the support of RDFRS underlines that actions speak louder than words and that we are defined by what we do, not what we say.

I wish you a successful operation, a speedy recovery and every happiness.

We owe you and your comrades a debt that we can never fully repay.

Thank you.

Ian

48. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108134 by IanG on January 6, 2008 at 4:59 am

ADH........Helloooooooooo........Is there anybody there?

Sorry, couldn't resist that!

AfraidToDie:

Sex is sooooo good now that I don't think someone above is watching

I thought that was the only fun thing about believing in him!

Sorry, couldn't resist that either!

49. Researchers use neuroimaging to study ESP

Comment #108085 by IanG on January 6, 2008 at 2:32 am

I guess ESP is just a bit more like the Loch Ness Monster than it is like the Tooth Fairy.

50. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108075 by IanG on January 6, 2008 at 1:30 am

Hi Goldy and ADH.

I'm not going to butt in on the conversation that you two are enjoying!:)

However, there's a point that I'd like to pick up on that is pretty important in this belief and believability game.

"Unlikely" and "implausible" are very different things. It is highly unlikely that my neighbour will win the lottery but, if he tells me that he has done so, it's not implausible. If he tells me that, since he gave up the chemo and just relied on prayer, his cancer has gone, that's both unlikely and implausible.

A quick reading of the Selfish Gene is all that it takes to see that, whilst the spontaneous synthesis of a replicator molecule is likely to be a relatively rare event, it is not implausible by any of the measures of scientific evaluation.

And, given half a billion years or so, the non-appearance of a replicator would actually be the implausible option.