1. Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90

Comment #146123 by Fathom on March 18, 2008 at 4:30 pm

Rational-G: "Not to be picky, but the screenplay to 2001 came first, co-written by Clarke and Kubrick. The novel came later."


To be pickier still the novel "The Sentinel" came first on which the screenplay was based.

Farewell Arthur. Your writing gave me my own fascination with science.

F

2. Fleas on the Horizon: In Defense of God

Comment #145165 by Fathom on March 17, 2008 at 10:31 am

I wasn't sure where to post this link but have you seen this?

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,2265446,00.html

I didn't know there were 'secular suicide bombers'. Does anyone know if this is true - where the Tamil Tigers atheists?

F

3. Arguments Against Evolution

Comment #85221 by Fathom on November 5, 2007 at 10:10 am

Something I heard on the Oprah Winfrey show (!) is an example of human evolution in relatively recent times. African Americans have a high incidence of high blood pressure, about 40% of the population, and it tends to occur in much lower age groups than in caucasians. This is explained as a genetic fallout from the survivors of the 'middle passage' who needed to be able to retain salt in their bodies during the journey across the Atlantic in the slave ships. The genes which conveyed this survival are now common in the population of their descendents.

F

4. Downward, Christian soldier

Comment #82292 by Fathom on October 26, 2007 at 2:28 am

Hello Brother John,

You said:

Let me, in ending give you what I have garnered of the atheist credo from the pages of this forum. Not all of it. Just two of your basic dogmas.
1st. Where religion is concerned thou shalt see all things in terms of black or whit. Preferably all black – for that is the truth. Greys are non-existent.
2nd Thou shalt not take what they (the believers) say as valid for they are all either fools, or
irrem ediably conditioned,self-deluded or downright evil, certainly incapable of rational thought.
As the Irish comedian used to say, "Go with your god"

To some extent I'm inclined to agree. Where religion is concerned, to an atheist there is only black or white. There is no god - any god - so no matter how you describe your own particular god or your holy scriptures, teachings tenets or dogma it's all just unsupported ramblings. For this reason we don't take what believers say as valid when it is based on the centuries old opinions of unknown authors of questionable motives. Quote from your holy book and our response will always be the same; we don't accept that as an authority any more than we would the teachings of Sherlock Holmes.

On the other hand we may agree with many of your moralistic views, no matter what your particular religion, usually because we arrived at ours the way you arrived at yours; by relying on our simple humanity. You may think your morality comes from your holy book but do you really rely on holy law? When did you last stone an adulterer?

If we believed you were irredemiably conditioned we would not even bother to discuss this with you. Although we do think you are deluded we realise that - because this is mostly due to indoctrination at a young and vulnerable age - we would not say you are self-deluded. It is clear that some of you are downright evil (pick your own example) sometimes despite your religion but, sadly, often because of it. Rational thought is (as Forrest Gump's mother would say) as rational thought does. I'm sure you are all capable of it.

I think the Irish comedian you meant was Dave Allen but the quote is "may your god go with you". Odd that you should quote a popular atheist comedian.

Please pass on my kind regards to your wife. She is welcome to converse with us here at any time. I can only imagine the fascination conversations you must have at home...

F

5. Does fundamentalist religion cause the rejection of evolution? or is it the other way around?

Comment #80539 by Fathom on October 22, 2007 at 5:34 am

Prettygoodformonkeys, thanks for that. You are absolutely right, a timeline is not often shown because it would be miles long in order to show anything we are familiar with now. It might be possible to paint this on a schoolyard with, say tennis court, marking paint for the beginning of the universe, formation of the Earth down to perhaps the demise of the dinosaurs (giving a 200 to 1 ratio). Clearly the more recent events - especially includingg Ussher's 'creation' at 4004 BC - would need to be engraved on a metal plate to provide the detail.

F

6. Those fanatical atheists

Comment #79343 by Fathom on October 17, 2007 at 2:10 am

I'm intrigued by jrf1007's argument based on Quantum Mechanics and the assertion that only following an 'observation' does reality exist. Viz:

jrf1007 told us:
"According to "Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness" by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner (two professors of physics of the University of California at Santa Cruz), there is no way around the view that "consciousness creates reality" no matter which interpretation of quantum mechanics one might choose."

And:

"The critical piece from physicsweb.org was
[...] thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we're not observing it.

The entire article can be found at
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/4/14

So you see, it really wasn't my assertion, it was the assertion of the quantum physicist who designed and ran the experiment."

So that therefore nothing would exist at all if there had never been an observer - thus proposing the existence of a Universal Observer. This is ingenious, if basically a restatement of the 'prime cause' argument.

While I think the case for the QM assertion has not yet been proved the converse is undoubtedly true - once an observation is made the wavefunction collapses and QM uncertainty becomes CM reality. Hence Shroedinger's cat.

If jrf1007's Universal Observer really is Universal and consequently observes everything there would never be any quantum uncertainty and all mechanics would be classical.

I suggest this rules out omniscience as a characteristic of any plausible god, whether one really exists or not.

F