1. It's no wonder evangelical atheists need to shout so loud

Comment #238047 by Gmork on August 27, 2008 at 2:29 pm

Biology. Physics.--Wait--do I have to be a scientist to be an atheist?


Fraser Barry Cooper: "Modern would-be Voltaires such as Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins are just as strident in their hatred of religion in general and revealed religion in particular."

I don't have a problem with hatred of delusion.


More about this person:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_F._Cooper

Apparently, not a very honest person either. Then again, I can't find myself really trusting the other side, but it's an interesting case against him.

2. Embracing goodness, without God

Comment #224000 by Gmork on August 3, 2008 at 11:34 pm

Maybe the author is at the level of "don't care" so much that she hasn't really cared about formulating her article with better definitions. That's unfortunate.


What MySpace has to say about being atheist:
Religion: Atheist

It should have read:
Delusion: None

3. The Trolls Among Us

Comment #223153 by Gmork on August 1, 2008 at 3:26 pm

Summary: abstraction/distance.--In many contexts in life, you can't get anywhere unless you distance yourself from the reality of things, taking a step back and becoming neutral to the situation you were put in, and some people happen take this to uninteresting levels.

4. How Anecdotal Evidence Can Undermine Scientific Results

Comment #216874 by Gmork on July 23, 2008 at 3:15 pm

In summary, it's the networking term Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) applied to the human brain, though, completely without the context of the article.

Does anyone investigate every little thing that they do or use in everyday life? How they wash their hands; how effective the soap is; washing with hot water or cold water; well, it's easier (less energy used) to follow the default configuration--maybe not even being aware of it--thus leaving out the ability to override/intercept it.

5. Investigating Atheism

Comment #167363 by Gmork on April 24, 2008 at 12:50 am

Austin Cline's section at about.com already does a very good job of explaining atheism, taking comments and so on--also taking the time to bust myths and bringing up current issues.

http://atheism.about.com/

(The domain investigatingatheism.info was, according to the DNS records, registered in early March by David Goode.)

6. The Great Tantra Challenge

Comment #144789 by Gmork on March 16, 2008 at 6:24 pm

I would also be skeptical about letting this "black mage" run around with a knife. The typical trait of religiously inclined people is dissociation. They attribute external events to something abstract to protect their ego, so they are free to go.


On the opposite side we have mediums whose primary purpose is to scam..err--is to help people reach closure by communicating with the dead (impossible by definition).

This is something that was recently brought to my attention when "Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead" got air time in Norway. (It's on a channel that broadcasts a lot of the same superstitious drivel, effectively sustaining a normalcy for it.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Williams

PS: Here is a clip where she talks to people:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wf-6aHh3vcA

Even if what she does is good natured, it's still a lie.

PPS: Carry on!

7. Hebrew University researcher: Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai

Comment #138495 by Gmork on March 4, 2008 at 12:44 pm

This reminds me of The Pharmacratic Inquisition, by Jan Irvin and Andrew Rutajit. They have a personal interest in drugs and society. They made an interesting compilation of theories on the origins of religion, stemming purely from astrotheology and shamanism. A lot of it goes into the symbolism.

They have a 2007 version of the DVD free online to watch, though I've only watched the 2004 version (rough with some smaller errors).

2007 version:
http://www.pharmacratic-inquisition.com/main/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=8

2004 version:
http://www.pharmacratic-inquisition.com/main/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=1

8. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #116786 by Gmork on January 27, 2008 at 12:02 pm

Transcribed the chat with John from Middleton. It wasn't that interesting, really. Just sad.

Liz Green (LG): It's John on the line from Middleton. Hello, John. You're a fundamental Christian.
John: Yes, Liz.
LG: Alright. Professor Dawkins is here, what would you like to ask him?
John: He said that evolution is basically a proven fact, as far as he's concerned.
Richard Dawkins (RD): Yes.--I want to be a little bit careful here because scientists don't, on the whole, prove facts. What they do is fail to disprove them. But all the evidence--every shred of evidence, and there's a massive amount of it, points in the same direction--that evolution is a fact.
John: Oh, dear me.
RD: What do you mean "Oh, dear me"?
John: The one question then is; if there are lots of--Obviously there are hundreds and hundreds of different types of animals, where are all the transitional animals between fish and amphibians, and amphibians to reptiles? (...)
RD: They're in the rocks. They're fossils.
John: They're fossils?
RD: Yes.
John: So why aren't there any half fish [or] half alligators?
RD: God, what a naive question.--Look. Way back then, in the Devonian era, there were intermediates between fish and amphibians.
John: Yeah.
RD: You can find fossils of them to this day. Why would you expect them still to survive now?--Living animals?
John: I don't expect them to survive, I want to see the fossils. There aren't any.
RD: I'm sorry, but there are. Go to a museum.
John: Where?
RD: In museums.--You have been reading creationist literature which simply tells barefaced lies when it says that there are no intermediate fossils. That is a lie. Go to a musem, and ask to see, for example, Tiktaalik.
John: Okay?
LG: John, can I just ask before I let the professor go and yourself go. Whatever professor Dawkins says, you have a faith and nothing could shake it, am I right?
John: Absolutely.
LG: Thank you.
John: Personally, I think he's the biggest fool on the planet, [incomprehensible].
RD: Well, thank you for that. I don't "have a faith and nothing could shake it"; I'm ready to be shaken when evidence comes in to contradict my present views.--Base your beliefs upon evidence. Don't base your beliefs upon faith, revelation, tradition, or authority.
LG: Thank you for being with us, professor Dawkins.
RD: Thank you very much.

John from Middleton--Another "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind's already made up."

9. Loneliness Breeds Belief in Supernatural

Comment #116286 by Gmork on January 26, 2008 at 6:52 am

I wish Epley had used your expression "unwanted loneliness", Paula. I guess I have different connotations/starting points with these words, maybe because I have pretty much always been alone/"left to my own devices"--but I never found myself believing in a higher being, or seeking to believe in anything to that effect (in retrospect), and it was never a wish to be alone or a wish not to be alone, it just happened that way.

I can see that people may be isolated and lonely in a society (objectively), but they don't have to feel isolated or lonely, and certainly not in such a way that they try to fill it with something abstract no one can touch because it doesn't exist, and as such, is perfect to disassociate their self/ego with and build their default "don't knows" on. But according to this study, the fascination with our existence is more likely to lead to the round-off error in reason called religion; maybe it's just the mind's open shortest path first (OSPF) algorithm, so instead of using energy on building an explanation, just place it somewhere convenient energywise.


A better group to study in this case, I think, would be people who are released back into society after having served their time in jail; they are most often objectively isolated, and many have difficulty trying to get back into society again--and of course, religion is there with arms wide open, with a man already on the inside starting the indoctrination. Although these people only seek a community and/or help to adapt, they are handed to a flock of deluded liars, and find themselves accepting the lies (viewed objectively) to reep the benefits of this community. Maybe that's not dangerous per se, but it's dishonest. It would be perfectly okay with me if they were honest about it at least, but that would ruin the potential control aspect I guess.


I have a cat, though, but I think it's more likely that it's the cat who does the *morphizing. ;)

10. Loneliness Breeds Belief in Supernatural

Comment #116265 by Gmork on January 26, 2008 at 5:08 am

There are people who thrive in solitude who also are atheists. I guess that would put a big dent in this study.

Feeling isolated and lonely is a very painful emotional state for people, Epley said, ...

Only if you haven't chosen it, Epley. I can see two kinds of scenarios; those who are left out due to various circumstances, and those who choose to be alone during their allotted freedom. Those in the first category are desperate to belong, and some religions are tailor made to take advantage of this human feeling, giving these people a false sense of belonging under some abstract hierarchical unity. The beautiful part is that, when people die, they will never get to know it was a lie anyway, because no one person has ever experienced death, except externally.

Either you're intellectually honest (atheistic), or intellectually dishonest (theistic). It's when religion starts adding other social interests into the mix that it becomes a danger, because of the group.

Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou: "You can make isolation into loneliness and make yourself--I think--more miserable, but I think isolation can lead to solitude, and solitude could be also a very powerful, positive emotion, and thought, and feeling, that takes you to another state." from the song "Dimitri's Bar" (@3:30).--Being alone may give inherently atheistic people time for reflection, but it never leads to the round-off error in reason called religion.

11. Interview with Neil Shubin, author of 'Your Inner Fish'

Comment #112632 by Gmork on January 17, 2008 at 3:44 pm

Crazymalc wrote: "Colbert has a great ability to make people look like idiots (See the d'souza interview for example)."

Watching.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/17/colbert-nails-dinesh-dsouza/

12. How Evolution REALLY Works

Comment #112597 by Gmork on January 17, 2008 at 2:15 pm

rod-the-farmer: "There are a couple of typos in the lead paragraph. Who is responsible for correcting them ?"

Those are mutations. :-)


You don't have to know binary to understand these examples (not that there's much to know about binary either). The point is to show the stability in the change of the patterns over time according to the change in environment, and any abstract pattern recognition unit (human being) would get that.


PS: One nation under Vlad!

13. Dinesh D'Souza: Winner of the 2007 Bad Faith Award

Comment #112094 by Gmork on January 16, 2008 at 10:07 am

Dinesh. You're a funny guy. Congratulations on your life-time achievement.


windfall,

This one?
http://gawker.com/5002269/the-cruise-indoctrination-video-scientology-tried-to-suppress

14. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #105517 by Gmork on December 31, 2007 at 8:01 pm

Dinesh "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind's already made up" D'Souza concludes and asserts that his god entity exists at one meta-level above our existence, in a different environment with laws different from the ones we know.

God {Existence}

This "scientific theory" of his does not close anything, it simply opens up the question, What about the environment of this god, and the next god, and so on; each god having to be more complex than the other to be its creator.

God {Existence}
God 2 {God {Existence}}
God 3 {God 2 {God {Existence}}}
...

In direct contrast we have a single existence with any number of god entities, limited only by human imagination/non-understanding, thus they are man made.

Our existence {God 1}{God 2}{God 3}{Santa}{Pink unicorn}{Flying spaghetti monster}

Note that the grown up fairy tale gods and other fairy tale inventions are at the same meta-level, based on the fact that many cultures have a different god or even gods, and also have romantic tales of how everything came to be; they are man made stories. Heck, in light of this, some humans add text such as "You are to have no other gods but me." for their flavour of fairy tales that was convenient to include at that time.

Meaning is a human trait. Remove human beings, and you remove meaning, so to speak. Atheism is simply the natural state of things "as is".

Without meaning (interpretations), all that's left are functions, and from observation, the result of these functions involves converting energy from one form to another; for a simplified example, breathing in oxygen, exhaling carbon dioxide.


Although Alan C. Kay was talking about building complex systems in computing, the quote fits:

"Let's not make what we don't know into a religion, for god's sake."

Note that he uses the term god. It's a general expression, like godawful (describing something terrible), or god bless in response to someone sneezing.

15. A War On Science

Comment #105414 by Gmork on December 31, 2007 at 1:34 pm

Here's what Lehigh University Department of Biology has to say about Michael "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind's already made up" Behe.

Department Position on Evolution and "Intelligent Design"
http://www.lehigh.edu/bio/news/evolution.htm

"(...) The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of "intelligent design." While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific."

16. 'Atheistic fundamentalism' fears

Comment #102380 by Gmork on December 22, 2007 at 2:44 pm

OK. Let's be "coherent and rational" and ask why the Christian God invented such monstrosities as smallpox in the first place. Why does this omnipotent being allow its creation to create such a mess on this planet, quite apart from the natural disasters designed into his creation.

I think I can explain that one..

switch (question)
{
/* (Table of theistic answers and explanations.) */
default:
std::puts ("God works in mysterious ways.");
break;
}

17. 'Atheistic fundamentalism' fears

Comment #102369 by Gmork on December 22, 2007 at 1:38 pm

Putting "militant atheism" in context.

[C. Richard Dawkins @ 05m:14s] No, what I want to urge upon you—(laughter)—Instead, what I want to urge upon you is militant atheism. (laughter and applause) But that's putting it too negatively. (laughter) If I wanted—If I was a person who was interested in preserving religious faith, I would be very afraid of the positive power of evolutionary science—and indeed science generally, but evolution in particular—to inspire and enthrall, precisely because it is atheistic.

Source:
"Richard Dawkins: An atheist's call to arms 1/4"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=u3l0LB_S2Io


I also want to add a link to Austin Cline at atheism.about.com, who does a good job of explaining atheism and busting myths. Here's an article dealing with the notion of "fundamentalist atheists".
http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismmyths/p/Fundamentalist.htm

[Austin Cline] "The label is problematic because there are no essential or "fundamental" beliefs for an atheist to be "fundamentalist" about. So why do people use the label?"

18. God rest you merry atheist

Comment #99941 by Gmork on December 17, 2007 at 11:08 pm

Isn't this the same as appreciating the art of artists who use drugs to be creative? ;)

19. Richard Dawkins on 'Have Your Say'

Comment #96303 by Gmork on December 10, 2007 at 10:30 am

On the note of Richard P. Feynman, as mentioned by Mr. Dawkins during the quantum physics question, I just wanted to share this quote I transcribed from an interview with Feynman, which is on YouTube.

[Richard P. Feynman @ 08m:32s] "You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything, and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask, Why we're here, and what the question might mean—I might think about it a little bit, and if I can't figure it out I go over to something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don't have to—I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by "being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose," which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell—possibly. It doesn't frighten me."

THE PLEASURE OF FINDING THINGS OUT (part 5 of 5)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9CaL5NslOxE

I think Steven Weinberg has a good summary, but unfortunately most religious people fall off after the first sentence: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. Without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." (Steven Weinberg, American physicist)

PS: The "Dinesh virus" comment made me laugh. It was exactly what I thought when I heard the "father" Jonathan Morris "program" running.

20. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93507 by Gmork on December 3, 2007 at 10:07 am

Dinesh D'Souza on who created the creator (transcribed by me).

[Dinesh] The question is about, If we have a creation, and we can posit a creator, who made that guy? And that's a good question. I want to answer it this way. I want to begin with a short analogy, if I may.

Think of the universe as a novel. In other words, think of the universe as structured in terms of plot, narrative, characters, and so on. I want to suggest that what religious people are saying is, that this novel doesn't explain itself. The novel had an author. A creator.

Now, the creator is the creator of the novel at a little bit of a different level of causation than the causation within the novel. So for example, if you're reading Crime and Punishment you may say, Oh, this guy, Raskolnikov [a character in the novel], he did this; but why did he do that; what accounts for him? That makes—That's a sensible question. That would be like asking, What's causing, for example, gravity, or what's causing planets to come together. These are questions of causation within the universe.

Now I want to suggest that Dostoevsky is the creator of the novel at a different level. So the questions that apply to the—within the causation of the novel don't apply to the external cause of it. You can't say, This guy, Dostoevsky, what explains him, where does he come from. He's not internal to the narrative. That's the point I'm trying to get [across].

So if all of nature had a beginning, it has to have a non-natural—and that is all that religious people mean by the word supernatural—cause. Now that supernatural cause doesn't apply the laws of physics, and why? Because scientists will tell you that the laws of physics are internal to our universe. Just as language requires grammar, and you can't have language—you can't have grammar without language, right? Grammar is the rules for how language internally interacts—The laws of physics are the rules for how our universe interacts. So the laws of physics—I'm just finishing my point—don't apply, you may say, outside of the singularity. If god created the universe, and I'll put an if before it, he didn't use any of the existing laws of physics to do it. That's my point.

..but he doesn't answer the original question, it's status quo.

Source: First question in part 10:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gMEu_pGCCU0

In retrospect, I feel that Dinesh is a kid; a real-world troll. Am I being harsh?