1. Al-Qa'eda in Iraq alienated by cucumber laws and brutality

Comment #229236 by DavidSJA on August 13, 2008 at 8:56 am

I haven't laughed this much in ages.`

2. Call to teach biblical creation as science

Comment #225560 by DavidSJA on August 7, 2008 at 2:24 am

Is there an atheists commentary on the bible?

3. Local Idiot To Post Comment On Internet

Comment #225552 by DavidSJA on August 7, 2008 at 1:58 am

FIRSTIES?

4. Workers' Religious Freedom vs. Patients' Rights

Comment #222844 by DavidSJA on August 1, 2008 at 1:57 am

"First, do no harm." It is inherently unethical for a physician to undertake a procedures which are medically unnecessary, for example, male circumcision; the justification for doctors undertaking the procedure is that it would do more harm if it were done by a backstreet circumcisionist.

However, I am disgusted that people want special pleading, yet again. Don't want to do the job? Do something else.

Imagine if my team of software developers suddenly decided they were only going to work on open source projects because Jebus or some other deity told them to. They'd be invited to pick up the P45 when it's ready...

5. What's wrong with science as religion

Comment #222827 by DavidSJA on August 1, 2008 at 1:14 am

@15

Interesting quote, and even then the small volume of science in their definition is inaccurate. There are more than 5 bodily senses; there are the special senses (vision, audition, gustation, olfaction, acceleration) and then there are the somatic senses (thermoception, nociception, touch, proprioception) and one might also include such things as baroreceptors.

Really cheeses me off when people say "we have 5 senses" because it's either just bad mathematics (let's just round to five so we can talk about the 6th sense) or it shows a complete lack of understanding about the sheer volume of signals which our body handles.

6. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220719 by DavidSJA on July 29, 2008 at 1:20 am

[blockquote]Yes, but believers dying of AIDS, and having children infected with AIDS, doesn't help the Church much, so the logic you correctly explain no longer works. They just can't face up to it because changing the official doctrine tends to lessen people's faith in the absolute authority of the church. Thus they are shooting themselves in the foot. I say let them. Adapt or die.[/blockquote]

It's well and good to hope that this leads to the disintegration of the church; however, the reason this must be fought against is because people are being harmed on a daily basis by the church's policy.

7. How Anecdotal Evidence Can Undermine Scientific Results

Comment #217149 by DavidSJA on July 24, 2008 at 1:58 am

@Edouard

Dammit, now they're going to stop eating broccoli!

8. Churches' secret talks to stop gay surge

Comment #205382 by DavidSJA on July 7, 2008 at 7:58 am

We hommers will be the downfall of organised religion yet! Huzzah \o/

9. Science is thrilling - except in our schools

Comment #203585 by DavidSJA on July 3, 2008 at 7:51 am

I'm thinking about becoming a Physician Assistant once I graduate with a BSc (Hons) in Life Sciences from the Open University next year, but I also think it would be cool to qualify as a teacher and spend a day a week teaching biology and chemistry to secondary school students to inspire the next generations.

I wonder how the NHS would take a 4 days a week employee :-|

10. Stop distorting young minds!

Comment #200150 by DavidSJA on June 27, 2008 at 1:40 am

Jiten said:

Whats wrong with plain old "religious"? Why the neologism ? It'll just cause confusion. Call a spade a spade. We don't need new words when we already have words to express what we mean.

Because anousic is to religious what rationalist is to atheist, and because anousic includes all irrationalists, regardless of whether they're religious, a conspiracy theorist or a spirit medium.

11. World Youth Day condom protest against Pope

Comment #198595 by DavidSJA on June 24, 2008 at 9:29 am

Cartomancer said:

alters your brain

I think you meant "altars your brain".

12. Louisiana's latest creationism bill moves to House floor

Comment #185499 by DavidSJA on May 28, 2008 at 12:49 am

Why doesn't write the FSM-inspired version of "Intelligent Design", get it published and see if that might not have an impact on this?

13. Scientists discover 'frogamander' fossil

Comment #183538 by DavidSJA on May 22, 2008 at 8:36 am

It'd be a really good exercise for an undergraduate student to go through that article and identify all of the misdirections.

14. In God's Name

Comment #183444 by DavidSJA on May 22, 2008 at 6:27 am

@Henri Bergson:

This is just a lie, and not even necessarily Christian. That the government sponsors this, and 45 others with the same curriculum, is horrific and a disgrace to British education.

I should point out that the government does NOT sponsor this school, or the 45 other independent schools using the ACE system. They inspect it, as they inspect every school, and recently declared it "satisfactory". However, this is a long way from providing resources or promoting the school (and if you read the report which was posted by someone previously, I think you'll agree "damning by faint praise" might be appropriate).

15. In God's Name

Comment #182978 by DavidSJA on May 21, 2008 at 7:08 am

@Tyler

Tut, they're bored-again xtians who believe that Roman Catholics are also a form of devil-worship...

16. In God's Name

Comment #182929 by DavidSJA on May 21, 2008 at 6:06 am

Can I recommend http://www.writetothem.com/ as a great tool for writing to your MP and/or other representatives?

17. In God's Name

Comment #182919 by DavidSJA on May 21, 2008 at 5:54 am

@Stephen Maxwell, please stop beaming your thoughts into my head.

18. In God's Name

Comment #182916 by DavidSJA on May 21, 2008 at 5:52 am

That came straight after the homophobe idiot who told us we are here to make babies!

Funniest lines from the film included:

- A man on an anti-gay protest who said, "I have 20 grandchildren, and I don't want any of the lads taught it's OK to get sh*t on their c*ck" [presumably he thinks that a) straight people never participate in such acts and b) that gay men are so unimaginative that is all they can think about doing]

- The (single) bloke who admitted he'd masturbated and then equated it to homosexuality, paedophilia and murder. [as a friend said, "that's not exactly a solution to the prison overcrowding problem is it?"]

- The same (single) bloke had above his bed the name "JESUS" in large letters because he wanted to think about him first thing in the morning. [I couldn't help but think that perhaps the reason he was still a virgin was NOTHING to do with his religion and everything to do with the fact that most women would rather throw themselve out of a window rather than share a bed with such a freak]

- Any part where the barrister woman was completely unable to respond to the challenge made to her [turning off the camera or her mike]

- The bit where the seagull "blessed" the mad street preacher/protestor

Any other bits which people thought were chortle-worthy?

19. In God's Name

Comment #182839 by DavidSJA on May 21, 2008 at 3:11 am

Incredulous said:

While I appreciate most of what DavidSJA said in this interesting comment, I am not sure I can hold to what he is saying here:

And I've got bad news: you cannot fight that type of conviction and belief..

I am slowly turning - though not turned yet - to the opinion that we have no alternative but to fight this fight.

Thanks for your comment, Incredulous.

In fact, I agree that we should fight the fundamentalism. However, I don't believe that you can use logic or truth or science to achieve that goal. I think someone said the difference between religious belief and scientific "belief" is that if you presented sufficient quality evidence to a scientist they would change their mind; if you did the same to the religious believer they would just assume you are a servant of the devil sent to test them.

This is what I meant by you cannot fight the conviction and belief: you will not change the believer's mind. However, you can fight the outcomes of those beliefs and you fight expose the beliefs for what they are in the wider social context, and we absolutely should be doing that. I hope I am not being too optimistic when I say that I think that when society sees the beliefs for what they are that they will treat them with the contempt they deserve.

20. In God's Name

Comment #182766 by DavidSJA on May 21, 2008 at 12:37 am

PS, I should point out that the best copy of this show is on 4 On Demand (www.channel4.com/ondemand) for people living in the UK.

21. In God's Name

Comment #182763 by DavidSJA on May 21, 2008 at 12:32 am

I think it's important that people watch this because this isn't extremist fundamentalism: this is mainstream fundamentalism. The beliefs espoused by the people in that show are the beliefs I grew up with and which are promulgated by people I know and love. I was expecting something radical based on the feedback from forumeers this morning: I found nothing in that show shocking apart from the fact people don't know that this is happening.

I am of the opinion that one must treat these people with a degree of "anthropological strangeness", not as a subset of our culture and values, but in the same way we would treat the beliefs and culture of people in a previously undiscovered tribe. It has been suggested (elsehwere) that these people are being cynically manipulated by people seeking their power and spreading hate. I think the truth is more difficult than that: I know [from personal exposure and contact over 25 years] that these people are being led by committed, even obsessed, believers who live inside a value system which is, to repeat my earlier phrase, anthropologically strange. Because they believe the bible is the literal truth, it's not outrageous for them to equate homosexuality, murder and paedophilia, it's not outrageous for them to believe that Allah, the muslim god, is Satan wearing a wig and dodgy mask, it's not outrageous for them to be educating children in ways which we consider intellectually dishonest and dangerous. And therefore, it's not outrageous for them to become obsessed about things we consider to be non-issues.

Further, these people aren't rare freaks. These people are living next door to us. When you see adverts in windows for "house churches" or "community churches" or "new life churches", this is what they mean. These people get together, and someone who is "of standing" extemporises on the word of god. They sing god-awful (see what I did there?) tunes in worship and adoration.

The dancing the woman was teaching the children about? She was serious. She wasn't being cynical, she honestly thought that loving Jesus obsessively was the most important thing that she could do for those children. The education books (PACEs), from a system known as Accelerated Christian Education (ACE, the P in PACE stands for Packet (of)) are the ones I studied during middle and upper school years (I even recognised the science PACE that was flipped through on the screen). They are written by people who sincerely believe that if you "lie" to a child (eg. teach them about evolution) they will go to hell and it will be your fault.

The PACEs, coincidentally, have little cartoons in them which reinforce messages of salvation and intolerance. Pudge, the fat, slightly naughty boy, is often caught doing something wrong by the teacher, and Ace, the holier-than-thou kid, would remind him of the passage of the bible he should have remembered when he was being tempted. Other characters included Chrissie (the long-haired holy girl who was looking forward to setting up home when she grew up).

I know some of you will find this difficult to comprehend, because it is easier to believe that cynical manipulation is happening, but I assure you that I didn't see evidence of cynicism at the levels I was at (and whilst I was nowhere near the top, I did meet some of the top people in the organisation). And I've got bad news: you cannot fight that type of conviction and belief. All you can do, in practice, is to put it into social context, just as David Modell was doing on the film. Put the teaching into social context and highlight the abuse of the children; put the campaigning into social context and highlight the manipulation of the political system to benefit extremist beliefs; put the intolerance into social context and show that in Britain we tolerate a diverse and just society.

Because if you don't do it, they will end up with the type of influence they have in the states, which reaches into the legislature and the executive and the judiciary. Write to your MP and tell him about your concerns; engage in dialogue with him and let him know how your humanist values asses the morality of whatever the issue du jour is. We MUST stand up for liberal values, for minimisation of harm and for justice for all.

I don't see Islam being a threat to this country: I see fundamentalist religion of any type as a threat, and unless we highlight its values now we will soon find we are living under them.

(Sorry about the length of that!)

22. 'Spiritual' dentist fined $10,000

Comment #181967 by DavidSJA on May 19, 2008 at 12:31 am

Actually, I didn't think the worst thing was his scientific understanding of health, but the fact that he was actively judging his patients and encouraging them to engage in his personal life.

Where I come from, you can get struck off for such an apalling breach of ethics.

23. Fossil find could be Europe's first humans

Comment #150695 by DavidSJA on March 27, 2008 at 9:12 am

Well, young Earth creationists with whom I mixed when I was I green behind the ears theorised that the speed of light is not a constant, and that its change over time has led to a corresponding change in radioactive decay rates, thus rendering dates from carbon-14 testing inaccurate; it's accurate fro the recent past, but the further back you go the greater the degree of inaccuracy (eg. something that is 8 Ky old can appear to be many My/Gy). The closer to the point of creation, the closer towards infinity the degree of inaccuracy.

I'm sure a physicist can debunk that faster than I, a mere life sciences student, can, but it had me convinced until I realised everything else was a lie...

24. Council pays psychic for exorcism

Comment #126451 by DavidSJA on February 13, 2008 at 9:22 am

We discussed this in my office today: whilst I said that if I found out my council had done something similar I would withold council tax, a colleague pointed out that it was a cost-effective, win-win, customer-satisfying placebo solution which would have been considerably cheaper than the alternatives.

Of course, as another colleague pointed out, the effect would have been the same if a council employee (on far less than £60) had dressed up and sprinkled salt around...