1. Rapture site sends unbelievers their last chance ... via email

Comment #195213 by Ramases on June 17, 2008 at 11:09 pm

I could suggest a better device to trigger the sending of the emails once the believers have been raptured. Instead of depending on believers who get raptured to log in, why not hire some non-believers who will not get raptured to send the emails?

I'll sign up for a reasonable fee. If all the Christians dissappear in a flash, I'll log in and make sure the emails get sent. I obviously don't believe this is going to happen, but they do, so they should get value for money. And I promise in such an event I would keep my word.

Is there a chance they would sign me up?

2. A moral test for true believers, Rudd style

Comment #189307 by Ramases on June 6, 2008 at 2:24 am

I actually don't agree that Australia is as much like the US as some here think. Nor do I completely agree with the following statement from the article;

"KEVIN RUDD wears his Christianity on his sleeve more prominently than any Labor leader since the devout Catholic Arthur Calwell. It is a stance that yielded political dividends at last year's election, when Labor achieved its highest level of support from regular churchgoers since 1993."

I don't think his religion made any difference to his election.

Bob Hawke was a self declared non-believer, yet he was a popular PM for a decade. Jim Cairns was quite a militant atheist, yet he made it to Deputy PM in the 1970s.

Could this have happened in the US?

PS: I see most of you know how to put your quotes in cool little boxes, while I have to use quotes. How do you do it?

3. When two worlds collide: threat of class warfare over faith-based schooling

Comment #188039 by Ramases on June 3, 2008 at 7:08 am

Hi j.mills,

This is interesting. I have read about Academies, but what I read told me that they do not get greater resources than comprehensive schools. Your informaion would indicate otherwise.

What resources do these new schools get? What is the justification for them getting such favouritism? Do you have any links on this?

This is a genuine inquiry as I am actually intersted due to some studies I am involved in.

4. When two worlds collide: threat of class warfare over faith-based schooling

Comment #187913 by Ramases on June 3, 2008 at 3:04 am

People do not seem to be reading this carefully, as comments like this indicate.

"I thought this article was going to be agressively against religion in education then it turned into liberal pandering of the kind that got us where we are now."

There are actually TWO articles. One is by JOHN KAYE Greens NSW MP, against publicly funded religious education. The other, which starts halfway down, is by religious nut STEPHEN O'DOHERTY Chief executive, Christian Schools Australia, is in favour of it. John Kaye's article is great, Stephen O'Doherty's is rubbish. Thought I should point this out to those who seem confused and think they are reading one article.

It is outrageous that here in Australian public funding is going to sectarian religious schools teaching rubbish. Unfortunately here it is very easy for religious and sectarian schools to get funding - despite the fact that they teach rubbish, exclude students and teachers on the grounds of their religion and charge fees, such schools are about 80% publicly funded here in Aussie land. They are also bad schools academically - when cohort and resources are taken into account their academic records are poor. The public funding of private religious schools is a disgrace, and I shudder to think what my taxes are doing.

As a former teacher it is also a pity to see that some atheists are as ignorant as anyone else about educational matters. Take this comment from Bordie Collie,
"...from what I can tell, nothing is being taught or learned in public schools anyway. They seem to be only concerned with teaching political correctness, sensitivity, cultural relativism, etc. The three R's, science, geography, English, etc. went out the door decades ago.

Sorry Border Collie, but you are talking pure rubbish. Preparing young people for modern society and providing them with a good education requires teaching them critical thinking skills, how to analysis, consider, acquire skills and think for themselves, not some silly return to some ill defined "back to basics".

Public schools, which are secular, free, non-religious and open to all are best at doing this. Long may they rule.

5. What Genes Remember

Comment #184693 by Ramases on May 26, 2008 at 1:41 am

While not a professional scientist I know enough to know that the claim in the first line is completely wrong

"Many" scientists do NOT believe this. A tiny minority do. This theory is not new and has been proposed since the Ninteeth Century, largely by people who do not fully understand Darwininsm.

It would mean a substantial change to the theory of evolution if it were accepted - there would still be a theory of evolution of a kind, but it would simply no longer be Darwinism as we know it. But this is unlikely. It is simply false to claim it as a theory taken serioiusly by any substantial number of biologists, not is there any real credible evidence to support it.

6. Animal Science Without Evolution

Comment #184691 by Ramases on May 26, 2008 at 1:30 am

*chortle*

This kind of stuff still cracks me up.

I know I should be used to it by now, but still it gives me a strong impulse to groan and laugh at the same time. How can anyone believe this crap?

Their faith obviously isn't as strong as they tell themselves or they would not be so terrified of their children losing it if exposed to science.

7. Malaysia woman scores rare legal win to quit Islam

Comment #180979 by Ramases on May 16, 2008 at 8:27 am

Well I must have missed it.

I guess it is a win in a way, and if it gives people a bit more freedom it is an improvement.

But the whole idea that someone should have to go to court to get permission to leave a religion is ridiculous - more than religious, a violation of human rights. The state has no right to tell people what religion they should follow, or what to believe.

It is counter intuitive too - how can the state tell someone they are a Muslim when they themselves don't believe in it?

8. Pat Condell: Anthology DVD available now!

Comment #173632 by Ramases on May 1, 2008 at 2:23 am

Allan, I have to say if Condell is thoughtful I'm the Dalai Lama.

Condell's rantings remind me more than anything of a fundamentalist preacher, and they grate on me in a similar manner. I can see him swanning across a stage, micophone in hand, exorting his flock to follow him and conform. He does not like people from cultures or with beliefs different to his own "invading" his White Britain. He makes the rest of us look bad.

My objection to Condell is similar to George Orwell's criticims of other people on the left - it was because he DID agree with the aims of a progressive left that he so disliked bad arguments on his side, making a rational position seem irrational, and a tolerant one intolerant.

Even when I agree with him, (which happens) there are so many others who have said it so much better than him

We can surely find better representatives than this tedioius loud mouthed simplistic bigot.

9. Pat Condell: Anthology DVD available now!

Comment #172958 by Ramases on April 30, 2008 at 7:53 am

I am surprised that so many people are fawning on the ravings of someone who appears to me to be little more than an ignorant xenophobic bigot and a perpetuator of hate speech.

I say this as an atheist who thinks it is great to have a strong intelligent and rational anti-religious movement. But there is a very big jump between arguing against religion and hijacking the atheist movement to encourage hatred towards a relatively powerless group of mostly immigrant people.

Listen to what the guy actually says - he talks of the "demographic profile" of muslims and the risk they will overwhelm us because of their breeding patterns. (Would he have the courage to say this about Jews or Christians?)

Well guess what Pat? Religions don't have demographic breeding profiles - religion is about belief, no matter what ethnic group someone comes from. Talking about a demographic profile, and the risk they will overwhelm the rest of us is crossing a very important line, into the region of xenophobic and bigotry.

Condel not only on distinction between moderate and extreme muslims, but also none between people who come from a muslim background and extreme muslims. I have some experience in this - I worked as a volunteer with refugees, many from muslim backgrounds for a number of years and won a human rights award for my efforts.

I know the discrimination immigrants from muslim nations face, regardless of their personal beliefs. It is no longer a cool it once was to be alertly racist, so people pretend to be "anti-muslim". In practice it works out the same.

A friend of mine is a refugee from Iran. He was in prison in Iran for two years for opposing the government, and he regards himself as an atheist. Yet he stills gets abuse from the anti-immigrant right, who slag him off as a "bloody muslim".

Condel makes no distinction between extreme muslims and people who come from what is clearly an ethnic group not to his liking. He clearly represents the extreme anti immigrant right, and I am surprised the Richard Dawkins Foundation has anything to do with this kind of xenophobia.

10. EXPELLED!

Comment #147616 by Ramases on March 21, 2008 at 1:48 am

It seems biology is not the only thing the film's supporters are deluded about.

Amongst the rest of the silly comments by Stuart Blessman is this...

"...the second question was asked by a surprise member of the audience: Richard Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion," and arguably the biggest name in the movie other than Mr. Ben Stein himself."

http://lookingcloser.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/richard-dawkins-crashes-the-party-at-a-screening-of-expelled/


Does this guy seriously think an idiot like Ben Stein is comparable to an eminent scientist like Richard Dawkins?

11. Jesus saves

Comment #147276 by Ramases on March 20, 2008 at 5:22 am

For those of you who don't know the newspaper this article was published in (The Australian), I should explain it a Rupert Murdoch owned sensationalist pile of garbage.

The reliability of what is printed in it is hardly greater than that of a fundamentalist christian discusssing biology.

It would be interesting to find a more reliable source concening this study and what it aims to do.

12. Ayaan Hirsi Ali to get EU protection

Comment #136342 by Ramases on February 29, 2008 at 11:02 pm

This is good news, although it could have come earlier.

What I find difficult to understand is why the Dutch have copped the stick in this instead of the Americans. The Dutch were after all prepared to protect her in Holland and on reasonable trips abroard, just not forever when she was living in a different country.

Protection from fanatics, like protection from any other crime, should be the responsibility of the authorities of whatever country you are in, and it should be considered a human right when you are threatened to get such protection.

As far as I can see, it should be up to the US to protect her when she lives there. Pity they have not yet come to the party and agreed to do this.