1. Computer game's high score could earn the Nobel Prize in medicine

Comment #178410 by michabo on May 11, 2008 at 11:15 am

Colwyn,

No, Einstein won the Nobel for his work with the photoelectric effect which helped launch quantum mechanics. It was awarded so long after this discovery that it was probably a politically expedient way of giving Einstein the Nobel for relativity while saving face for opposing him for so long. Discover magazine had an article on some of the strange politics and anti-Semitism which were at play to deny him recognition:

http://discovermagazine.com/2006/sep/einstein-nobel-prize



As for whether a protein folding solution could win a Nobel, if the discovery is significant (and this certainly could be), then anyone involved can be up for consideration. Being lucky is often as important as doing long research, and there have been Nobels awarded for less.

2. Faith in Britain today

Comment #176998 by michabo on May 8, 2008 at 12:43 pm

'Pope Benedict knows,' he said, 'that religion is about truth and not social cohesion.' A very accurate remark I think.

Pretty much sums up the article. A lot of self-congratulatory twaddle which boils down to two points:

- it's sure hard believing in God when the evidence is against you

- it would sure be nice if God really did exist, so let's just just say God exists. There, doesn't that feel better?


Time for a bit less of this faith BS and a little more rational thought.

3. Victims: Pope Benedict Protects Accused Pedophile Bishops

Comment #161468 by michabo on April 15, 2008 at 10:25 am

If any country leaders had a spine, they would charge the Catholic Church as a criminal organization with conspiracy to commit child abuse.

If anyone in the church knew that child abuse was occurring and the best they did was "exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry" and not turn them in to the authorities, then they should be charged as an accomplice. That's what we'd do to any other organization.

4. Inadequate, private and late apology with grotesquely inadequate excuse

Comment #159016 by michabo on April 11, 2008 at 10:43 am

"Forgive me for making these comments, atheists always remind me of murderers, you know how it is. Will you forgive me?" Uh, sure...

5. Who wants to kill the elderly?

Comment #153599 by michabo on April 1, 2008 at 4:24 pm

Hey Janus - thought I recognized your avatar. Yeah, haven't been back to CF for a long time, I guess I must still have some religious dialogue left in me though :)

Saying that religion is a myth implies a condemnation of religious believers for believing a myth.

What is being condemned? I think that most people, religious or otherwise, don't want to think they believe in myths so the problem isn't that one person is condemning another, it's that the religious person might end up condemning themselves. Surely the issue is with what is real.

I guess I'm reminded of the position of many liberal theologians who act as if it doesn't matter whether their beliefs are accurate or not, just whether that belief is helpful. If that's true, then they should understand that they could easily be believing in myths and not care, yet they seem offended if you imply that their religious beliefs are mythical. They try to have it both ways and fail at both.


Ironically, it's the fundies who seem to not get upset by accusations that their beliefs are mythical. They know that their beliefs are true and think that anyone who can't see that are the delusional ones.

6. Who wants to kill the elderly?

Comment #153497 by michabo on April 1, 2008 at 2:05 pm

Teratornis,

"I quite agree that moderate religion enables extreme religion, and I wonder why we do not similarly condemn moderate drinking, which provides similar cover to problem drinking."

I think the problem with religious fundamentalism isn't so much the amount that religion is practised, but that it results in very negative behaviour. We can and should condemn this behaviour. This is the same with drinking, where the problem isn't that people are consuming alcohol, but that they can be harmful to themselves or others after drinking. We can and should condemn this harmful behaviour.

So there are some similarities.

But there are some differences.

Religious moderates or liberals are generally not harmful, but they argue that we should "respect" faith and dogmatic belief. That protects them, but there's no clear difference between the dogmatic, unsupported belief of a moderate and a fundamentalist. They want to argue that the problem with fundies is that their actions are wrong, but if their beliefs are accurate, then their actions are perfectly justifiable (I know that if I thought I would be tortured unless I behaved a certain way, then I would change my behaviour!). The moderates refuse to attack the delusional nature of the belief and the dogma, because it will come back to strike them.

For alcohol though, we can have a beer or a glass of wine and not be violent. There's no inherent problem with taking mind-altering drugs in moderation, and a moderate drinker can have a consistent moral stance by attacking the behaviour of drunks with no fear of hypocrisy. The problem only comes up if you're puritanical, opposing drinking on religious/dogmatic grounds (as people seem to do with marijuana). Then, there is some sort of magical taint and you have to make up some imaginary line, one one side "safe" and the other "diseased".

7. Who wants to kill the elderly?

Comment #153464 by michabo on April 1, 2008 at 1:42 pm

Janus,

A conclusion is not an opinion. They are not condemnations.

Saying "I believe religions are myths" is not an opinion, it is an evaluation of facts, it is a conclusion. If someone is upset by this, then they have a problem with reality.


Condemnations are reserved for moral disagreements, such as disagreeing over actions. You may condemn me for expressing my conclusions, but I don't think you fully understand what it means to say that a religion is a myth if you think this is a condemnation.