1. Obama Wants to Expand Role of Religious Groups

Comment #203239 by stephenray on July 2, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Right.

So these religious groups can only use the federal dollars to do things that Obama approves of.

Gosh, I'm sure they won't have any money just - sitting around, you know, as a result of these big blats of cash from DC, saving them from large chunks of expenditure - and which they can then spend on PROSELYTISING AND DISCRIMINATING THEIR ASSES OFF.

Did Obama's IQ drop 25 points when he got the nomination?

2. Muslims outraged at police advert featuring cute puppy sitting in policeman's hat

Comment #203235 by stephenray on July 2, 2008 at 1:44 pm

If this is true, I am rendered speechless.

furble.

3. Faith schools undermined by 'Government witch hunt'

Comment #202011 by stephenray on June 30, 2008 at 3:32 pm

As I understand it, faith schools do have some if not total exemption for some of the national curriculum. Remember that program a while ago about faith in modern Britain, where the little girl was doing a science test with questions like 'How many days did god take to make the world?' and 'What did he make on the third day?'.

A science test. SCIENCE.

4. Who Was More Important: Lincoln or Darwin?

Comment #202009 by stephenray on June 30, 2008 at 3:28 pm

Who was more important? Pluto or Bluto?

If there must be such a question, the answer must be Darwin. Lincoln's significance is to the US only; Darwin's significance is to the whole of humanity. To suggest that Lincoln is 'more important' is insular in a way which ought not to be possible, given the size of the United States!

5. Texas Supreme Court rules church can't be sued in exorcism

Comment #201075 by stephenray on June 29, 2008 at 12:22 am

Hey, good call.

I bet the Scientologists - as I write - are calculating how much it would cost to move lock stock and barrel from Flor'da to Texas. No more having to explain those pesky inconvenient deaths resulting from church doctrine.

6. New discovery proves 'selfish gene' exists

Comment #197410 by stephenray on June 22, 2008 at 2:11 am

There isn't 'a' selfish gene, you journalist turkeys. They are ALL selfish. The point is that genes are only 'interested' in replicating themselves; they have 'no thought' for the survival of the planet, of the species or even - after procreation - of the individual.

What has been discovered is the 'selfish gene' in the bee genome which, unlike most selfish genes, doesn't even care about replicating itself, because it 'knows' that a copy of itself is replicating like buggery in the queen.

The reason why this is important is that impinges on the criticism that many (admittedly, those hampered with defective intellectual development) make of The Selfish Gene because they think it is about 'how genes make us selfish', when that is not the thesis which RD advanced.

7. Physicists in Congress Calculate Their Influence

Comment #193715 by stephenray on June 15, 2008 at 11:55 pm

Is it me, or does Vernon J Ehlers have really high blood pressure?

8. Report: Troubling texts at Va. Islamic school

Comment #192398 by stephenray on June 13, 2008 at 1:47 am

Censoring textbooks before handing them out to pupils or students!

In what way can that be an adequate response to the criticisms levelled at these books? Speaking for myself, all it would do is make me seek out an unexpurgated version, or try to read what had been obliterated. What human being can resist the challenge of looking for something that has been hidden?

One possible effect is to focus the attention on these extreme assertions.

Sheesh.

9. Godless

Comment #192060 by stephenray on June 12, 2008 at 12:12 pm

"On the plus side, Pastor Ted is now welcome at Rick Warren's church on Sunday."

Arf, arf!!

10. Analysis of SB 733: 'LA Science Education Act'

Comment #191738 by stephenray on June 11, 2008 at 2:38 pm

82abhilash: "How many logical fallacies can you count from that quote?"

Well, I got stuck on the one where he claimed to be "a biology major - that's my degree" and then two sentences later, demonstrated a total inability to understand the second law of thermodynamics.

Donkey.

11. Debating creationism in Louisiana schools

Comment #191737 by stephenray on June 11, 2008 at 2:34 pm

Here's a prediction (fresh from my crystal ball).

This is not the last time we will hear the phrase "viewpoint discrimination".

It means nothing, but it sounds unfair; it's gonna pop up everywhere. "My viewpoint is being discriminated against blah blah blah..."

The reason it means nothing is that discrimination is the process of taking and implementing decisions about persons or people based on aspects that should not properly come into consideration - the colour of their skin, sexual orientation, national origin - because they are not generally within the person's control.

Someone's viewpoint, of course, is the thing over which they have absolute control. So if they want that viewpoint to prevail, they have to argue for it. If the argument fails, it's because other viewpoints were better.

You gotta admire the debating skills of whoever thought it up, though.

12. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #190669 by stephenray on June 9, 2008 at 11:02 am

I notice from the original article that Mr Postelnik is
"...the President of IRPW, a company that offers business plans, funding advice and facilitation, SBA loan applications, SWOT analyses, bold and effective marketing strategies, general business development and grant writing and research for non-profits and certain qualified businesses."

For the sake of his clients, I vigorously hope he is able to analyse their needs and requirements with substantially greater clarity than he shows in the infantile analysis quoted above.

>

Ohhh, wait.

Further investigation - he's not Canadian, he's from Florida. Home of Jed Bush and Scientology. More idiocy in one state than in the whole of Canada.

I see a whole bunch of other articles listed in his 'bio' (in fact, that's all that's listed there) which look very promising.
From the humour point of view.

"If Only We'd Voted Democrat in 1972, We'd All Know How to Speak Russian - Apr 2, 2008"
and
"The Near Death of Logic, the Clear Dearth of Integrity - Mar 27, 2008
...to mention only two.

Hur hur.

13. Complex Synapses Drove Brain Evolution

Comment #190519 by stephenray on June 9, 2008 at 8:18 am

RodTheFarmer:

Might be more useful to do the same research on fundamentalists. It'll probably show that they have less synapse proteins than normal people, but a few more than worms. Then finally we'll have a scientific explanation for why they are so DUMB.

Experiments on the great apes are pretty much a foregone conclusion, so I would do them afterward.

14. Ben Stein 1, Yoko Ono 0 in 'Expelled' copyright spat

Comment #188259 by stephenray on June 3, 2008 at 2:08 pm

It seems to me that the analysis doesn't go far enough. (Note: I don't know US law very well.)

But isn't this the crucial thing: it was John Lennon's own creative and intellectual efforts that made the song 'Imagine' what it is. It is precisely the attraction of the song and the lyrics - for which he is solely responsible - that has made the song so powerful as an exploration of certain modern issues.

It is that factor which should give the owners of the copyright the opportunity to benefit from and control the use of the song.

I accept that you can quote the lyrics or play a clip from the song to critique the song or the lyrics or to make a point about the song or the era when it was written or John Lennon but if you use it as background for some other artistic or political endeavour reflecting on the subject of the song then you are seeking to benefit from precisely that quality which makes the song valuable to the copyright owner.

So you ought to pay for it, and should require permission of the owner beforehand.

It isn't an issue of free speech anyway; nobody's trying to say Stein and his cronies can't make the points that they want to make. It's a question of what they use and how they make the point. If they refused to pay for the hire of the cameras no-one would claim that the hire firm was infringing their free speech by repossessing their equipment and preventing the film from going ahead. Stein'd have to make his point by writing a book or getting on talk radio or whatever.

Same same with the song. Not using 'Imagine' doesn't stop him from making the film, even, just that he has to find some other backing music for 10 seconds.

Hopefully better lawyers will make the point if Ono appeals.

15. Scientists rally against creationist 'superstition'

Comment #187205 by stephenray on June 1, 2008 at 1:28 pm

Looked at MORI's site.
(http://www.ipsos-mori.com/content/bbc-survey-on-the-origins-of-life.ashx)
If you look at the way the question reads, it seems to me that the survey was designed to get the maximum possible result in favour of creationism/ID.

Suppose, for example, that the following question had been asked: "Intelligent design says that evolution by natural selection *must* be rejected as an explanation for the complexity of all the life we see on earth. Do you agree?"

That's just the first thing I thought of, off the top of my head.

Clearly if the process had been intended to flush out people's real views there would have been more than 20 questions, carefully designed to allow post-analysis to show inconsistencies in the views expressed by the interviewees.

Two questions is not much on which to base an assertion that 40% of Brits prefer mumbo-jumbo to science.

Oh, hang on though...

16. Senate bill allows display of Lord's Prayer, 10 Commandments

Comment #186427 by stephenray on May 30, 2008 at 9:21 am

Tom Paine said christianity was an amphibious fraud?
As in, able to go on land and water?
What did he mean by that?

17. We happy hooligans

Comment #185807 by stephenray on May 28, 2008 at 4:03 pm

Comment by the great teapot "Stop it, enough already, you can only flog a horse to death once."

Yeah. If you want to kill it over and over again for two millennia then you have to crucify the horse.

18. Edgar Mitchell ushers in the Next Epoch in Evolution

Comment #183030 by stephenray on May 21, 2008 at 8:56 am

Maybe the doomsayers who claimed that men going to the moon were gonna get fried by cosmic rays were right after all...

19. Texas Megachurch Minister Busted in Internet Sex Sting

Comment #182015 by stephenray on May 19, 2008 at 5:48 am

Er...Johnny O...there was no 13 year old girl, so it would be - um - difficult to pray for her.

We have to - in my opinion - remain calm and not criticise the woo-woos where criticism is not called for.

I mean, isn't it better to ask what's the point of the prayer anyway, regardless of who is the beneficiary? When did a prayer last/ever make a quark of difference?

20. Faith in Britain today

Comment #176989 by stephenray on May 8, 2008 at 12:32 pm

Interesting that the best illustration he can find is of what a baby learns by looking at his mother.
Some babies, of course, grow up and find out that their mother is far from being perfect love.
Some babies never even get that look from their mother right from day 1.
And of course all babies grow up to understand that life is considerably more complex than they could possibly have imagined when they were three years old, never mind three minutes.
If believers (of all ages) would grow up to understand that life is considerably more complex than their silly books tell them, maybe humankind would become rather more mature than the believers would like us to be.

21. 'Darwin chip' brings evolution into the classroom

Comment #158053 by stephenray on April 10, 2008 at 3:07 am

AAAARRGHHHHH!!

SKYNET!!!

Run for the hills...

22. They prayed to cast Satan from my body

Comment #145245 by stephenray on March 17, 2008 at 11:56 am

It's interesting that people who are apparently atheists will use the word 'evil' so freely.

It's a religious concept, guys. Evil on the one side, grace on the other.

What these people at Mercy Ministries are, is IGNORANT. They also appear to be LACKING IN COMPASSION, which is a problem since Christianity, if anything separates it from other religions, is compassionate.

23. The Great Tantra Challenge

Comment #144581 by stephenray on March 16, 2008 at 11:17 am

How much harm can you come to from someone who needs to devote one hand all the time to stop his sheet coming off..?

24. Should Galileo's tomb be opened for DNA tests?

Comment #141454 by stephenray on March 10, 2008 at 12:58 pm

Seems weird that the Catholics are getting huffy about exhuming Galileo for valid scientific tests but have no problem with not only exhuming Padre Pio but also putting his (definitely not incorrupted) corpse on display for the faithful.

Couldn't be that the second leads to cash in the collection boxes while the first will not, ya think?

25. Out of the Blue

Comment #141165 by stephenray on March 10, 2008 at 6:24 am

Perhaps the brain of a baby might be a better analogy for a superlarge computer with sufficient neurons and sufficient synapses. But since none of us can remember anything from our first few days (principally because the RAM has not yet been constructed) I think it safe to say that neither a new-born baby nor a newly-switched on brain-mimicking computer are self aware.

However, for humans it comes pretty quickly after that. But what else is there, in the brain, apart from neurons and symapses, that makes the brain into a learning machine?

There are the relationships between the different parts of the brain - motor control and feedback, visual processing, auditory processing - the autonomic functions, redundancy.

Think about it this way: if you connect a billion processors together, and power them up, what happens? Nothing, surely. Just a lot of power doing no work (apart from heating the room). It's the program that makes things happen.

So the question of whether - if at all - supercomputers can become self-aware should not be focussing on the complexity of the machine, but on how it is programmed.

These things are happening, obviously - expert systems and such like - but it's much sexier to print stories about thousands of processors than it is to go into dull detail about complex software.

26. Crossing the Divide

Comment #139682 by stephenray on March 6, 2008 at 11:51 am

It wasn't that long ago that I twigged to the fact that creationists don't just think that evolution is wrong and mistaken, they really do believe that there is an 'evolution conspiracy', that there are thousands, hundreds of thousands of biologists, chemists, university and school administrators, book and magazine publishers, editors, film makers, TV program makers, TV company managers, etc - all determined to peddle an untrue story about how organised complexity came to be on this planet.

The only way you can acquire such a bizarre and non-sensical belief is if your parents indoctrinate you into it, or if you are terminally stupid.

My congratulations to Mr Godfrey, and let's hope he helps his children to a better understanding of the universe than he got from his parents.

27. How to abandon your God

Comment #139494 by stephenray on March 6, 2008 at 1:54 am

HOLD IT!

Lot of nonsense being talked here. Only people who did NOT have landlines were excluded. This doesn't mean that young, technically savvy people would not have taken part in the survey, since plenty of them have a landline as well as a mobile phone (cellphone - which I always thought was what the prisoners used in US penitentiaries, but hey).
The question is, did the survey allow for the possible small bias against people who don't have a landline?
It would, of course, have excluded homeless people, but who cares what they believe?

28. Pleas for condemned Saudi 'witch'

Comment #127164 by stephenray on February 15, 2008 at 2:06 am

Gymnopedie:
Mentioning beheadings reminds me of an American veteran who visited Saudi Arabia before and at the port they were cutting off the hands of convicted thieves. What a great welcome for the troops!

Next time, your friend should try to avoid travelling with so many ex-cons!

29. My Saudi Valentine

Comment #126701 by stephenray on February 14, 2008 at 2:12 am

"We "date" over the phone or by instant messaging, and we enjoy exchanging gifts - through our chauffeurs or housemaids."

Jeez, it's a hard life in Saudi.

30. Sharia fiasco

Comment #126586 by stephenray on February 13, 2008 at 3:47 pm

Oooh, Pat!

Nobody tried to censor the Three Little Builders book! What happened was it was dismissed from a children's literature prize shortlist. That may be a bad thing, but it's a long, long way from trying to censor the book.

Not fair.

From someone who generally enjoys your work.

31. Murder plot against Danish cartoonist

Comment #126382 by stephenray on February 13, 2008 at 5:32 am

Al-Rawandi:

"They don't torture people. Saudis, Israelis, Iranians, and Chinese do this."

And the Americans! The use of phrases such as 'enhanced interrogation techniques' don't fool anyone who doesn't wish to be fooled.

See the report of Daniel Levin, at the time US Assistant Attorney General (http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/18usc23402340a2.htm) though once he filed the report he didn't last long.

32. Inventor Doesn't Dare Say 'Perpetual Motion Machine'

Comment #125123 by stephenray on February 11, 2008 at 2:12 am

The question has to be asked and answered.

Where is the energy coming from? If the machine is really generating more energy than it is using up, then it makes everything we know about physics automatically suspect.

Oh, and to those people who say 'He says he doesn't understand what's happening and he's asking scientists to look at it' - well, that gambit worked, didn't it? That's got all of you thinking he isn't a fraudster already.

33. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125119 by stephenray on February 11, 2008 at 2:04 am

Adam Hart-Davis might do well.

34. Apologetic billboard replaces atheistic sign

Comment #123334 by stephenray on February 7, 2008 at 1:54 am

One wonders whether the billboard company routinely replaces adverts for all products and services of which it did not approve, with new adverts setting out its views...

35. Ken Ham in Leicester April 2008

Comment #114838 by stephenray on January 23, 2008 at 2:35 am

Ken Ham - isn't he that chinese TV chef with the big grin?

36. Honour Killings

Comment #113919 by stephenray on January 21, 2008 at 2:16 am

He's talking about binge drinking and teenage pregnancy in an article asserting that islamic education will prevent honour killings.

Fuckwit.

Presumably the moslem girls (for I don't suppose he cares a toss for what moslem boys get up to) will also have to be locked in their room when not in school, with no TV, radio, internet access or mobile phones, to ensure that their religiously pure eduction isn't contaminated by real life.

37. The New Theology

Comment #113556 by stephenray on January 20, 2008 at 2:36 am

Another illustration of the maxim that 'a little learning is a dangerous thing' - in this case, from literature.

Blake's god was anything but the milk-sop namby-pamby from Blake's poem The lamb. The point about Songs of Innocence is that they have to be taken together with Songs of Experience. Duh.

38. Ben Stein Bribing Schools to See His Anti-Evolution Movie 'Expelled'

Comment #112741 by stephenray on January 18, 2008 at 2:59 am

Speaking as someone with two degrees, one in law, and called to the Bar in 2002, I find it absolutely astonishing how many trained lawyers in the US apparently cannot think properly.

You know, the process by which you consider a hypothesis and look at the evidence one way or another and formulate a response to the hypothesis.

You have all the lawyers in the White House and environs who apparently cannot tell the difference between interrogation and torture; you have Ben Stein who appears to know next to nothing about a subject on which he is quite prepared to pontificate on for lengthy periods of time whilst never actually breaking the surface of the sea of idiocy in which he is drowning; and don't get me started on Ann Coulter.

Maybe there are a lot of lawyers in England who can't think properly. I've not encountered any.

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

Comment #112108 by stephenray on January 16, 2008 at 10:35 am

Personally, I would have voted for Ann Coulter.

Never mind apes, that woman is evidence that homo sapiens is related to slime.

40. Researchers use neuroimaging to study ESP

Comment #108503 by stephenray on January 7, 2008 at 4:59 am

Oh dear.

A waste of research dollars because, as any fule kno, the brain is not the seat of ESP.

ESP is a broad-spectrum response of the entire body's cell network (a bit like Hubbards' engrams) and, in any event, being extra-sensory is not detectable with devices that are designed to measure electrochemical phenomena in the brain.

:o|

41. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #106540 by stephenray on January 3, 2008 at 5:42 am

Radesq wrote: "I was excited when I saw Christian OUT pop up in the discussion thread. I thought someone had come up with a new cleaning product."

I'm having lunch while reading, and that made me swallow an orange pip. I hope you're happy.

42. The Evangelical Rebellion

Comment #103510 by stephenray on December 26, 2007 at 3:04 am

It's hard to be optimistic about the future of the world when you think that the republican choice seems to be between Romney and Huckabee - both of whom should never run the country - and the democrat choice is between Obama and Clinton - neither of whom seem as though they could run the country...

...but then, who imagined George Bush could be as 'successful' as he was?

43. Abstinence Programs Face Rejection

Comment #100630 by stephenray on December 19, 2007 at 2:46 am

MuNky82: your question
"Simple and quick question to ask a religious fundie who is pro-abstinence-only sex ed:
Why did god create our bodies and hormones to have such urges at such a 'young' age?"

betrays a fundamental failure to engage with modern theology.

God did it, of course, for the same reason that he carefully created a tree, put brightly coloured fruit on it capable of bringing the knowledge of right and wrong to the primordial couple, and then said: "See that tree over there? The one with the brightly coloured fruit? *No touchee, no eatee*, OK?"

On a related point, wouldn't it be better, if we wanted teenagers not to have sex, to make it compulsory? Any fule kno that teenagers will refuse to do anything they are told...

"Oh, no, it's my 12th birthday next week. Now I have to have sex every Saturday night until I leave school..."

44. God rest you merry atheist

Comment #99983 by stephenray on December 18, 2007 at 2:46 am

This is ridiculous.

I sing along with Nellie the Elephant, but I don't anthropomorphise animals; I sing along with Puff the magic dragon but I don't believe in dragons; I sing along with Seven Seas of Rhye and the Fairie Feller's Master-stroke but I've no idea where Rhye is and I don't believe in Fairies; I sing along with Der Fliegende Hollander but I don't believe in an eternal sea captain. So hell yes, I sing along with a good carol and a good hymn.

45. Creationists plan British theme park

Comment #99547 by stephenray on December 17, 2007 at 3:12 am

Generally, what I'd like to know is this.

Where do I object to these pillocks getting any type of public funding? Fair enough if woo-woo mudwit rich businessmen want to waste their money on it, but there are far more important things for European and English grant money to be spent on.

Especially when, for example, arts funding has just been told to get ready for serious cuts.

46. Creationists plan British theme park

Comment #99543 by stephenray on December 17, 2007 at 3:10 am

Quote Northern Bright:

"Is it just me, or is this a spectacular non sequitur?"

That's what I was thinking. It's when there's *no* sex or violence on TV that I think about getting drunk...

47. Voyager 2 probe reaches solar system boundary

Comment #98091 by stephenray on December 13, 2007 at 4:19 am

The whole rocket thing is unbelievably antiquated. It would be like running railways on steam ... er

Anyway, NASA should be using a linear accelerator. Cheaper, safer, greener...

48. U.S. Congress Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith

Comment #98077 by stephenray on December 13, 2007 at 3:44 am

It's ironic, innit?

We have an established church here in the UK but if we assigned a factor of 100 to the obsession with religion in US politics, the factor over here would be about 2.

It's the education, I reckon. Generations of kids have grown up in the US without learning any analytical skills.

49. Girl, 16, dies after hijab dispute with father

Comment #97393 by stephenray on December 12, 2007 at 2:33 am

Ooops.

It may be that religion is involved with 'honour killings', but it isn't necessarily the cause. It's a social/cultural thing, isn't it?
For a start off, yesterday's BBC Radio 4 programme 'Taking a stand' featured the *Sikh* brother of a *Sikh* woman who was 'lured' to India and killed by her mother in law because she was planning to divorce the woman's son - an 'honour killing'. I know I have heard of honour killings amongst Hindus as well.

Now, we don't have honour killings in countries in the 'christian' world, but let's not over-egg the pudding and attribute this killing to Islam.

Admittedly this murder appears to have been set off by the daughter's refusal to comport herself according to the dictates of her parents' religion, but the distinction is important, even if it is a fine one.

Where an act of criminal stupidity is prompted by religion, let's say so. Where it is attributable just to primitive ignorance, let's say *that*.

And while I'm at it, can we find a suitably insulting and disgusted alternative to the phrase 'honour killing', which makes it clear to the fuckwit pigs who approve of such acts that they are simply inexcusable and unforgiveable?

50. Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty

Comment #97387 by stephenray on December 12, 2007 at 2:18 am

Interesting, and wholly supporting the talk presented by one of the speakers at Enlightenment 2.0 who discussed thought experiments in which people were invited to respond to, eg, the thought of eating sterlised cockroaches during a famine (or something like that) and who react viscerally and then rationalise their response, rather than consider the situation and give a considered response. He said he had set up situations where the response was 'I know I'm wrong and I can't justify my decision, but I just can't bring myself to accept the proposition.'

It would be interting to repeat the experiment, carrying out some form of test beforehand to divide the candidates into sceptics and believers and see if the sceptics are any less likely to make judgments in the instinctive rather than higher cognition areas of the brain. And whether that is a cause of or an effect of having a sceptical disposition...