1. Liddy Dole's Un-American Ad

Comment #279288 by Notcrowingbutyawning on November 5, 2008 at 9:20 pm

1. Comment #278958 by Eshto on November 5, 2008 at 12:51 pm

"There would be something a bit suspicious about a seven year old claiming to be an atheist."

Perhaps, but try this. Eighteen months ago my niece [then eight] returned from school and without prompting announced to her parents 'You know, I don't beleive in god and I think that the bible stories are probably just made up.' When questioned, she felt that there might be something in Big Foot and the Loch Ness monster, though. :O)

2. The soul? It may all be in your mind

Comment #267494 by Notcrowingbutyawning on October 20, 2008 at 3:44 pm

Amongst a number of self-penned aphorisms [or at least attempts at the same] abiding on post-its on my pinboard is this one of recent vintage. "God is the refusal to accept that all that goes on inside your head is only going on inside your head." A truth I've, a little sadly, come to realise.

As for the notion of a soul, a short while back I postulated that perchance it could be a recording of all your neuronal signatures somewhere out 'there' in the 'ether'. Like a sort of back-up file. A desperate attempt to hang on to the meme, I reluctantly concluded.

But imagine if there were such a thing as 'the spirit' and after death you could wander unfettered around the universe, darting from galaxy to galaxy in an instant, situating yourself in a collapsing star then surfing on its supernova before deciding you'd stick around for a few million years haunting a particular hydrogen atom that eventually gets conscripted into a molecule of water, and since time has no meaning for the 'soul' you could, should you wish eventually be part of the first rain to fall on a new planet, whilst all the time communicating with other souls that may or may not be doing the same but all the same trully know just what it is you feel when you hear your favourite records and recognise exactly why they are so great....

But, let's face it, when die you probably just cease to be... ahhh.. B*LL*CKS! :O(

3. Big Bang or Big Bounce?: New Theory on the Universe's Birth

Comment #262371 by Notcrowingbutyawning on October 8, 2008 at 12:02 pm

Amazing what turtles can do

4. New Rules for Sarah Palin and Her Witchdoctor

Comment #260387 by Notcrowingbutyawning on October 5, 2008 at 12:42 pm

Isn't it more likely he's laughing at the joke-writers' jokes, having just read them? This is American TV afterall. But, that nail remains very firmly hit does it not?

5. World's oldest rocks discovered in Canada

Comment #255014 by Notcrowingbutyawning on September 26, 2008 at 3:29 pm

I've spent the last ten minutes trying to formulate a pun around the word 'craton' and have failed.

6. Humanists take legal action on GCSE exclusion

Comment #252575 by Notcrowingbutyawning on September 23, 2008 at 11:19 am

Stop teaching RE per se and introduce a broader study of Philosophy. Simple. Mind you, doesn't trying to shoehorn Humanism into a religious education class sort of smack of trying to get creationsim into biology?

7. 'Big Bang' experiment starts well

Comment #245364 by Notcrowingbutyawning on September 10, 2008 at 2:51 pm

I bought one of those Large Hadron Kaleidoscopes as well, but when I looked into it all I could see was a tiny little black hole. :O(

8. MythBuster Adam Savage: 3 Ways to Fix U.S. Science Education

Comment #239854 by Notcrowingbutyawning on August 30, 2008 at 12:54 pm

Hands on and hands dirty, make it gleefully messy and designed to explore, involve them every step of the way in the process and you'll only fail if that child is forever beyond reach anyhow!

You can make it as simple as studying gravity. Ask a child why heavy things don't go up when you drop them, and go from there. In essence, let them discover the law of gravity for themselves and only reveal Newton when they've pretty much understood what he was saying to begin with.

Think of all the subsets you can get out of it along the way... Why did this smash? Why did this bounce? Why did this just plop? Did any of them take longer to hit the ground? Then why?

Makes me want to go out and realise it all again. :O)

9. Scientists Create Blood From Stem Cells

Comment #234717 by Notcrowingbutyawning on August 22, 2008 at 12:16 am

As someone who makes a living from collecting blood donations I am deeply disturbed by this news. I can only hope that this technology will receive a rigourous and critical process of validation from both haematological and ethical perspectives, followed by a number of revalidations and, one hopes, procrastinations. I am of the sincere conviction that this process ought not to take less than fifteen years since I can't get my hands on the final salary pension before then! :O)

10. Do they really think the earth is flat?

Comment #224348 by Notcrowingbutyawning on August 4, 2008 at 1:44 pm

I'm all for flat-earthers. They make the world go round... well, in 2D. By the way, an open question to all. Anyone else here ever read 'Scepticism Inc.' by Bo Fowler?

11. Church exorcism protected by First Amendment

Comment #221310 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 29, 2008 at 1:50 pm

Wonder if they'd take the same point of view if the complaint arose out of an act of homosexual sado-masochism?

12. Council ban on atheist websites

Comment #221263 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 29, 2008 at 1:18 pm

Cock-up rather than conspiracy, I suspect.

However, they really need to do some explaining as to why they consider Christianity, Islam etc non-mystical. These preposterous assumptions need to be exposed. There's a variety of ways of doing this.

You could simply rationally challenge it every step of the way, or you could also get all sort of inclusive and start shouting about rights for Wiccans, Elvis believers, Jedi knights and the FSM.

I like the latter better than the former, but the beauty of it is that the former might arise from the latter as a result. Or at least we can hope so... Too much to hope?... oh, alright!

13. Catholics To Pope: Lift Birth Control Ban

Comment #220393 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 28, 2008 at 11:51 am

I got rhythm, who could ask for anything more?

14. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #214430 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 20, 2008 at 12:59 pm

The Arabs got it from the Greeks and the Greeks were pagans.

15. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #214421 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 20, 2008 at 12:46 pm

No chance then. :O(

16. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #214398 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 20, 2008 at 11:40 am

Any chance of leaving the last word to the divine Jimi?

-Hey Joe, where you goin' with that spam in your hand?

[riff then repeat]

-I'm goin' down to swamp some website... they been messin' with my... relig-jan

-I said Hey Joe, I heard you posted 10 gigs of text

[riff and repeat]

-Yeah, I posted, I posted because I bel...ieve

etc

17. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #214042 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 19, 2008 at 12:08 pm

Is all this what comes of tea-totalism?

18. 'Condoms won't change HIV rates'

Comment #212585 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 17, 2008 at 11:43 am

Wonder what sort of results mandatory AIDs testing of Catholic bishops would yield? I'd certainly be happy to help fund that kind of investigation :O)

19. Host Desecration is Old Anti-Semitic Nonsense

Comment #209912 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 13, 2008 at 1:49 pm

22. Comment #209902 by NJS on July 13, 2008 at 1:41 pm

It's the BIG LIE, thus very attractive. It's almost as if they are saying 'believe this and there's no going back since why should you?''. It's so patently absurd that acceptance of it is actually a great comfort. Winston Smith finally loved Big Brother afterall.

20. Host Desecration is Old Anti-Semitic Nonsense

Comment #209900 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 13, 2008 at 1:40 pm

19. Comment #209882 by Spinoza on July 13, 2008 at 1:17 pm

''Notcrowingbutyawning, indeed, unfortunately for the better part of 350 years (roughly, 1650-2008) Spinoza has been hated and vilified for no good reason.''

As a youth I bought a copy of 'Philosophy Made Simple' and came out of it with an admiration of Spinoza in particular. I couldn't be at all specific as to why, it being some thirty years later, but perchance I have just started to be reminded.

Mind you, 358 years is the better part of 400 and in excess of 350 ;O)

21. Church Cancels Teen Gun Giveaway

Comment #209888 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 13, 2008 at 1:24 pm

Here in Blighty of course it would be quite simply restricted to a book token and rightly so!

22. Host Desecration is Old Anti-Semitic Nonsense

Comment #209875 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 13, 2008 at 1:03 pm

'And do you, unhappy one, weep for me? And do you call my Philosophy, which you have never seen, a Chimera? O brainless youth, who has bewitched you, so that you believe that you swallow the highest and the eternal, and that you hold it in your intestines?'

After the best part of four hundred years this continues to sum it up doesn't it?

23. Lourdes fears priestly scandal will make profits dry up

Comment #209839 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 13, 2008 at 12:14 pm

He should use the Father Ted defence.

''That money was simply 'resting' in my account.''

24. Man Sues Church Over 'God Injury'

Comment #209822 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 13, 2008 at 11:57 am

Maybe god promised he'd make him a millionaire?

25. Church Cancels Teen Gun Giveaway

Comment #209820 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 13, 2008 at 11:56 am

I just wonder how this particular church would view a similiar promotion by some other religion.

26. Host Desecration is Old Anti-Semitic Nonsense

Comment #209814 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 13, 2008 at 11:52 am

The whole thing is almost a definition of insanity, certainly of irrationality. But it's that thing about people believing the big lie more readily, I suppose. What a sad little species we can be.

27. Susskind Quashes Hawking in Quarrel Over Quantum Quandary

Comment #207849 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 10, 2008 at 8:13 am

The ultimate Q alliteration?

28. IT'S A GODDAMNED CRACKER!

Comment #206926 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 9, 2008 at 1:34 am

Comment #206924 by Vaal

I got all the way to the bottom of the page ready to be the first in with the Frank Carson gag and Vaal beat me to it. :O(

29. Teaching Evolution in Mexico: Preaching to the Choir

Comment #205694 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 5:03 pm

28. Comment #205690 by huzonfurst

"I hardly ever answer the door naked, unless I notice the people knocking are Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons. Then I drop my shorts, light a cigar, grab a drink, fling open the door and say 'Welcome, Brothers, you're just in time for the orgy! Care for some whiskey and cigarettes?'"

Yeah, but what happens if they accept?!

30. Teaching Evolution in Mexico: Preaching to the Choir

Comment #205685 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 4:23 pm

Comment #205672 by TIKI AL

The devil incarnate indeed, Tiki. But imagine the over-whelming sense of smugness I get from informing door-to-door energy-salesmen that I've got my prices frozen until 2010?

I will have to work on that Flight-Of-The-Bumblebee gambit though :O)

31. Origin of the Novel Species Noodleous doubleous: Evidence for Intelligent Design

Comment #205674 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 4:06 pm

34. Comment #205655 by contrarian

Consider ye all the ultimate Italian insult... 'Your mother makes a poor marinara sauce'

Does this not, by inversion, remind us of the sanctity of womanhood as it is truly the She who did bring forth the son of FSM come to earth as a satisfying plateful? For is it not written alphabeti-spaghettily?

Peace and blessings be upon you and whilst adoring your women, make sure they damn well give you cause to, otherwise beat them with impunity for it is written.

32. Teaching Evolution in Mexico: Preaching to the Choir

Comment #205665 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 3:44 pm

Comment #205661 by TIKI AL

''but what really blew there young minds was when I positioned numerous cards and clothespins in their bicycle spokes to play "The Flight of the Bumble".''

It would have done for me even if I was only trying to sell you double glazing. Fine technique, Tiki.

33. Teaching Evolution in Mexico: Preaching to the Choir

Comment #205654 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 3:36 pm

Comment #205647 by tybowen

''But they like to talk about it because it is about the only interesting thing left for them to think about.''

Think you might have stated some sort of global truth about religious motivation here :O)

34. Teaching Evolution in Mexico: Preaching to the Choir

Comment #205644 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 3:15 pm

Comment #205639 by tybowen

''They are told specifically to avoid any deep doctrine as this will just confuse people. ''

or indeed themselves...

35. Teaching Evolution in Mexico: Preaching to the Choir

Comment #205634 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 2:44 pm

17. Comment #205629 by Gregg Townsend

''You want to go to a good party; try hanging out with Asatru. Lots of mead and sharp implements.[/edit]''

There was certainly mead. As for sharp implements, I recall only tent-pegs, although having declared myself a sceptic I might have been disqualified from the inner-sanctum :O)

''Fortunately, it appears the English (from which I am obviously descended) don't appear to take their religions as seriously as their science.''

We used to, but we deported most of it to your neck of the woods, mate. :O)

36. Teaching Evolution in Mexico: Preaching to the Choir

Comment #205623 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 2:23 pm

10. Comment #205544 by Gregg Townsend

''American Wiccans would rarely be characterized as 'well-organized'. Most don't know a thing about Wicca, militantly resist razors (the men and the women) and routinely stink of patchouli.''

Well, to be honest, what impressed me about the Somerset Wiccans was that they didn't seem any better or worse than anyone else and their parties were great. In a typically English [and I say English rather than British] sense, they didn't let 'belief' get in the way of knees-up. As for their shaving habits, all I can report is that not one woman sported facial hair - although my examination of armpits and other areas was perhaps sadly cursory or amiss.

I can say, however, I got not one whiff of petchouli the whole weekend. When I opined to the, I found out later, High Priestess that the moon, although beautiful, was essentially a lump of rock, she took no pains to contradict me.

In short, on the whole, they went in for it, but didn't really believe it in the end, and that is to their credit. In another incarnation it is called Anglicanism, or at least it used to be. :O(

37. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #205609 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 2:01 pm

The world is so much more mad than my imagining of my own madness.

Comfort or fear?

God knows!

38. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #205597 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Comment #205588 by al-rawandi

Flat-earthers of my acquaintence, being an Anglo-Saxon, have tended to fund their projects via the throat-cutting of parents and selling of their children into slavery. But that's just another, albeit overlooked, quaint English tradition. You know what we are like.

39. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #205591 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 1:39 pm

21. Comment #205588 by al-rawandi

Well, if you put it like that...

40. [UPDATED] Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya

Comment #205586 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 1:30 pm

Comment #205580 by al-rawandi

''He has been prosecuted for rape, slander, libel, bribery, and blackmail. Oktar has been sentenced to three years in prison along with other members of his "gang". He is currently appealing the case.''

Hey! But that's no reason to question the guy's beliefs, is it? ..... No?... Well, I only asked, y'know... beliefs and all that, yeah? [wind howls, tumbleweed blows, bell rings dolorously...]

41. Churches' secret talks to stop gay surge

Comment #205567 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 1:06 pm

Cartomancer, this is the problem. Evisage this, that somehow, the liberal tendency in British society rejects Christianity as an input into its conscience and world-view but fails to recognise the threat of Islam on the basis that, being liberal, we must understand the needs of minorities lest we be considered 'racist'.

Would it not be the case that most christians in te world are of an appreciably darker skin-colour than the average north-european? And, that being the case, is not criticism of Christianity, demographically, equally 'racist'?

42. Churches' secret talks to stop gay surge

Comment #205540 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 12:36 pm

Should we not celebrate this continuence of male hetereosexual superstition as a means to hoisting it by its own proverbial petard? Would not opening it up more to equally superstitious females not end it but rather make it more entrenched and insidious?

43. Churches' secret talks to stop gay surge

Comment #205534 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 12:27 pm

Comment #205497 by Paula Kirby

''You have to wonder about people who can get so up tight about these things: just how EXACTLY do their minds work? Can you imagine the obnoxiousness of the filter through which they view the world?''


could it be an evolutionary adaptation?.... ooops :O)

44. Teaching Evolution in Mexico: Preaching to the Choir

Comment #205521 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 12:10 pm

Comment #205488 by Gregg Townsend

''Fundamentalist Mormons don't proselytize ''

So, those that have stopped me on the street before now are the liberal-branch, or were they fundamental and just wanted a chat? Mind you, they are always nicely turned out!

However, and to be honest, I have done work for a day amongst English mormons in Croydon and was impressed at how normal and well-adjusted and well-organised as a community they all were. They seemed like perfectly normal people in fact. I particularly liked their relentless ridiucle of their American bretheren, but then I'm a Brit and that sort of stuff plays well here :O)

Incidentally, I can say the same of a Wiccan gathering I attended in Somerset some years ago.

That is the trouble with religion though, the individuals may be fine, but, in the end, if the ideology stinks.... :O(

45. Origin of the Novel Species Noodleous doubleous: Evidence for Intelligent Design

Comment #205508 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 11:46 am

25. Comment #205501 by Mitchell Gilks

Some would baulk at the term 'noodly' preferring instead to invoke the Pastagnostic mechanism of 'Cos Cause', rendered into modern English as CousCous. In the noodly, or tentaculate, perception the intervention is slithery whilst the Pastagnostic interpretation, accepted by all civilized folk, is more of a shotgun blast of truth.

You are left to decide for yourself, but make sure you decide right, ok?

46. Origin of the Novel Species Noodleous doubleous: Evidence for Intelligent Design

Comment #205486 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 11:09 am

Esteemed prophet Bert O'Lucci did say on the subject of the Hindu scripture The Rig Atoni that there is a divine spirali of taut alini, similar to the cundalini but not really, that linguini forever until the end of the German day i.e. the Tag, and at the end of that day, in a Yorkshire dialect it will inform you of the secret... literally... The Tag'll Tell 'ee.

So it is written, was it not?

47. Teaching Evolution in Mexico: Preaching to the Choir

Comment #205479 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 10:49 am

this sounds like SJ Gould's non-overlapping magisteria thingy

48. Churches' secret talks to stop gay surge

Comment #205475 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 10:35 am

Comment #205469 by SteveN

I suspect that there are those in the establishment quite willing to do this but are afraid of the precedent. If you do it, quite reasonably, to the CofE that means you have to apply the same rigour to Islamic organisations if you are not to be called hypocrit. The flip-side is that apologists for Islam may choose to play the [indeed erroneous] race-card as a counter-argument.

Why on earth don't we just subject all publically-registered organisations to proper controls!

49. Churches' secret talks to stop gay surge

Comment #205467 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 10:08 am

Comment #205466 by rod-the-farmer

In a nutshell

50. Origin of the Novel Species Noodleous doubleous: Evidence for Intelligent Design

Comment #205464 by Notcrowingbutyawning on July 7, 2008 at 10:03 am

Comment #205461 by Steve Zara

They hide the invisible souls of the departed, Steve. When a pasta shell opens it liberates a dead person's essence unto the lord, which is like real cool, y'know. So, saith the FSM, always particularly enjoy your tuna and sweetcorn for thereby lies the path to eternal life wot wiv it being low fat and all that.