1. UC Berkeley is going to court over Evolution website

Comment #180875 by Shuggy on May 16, 2008 at 2:22 am

At the risk of sounding like I support the PJI, I think this is very sloppy wording and thinking:

Of course, some religious beliefs explicitly contradict science (e.g., the belief that the world and all life on it was created in six literal days)

Science is not "the world and all life on it took somewhat longer than six literal days to come into being." That is just the current understanding of the conclusions to be drawn from the evidence found by scientific methods and reasoning. Science must be always open to contradiction, and someday scientific evidence could emerge showing that the w and all l on it were indeed c in 6 l ds. I know the likelihood approaches zero with near-infinite probability, but we must never close the door against it. Science is a collection of methods of learning about nature, and I think this page should rather defend the methods of science against the attacks of those who would replace them by revelation, holy books, etc.

2. Group finds Starbucks logo too hot to handle

Comment #180868 by Shuggy on May 16, 2008 at 1:58 am

a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute

Do prostitutes spread their legs in a different manner from other (naked) women? How do these people know? Actually, if they were legs and not tails, they would be spread more like a contortionist, or someone suffering some kind of rubbery-bones syndrome.

Grumpy Max:

I thought it must be a lady pouring out two bags of coffee in front of her. I thought the scales were the beans, tumbling out.

By George, he's right! It does look like that, more anyway than the prostitute version.

3. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #180454 by Shuggy on May 15, 2008 at 2:10 am

Did Jesus have to die for them too - second time over?

"For God so loved the every world with intelligent life that he gave his only all his begotten sons ..."
John 3 16,
Jhon ||, |----,
Dzhon 10, 121,
Zhon §,¤ ...

4. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #179931 by Shuggy on May 14, 2008 at 2:22 am

Pope John Paul declared in 1992 that the ruling against Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension."

And exactly what did Galileo not comprehend?

As a gay man, what I want to know is, what if the aliens have one sex or three (or more or none), will it be sinful for aliens of the same sex to have sex with each other?

What (if they're humanoid, and attractive to us) about sex with aliens? What if it can "transmit life" - ie result in hybrid childriens?

Whatever the answers are, I'm sure
1. the Church will deliver them with 100% certitude.
2. they will be such as to maximise guilt.

5. Muslim Rebel Sisters: At Odds With Islam and Each Other

Comment #174614 by Shuggy on May 3, 2008 at 1:12 am

28. Comment #174544 by rod-the-farmer on May 2, 2008

For some time now I have been arguing that if it truly IS a choice, then why don't the men choose to wear it ? Why is it that some (surely not all) muslim men cannot control themselves when confronted with the sight of a womans' hair ? Or her neck/legs/etc. ? How about a moderately form-fitting dress ? Or even a tight sweater !

The other evening in a city street I saw two women, one in full-length skirt, long sleeves and veil, the other, presumably her daughter, in sprayed-on jeans, knee-high high-heeled boots that made her hips swivel - and headscarf! I imagine it's the last bit of Islam she's going to let go, or maybe the last bit she obeys her parents about.

6. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174566 by Shuggy on May 2, 2008 at 5:39 pm

Sorry if this has been followed up (I searched the next few pages and found nothing)

29. Comment #172201 by FightingFalcon on April 29, 2008

Many of Hitler's close associates (although not himself) were also homosexual.

1. Ernst Roehm
2. ?

This is often claimed as a homophobic smear, either of Nazis or gay folk, but how much truth is there to it? There can't have been many, or they can't have had much power, and they must have been DEEPLY closetted, or the Nazis wouldn't have strengthened paragraph 175, closed the gay clubs, sent the gays to the camps where they were bottom of the heap, and so on.

7. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #173404 by Shuggy on April 30, 2008 at 6:15 pm

DickDawkins (any resemblance ...) wrote:

I don't think he's qualified to answer the God question. If he were to write a book on the proof of evolution, if he hasn't already, I'd definitely think it would've been a credible book.

He has. Several. You ought to read them.

However a biologist answering the god question to me is like a mathematician solving an engineering problem. There are commonalities, but I don't think the mathematician is qualified to solve the engineering problem.

So what would qualify someone to "answer the god question". I feel a T-shirt coming on, something like "Theology is a study without a subject."

8. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #173256 by Shuggy on April 30, 2008 at 2:46 pm

Correction: The father's name is James H. Boldt.

9. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #172700 by Shuggy on April 30, 2008 at 12:01 am

Update: David Boldt has filed a Writ of Certiorari to the United States Supreme Court in the matter of Boldt v Boldt.

"Misha" Boldt is a young man, now 13, who faces an unwanted circumcision occasioned by the (alleged) conversion of his custodial father. The father is an attorney who managed to gain sole custody of his son. The divorce has been long and public and acrimonious.

The natural mother (representing her son) lost at the lower level and again on appeal to an intermediate Oregon court. Doctors Opposing Circumcision interposed an amicus brief
and were partially successful in getting the intermediate Court ruling overturned. The Oregon Supreme Court ruled that the boy's testimony was necessary and a hearing must be held. They did not, however, forbid the circumcision or suggest the boy's opinion would be determinative. The Court's opinion and DOC's briefs are
both on the DOC website, http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org/info/appeal.html

DOC maintains it is the Court's job to protect the boy until he is an adult, since it is very likely he would cave in.

Suggesting the child must be consulted is a very powerful precedent for the future.

Now the father has appealed over the heads of Oregon, directly to the US Supreme Court, which he is able to do.

DOC needs to file a response to the father's Petition for Writ of Certiorari, if only to preserve the issues on appeal. It is not required that a Petition for Writ be replied to, but failure to do so means the case could be decided on the grounds the Petitioner (the father) selects.

One attorney has donated hundreds of hours of his time. DOC wants him reimbursed so he can continue.

The American Humanist Association in Wash DC, offered to help if the case went federal, and it now has.

DOC fears the Supremes might see it as a unique religious freedom issue and take the case. For that reason they think it vital to reply to the father's petition.

Based on a message from

John V. Geisheker, J.D., LL.M.
Executive Director,
General Counsel,
Doctors Opposing Circumcision
DoctorsOpposingCircumcision.org
2132 Westlake Ave. N., Suite #150
Seattle, WA 98109
tel 1. 206. 465. 6636

Please contact him if you have any queries, or can help.

10. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #171727 by Shuggy on April 28, 2008 at 6:18 pm

This would have been more of a debate if they'd shown each other their first drafts, and perhaps their second.

I'd like to know what Winston has to say about the man languishing in prison for "blasphemy", never mind whether he uses a bus on Saturday. (Wouldn't a bus be OK, with the driver as a Shabbas Goy? Or would he have to pay on Friday before dusk, or wait till nightfall? But for all I know the rabbinical definition of "work" includes stepping up on to the step - or the bus has been defined as a beast of burden.)

"But, oddly, the more we use science to explore nature, the more we find things we do not understand and cannot explain." What (on earth) is odd about that? Each answer raises new questions, and so it should. He seems to be grateful for new Gaps for his God to be a God of.

I find LRW to be a very engaging person, but the more I learn about what he thinks, the more infuriating he is.

11. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #169853 by Shuggy on April 27, 2008 at 1:20 am

Either the universe has always existed, or it was created by someone who has always existed.

Or someseveral, or some-many, or something, or ...

If the latter is improbable, as he claims, then why is not the former also?

Read the book - because god/dess/es amount to as much complexity as they explain. And for the same reason that in the statement "Either the book fell off the shelf because of a draught/earth tremor, or because a witch/ghost/fairy pushed it" the latter explanation is improbable, but not the former.

Could it be that the latter might make moral claims on all of us, something that would threaten our desire to be morally autonomous?

This is such a stretch it's hard to know where to begin. The short answer is no, RD is more intellectually honest than that, and has repeatedly said that the moral consequences of a statement are quite independent of its truth value. IE, if there is/are a god/dess/es, there is/are one/some, and then we would have to face whatever moral consequences follow from that, including perhaps being required to take sides in battles between god/dess/es. But as usual, the writer is thinking only of the male-like, patriarchal God of the middle Eastern monotheisims (and more particularly one of the three - I doubt that his God says RD may have four wives).

12. Yoko Ono sues over use of John Lennon videos

Comment #169845 by Shuggy on April 27, 2008 at 12:27 am

Comment #168680 by Lionel A on April 25, 2008

and link to the poll at:

http://www.myspace.com/expelledthemovement

It's currently running at

Yes [ID should be taught in schools]
854 votes (0.21%)
No
409659 votes (98.49%)
Not sure
175 votes (0.04%)
What is it?
5300 votes (1.27%)

You couldn't make that up, it's like a Zimbabwean election. My guess is some evil Darwinist has hacked the voting. Or else the whole page is a hoax.

13. Mount Vernon schools to hire investigator in Bible case

Comment #169830 by Shuggy on April 26, 2008 at 10:59 pm

Burning crosses into children's arms sounds utterly off the wall, but also very easy to prove. Let's just see photographs of the crosses.

14. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169414 by Shuggy on April 26, 2008 at 3:32 am

As a gay man, I can't help feeling that "Be ... not gay" (my ellipsis of course) goes beyond freedom of speech to an attack on my identity (CF "No Blacks" "Juden Raus"), and certainly in a student context where I might have to sit behind such a message.

In terms of retaliation, among the atheist messages at The Wero Shop, "What Would Judas Do?" would probably get up their noses most.

15. The simple falsehood at the heart of Expelled

Comment #169379 by Shuggy on April 25, 2008 at 11:28 pm

9. Comment #158272 by ryanjevansuk on April 10, 2008 at 9:19 am

... painful as it might be, I really want to watch Expelled to see if it is as bad as the reviews I have read suggest but I certainly don't want to pay to see it.

Don't expect to see it in theatres. It'll be coming to a church near you. Just pass the bucket on when it reaches you.

16. Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art

Comment #169377 by Shuggy on April 25, 2008 at 11:14 pm

"...but it was Dawkins that people were worshipping."

It's a great tribute to our age that a scientist can still be greeted with more adulation than a pop princess. But I can't help noting the irony of the imagery that Dawkins' reception has conjured up. Falling at his feet? Worshipping?

Does it not occur to this idiot that a man who has directed Doctor Who, Torchwood and Queer as Folk might possibly have known exactly what he was saying?

17. Richard Dawkins: 'Growth in creationist beliefs a problem for schools'

Comment #156562 by Shuggy on April 7, 2008 at 9:50 pm

apparently, Australia is supposed to be a Catholic country.

It has a high (nominally) Catholic population and the church is powerful*, but it's not a Catholic country, as say, Spain is a Catholic country.

*They say "fillum" and "haitch" as a result of the Irish teachers, and they're behind NZ in women'r rights and gay rights (no civil union there, so far as I know).

18. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #156069 by Shuggy on April 6, 2008 at 3:48 pm

"It's one of the great gay myths, the chucking out of the teenager."

It bloody isn't! Just because it didn't happen to him and doesn't happen as much as it used to, doesn't mean it doesn't still happen.

19. Who wants to kill the elderly?

Comment #154160 by Shuggy on April 2, 2008 at 7:18 pm

The Bishop specifically referred to "surplus" old people. Before we even begin to debate voluntary euthanasia with him, we need to find out what he thinks he means by that. If people who want to be euthanased consider themselves "surplus" it might be a valid argument, but instead they usually consider themselves to be in intolerable pain, with negative quality of life, and less unhappy out of the world than in it. As it stands, his use of "surplus" is a gratuitous swipe at a straw person.

20. CEAI Action Alert for Science Teachers

Comment #154155 by Shuggy on April 2, 2008 at 7:07 pm

The Florida Family Policy Council (FFPC) is a state based pro-life, pro-family, pro-marriage educational advocacy group that is associated with Dr. James Dobson and Focus on the Family.

So let's untangle that. They're anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-gay-marriage, and associated with a pro-beating-of-children group (James Dobson is the author of "Dare To Discipline").

What do these things have in commmon with being anti-evolution?

21. BBC 'too scared to allow jokes about Islam'

Comment #154151 by Shuggy on April 2, 2008 at 6:58 pm

I can't wait to see "The Mullah of Dibley" or "Imam Ted".

Come to think of it, is "The Vicar of Dibley" or "Father Ted" shown in the US?

22. Thy will be done

Comment #154147 by Shuggy on April 2, 2008 at 6:53 pm

And what would an atheist prayer look like ? "Please save us from all these deluded people and their lack of reason, make it so."

Certainly not, because that is addressed to a non-being. It would have to be of the form "May we save ourselves ... etc."

23. Thy will be done

Comment #154144 by Shuggy on April 2, 2008 at 6:49 pm

"Would they have walked out if it had been a rabbi or an imam?" he asked.

The question arises, why wasn't it a rabbi or an imam?

The first question is loaded precisely because Judaism and Islam are minority religions in the UK while Christianity is the default religion. So walking out on a Christian prayer is seen for what it is, rejecting religion, whereas walking out on a rabbi or imam would have been (incorrectly) seen as anti-Semitic or anti-Islamic.

24. Supreme Court to consider Ten Commandments vs. 'Seven Aphorisms'

Comment #153753 by Shuggy on April 2, 2008 at 1:53 am

I don't see that allowing everything is a solution, when the first four of the 10 Commandments are so toxic to all but their believers. Sure nobody could argue with Thou Shalt Not Kill (including zygotes, and except thy enemies and feeble-minded 16-year-olds whose lawyers were asleep) and Thou Shalt not Steal (but creative tax returns are OK), but those are about the only ones.

No other gods but Me? There goes freedom of religion.

No making/worshipping graven images? What if it's part of my religion?

25. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #150487 by Shuggy on March 27, 2008 at 1:59 am

I'm intrigued by RD's use of "artless". Artlessness is commonly represented as a good thing, implying lack of guile and so on. Here it's a bad thing. Perhaps someone who knows about art (with or without knowing what they like) can explain.

I have to say I was amused by

I pursued the matter until the audience's hostile demeanour persuaded me that there was no point in continuing.

I can well imagine that an audience that laughed at the "jokes" in Expelled would not take kindly to RD's logic, clarity and remorseless pursuit of the truth. They probably wouldn't like his accent, either.

26. Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90

Comment #148768 by Shuggy on March 23, 2008 at 9:54 pm

Rational G:

Not to be picky, but, the screenplay to 2001 came first, co-written by Clarke and Kubrick. The novel came later.

Fathom:

To be pickier still the novel "The Sentinel" came first on which the screenplay was based.

Pickiest: "The Sentinel" was a short story. SPOILER: A mysterious structure (pyramid?) is found on the Moon. They break in and realise that it is a transmitter that has been broadcasting to a distant galaxy, but when they broke in, it stopped. And that is what it was for. The End.

What piqued my imagination was his vision of a computer-generated city in The City and The Stars (something we haven't yet quite achieved). I wrote an essay for a student paper about the future of computers using that as the epigraph in 1967, - not knowing from what about computers - and won a prize, judged by an editor who then offered me my first job (at which I was dismal, but that's another story).

So I have ACC to thank for springboarding my career, but since neither of us believes/d in survival of the "spirit" I'll abstain from apostrophising him.

27. Belief in Belief

Comment #140577 by Shuggy on March 7, 2008 at 10:50 pm

I believe completely that God was at the center of your transformation as well. You see, he doesn't only love and act on the part of the faithful. He loves you an equal amount.

I'm sure this is a better god than the one who only helps those who belong to this or that narrow sect, but unfortunately, one non-existent being can't really be better than another non-existent being. I'm sure too that this makes you feel good, and it feels good to feel good, and one probably lives a better life when one is feeling good, so you can say this helps you live a better life.

However, the problem arises with all the ones whose lives this God doesn't transform when they most need it. Doesn't S/He/They love those people as much? And some really good people get a really raw deal, dying young of painful diseases and the like. Does S/He/They hate those people? It boils down to a variety of the problem of evil. You might call it the problem of lack of good. (Shades of Dilbert's Prince of Insufficient Light darning you to Heck!)

28. Church exhumes Padre Pio

Comment #140511 by Shuggy on March 7, 2008 at 3:37 pm

The Vatican said the charismatic monk's corpse was taken from the church crypt on Sunday to conserve it "for generations of future worshippers'' as it was under threat from humidity.

Hang on! Isn't one of the tests of sainthood that their remains remain uncorrupted? "For Thou wilt not ... suffer thy Holy One to see corruption." - Ps 16:10 (Cue Handel) Doesn't the "threat from humidity" prove what was obvious, that he was no saint?

29. How to abandon your God

Comment #140507 by Shuggy on March 7, 2008 at 3:20 pm

He seems like a nice guy who is genuinely trying to put into words a lot of people's attempts to make sense of the numinous ideas they have, confronted with how big and mysterious the whole shebang is. Being cold-blooded and "there isn't an OT God so there isn't any god at all so stop blathering" about it may make you feel better, but it won't address a lot of people's feeling that he is saying the kind of thing they want to say.

Is there a possible discussion about pantheism/Einstein's god that isn't just dismissive?

30. Add another flea to the list...

Comment #138098 by Shuggy on March 3, 2008 at 11:35 pm

Comment #132917 by notsobad on February 25, 2008 at 12:01 pm

The subtitle is hilarious. It just shows how desperate they got.

No, I think it's clever marketting. Since "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are guaranteed (?) in the US Constitution (Declaration of Independence?), this is a dogwhistle way of saying atheism is unAmerican. Hell, it's practically unAmerican not to buy this book!

31. Evidence can't shake your faith if your faith excludes it as evidence

Comment #137482 by Shuggy on March 3, 2008 at 1:29 am

I found this a useful thought experiment:

Suppose [a fairy] were to appear before Dawkins, even as he was delivering another lecture on the delusion that [fairies] exist[]. Would such an experience change Dawkins' views?

Fish has spent his whole career pointing out why it wouldn't: not because of the nature of [fairies], but because of the nature of interpretation. As long as Dawkins remains who he is now, he will remain incapable of seeing [a fairy].

After all, a genuine [afairyist] must interpret such an event as a temporarily inexplicable hallucination, or a sudden psychotic break, or a clever technological trick - in short, as anything but evidence that [afairyism] is false.

Now what, Mr Campos, is the fundamental difference between fairies and angels of the Lord (or indeed of Anyone Else) that makes extreme scepticism about the one seem reasonable and about the other not?

32. A God blog

Comment #137464 by Shuggy on March 3, 2008 at 12:13 am

teratornis:

Currently, science does nothing to increase the underlying scientific aptitude of people. We still depend on the occasional rare genius to fuel the enterprise of science.

When it comes to recruiting and training scientists, we are still very much like diamond hunters, who must trek all over the world and dig up mountains of ore to find a few prized gems. New technology can produce artificial diamonds that are so good, the only way to distinguish them from natural diamonds is to note their lack of flaws. Science needs a way to mass-produce artificial scientists who are as good as a Prof. Dawkins.

Science needs to advance beyond its current hunter-gatherer phase and learn to manufacture intelligence. Science needs to experience its own industrial revolution.

While science does nothing to make humans think more scientifically, it has done wonders in the last few decades to make it possible for humans to think more scientifically.

I'm thinking how very literal-"thinking" computers force us to think about what we really mean, because they will do what we ask, if we know how to ask for it.

Also, high-speed, stop-motion, microscopic and telescopic TV, video, movies and Internet, etc have brought the previously unseeable into view of not just scientists but ordinary people. I admit that to a very large extent, people have blown the opportunities these present (Did any Huxley, Asimov or Vonnegut predict how porn and violent games would dominate computer usage?), but not all, and not always.

33. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #133192 by Shuggy on February 25, 2008 at 7:37 pm

Mango:

it reduces the risk of STDs in men

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15593753/

Maybe, but by how much? When the absolute risk is small, a large relative risk reduction may conceal a small absolute risk reduction. And so it is here. When pressed, the author of this study admitted it would take more than 20 circumcisions to prevent the transmission of one minor STD (This study of 500 males didn't find any major STDs, so presumably the Number Needed to Treat them is greater than 500).

And now another study has come out, from a bigger NZ cohort, with a greater proportion (40%) circumcised, that showed NO protective effect (in fact non-significantly more of the circumcised men had STDs).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18280846?dopt=Abstract

34. The Lava Lizard's Tale

Comment #131108 by Shuggy on February 22, 2008 at 1:16 am

I'm afraid I don't share the general enthusiasm. I couldn't figure out where the story was going. Since it was called The Lava Lizard's Tale, I thought we were going to learn something interesting about the evolution of the LL, perhaps in relation to the lava. For example, has it evolved its camoflage colouration within the last 108 years? And if RD smiled when he said "and that brings me to the point of the lava lizard's tale" I didn't hear it.

35. Don't blame Islam for terrorism, expert says

Comment #131096 by Shuggy on February 22, 2008 at 12:49 am

Naked celt wrote:

Broadly, there are four strategies a government can adopt when faced with cultural conflict:
1. Crude nationalism - " foreigners can fuck off.
2. Refined nationalism - " foreigners can stop being foreign or fuck off.
3. So-called multiculturalism - " foreigners can be foreign amongst themselves, and we won't bother them.
4. Integrationist multiculturalism - " let's talk to these people, and make sure we all understand one another. They will be doing some things that we find unacceptable, and vice versa; those will have to be negotiated and discussed and argued over, which will take time and effort, but hopefully it's worth it in the end.

Excellent disambiguation. I'd only disagree with your name for No 4 (which is obviously the solution of choice). "Integration" can be a bit of a dirty word when it means assimilation and loss of identity. I'd suggest something like "organic" or "developing" multiculturalism.

36. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #122565 by Shuggy on February 5, 2008 at 1:17 pm

emmet:

How many adults bemoan the presence of their own foreskin? Its absence?

No good studies have been done, but self-selecting polls suggest that more bemoan its absence than its presence, and those who bemoan its presence only do so in societies where it is usually absent.

37. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #121095 by Shuggy on February 3, 2008 at 12:48 am

114. Comment #118855 by bamboospitfire

For those of you interested in the origin of this vile practice, you will be unsurprised to learn that you need look no further than the book of Genesis.

Actually, the covenant of circumcision is not in the Book of J, the source book for Genesis, but the other covenant, with Abraham cutting birds in half (Ch 15) is. It's thought the Israelites may have learnt circumcision from the Egyptians (who in turn got it from further south in Africa) and wrote it into Genesis about 500 BCE.

38. Belief in Belief

Comment #118446 by Shuggy on January 30, 2008 at 5:05 pm

17. Comment #117445 by Upgrade01A

Free will is an illusion. The other side cannot help what they believe any more than us non-believers cannot help our lack of belief.

Christopher Hitchens had to write what he wrote because of the state of his mind just prior to the writing which can be traced back to the books he has read, and many other environmental conditions, including his upbringing, genetic makeup, sibling and friends.

If one tries explaining how free will can possibly exist, they find themselves getting tied up into strange loops and layer of patterns looking for "wiggle room" that does not exist. Perhaps Mr. Hitchen's comments will collide with a believer in such a way as to cause them to change their mind.

We do what we want, but not what we will.

Did you have to write that?

39. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #118198 by Shuggy on January 30, 2008 at 1:15 pm

Tyler Durden:

"I think what may be delicate and tricky is ... how much we can trust what the 12-year-old says, given the circumstances," said Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond.

Huh? What an idiot.

If a 12-year old boy does not want part of his penis chopped* off you abide by his wishes Mr Tobias - this has nothing to do with maturity or "trust" but respect.

I think Mr Tobias is thinking of the reverse case. If a 12-year-old says he wants part of his penis cut off, how do you know he has not been coerced by his custodial parent? (Doesn't sound like rocket science to me.)

*In strict accuracy, sliced. "Chopped" would only apply if he were African. This leads to another point.

Michell Gilks:

Circumcision is done for one reason for males, and two reasons for girls. Because sex is considered so evil and wrong, they attempt to limit the pleasure as much as possible. This is what circumcision is for solly in boys,

That may well be one of the original reasons, but they have diversified amazingly. A list at
http://www.circumstitions.com/Stitions.html
gives some 30 classes of reasons, which are elaborated into about 340 (!) reasons at
http://www.circumstitions.com/Stitions&refs.html .
Clearly, something else is going on, and as someone here said, we should be very, very skeptical of new reasons, even when backed up by "scientific evidence". The rest of that site goes into that aspect in detail, eg the current Big Reason, HIV, at
http://www.circumstitions.com/HIV.html

and one reason for girls. The second reason for girls is so you can tell whether they are a virgin or not.

That's a new one to me. The list of "reasons" for female genital cutting is smaller but similar. For example, look at a site like
http://www.islamqa.com/index.php?ln=eng&ds=qa&lv=browse&QR=45528

The secretions of the labia minora accumulate in uncircumcised women and turn rancid, so they develop an unpleasant odour which may lead to infections of the vagina or urethra. I have seen many cases of sickness caused by the lack of circumcision.

Circumcision reduces excessive sensitivity of the clitoris which may cause it to increase in size to 3 centimeters when aroused, which is very annoying to the husband, especially at the time of intercourse.

Another benefit of circumcision is that it prevents stimulation of the clitoris which makes it grow large in such a manner that it causes pain.

Circumcision prevents spasms of the clitoris which are a kind of inflammation.

Circumcision reduces excessive sexual desire.

...

It takes away excessive libido from women

It prevents unpleasant odours which result from foul secretions beneath the prepuce.

It reduces the incidence of urinary tract infections

It reduces the incidence of infections of the reproductive system.

It should go without saying that all these reasons are bogus, just like all 340 reasons for cutting boys (which is why I get tired of "How dare you compare the two!")

40. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #117917 by Shuggy on January 30, 2008 at 1:29 am

Mango:

it reduces the risk of STDs in men

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15593753/

Maybe, but by how much? When the absolute risk is small, a large relative risk reduction may conceal a small absolute risk reduction. And so it is here. When pressed, the author of this study admitted it would take more than 20 circumcisions to prevent the transmission of one minor STD (This study of 500 males didn't find any major STDs, so presumably the Number Needed to Treat them is greater than 500).

and the passing on of STDs to women

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060213102949.htm

Your link is to a misreporting of that study. (A lie will be half way around the world before the truth has its pants on.)

299 couples where the man was intact were compared with 44 where the man was circumcised. After 30 months (if the pattern of the rest of the study was followed), infection rates were 7 per 100 person-years for the wives of circumcised men and 10 for the wives of intact men. This may look like a protective effect, but in statistical terms, p=0.22, meaning no statistical significance. In real terms, it can be back-calculated that 8 of the wives of circumcised men were infected. If 11 had been, the rate would be the same for both, and that difference of three infections in 30 months is too few to be considered significant.

But the study was widely reported (by Reuters) as showing that all 299 wives of intact men were infected, compared with only 44 wives of circumcised men, as if these were just the small (infected) samples of two much larger and equal samples. This makes the supposed protective effect look much greater and more accurate.

See the garbled report and the relevant part of a more accurate report, here:
http://www.circumstitions.com/News20.html#hiv-female

This is quite typical of the way circumcision is reported.

41. Heath Ledger Death: Baptist Group To Protest At Memorial

Comment #117453 by Shuggy on January 28, 2008 at 9:32 pm

RomanticRationalist:

I can say with some confidence that one factor in the loathing felt for (especially) gay men is simply that, to a male fundie, the idea of another man looking at them and thinking of them in the generally degrading way they look at and think about women, makes their skin crawl. To me this indicates that the real problem is with the fundie's attitude towards women not some other guys sexual orientation.

That, and the (mistaken) idea that gay men are somehow "like women" (and thereby betraying the patriarchy, though they don't put it like that). They look down on women, therefore they look down on gay men. Notice also that they manage to hold "weak and effeminate" and "predatory male-rapist" in their heads about the same gay men at the same time. Thinking things through is not their strong suit.

42. Heath Ledger Death: Baptist Group To Protest At Memorial

Comment #116207 by Shuggy on January 25, 2008 at 8:47 pm

This fag is very grateful to Heath Ledger (and Jake Gillenhall and Ang Lee and E Annie Proulx and Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana and all the other fag-enablers) because Brokeback Mountain was the catalyst that enabled my husband and I to stop shagging about (as it were) and move in together.

I don't know that Heath was a bad actor (I knew him only from The Knight's Tale, which was a pretty bad film) but he was good enough in BBM.

I would really like the Phelps spawn to follow Heath's body to Australia. I'm sure the fag and fag-enabling QANTAS flight attendants would give them a memorable 12-hr journey.

Afterthought: I can't imagine what's going to head the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras this year. But I can imagine what it will be about.

43. Interview with Neil Shubin, author of 'Your Inner Fish'

Comment #113778 by Shuggy on January 20, 2008 at 2:06 pm

Boy, if I could ever keep my head and stay on track and go for the nub of an argument as well as Shubin, I'd have avoided a lot of trouble and embarassment in the past. What's he like with a real interviewer?

44. Fish out of water: Your Inner Fish

Comment #113510 by Shuggy on January 19, 2008 at 8:43 pm

44. Comment #111490 by Shuggy on January 14

I have created images to illustrate three of the worst examples of Stupid Design (the oesophagus crossing through the trachaea; the downward-pointing uterus; and the backward-pointing light-receptors and blind spot) compared with more Intelligent alternatives, here: http://www.cafepress.com/wero/2005296

I think I'll add the looping vasa deferentia and the male urethra passing through the prostate, but somehow I don't think many people will buy the T-shirt.

I have now done so, at http://www.cafepress.com/wero/4609887

45. The New Theology

Comment #113206 by Shuggy on January 18, 2008 at 11:10 pm

15. Comment #113173 by Ducklike

Okay, everybody run up to your attics and dig out those "Sgt. Pepper" albums, we've got some work to do!

Just what I was thinking. Loudspeaker vans outside churches? "Fixing a hole" certainly, and "I read the news today, oh boy" [I forget the title] and "Within You Without You" and maybe "Being for the benefit of Mr Kite" but "Lovely Rita"? "She's leaving home"?

46. 'Boycott Worked': Compass Flops - Opening Weekend $26 Million; Narnia $63 Million

Comment #111521 by Shuggy on January 14, 2008 at 10:53 pm

69. Comment #97471 by Quetzalcoatl

And ease up on demonizing Catholicism-no other religion has done more to promote human rights, science and goodwill

Did everyone else's irony alarms overload when they read that, or was it just me?

I'm still unwinding mine's needle from its pin.

• Science? A news item (that should go up here) came through today about students at the U of Rome objecting to Ratzo's half-heartedness about forgiving Galileo.
• Human rights? There's some fear he's going to declare the male-only priesthood ex cathedra (ie, with papal "infallibility")
  

Note Bill Donohue's presumption that their boycott caused the supposed failure of TGC at the box office.

FLY RUNNING ON FLYWHEEL: See how I make the wheel go round!

It couldn't have been because it was up against I am Legend and the Chipmunk movie, now, could it? If it comes right, they'll pretend they had nothing to do with that.

I think it's the kind of movie that'll do better in the UK and Europe than the US. For one thing, it asks you to think more than Narnia or LOTR did.

I agree, more of the exposition could have been shown, rather than told, but after 300 and Beowulf, I found the visuals refershingly realistic.

As for calling the movie "atheistic"? Did it ever mention any gods or goddesses? Did Narnia? Did LOTR?

47. Fish out of water: Your Inner Fish

Comment #111490 by Shuggy on January 14, 2008 at 7:33 pm

I have created images to illustrate three of the worst examples of Stupid Design (the oesophagus crossing through the trachaea; the downward-pointing uterus; and the backward-pointing light-receptors and blind spot) compared with more Intelligent alternatives, here: http://www.cafepress.com/wero/2005296

I think I'll add the looping vasa deferentia and the male urethra passing through the prostate, but somehow I don't think many people will buy the T-shirt.

48. The Moral Instinct

Comment #111485 by Shuggy on January 14, 2008 at 6:51 pm

253. Comment #111292 by kierkegaard88

Whether or not one purchases Vatican propaganda, only the ideologically driven could contest [consign?] Theresa's service to the "trash" of history.

...and those who've read Hitchens' biography, and the accounts of the people with AIDS she's told need to "offer up" their suffering, rather than relieving it.

One, indeed, may thank God for Norman Borlaug;

That is, if one believes in such an entity. But why not thank Norman Borlaug for Norman Borlaug?

without setting up false dichotomies as religious (and now, apparently, non-religious) fundamentalists

You really are sticking your head in the lion's mouth, aren't you? How does judging Mother Teresa by her works and not her teatowel make one into that self-contradiction, a "non-religious fundamentalist"?

...are apt to do; and without imputing to evolutionary psychology – or science as such – the status of fundamental theology.

This sentence has almost disappeared up its own fundament, but such imputation is a figment of your imagination. I think Pinker was using Borlaug, Gates and MT as examples of how easily people are deceived by appearances, and you vindicate that.

49. The Moral Instinct

Comment #111481 by Shuggy on January 14, 2008 at 6:37 pm

256. Comment #111296 by ghull

Pinker provides a very nice presentation of the issues indeed, but there is a glaring defect in his account. He represents the evolution of moral traits as the culmination of an "arms race" between the ability to effectively APPEAR moral and the ability to distinguish true morality from mere appearances: "The most effective way to SEEM generous and fair, under harsh scrutiny, is to be generous and fair."

But it is extraordinarily implausible that mechanisms that confer the ability to deceive will somehow ("in the long run") evolve themselves out of existence. That is, you don't expect something that is good at doing A, under selection pressure favoring the ability to do A, to culminate in something that doesn't do A.

Furthermore, it is presumably a MATTER OF FACT that being generous and fair is the optimal way to appear generous and fair. What's to prevent the evolution of hyper-deceit, an ability to appear more generous than those who are actually generous? ... So there is no guarantee, on Pinker's account, that we will end up with actual generosity and fairness.

Surely we need a model that accounts for the evolution of moral capabilities AS MORAL, and not as e.g. the best way to get past hypocrisy detection.

But hypocrisy detection is also part of the arms race. It also evolves, as fast as hypocrisy, because failing to detect hypocrisy means you are deceived and, for example, mate with some lazy SOB who passes themself off as a good provider, instead of someone who is going to contribute to the rearing of your offspring.

But really being generous is the only way to appear generous that always passes any hypocrisy test that's thrown at it.

50. Huckabee: Guns, God and rock'n'roll

Comment #110833 by Shuggy on January 12, 2008 at 9:35 pm

How religious is Hillary, really? I know she makes religious noises, but she also says abortion should be legal and safe (and rare - she should also have added "early"). Is her religiosity she just what a candidate has to say?