1. Look Who's Irrational Now

Comment #250738 by Quiddam on September 20, 2008 at 7:55 am

If you read the actual questionnaire http://www.isreligion.org/research/surveysofreligion/isr_wave12005_survey.pdf you'll see some of the source of the problem. Many of the questions are skewed and the study is flawed

For example
76 Have you ever read a book, consulted a Web site, or researched the following topics?

a. Alternative medicine
b. Specific techniques for spiritual development, such as yoga
c. Mediums, fortune-tellers, or psychics
d. UFO sightings, abductions, or conspiracies
e. Ghosts, apparitions, haunted houses, or electronic voice phenomena
f. Mysterious animals, such as Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster
g. Astrology
h. The prophecies of Nostradamus
i. The new age movement in general

I would answer yes to all of those. Do I believe in any of those? No. I have also read the Bible and Q'ran. So what? What possible conclusion could be drawn from the question - except that perhaps atheists are more open to research than confirmed believers.

2. Richard Dawkins branded 'secularist bigot' by veteran philosopher

Comment #223433 by Quiddam on August 2, 2008 at 9:15 am

Comment #223414 by decius

Varghese and Swinburne could inform a scientific argument with the same competence of a troupe of bozos tackling QM.

3. Richard Dawkins branded 'secularist bigot' by veteran philosopher

Comment #223411 by Quiddam on August 2, 2008 at 8:39 am

I don't think anything is gained by insulting Flew. He has made it very clear that he dos not believe in a personal saviour God, so references to Pascal and a fear of dying only reveal your lack of scholarship.


It is clear from the interviews that he has given that his memory is failing and that he has become trusting of others. For a philosopher that is disastrous since he is reaching conclusion based on faulty premises. Flew is claiming a scientific argument based on information provided by Varghese, Schroeder, Leftow, Swinburne et al. His conclusions are irrelevant because what Flew thinks is unimportant - it's the reasons why he thinks that which are.

If it's any consolation Flew likely didn't actually write the article http://www.bethinking.org/science-christianity/intermediate/flew-speaks-out-professor-antony-flew-reviews-the-god-delusion.htm
either. Flew, long retired but still an academic would be very unlikely to use the phrase "The fault of Dawkins as an academic (which he still was during the period in which he composed this book although he has since announced his intention to retire)" At the very least the section in parentheses was written by someone else - and it bears the hallmarks of the ID crowd who cannot resist a pointed jab at RD and misunderstand academia. Note how Flew refers to 'my own university' even though it is twenty years since he retired. When Dawkins retires he will not suddenly become a nobody. Unlike the President his authority comes not from his appointment but from the strength of his arguments.

4. A Holocaust Denier Hits Manhattan (And Hearts Hitchens)

Comment #219571 by Quiddam on July 27, 2008 at 8:19 am

The Vanity Fair article is here:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/StMartinsPress/Hitchens0696.html
Hitchens did not say Irving was a great historian, the quote is: "David Irving is not just a Fascist historian. He is also a great historian of Fascism."

He went on to say: "I have caught David Irving out, just by my own researches, in one grossly anti-Jewish statement and one wildly paranoid hypothesis and several flagrant contradictions. But I learned a lot in the process of doing so. It's unimportant to me that Irving is my political polar opposite. If I didn't read my polar opposites, I'd be even stupider than I am."

5. Sydney brothels say Pope's visit will give business a leg-up

Comment #219042 by Quiddam on July 26, 2008 at 7:03 am

Warning? A site with the name

www.radioislam.org

and page

jewish-photos/index.htm

WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?

The name is warning enough that the contents will be an affront to civilized people. Nothing to do with religion of course. Sigh.

6. The brain in love

Comment #215117 by Quiddam on July 21, 2008 at 10:11 am

42. Comment #215017 by PristinePanda

There's quite a bit of interesting information on the topic of kin selection in The Selfish Gene, and I'd recommend everyone who hasn't already read it to do so.

I first read it after I learned that it was the book that caused Douglas Adams to apostatize. I figured anything that Douglas Adams read had to be good.

Douglas Adams: So, I was already familiar with and (I'm afraid) accepting of, the view that you couldn't apply the logic of physics to religion, that they were dealing with different types of 'truth'. (I now think this is baloney, but to continue...) What astonished me, however, was the realization that the arguments in favor of religious ideas were so feeble and silly next to the robust arguments of something as interpretative and opinionated as history. In fact they were embarrassingly childish. They were never subject to the kind of outright challenge which was the normal stock in trade of any other area of intellectual endeavor whatsoever. Why not? Because they wouldn't stand up to it. So I became an Agnostic. And I thought and thought and thought. But I just did not have enough to go on, so I didn't really come to any resolution. I was extremely doubtful about the idea of god, but I just didn't know enough about anything to have a good working model of any other explanation for, well, life, the universe and everything to put in its place. But I kept at it, and I kept reading and I kept thinking. Sometime around my early thirties I stumbled upon evolutionary biology, particularly in the form of Richard Dawkins's books The Selfish Gene and then The Blind Watchmaker and suddenly (on, I think the second reading of The Selfish Gene) it all fell into place. It was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.

7. Churches' secret talks to stop gay surge

Comment #205611 by Quiddam on July 7, 2008 at 2:02 pm

it seems rather strange that an organization (Church of England) with a woman as the head (Queen Elizabeth II) should be objecting to women in middle management.

If they don't want women in positions of authority they should tell the Queen to take a hike and see how far it gets them :)

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

Comment #205604 by Quiddam on July 7, 2008 at 1:56 pm

Here is the link to the original image: http://www.harunyahya.com/books/darwinism/atlas_creation/atlas_creation_02.php

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

Comment #205577 by Quiddam on July 7, 2008 at 1:16 pm

As I showed in this post
Harun shows a picture of a modern frog and a fossil salamander claiming that there is no difference between them

There are also pictures of fishing lures compared with fossil insects. The scholarship is appalling as Harun simply trawled the Internet for interesting pictures and stole them arbitrarily

10. Jesus and Mo on Militant Atheists

Comment #202267 by Quiddam on July 1, 2008 at 7:13 am

http://www.jesusandmo.net ,

http://cectic.com/
http://www.partiallyclips.com/

especially http://xkcd.com/

are all on my daily cartoon fix.

11. Common New Atheist Fallacies

Comment #200940 by Quiddam on June 28, 2008 at 2:44 pm

Chaff, chaff, chaff, chaff.

Where's the wheat?

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

Comment #191662 by Quiddam on June 11, 2008 at 12:16 pm

I know Bobby Jindal is on McCain's shortlist for VP. Do you think he's a Creationist Republican? He's Indian-American, so I'm not sure.

A Catholic convert who grew up in a Hindu household, Jindal has made his name by aligning himself with the cultural conservative wing of the Republican Party, fiercely opposing stem cell research and abortion while favoring the teaching of Intelligent Design in public schools. The strategy has helped his standing among the state's conservative Christian voters, and helped him overcome the twin liabilities (in some circles) of intellectualism and ethnicity â€" traits that arouse suspicion in some of Louisiana's rural stretches, and that many say also helped tip the scales against him in 2003.

13. Storm erupts over 'virginity' divorce

Comment #186471 by Quiddam on May 30, 2008 at 10:25 am

The real danger here is that the woman has become a potential 'Honour' killing victim.

Regardless of whether she lost her hymen through sport or sex, in many Muslim circles she has publicly dishonoured her family and that means she must be obliterated.

She maybe better off without a misogynistic stone-age husband, but only if she can stay alive.

14. Scientists discover 'frogamander' fossil

Comment #183933 by Quiddam on May 23, 2008 at 8:00 am

While we don't have a Chipodile (sounds like a male stripper) we do know what reptomams look like. We have lots of synapsid fossils and can clearly map the transition from undifferentiated dentition to specialized teeth and the transition from reptile jaw to mammal jaw - and ear bones.

15. Scientists discover 'frogamander' fossil

Comment #183705 by Quiddam on May 22, 2008 at 2:33 pm

He has now edited the web site, but the book still has pictures comparing fossil caddis-flies and spiders caught in amber with modern fishing lures, claiming they haven't changed either. With the usual creationist disregard for intellectual property, he trolled the Internet for many of the book's images.

I have the original pictures though.

16. Scientists discover 'frogamander' fossil

Comment #183521 by Quiddam on May 22, 2008 at 7:57 am

Unfortunately creationists can't tell the difference between a frog and a salamander in the first place. Harun Yayha's glossy and weighty tome "Atlas of Creation' features this picture of a 'A 280-MILLION-YEAR-OLD FROG FOSSIL' saying 'There exists no difference between this frog, alive 280 million years ago, and those of today.'
http://www.harunyahya.com/books/darwinism/atlas_creation/atlas_creation_02.php
Even a cursory glance shows that the 'FROG' fossil has a tail and short hind legs and is a SALAMANDER.

Karaurus to be precise - a different order but 'no difference' to a Creationist!

No wonder they can't grasp evolution.

17. Yoko Ono, Filmmakers Caught in 'Expelled' Flap

Comment #163011 by Quiddam on April 17, 2008 at 8:15 pm

Scientists weren't the only ones lied to...

I just spoke to the band's manager, and adding to the confusion was the fact that they did authorize a project months ago with this request:

Quote:
'The film is a satirical documentary with an estimated running time of 1 hour and 50 minutes, exploring academic freedom in public schools and government institutions with actor, comedian, economist, Ben Stein as the spokesperson.']

What they authorized was a documentary about 'academic freedom in schools', not the film that the producers produced.

They contacted the producers of the film to ask that the song be removed but it is too late. Unfortunately it was misrepresented to them when the request came through to use it. Add this band to a long line of people who were misled by the producers of this film."

She later added:

"The band asked the producers to remove their song from the film when they became aware of the true nature of it. They were told it is too late. That's all there is."

18. 'Expelled' ripped off Harvard's 'Inner Life of the Cell' animation

Comment #159199 by Quiddam on April 11, 2008 at 3:47 pm

19. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!

Comment #82503 by Quiddam on October 26, 2007 at 1:35 pm

Any discussion about the Christianity of Hitler or Nazi Germany that does not consider the impact of Martin Luther on German antisemitism has missed a significant factor.

We cannot know what Hitler believed with certainty, we can only know what he professed. Either he was a Christian as he professed, or he cynically appealed to the Christan God to manipulate and control the German people (if Bormann's Table Talks is accurate).

Neither reflects well on the absolute morality claimed by the faithful and either way the Christian majority in Germany were receptive to his ideas due to the history and prevailing culture of anti-semitism in Germany.

20. VOTE on the 'Faith smackdown': Richard Dawkins vs Francis Collins

Comment #71668 by Quiddam on September 19, 2007 at 12:37 pm

I'd like to see a definition of God first. If they mean "The God of the Bible/Q'ran/Torah" then it's Dawkins all the way. If they mean some vague Deist type God who takes no interest and does not impinge on the natural world but through some mysterious process created time and space, then such a thing is indeed impossible to disprove. All one can say is that it's unlikely and unnecessary.