Comments by Shuggy

501. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32857 by Shuggy on April 18, 2007 at 1:48 pm

rabidchihauhau, I know John Geisheker personally and have emailed him about your concerns. Why don't you just ring him up? He and DOC are genuine (if small), and I have no reason to doubt the case is too. (Though I suspect the father's religious motivation is just an excuse to spite the mother - talk about "Cut off your nose..."!) I assume "Mischa" is a pseudonym to protect the child's anonymity. This is certainly not a plot to discredit RD, as the appeal is being circulated on many other fora, and the use of real names and phone numbers make it very easy to punish any scam, and destroy John's career.

502. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32853 by Shuggy on April 18, 2007 at 1:31 pm

On the general issue, though, isn't it interesting, Richard, how memes do play a big role in discussion regarding the topic of circumcision?

There is a discussion of circumcision as a memeplex at http://www.circumstitions.com/meme.html

This has been published as a paper in "Bodily Integrity and the Politics of Circumcision" the proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Bodily Integrity in Padua in 2004.

503. Atheism isn't the final word

Comment #32669 by Shuggy on April 18, 2007 at 1:19 am

Though no one can prove or disprove God's existence, our history reveals the unmistakable footprints of something greater than man.

Of course, the Universe is greater than (hu)man(kind) - it has to be, to hold us and keep us alive. So Feder is a pantheist?

One thing our history does not reveal is the unmistakable footprints of an anthropomorphic, invisible, transcendental, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, supernatural Entity. (I don't think of Bigfoot, I think of the Id-Creature in Forbidden Planet.)

504. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32647 by Shuggy on April 17, 2007 at 9:30 pm

Tim Marsh wrote:

3.4% of the uncircumcised group were infected.
1.6% of the circumcised group were infected.
Yet rather than reporting this directly, they focus on the fact that 3.4 is twice as large as 1.6.

That's in Kenya. In Uganda, "HIV incidence over 24 months was 0�66 cases per 100 person-years in the
intervention group and 1�33 cases per 100 person-years in the control group"
In other words, the uncircumcised men in Uganda got less HIV than the circumcised men in Kenya, and the reason is not hard to find: In Uganda, there has been an intense campaign of "zero grazing" (few partners). It will be a tragedy if funds and energy are diverted from this to a less effective circumcision campaign.

505. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32642 by Shuggy on April 17, 2007 at 8:58 pm

Krogercomplete wrote

an infant's foreskin being snipped off.

It's really rather more than that. Watch this video, and make sure you have the sound turned up: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6584757516627632617&hl=en

506. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32601 by Shuggy on April 17, 2007 at 2:42 pm

"Could sand have anything to do with it?" Probably not: http://www.circumstitions.com/sand.html

Langerhans cells are everywhere on the skin and they protect from HIV:
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=79688

The problem with circumcision to prevent HIV transmission is the hopelessly mixed message you must give the men involved: "circumcision will protect the community epidemilologically (just try and get that idea across!) but it won't protect you personally enough for you to think about giving up condoms. Now lie down here."

The problem with neonatal circumcision to protect against HIV transmission is first ethical, and then the long time-lag before it becomes relevant. The money might be better spent enabling him to reach adulthood.

507. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32397 by Shuggy on April 17, 2007 at 2:06 am

Spinoza:

and the pain is probably (given various factors I don't need to delve into) not all that bad for an infant... and you don't remember it anyway.

On the contrary, all the evidence is that it is excruciating (it makes a measurable difference to his reaction to vaccination pain, months later), and since the baby has no idea what is happening, he can't even brace himself against it as an adult can.

And pain you can't remember is OK? Now let's apply that to drug-rape.

Oh and "cuts off the most sensitive part of the penis" is not hyperbole, it's just been demonstrated.
See http://www.circumstitions.com/Sexuality.html#sorrells".

508. Against God

Comment #32285 by Shuggy on April 16, 2007 at 4:52 pm

I wonder what McGrath considers to be the "limitations of reason", because I have absolutely no idea what the **** he's talking about here.

Simple. The 'limitation' of reason is that it doesn't seek to tell people what they want to hear.

I would say the limitations of reason lie in the areas of art and love. A fortune waits for the person who can put those on a rational footing.

509. Against God

Comment #32284 by Shuggy on April 16, 2007 at 4:50 pm

Is a there a term for someone who doesn't care if there's a God? Apatheist?

Wasn't the more common term among us atheists (as I understood it) "practicing agnostics"? =P

Shouldn't an apatheist be a NON-practising agnostic?
A practising one would wish they knew.

510. For Some Hispanics, Coming to America Also Means Abandoning Religion

Comment #32283 by Shuggy on April 16, 2007 at 4:39 pm

Megachurhes are like rock concerts. Even smaller churches have choirs and multimedia performances. Sermons are getting shorter and after-service social receptions longer. And preachers are expected to be young, energetic, entertaining and charasmatic (e.g. ted hagggard, rick warren as the most well known) and selectively focus on the nice versions of god and jesus.

I'm struck by the similarity between televangelists and sideshow barkers and snake-oil merchants (and the commentators at Seaworld). They all go back to the revival-tent tradition, don't they? Mark Twain skewered them in Huckleberry Finn Or is there something earlier?

511. For Some Hispanics, Coming to America Also Means Abandoning Religion

Comment #32282 by Shuggy on April 16, 2007 at 4:35 pm

Hispanics from Cuba were the most secular national group, at 14 percent,

This suggests that many Cubans who've migrated to the U.S. have grievances against Castro's regime other than religious ones.

Mmm? On the contrary, I wondered if some communist atheism had rubbed off?

512. The Age of Darwin

Comment #32279 by Shuggy on April 16, 2007 at 4:24 pm

"The logic of evolution ... holds that most everything that exists does so for a purpose."

WHOA! Whenever anyone says "purpose" and "evolution" in the same sentence, they're spreading confusion. Evolutionarily, structures and behaviours have functions. Only intelligence gives purpose.

As for "most everything that exists", no way! Just as overwhelmingly most of the universe is implacably hostile to life (I speak figuratively), so the great majority of what exists has nothing to do with life, of which only a tiny fraction has intelligence, of which only a small proportion involves purpose.

513. New Primate Species Found In 42 Million-year-old Texas Fossils

Comment #32277 by Shuggy on April 16, 2007 at 4:07 pm

"The formal name of the new genus, which means "primate of the coastal lagoons", will be released at publication time, Westgate said."

Someone with better Latin or Greek than me ought to be able to jump their gun. "Littorolacapithicus"?

514. Prophets of the new atheism

Comment #30557 by Shuggy on April 8, 2007 at 4:22 pm

My letter to the Seattle Times

David Klinghoffer (Prophets of the New Atheism, April 6) refers to "a religious phenomenon that has been dubbed the 'new atheism'." Dubbed by whom, pray? Certainly not by any atheists, we're too logical. Can there be a "new zero" or a "new vacuum"? Lack of belief in supernatural beings is by definition lack of belief, not belief. What's interesting is that Klinghoffer seems to think calling atheism "a faith" and "a religion" is to tar it with the brush of irrationality. With that I can agree.

515. Debate between Alister McGrath and Peter Atkins

Comment #28925 by Shuggy on March 31, 2007 at 3:51 pm

JJoe asked

Can religion make the same claim? Since when did religion ever alter it's explanations of the world except when there was overwhelming social pressure or the rare papal epiphany?

Well, I think the Catholic Church no longer says the bread and wine really, really, really and truly turn into the body and blood of Christ, only really and truly. IE, they no longer claim that if you stomach-pumped someone who'd eaten nothing else for a few days, you'd find digested blood. Instead, they now have a wonderful Platonic explanation involving "essence" vs "accidents" so that it looks like bread, it waddles like bread, it quacks like bread (sorry, that's a duck) it chews like bread ... but it's really, in its true nature, meat and blood - and all because Jesus reportedly said "This IS my ..."

(Though as Frazer all but pointed out in The Golden Bough, the communion came first, the Last Supper story was made up to explain it.)

516. Selfish genes may drive out disease

Comment #28908 by Shuggy on March 31, 2007 at 2:58 pm

Ridelo wrote:

on the one hand we are trying to eradicate all diseases that plague the developing countries and on the other hand there's a population explosion that maybe will lead to mass starvation.
I know the solution should be reducing disease, education (not religious!) and birth control. But is that realistic?

Yes. I think it's been established, that where the standard of living goes up, the birth rate goes down. There may be an evolutionary imperative "Where life is short, have more children in the hope that some will reach maturity" but I could well be wrong.

517. A History of Violence

Comment #28902 by Shuggy on March 31, 2007 at 2:25 pm

Meanwhile, according to political scientist Barbara Harff, between 1989 and 2005 the number of campaigns of mass killing of civilians decreased by 90 percent.

16 years seems far too short a timespan, and "number of campaigns" far too crude a measure to demonstrate a trend. Say there were 10 campaigns during 1989 and one during 2005, that would make the calculation accurate, but there could be 11 tomorrow....

518. 'The Evolution of Homer' Intro

Comment #28764 by Shuggy on March 30, 2007 at 5:01 pm

shetlandforpeace:

Why do we have a 24-hour day? Who says a week has 7 days?

Before good artificial lighting, day and night were far more distinct, so instead of thinking about a 24-hour day, they thought about a 12-hour day and a 12-hour night, and 12 is that smallest number that can be divided into both quarters and thirds (though their hours would grow longer and shorter with the seasons - not so much towards the equator).

I think the 7-day week has to do with some mystical/numerological power they gave the number seven. Or maybe it was the smallest number they could economically afford a day off. I'm pretty sure the story about God resting was back-formed from that.

519. Dawkins says religion is 'like sucking a dummy'

Comment #28752 by Shuggy on March 30, 2007 at 4:03 pm

Veronique:

The argument from artistic endeavour is also pathetic. RD handles in the best possible way - We will never know what Beethoven's Mesozoic Symphony may sound like.

Like the Pastoral, but with dinosaurs? (Instead of hippos, Walt. Uh oh. Does that mean it would sound like the Rite of Spring?)

Fishpeddler:

I don't know why an atheist would still participate in these debates without insisting that the theists' god be defined in advance.

I think - and I'd love to be corrected - that a liberal theist would say something like "The God I believe in is beyond definition."

520. 'The Evolution of Homer' Intro

Comment #28750 by Shuggy on March 30, 2007 at 3:40 pm

Of course, this is the version of evolution the creationists mock (and it leaves out natural selection). Maybe if the original Homerunculus had diversified into Homeresque plants, Homersauruses, etc as well as the true Homer....

But it's very funny in its own right.

(The music is familiar: what is it?)

521. The Fifth Flea!

Comment #28347 by Shuggy on March 28, 2007 at 9:35 pm

Duff wrote:

It is comparable to christian "music", which I would characterized as being melodiously simplistic, lyrically moronic and pathetically corny.

I trust you're referring to the likes of "From a Distance" and not Bach's St Matthew Passion or Handel's Messiah?

And this is something I don't think RD does justice to. Religion has inspired the most sublime art, music and architecture. I'm sure that if there were no religion, people would have expressed their deepest emotions in music just as good with different words, buildings just as lofty with different purposes, but it needs to be spelt out.

522. Stephen Hawking Says Universe Created from Nothing

Comment #28318 by Shuggy on March 28, 2007 at 5:58 pm

Yorker wrote:

It is my understanding that the IQ scale does not go higher than 170

IQ is just mental age over chronological age x 100, so if a 10 year old can solve problems like an (average) 18 year old, they have an IQ of 180. But as someone wise one said, "Intelligence is what intelligence tests measure", and what intelligence tests measure is the ability to solve problems, usually on paper, hence two-dimensional, at speed.

523. Peanut Butter, The Atheist's Nightmare!

Comment #28104 by Shuggy on March 28, 2007 at 2:30 am

He begins by saying "If you study a well-made banana..." So who made the others? Or are badly-made bananas a result of the Fall?

524. Peanut Butter, The Atheist's Nightmare!

Comment #28103 by Shuggy on March 28, 2007 at 2:24 am

FYI, the "guy on the right" in the banana video is former child-actor Kirk Cameron. Now he appears as the main character in the "Left Behind" series of feature films.

You mean it's not satire? Oh my goodness!

Is there some theory of abiogenesis I missed? One that holds that four million years ago the earth was without form and void, except for pockets of peanut butter?

And since peanut butter implies prior peanuts, which implies prior life, doesn't that prove life couldn't have evolved from peanut butter?

And how do we know life hasn't appeared in peanut butter - but some kid ate it?

525. Hell is real and eternal: Pope

Comment #27994 by Shuggy on March 27, 2007 at 2:24 pm

The Pope, based in the Vatican in Rome, is the figure head for Christianity throughout the world. Similar in role to that of a President.

Hang on, the Pope is only head of the Catholics. Protestants and Episcopalians (Anglicans) don't recognise him except as Bishop of Rome. Some Protestants consider him the Antichrist.

The Bishop of a territory reports to a corresponding Cardinal, who covers an even larger area.

They have archbishops between bishops and cardinals, though there can be cardinal archbishops. It's confusing, because Episcopalians don't have anything above Archbishop and (at least the Anglican ones) consider themselves Catholic.

(if clergy can be said to have a rank system)

They most certainly can, only they call it a hierarchy (= rule by priests), and it's the original rank system.

526. Hell is real and eternal: Pope

Comment #27991 by Shuggy on March 27, 2007 at 2:12 pm

In October, the Pope indicated that limbo, supposed since medieval times to be a "halfway house" between heaven and hell, was "only a theological hypothesis" and not a "definitive truth of the faith".

I thought Purgatory was the halfway house, and Limbo was a sort of Nowhere Land for babies (especially "unborn" babies, ie concepti, embryos and foetuses).

"definitive truth of the faith" indeed! Translation: thing the church gets really nasty if you disagree about.

527. Hell is real and eternal: Pope

Comment #27989 by Shuggy on March 27, 2007 at 2:05 pm

Fedler wrote:

Beneath the Bishops are your local parish priests.

And off to one side are Monsigneurs. This is where they shunt priests who are good enough to be Bishops, but can't, for example because they're gay. One (gay) one told me that of the six Monsigneurs invested at his sitting (or prostration?), three were gay.

528. The many forms of fundamentalism

Comment #27771 by Shuggy on March 26, 2007 at 3:55 pm

"The ticket to Communion is an uncritical acceptance of what the pope calls, in a striking echo, "fundamental values," which include defense of human life "from conception to natural death." The key declaration is that "these values are not negotiable.""

Then how come the Catholic Church is so hard on abortion and euthanasia and so soft on capital punishment and war?

529. The Case for Teaching The Bible

Comment #27768 by Shuggy on March 26, 2007 at 3:38 pm

"And, oh yes, there should be one faith test. Faith in our country."
Oh you Americans! As if patriotism, unlike religion, was value-free. How would that quotation play out in Dusseldorf in 1933?

Teach the Bible? Maybe, IF you give equal time to the Qu'ran and the Bhagavad Gita and the Tao Te Ching ...

530. God and His Gays

Comment #27644 by Shuggy on March 26, 2007 at 12:46 am

DavidJMH wrote:

"Humans innately know this to be true too and the western world, led by the hedonistic USA, is headed down the path to destruction because it has become too self indulgent and decadent to recognize it."

As a gay man living happily and morally with my husband, David, I hope the plane you fly, and the building you fly it into, don't have any other people in them.

531. The Salem Hypothesis

Comment #27033 by Shuggy on March 23, 2007 at 12:12 am

Sorry that you took offence, Yorker, but I'll stick by it. Engineering is technology. It is applied science (but so is Home Science), not fundamental scientific research. Nothing the matter with that, engineering is valuable (we all trust our lives to it) but let's not confuse categories.

And anecdotes about individual engineers who are not creationists do not disprove a correlation. Nobody said "all engineers are creationists".

But I dissociate myself from the poster who HATES engineers. That's uncalled for.

532. Religion

Comment #27012 by Shuggy on March 22, 2007 at 8:33 pm

There's an excellent chart in Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_commandments

showing how the 10 Commandments are divided in three different denominations. As he says, having 10 is "a marketting decision"

533. The Salem Hypothesis

Comment #27007 by Shuggy on March 22, 2007 at 8:10 pm

amazeen wrote:

"engineering is not science."

I agree, and that gave me trouble with the wording.

(I didn't know Wikipedia didn't like people posting their content. Since it's open-source in, I thought it'd be open-source out also. I see they don't like stuff cut and pasted TO Wikipedia but that's different.)

To the substantive hypothesis. Is it a correlation between Creationism and Engineering, or just a negative correlation between Creationism and Biology/Geology? I'd have thought physicists would be just as bad.

534. The Salem Hypothesis

Comment #27005 by Shuggy on March 22, 2007 at 8:05 pm

OK, now it says

"The "Salem Hypothesis" (named after Bruce Salem) is a name for a correlation that has been observed in scientists, between subscribing to creationism and working in an engineering discipline. There are two versions of the hypothesis, with different implications."

535. The Salem Hypothesis

Comment #27000 by Shuggy on March 22, 2007 at 7:50 pm

Well since it's Wikipedia, anyone can correct their English. Just a minute...

536. If only gay sex caused global warming

Comment #26998 by Shuggy on March 22, 2007 at 7:48 pm

Toivo wrote:
"I don't know about other people, but I don't get worked about global warming and its future effects because, as a single person, pretty much whatever I individually can realistically do, it will not alter or cancel the effects of glocal warming significantly"

Well you can be part of the problem or part of the solution. What kind of light bulbs are you using? Do you drive when you could walk or ride or do it electronically? What do you drive? etc. Sure it's just a drop in the bucket, but enough drops will fill the bucket.

"(and those effects will become really painful only after about 50-100 years, perhaps)"
...in your children's or grandchildren's lifetimes - in yours if medical science keeps on the way it's going.

PS (My husband and I hope it's caused by eating kittens.)

537. Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right

Comment #26843 by Shuggy on March 22, 2007 at 12:21 am

Saying the earth is "probably not flat" is a figure of speech called "litotes" - understatement. I use it all the time. Don't get your t!ts in a tangle about it.

When it says "untestable" doesn't it mean "unfalsifiable"? There are logical tests as well as evidential ones. The thing that sticks in my craw about creationism / scientific creationism / ID is that it explains not only this universe but any other, possible or im-. That makes it unfalsifiable, without reference to any evidence.

538. Saving believers: Former Christian finds calling to preach the good news of atheism

Comment #26816 by Shuggy on March 21, 2007 at 8:14 pm

Jack Rawlinson said:

"When you escape danger, have good health or sit down for a good meal you should be "thankful" (unspoken assumption: to God). A baby is a "gift" (unspoken assumption: from God)."

And when you feel thankful - even to someone who isn't there - you feel GOOD. You feel things have come together as they should in the world, and you are a good person for feeling thankful, not one of those ungrateful SOBs your parents warned you about.

Yes, cassdenata, there is a dilemma when someone gets real tangible benefits from a false belief, such as god saving them from alcoholism. The fact is that if they had the inner strength with "god" they'd have it without him, but there's no telling them that.

539. Is Your Baby Gay? What If You Could Know? What If You Could Do Something About It?

Comment #26509 by Shuggy on March 20, 2007 at 12:50 am

How about

Is Your Baby Homphobic? What If You Could Know? What If You Could Do Something About It?

540. Is Your Baby Gay? What If You Could Know? What If You Could Do Something About It?

Comment #26508 by Shuggy on March 20, 2007 at 12:49 am

denoir asked:

"Why on earth would you want your child to suffer through life if you have the option of not inducing that suffering?"

It's not a question of "wanting them to suffer" or "inducing suffering". You never know what in life is going to cause them to suffer or not suffer, or give them strength.

For most of my life, homosex was against the law, but we worked and changed the law, and abolished discrimination, and established Civil Union (marriage in all but name), and elected openly gay, transsexual and lesbian MPs (one a Cabinet Minister), and now I'm living happily with my husband and wouldn't have it any other way.

Since we still don't know what causes HETEROsexuality, don't assume that tampering with gay embryos is necessarily going to make them happily strait. They might end up asexual, and I doubt they'd thank you for that.

541. The Religion Clause Divided Against Itself

Comment #26507 by Shuggy on March 20, 2007 at 12:26 am

Jonathan Dore took the words about "respecting" and "Established" out of my mouth.

What gives you Americans a break is "shall make no law". That is quite unambiguous.

Trouble is, your religiosi have been exploring the yawning gap between a State Church and all kinds of tacit government support for religion.

542. The History of Creationist Thought

Comment #26373 by Shuggy on March 19, 2007 at 1:19 am

They could actually have done it in three stages:

Creationism
Scientific Creationism
Intelligent Design

- with the same punchline each time, of course.

543. The History of Creationist Thought

Comment #26372 by Shuggy on March 19, 2007 at 1:18 am

Pretty good. I think the interpretive dancer (?) makes it, though.

544. UK Christians 'suffer for faith'

Comment #26370 by Shuggy on March 19, 2007 at 12:53 am

"There is an aggressive secularist agenda that says it's OK to support any group ending in 'ism', but it's not OK to support anything connected to Christianity."

They could change their name to "Christianism"...

545. When the ain'ts go marching in

Comment #25310 by Shuggy on March 12, 2007 at 2:15 am

I've been to several secular funerals and organised a couple (if you don't count "Pie Jesu" by Fauré, who wasn't a believer, for a particular reason associated with the deceased).

Get someone who knows how to speak and when to shut up to be MC (or just print clearly what is to happen in the programme). Get a good friend to give a prepared talk about the person. Close relatives who might break down should not have to speak. Choose music they would have liked (and which the congregation likes, if both are possible), and something instrumental to come in and go out on (the slow movements of Bach Brandenberg Concerti are good and have no religious content). Something everyone can sing is good. I recommend against inviting impromptu speech at the funeral itself. People can fill a brief period of silence their own way, including silent prayer if that's what they want. There are plenty of non-religious things that can be said about the end of anyone's life.

546. The Archbishop whose words came from same hymnsheet as a Marxist

Comment #25144 by Shuggy on March 10, 2007 at 11:32 am

" He might also have avoided being the second most frequently mentioned individual in his book � if you count God as an individual" Eagleton

" In fact, Dawkins himself is the second most frequently mentioned person in the book [God is number one, if you count God as a person]" Coleridge

Coleridge even seems to have forgotten he is a Trinitarian, which would put RD fourth.

547. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24857 by Shuggy on March 8, 2007 at 10:41 pm

or

"Why there are almost no genuine Scotsmen"

548. Public Acceptance of Evolution

Comment #24853 by Shuggy on March 8, 2007 at 9:48 pm

Is the earth hemispherical, then? Where's Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Venezuela, NEW ZEALAND?

(Up there with Iceland, I'll assume.)

549. You can't trust science!

Comment #24851 by Shuggy on March 8, 2007 at 9:42 pm

"Sphericated or Flaticular"? Love it!

550. The God Delusion

Comment #24137 by Shuggy on March 5, 2007 at 1:45 am

50. Comment #21818 by FortunaAdiuvatForte

""Body of knowledge" is such a generalisation as it could mean anything, the hairdresser who worked out how to do a mohican contribted to a body of knowledge, what do actually want the reply to be?"
We turned the page and I think he got away with this. It was Fortuna themself who'd said,
"I would argue that William Paley, Thomas Aquinas, Saint Paul and others have all made notable contributions to the understanding of the universe"
What contributions?

(I suggest that Paley's sole contribution was his watch - by its refutation. Aquinas' "natural law" contributed to misunderstanding. And don't get me going about Paul!)