601. Fleabytes

Comment #132358 by Cartomancer on February 24, 2008 at 4:12 pm

That's not a version of history. History is written by the victors...

602. Fleabytes

Comment #132351 by Cartomancer on February 24, 2008 at 4:08 pm

Do you think that maybe I should have a go at translating TGD into Latin, for the benefit of all those poor benighted souls up in Popetown?

603. Fleabytes

Comment #132346 by Cartomancer on February 24, 2008 at 4:00 pm

While we're on the subjects of Latin grammar, showing off and self-aggrandizing internet fascists:

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,2192,Irrational-Atheist-trounces-God-deniers,Wold-Net-Daily,page4#117919

604. Fleabytes

Comment #132336 by Cartomancer on February 24, 2008 at 3:51 pm

I just felt left out because somebody had got to Richard Dawkins's Latin mistake before me...

Oh, and using qui to start a subordinate clause is perfectly fine Latin grammar, even in the classical period!

605. Fleabytes

Comment #132328 by Cartomancer on February 24, 2008 at 3:45 pm

In taberna... is the beginning of a famous drinking song from the Carmina Burana about everyone in society getting drunk and being hypocritical about it, but taking it out on the poor saps at the bottom of the heap.

606. Fleabytes

Comment #132326 by Cartomancer on February 24, 2008 at 3:42 pm

Surely, "Est diabolus sub mensa qui felem meam terret"?

(sub with accusative indicates movement under, whereas it needs the ablative for simple position under)

I guess you could use the late medieval "Cattus" rather than the more usual "feles", but if so then it should be in the accusative as the direct object of terret and would thus be Cattum".

607. Fleabytes

Comment #132322 by Cartomancer on February 24, 2008 at 3:37 pm

In taberna quando sumus...

608. Richard Dawkins on five of his favorite books

Comment #132305 by Cartomancer on February 24, 2008 at 3:16 pm

Given that all my favourite books are cheap fantasy novels that nobody has ever heard of I shall refrain from following suit here...

609. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #131508 by Cartomancer on February 22, 2008 at 1:38 pm

Hmm... free-floating leather elbow patches with no tweed jacket for them to go on. Interesting. I guess a bare torso with strap-on leather elbow patches could be the next big thing in edgy academic fashions. It'd go quite nicely with the crotchless leopard print scholar's gown and studded PVC mortarboard I've got already...

610. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #131487 by Cartomancer on February 22, 2008 at 1:22 pm

Special leather gear to show off their bare intellects?

What, you mean the elbow patches on the tweed jackets?

611. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #131480 by Cartomancer on February 22, 2008 at 1:18 pm

A special Atheist version of Cluedo where the Reverend Green did it every time?

612. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #131478 by Cartomancer on February 22, 2008 at 1:17 pm

Atheist cinemas showing specialist atheist films with no gods in them? Maybe ground-breaking atheist cinema, with films showing the exotic, forbidden rationality of two atheist cowboys discussing Spinoza in a tent far from civilisation every winter? Atheist TV programmes such as "Atheist eye for the godly guy?" where Steve Zara, Paula Kirby and Diacanu go round altering churches to be more to their tastes?

613. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #131471 by Cartomancer on February 22, 2008 at 1:10 pm

Advertising the "Atheist Lifestyle" eh? I wonder if we're going to get "atheist villages" springing up in town centres, with atheist bars, atheist clubs, atheist bookshops, solicitors and estate agents catering to the atheist market (houses that most expressly don't align with Mecca?), special atheist magazines all about which gods we don't believe in this month, and atheist pride parades every July?

614. Moral thinking

Comment #131318 by Cartomancer on February 22, 2008 at 8:42 am

hungarianelephant, comment #14

I think there very much is. A quick off-the-top-of-my-head series of examples brings up Classical Athens versus Classical Sparta, Post Conquest versus late twelfth / thirteenth century England and those schoolboy favourites, Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and Fascist Italy.

Athens' political stability in the fifth century BC was based on its own naval supremacy in the Aegean, its democratic constitution and the instruments of state stability acquired throughout the previous centuries under the Peisistratid tyranny and going back to Solon and beyond. As such it developed a culture of philosophical speculation, a strong tradition of satire in Old Comedy and societal self-examination in its Tragic theatre, and even some measure of equality extended to slaves and foreigners. Sparta's power was based on a precarious and often brutal suppression of its helot neighbours and a very strained series of social structures designed to keep people in conformity with state policy, particularly state military policy. As such it produced no philosophy, satire or liberal values of any description, save perhaps in the realm of women's property rights.

Likewise, immediately after the conquest English society is somewhat strained and illiberal, especially under the harrowing of the north and in the Danelaw. The literary and cultural output of the country trickles down to almost nothing for a while, and Anglo-Saxon literature is severely curtailed. But once political unity and stability returns, the Anglo-Norman polity becomes slightly more permissive, and among other things satirical goliardic poetry flourishes and satirists such as Walter of Chatillon have a realistic chance of acquring royal patronage whereas before it went to laudatory chroniclers and poets attempting to shore up the regime with panegyrics on the new rulers and attempts to play down the indigenous culture. Similarly there is a revival of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle tradition and a strong antiquarian interest in pre-norman society, indicating a fair degree of confidence on the part of the rulers and ruled in the stability of their society. English common law, magna carta, the origins of parliament and the theory of judicial equity at the court of chancellery emerge in this period, and English scholars develop a tendency to travel far and wide in search of new knowledge from the Greeks and Arabs because they are dissatisfied with the extent of their current Latin traditions, traditions which suited their monastic, pre-conquest forebears adequately enough.

I'm sure the inter-war dictatorships are too well known to need exposition.

615. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #131313 by Cartomancer on February 22, 2008 at 8:22 am

Was I the only one who noticed the significant non sequitur here. The article starts off talking about the accuracy of census data and then suddenly, after a few lines, turns into an ill composed collection of thoughts about the problem of Islam in modern Britain. Then about two thirds of the way through there is another switch from terrorism and police powers to the Rowan Williams and sharia law fiasco. I can see why this ended up in some forgotten corner of the Times website rather than in the newspaper itself.

616. Moral thinking

Comment #131303 by Cartomancer on February 22, 2008 at 8:08 am

Pah! We historians have known about the tendency towards liberalism and freedom of dissent in stable societies for ages!

Though I am intrigued by this association of liberality and loneliness. The article doesn't quite say which way Wilson and Storm think the causation runs however - whether liberality causes loneliness or whether loneliness causes liberality. Or, indeed, whether there is another, independent, factor causing both concurrently.

I am also amazed at just how little time these student respondents actually spend alone (I assume they were students, as the guinea pigs for university psychology experiments almost always are). Even granting that this study only covers the respondents' waking hours (which seems very likely given that sleeping hours are always spent alone and it is very difficult indeed for teenagers to function on 6 or 4 hours of sleep per night respectively, and then they would need to spend every hour they are awake with other people) 75% of one's time in the company of others seems an awful lot to me, especially for students. My own figure is somewhat closer to 20% of my time spent with others, and when I was an undergraduate it was virtually 0% - don't these people have any books to read or essays to write or other work to do, or even any hobbies? Does that also make me so hyper-liberal it hurts? By American standards I guess it probably does...

I would also be fascinated to see a similar study where the variables are religious affiliation or lack of it, though finding a satisfactory control group would be difficult I admit. Such studies might also be a good indicator for where exactly conservatism / liberality are pitched in a particular society. If these values really are human universals brought about by mathematically demonstrable optimal survival strategies then they would be an effective yardstick for comparing the way the political discourse runs in countries.

617. Fleabytes

Comment #131063 by Cartomancer on February 21, 2008 at 9:05 pm

The man I love most in all the world bought me a copy of McGrath's Dawkins Delusion for my birthday last year as it happens. I really am not sure what to make of that gesture from someone as atheistic as he...

Either way, I'm glad somebody has spent the time dissecting the fleas in depth. A true Hookean Micrographia for the digital age!

618. Why Darwin matters

Comment #128966 by Cartomancer on February 18, 2008 at 11:31 am

Ahh, Wadham, the glorious People's Republic of Wadham! (stands to attention for the obligatory rendition of "Free Nelson Mandela" by the special AKAs). Thanks to the untimely death of my laptop I am typing this very message from deep within the bowels of the place right now!

619. Why Darwin matters

Comment #128955 by Cartomancer on February 18, 2008 at 11:00 am

Ah, Alice in Wonderland. I see...

Though I generally try to avoid Christchurch for everything but theology lectures. The sort of jokes everyone else makes about Oxford students in general being stuck-up toffee-nosed ingrates, we make about those students who go to Magdalen and Christchurch.

I also tend to catch fire when I get too close to places of worship, and Christchurch has its own cathedral built in.

Interestingly your description of anticipating or forcing your opponent's moves in fencing resonates with memories of games of paper-scissors-stone I have played with my brother. Mirror neurons eh? well well, you learn something new every day...

620. A match made on RichardDawkins.net?

Comment #128937 by Cartomancer on February 18, 2008 at 10:17 am

Aww shucks, I had a fiver on Paula Kirby and wooter tying the knot first...

Oh well, I'll just have to find a more realistic way to make riches beyond my wildest dreams than stupendously high-odds betting.

Congratulations on the impending nuptial frivolities by the way!

621. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Madeline Bunting

Comment #127028 by Cartomancer on February 14, 2008 at 5:32 pm

I'm not entirely sure there is anything more than a semantic disagreement here either to be honest.

I suppose I am still trying to come up with a wording that applies to both the casual observer and the scientist. Perhaps "different levels" should be abandoned, rather than abandoning "satisfactory". Perhaps we should talk of "different approaches" instead, since "levels" suggests some kind of easily defined hierarchical relationship. The approach of the scientist is essentially "I will find out whatever there is to be found out, that is my purpose", while the approach of the casual observer would be more along the lines of "I will find out enough to satisfy my idle curiosity" or "I will find out as much as I need to solve my problem in the here and now" or "I will find out as much as I can before I get bored".

Perhaps the former can in some way be seen as a higher "level" of engagement with the problem (the highest level even), but I am not sure these speculations are entirely germane to my original point - which come to think of it probably doesn't apply to scientists qua science anyway.

622. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Madeline Bunting

Comment #127019 by Cartomancer on February 14, 2008 at 5:09 pm

But the approach of the research scientist applying himself to a particular problem is itself a different level of explanation to the approach of the inquisitive man in the street to the same problem. Or of that same scientist with regard to tangential phenomena he is not investigating but simply needs a basic working knowledge of.

623. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Madeline Bunting

Comment #127013 by Cartomancer on February 14, 2008 at 4:54 pm

"satisfactory" was a carefully chosen word, though perhaps not carefully chosen enough.

I did not mean to suggest by it that the proper way to approach a problem is always to look for the bare minimum "what will do" explanation. I simply tried to convey the idea that there are different levels of explanation appropriate for different circumstances, and we should alight upon the one which we want or need rather than always throwing our hands up in the air and waving the problem away as "much more complicated".

What a scientist considers "satisfactory" in terms of his explanation of the world is very different from what our man in the street would find satisfactory. In fact most scientists are very rarely satisfied with their explanations - "vision" as you put it is just setting the satisfaction bar high enough.

Maybe "appropriate" would have been better. I guess I lost clarity in trying to cover both scientific endeavour and everyday inquisitiveness with my speculations. Isn't peer review a wonderful thing?

624. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Madeline Bunting

Comment #127003 by Cartomancer on February 14, 2008 at 4:16 pm

I'm not entirely sure that Ms. Bunting's resort to "but surely there are different kinds of truth" can be reduced to mere evasion or fudging. That would imply that she either really does or really does not believe in the virgin birth, and is trying to conceal the fact. I don't think she honestly knows what she believes in concrete terms.

Among many modern people of an intellectual bent there is a powerful, almost instinctive reaction to bald claims of fact stated in simple terms. I like to call it the "but surely things can't really be that simple?" urge. I suffer from it myself all the time. I think it is picked up during our formative years at school for the most part. We start off in infants school with very simple explanations for the world around us and the phenomena we encounter, and as we grow up we are increasingly shown that those simple explanations are inadequate to really describe the situation.

As the explanations get ever more complex and we become used to having our simple, comfortable world-view challenged time and time again, the sensitive ones among us come to realise that this state of affairs may well carry on indefinitely. We begin to see even the new explanations as potentially flawed, as simplified models, as tentative provisional abstracts. We come to expect that behind every bald statement there lurk countless exceptions, nuances, subtleties and shades of grey. Generally this is a healthy mind-set to develop and proves a fertile breeding ground for an admirable scientific skepticism - it encourages us not to be satisfied with simple answers where we need more complicated ones.

Nevertheless, it can go too far. If the "but surely things can't be that simple" urge becomes the first and foremost reaction to any and all statements, it can supplant skepticism and the urge to find out the details and become a self-serving pseudo-explanation all on its own. People lose sight of the primary aim - to achieve a satisfactory level of explanation - and begin to exalt complexity and intricacy above honest understanding. Suddenly we don't have to rate a claim on its merits, judge it as true or false in the context we receive it and work with it as it is, because the real situation simply has to be much more complicated than that, right? Eventually we get to the ultimate explanatory poverty of the postmodern mind, where nothing is true and everything is so much more complicated than we can ever imagine it to be.

As such, it seems that Ms. Bunting's thought process runs something along the lines of "But surely the true nature of truth can't be that simple? Therefore it isn't. Therefore there must be different kinds of truth". This last equivocation tactic is a classic trick of scholastic thought by the way, and with it you can reconcile even the most contradictory of statements. Now, a philosopher or scientist might take their "but surely it must be more complicated than that" and look for ways in which it could be more complicated. The average journalist or man in the street, however, would probably just leave it at that and refrain from doing the follow-up work.

625. Why Darwin matters

Comment #126663 by Cartomancer on February 13, 2008 at 8:18 pm

Well, the phrase "Utrum Chimera bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones" - is probably best translated as "whether a Chimera making a nuisance of itself in a vacuum is able to consume the indirect objects of thought".

It is, of course, a satirical question sending up the subtleties of late medieval scholastic thought. It comes from the title of one of the scholastic books in the library of the school of St. Victor, which Gargantua and Pantagruel visit in Rabelais' comic works of the same name. In fact the title of the book also tells us that this was considered an extremely subtle question, and that the theologians at the Council of Constance (1414-1418) spent eleven weeks debating its intricacies!

Chimeras were popular fodder for logical questions because they do not exist in reality (in re extra), but only in the mind. As such their ontological status is generally quite unusual. Centaurs and Goat-stags (hircocerva) are often used in the same way.

The vacuum was a tricky problem for medieval physics. Aristotle says that such a thing is impossible - the world is a completely full plenum - but various medieval thinkers suggested that it might be possible after all, if only through god's limitless power. The Paris condemnations of 1277 prohibited the thesis that it was impossible even to god (who could do it through such expedients as immediately moving the entire universe horizontally a bit to the left). Edward Grant's "Much Ado About Nothing - Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, 1981)" is the definitive work on this topic.

"Second Intentions" is a very technical part of scholastic psychology. It has nothing to do with purpose or intent as we might expect from our use of the word "intention". Basically "intentions" are the objects of thought, in the same way as physical objects are the objects of sight or another kind of sense perception. The term "intentio" was first used in this way in the latin translation of Avicenna's De Anima (c. 1170 by Avendauth and Gundissalinus), but gets used in various different ways throughout the next two centuries. "Second" intentions appear in Aquinas, Scotus and others much later, and are one stage removed from normal intentions in the hierarchy of accidents.

I must say I am stumped by the little green door and the figures in the glass though. Unless the latter is a "figuras in speculo" reference talking about medieval optics and the former a reference to the 1921 novel by Zoe Meyer?

626. A Tyrannical Romance

Comment #126597 by Cartomancer on February 13, 2008 at 4:06 pm

Wouldn't the female one be a Tyrannosaurus Regina?

627. Murder plot against Danish cartoonist

Comment #126596 by Cartomancer on February 13, 2008 at 4:04 pm

Raspberry Jam! It simply has to be seedless raspberry jam. And Earl Grey for accompaniment. And if you disagree with this peerless revelation from on high then my sinister cadre of fanatical inquisitors will see to it that you are the one who is toast!

628. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #126594 by Cartomancer on February 13, 2008 at 3:58 pm

God? Are you kidding? He might have designed all the science, but the books he writes about it are appalling!

629. Cal scientist reflects on Darwin's genius

Comment #126263 by Cartomancer on February 12, 2008 at 8:30 pm

The article does seem subtly biased in favour of the religious crowd doesn't it? The first bit on the massive impact of Darwin's ideas is good, but I fear that the "other side" angle was put in purely out of journalistic desire to talk up a conflict and a misguided attempt to give equal time to both sides of the debate. Obviously there is nothing like parity between the arguments of science and the arguments of rabid crackpottery, and any sensible journalist worth his salt ought to recognise that fact and communicate the true situation accordingly.

Actually, I would be willing to let it go if it were just a misrepresentation of the feebleness of the creationist position and an attempt to suggest through omission that evolution by natural selection is on a less firm footing than it is. The paragraph on the "heartless ills of society", however, borders on the deeply irresponsible. Technically it does not state outright that the list of ills actually are ills, merely that they are demonised as being such. Nevertheless there is nothing by way of correction to point out which phenomena are terrible societal afflictions and which ones are the undeserving victims of vile immoral oppression. For my money, any list that lumps together atheism, homosexuality, and stem cell research on the one hand, with Nazism, Communism and the curtailment of freedom on the other, is at best supremely disingenuous and at worst outright discriminatory.

The bottom line is that it is perfectly possible to read the passage as an endorsement of the position of the demonisers - a dangerous and ignorant position that we all have a responsibility to oppose. It is not enough in situations like this that both sides are presented impartially - some issues are so important that failure to condemn a position is simply too much endorsement to give it. In my opinion, this is one of those issues.

630. Why Darwin matters

Comment #125814 by Cartomancer on February 12, 2008 at 5:22 am

Epeeist,

You missed out his DPhil from Oxford, his honorary D.Sc from Durham and his honorary D.Sc from the Vrije Universiteit, Brussels!

631. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #125806 by Cartomancer on February 12, 2008 at 4:53 am

Shh you, it's the principle that counts!

632. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #125801 by Cartomancer on February 12, 2008 at 4:42 am

There should be a special box of chocolates produced to celebrate - Cadbury's Natural Selection or something.

I'm off to celebrate by trying to mate with individuals who display favourable survival characteristics.

Happy Darwin Day!

633. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125543 by Cartomancer on February 11, 2008 at 3:07 pm

I think that steps should be taken to ensure that the leading lights of public anti-faith discourse remain as committed to robust, penetrating and no-holds-barred debate as they are today. To this end, I propose that we all club together and endow a Richard Dawkins Professorship in the Public Promotion of Shrillness and Stridency.

Christopher Hitchens would simply have to be the inaugural incumbent...

634. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125316 by Cartomancer on February 11, 2008 at 8:19 am

Why not take steps to fill the chair in perpetuity by taking samples of Richard's DNA and producing a new clone every twenty years or so. When the last one retires the new one will have had 45 years to achieve eminence in the field. That way even his very presence would stand testament to the public understanding of science!

635. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #125084 by Cartomancer on February 10, 2008 at 11:29 pm

Aww, I go away for a couple of days and come back to find that everybody else has beaten up my theist for me. No fair!

Well, never mind, I was just going to hammer away at the "why are you justified in calling your saccharin-sweet, nicey-nicey interpretation of christianity true but the nasty people are not?" line. It really does amaze me how people can assume that there is even such a thing as a "true" interpretation of the contents of a purely subjective phenomenon.

But then there was the old "case for the historicity of jesus" rubbish, a quite frankly astounding claim that we as atheists do not consider historical evidence as valid evidence (which comes as quite a surprise to someone working on a DPhil in medieval history, let me tell you!), and spades more nonsense about allegedly "true" interpretations of god's word. All seasoned with the most infuriatingly facile understanding of textual scholarship, historical analysis, source criticism and the rules of evidential reasoning. It's enough to make a grown man weep sometimes...

On second thoughts, maybe Styrer has a point about the futility of debating with theists in this case; I certainly got far more procrastinatory value and far less sleep from my dirty weekend away in Holland than I would have done here!

636. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #124368 by Cartomancer on February 9, 2008 at 8:38 am

a) Procrastinatory value in the face of impending thesis deadlines.
b) So that they don't think they can get away unchallenged with spouting such drivel in public.
c) A relish for being patronising to people that is entirely unworthy of me.
d) Lack of sleep.

I think that just about has it covered....

637. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #124244 by Cartomancer on February 8, 2008 at 11:06 pm

Shrommer, post #111, above -

First of all you misrepresent what was actually said in post #83. The arguments for why all faith is a bad thing were given in the link. The "short answer" for why we need websites and direct action in the here and now to confront faith-based atrocities was that people are dying because of them. You are deliberately assuming that the answer to the second point on practical policy to solve the problem is the answer to the first point on the original causes of the problem. It is not.

Secondly, you confuse the word "faith", which Professor Dawkins and most of us here use in the very specific sense of believing things without or in the face of the evidence, with the element of uncertainty inherent in the everyday application of empirical reasoning. Should you conduct rigorous tests on your chair before you sit in it? No, of course not - but the reason you don't is because you have sat in it and in other chairs like it before. You have a basic understanding of the physics that makes chairs stable which you apply unconsciously every time you see one. That is evidence, that is emipirical reasoning - it is not faith. Now, were you to see a chair which obviously looked rickety and unsafe, but sat in it anyway despite this evidence, that would be an act of faith.

Secondly, nobody ever said that you need 100% certainty before taking any action. 100% certainty is pretty much epistemologically impossible anyway. A high or even reasonable possibility is all that is really necessary for decision-making in the real world, correlated with an understanding of the consequences attached to that probability. Again, making a decision based on 90% certainty is not faith but good empirical reasoning. Making a decision based on 0% certainty is faith.

You assert baldly that christian faith results in love. This is simply not the case, and if it were then it is such a woefully inadequate axiom that it would be virtually bereft of the meaning you intend for it. It could result in love of cruelty for instance - that's a kind of love. So why does christian faith necessarily result in love? Love is not an entirely conscious phenomenon - one does not simply decide to love something, on either faith or reason, and then set about loving it. The biochemical processes behind what we call love are far more complicated.

The christian faith of the Westborough baptist church seems to have resulted not in love but in hatred. The christian faith of US creationists seems to have resulted not in love but in willful ignorance. The christian faith of the catholic church in the early thirteenth century resulted in the Albigensian crusade and the mass murder of people whose christian faith resulted in self-mortification and rejection of the flesh. Were someone to conduct a study comparing the incidence of christianity with the incidence of love in this world, there would be no correlation whatsoever - because love is a human universal and christianity is whatever its practitioners want it to be.

Human compassion, fellow-feeling, solidarity, morality and, yes, love, are not limited to religious, much less to christian, people. They are inherent and innate in all human beings and there are very good evolutionary explanations as to why this is so. Religions simply hijack these perfectly natural human desires and then claim to have invented them themselves. This is both mendacious and an overweening arrogance of treasonous proportions.

Take away faith and we're left with the same human drives we've always had to survive, prosper, cooperate, improve our lot and live together in harmony for maximal benefit to all concerned. Leave it in the mix and you keep getting anomalous individuals who override these priorities with made-up nonsense about spreading their message of love and doing blatantly counter-productive things. Often they end up killing those who disagree/

I am particularly aghast at the misrepresentations contained in the following paragraph:

"Faith means that everyone has the freedom to believe what their own conscience dictates, without coercion and authoritarian abuses. Faith means that we examine all the evidence, and reach our own conclusions. Faith means that tomorrow doesn't have to be like today or yesterday. It means that there is a way to have safety and freedom at the same time. It means that there is meaning and sense to feeding the hungry, healing the sick, helping the hurting, defending the helpless."

The first sentence describes not faith, but liberty or freedom of expression. The second describes not faith, but reason. The third describes not faith but consciousness and free will. The fourth and fifth sentences are simply non-sequiturs, and sound suspiciously like white noise to me. As long as one has faith one is not thinking freely, and as long as one does not try to see the world as it is, one cannot take effective measures to improve one's safety. Reason is a far better paladin for freedom and safety than faith ever was. Likewise, why do you need to impose an arbitrary additional meaning on helping people and doing good works? Surely the helpfulness and benefit they provide is meaning enough for anyone?

The reason we say that all faith is dangerous is because it inhibits independent thought and skeptical, analytical reasoning. If faith is treated as a virtue even by the moderates then it primes those who want to take it to extremes to to just that. It takes away the power of the reasonable arguments that could be used to obstruct the stonings and the circumcisions and leaves us defenceless against the fanatics - for if you are allowed your wishy-washy "wouldn't it be nice if everyone was nice" god on faith, why aren't they allowed their nasty, vicious, belligerent god on the same basis?

Faith and Fear are not opposites either - that is another bald assertion you just made up yourself. They very often come hand in glove. Fear strengthens faith - fear of change, fear of progress, fear of simply being wrong. Faith flourishes where these fears flourish, and it flounders where people have the confidence of their convictions thanks to reason and evidence.

The main reason why faith is such an evil is demonstrated by your very last statement. Faith makes people believe, or pretend to believe, in risibly silly things like gods with infinite love and their half-human sons. It makes them believe in wishful fantasies like eternal life and simplistic cosmic get-out clauses for the difficult problems of the finite life we do have. There is no evidence for the existence of any of these things - they simply don't exist! Yet thanks to faith people like you believe that they actually do exist, and take life decisions based on that belief.

638. Why Darwin matters

Comment #124183 by Cartomancer on February 8, 2008 at 3:39 pm

I see that "Darwin" and "Dawkins" have now become one and the same person according to krisking here. Maybe in a couple of thousand years' time we'll all be talking about the biological works of the prodigiously long-lived Charles-Richard Darkins, and radical revisionist historians will be shouted down for trying to suggest that he was actually two different people.

639. Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'

Comment #124169 by Cartomancer on February 8, 2008 at 3:04 pm

What he said was:

"We who doubt that "theology" is a subject at all, or who compare it with the study of leprechauns, are eagerly hoping to be proved wrong. Of course, university departments of theology house many excellent scholars of history, linguistics, literature, ecclesiastical art and music, archaeology, psychology, anthropology, sociology, iconology, and other worthwhile and important subjects. These academics would be welcomed into appropriate departments elsewhere in the university. But as for theology itself, defined as "the organised body of knowledge dealing with the nature, attributes, and governance of God", a positive case now needs to be made that it has any real content at all, and that it has any place in today's universities."

Having looked at Williams' DPhil thesis, I would say it qualifies for exemption. I don't know quite what he did to deserve his DD though, so I can't comment on that.

640. Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'

Comment #124162 by Cartomancer on February 8, 2008 at 2:39 pm

Dr. Williams' academic qualifications are entirely legitimate. Out of curiosity I called up his DPhil thesis at the Bodleian Library today (he did his doctorate at my college, Wadham, Oxford) and it is essentially a study into the historical spread of christianity in twentieth century Russia and the thought of the Russian Theologian Vladimir Lossky - the sort of thing we really don't have a problem with from theologians and which could quite easily have found a home elsewhere in a faculty of Modern History or Oriental Studies.

He also has a higher Doctorate from Oxford - the DD (Doctor Divinitatis) and seven honorary doctorates from various places.

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

Comment #124096 by Cartomancer on February 8, 2008 at 11:06 am

Pah! This is nothing. Classical Athens had three highly regarded Peripeteia generators throughout the fifth century BC - they were called Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.

(I really should stop making obscure jokes based on the technical terminology in Aristotle's Poetics, but if any of my classics students are out there then this one is for you!)

642. BREAK THE SCIENCE BARRIER - Available Now on DVD

Comment #124090 by Cartomancer on February 8, 2008 at 10:47 am

I do find it a powerfully tragic irony that Douglas Adams is on record here as saying that he feels wonderfully privilleged to have seventy or eighty years ahead of him to apply himself to understanding the universe as best he can...

643. Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'

Comment #124089 by Cartomancer on February 8, 2008 at 10:43 am

There hasn't been a test case on the issue yet, and I would dearly love to see one, but if the conduct of marriages is considered to be a service in the eyes of the law then, technically, according to the recently implimented 2007 Provision of Goods and Services (Anti-Discrimination) Regulations, religious organisations are required to extend it toward same-sex couples too. Given that CofE marriages at least are legally binding (with real, contractual obligations in the eyes of the law) I can't see any reason they could claim not to be providing a service.

644. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #124087 by Cartomancer on February 8, 2008 at 10:35 am

Baeoz, Comment #1941 -

Actually, and this is me being really pedantic here, Professor Dawkins does not have a PhD. He has an MA, a DPhil. and a DSc. from the University of Oxford, and seven honorary doctorates from various other places.

The DPhil (Doctor Philosophiae) is basically Oxford's version of the PhD - it just uses the traditional notation which has a more natural Latin word order. The Oxford DSc. (Doctor Scientiarum) is an exceptional higher degree awarded to very senior academics with a proven history of outstanding publications in the sciences, and traditionally it is supposed to be even more prestigious than a professorial chair. Hence calling the man "Doctor Dawkins" is, if you are being a tremendous pedant with a taste for antiquarian lore, actually a more respectful form of address than "Professor Dawkins". There are also honorary DSc. degrees awarded, but as far as I can tell the good Doctor's is of the bona fide well-earned variety.

645. BREAK THE SCIENCE BARRIER - Available Now on DVD

Comment #123891 by Cartomancer on February 7, 2008 at 10:01 pm

Professor Dawkins is much better at punting than I am... Is there anything the great man can't do?

646. An Altar Beyond Olympus for a Deity Predating Zeus

Comment #123886 by Cartomancer on February 7, 2008 at 9:13 pm

Epeeist, Comment #17 -

My philological skills are very meagre, but as far as I am aware yahweh or jehovah - the usual vowelised rendering of the Hebrew tetragrammaton - has a completely different root from the dius words the classical Greeks and Romans used. The tetragrammaton is very obscure and it has been debated since antiquity where precisely this magical four letter formula comes from. The smart money seems to be on a nominalised form of an early Aramaic verb, perhaps "to be" or "to become", but several other theories abound.

I have just googled it and, as predicted, the ubiquitous Wikipedia seems to have a fair introduction - though I really cannot vouch for the accuracy of its statements.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh#Derivation

Oh, and Baeoz, the venerable Master Wheelock wasn't entirely deceiving you - Iove Pater, or rather Iovis Pater, is simply the Latin rendering of the proto indo-european "Dius Pater". Iovis was the original nominative form, but gradually became replaced by Iuppiter. "Iove" is the vocative or ablative form (the two noun cases are not always entirely distinct), which is used in invocation, hence our "by Jove".

647. Ad 'likely to offend gay people'

Comment #123873 by Cartomancer on February 7, 2008 at 7:57 pm

Actually, while we're on the subject of homosexuality and the downfall of civilization, I think I might as well point out that one particular civilization, to wit the Classical Thebans in the 4th century BC, actually reached the peak of their glory thanks to homosexual love.

Few people today have heard of the Theban Hieros Lochos, or "Sacred Band", despite the fact that it was probably the first recorded professional military regiment ever fielded by a Greek army and the pride of the Theban war machine for many decades. According to Plutarch's Life of Pelopidas the Sacred Band consisted of 150 pairs of male lovers who fought side by side in battle - the theory being that men would fight much harder and be much braver with their lover present to watch them and encourage them than if they were motivated by love of country and pay alone.

Stuff Leonidas and his gruff crew of pumped-up philistines - I wanna be a part of this 300!

Actually, that's not without historical grounding. 109 years after the battle of Thermopylae the Thebans and Spartans fought a decisive battle at Leuctra in Boeotia where, thanks to a well-timed flank attack by the Sacred Band (should have been a rear attack really!), the might of the Spartan army was overcome and the ascendancy of the Spartan state was finally broken for good. Pelopidas and Epaminondas, the leaders of the Band, were lauded as great heroes and superlative generals, and little Thebes achieved the height of its power thanks to the victory at Leuctra.

The Spartans never recovered. Their society fell into sharp decline and, despite an abortive attempt at the end of the third century BC by Kings Agis and Cleomenes to revive Spartan fortunes with a radical, proto-communist constitution, Sparta never really achieved anything of note again.

Like Leonidas' crew the Sacred Band also had their touching, tragic last stand. In 338 BC at Chaeronea an alliance of the free Greek city states was thoroughly defeated by the might of the Macedonian army under Philip II and his son. While most of the Greek army had surrendered or been scattered to the winds, the resolute Sacred Band fought to the last man against overwhelming odds. Apparently Philip was so impressed that he commented on their exceptional bravery in person, and the site of their last stand was commemorated by the Thebans with a monument. Excavations at the end of the 19th century on the site actually turned up most of the skeletons.

Oh, and as an epilogue to the tale, Philip's handsome, blue-eyed bisexual son went on to become perhaps the greatest general the world has ever known. His name was Alexander...

648. Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'

Comment #123861 by Cartomancer on February 7, 2008 at 7:05 pm

I think that, taken in the context of his whole pronouncement, Dr. Willams' comments are just what we have come to expect from the man - effusive, vague and somewhat redundant.

What, basically, is he saying? Different laws for different people that you can choose arbitrarily on a whim? A Britain segregated along religious lines? Respect for dogma simply because it is dogma? I don't think anyone with an ounce of common sense would seriously come forward and say such a thing, least of all someone who has made a career out of being so fuzzy, liberal and noncommital that he is in danger of subliming into a wispy, archiepiscopal gas at any given moment.

So what is he saying? Seems to me that his message is "well, as long as it doesn't interfere with the laws of the land, the human rights they protect and the dignity of the people, we should recognise that culturally diverse individuals will settle their disputes in culturally diverse ways." I'm not sure he is even talking about the laws of the land here - seems to me that he is merely commenting on what people do of their own accord without recourse to legal sanctions. People come to their own ad-hoc arrangements, out of court settlements and personal agreements on matters that they could easily take before the courts all the time. The Islamic thing seems to be a spectacularly ill-chosen red herring, probably due to Dr. Williams' lack of familiarity with the extremes of islam. I suspect he is thinking that sharia is essentially akin to one person agreeing to pay for accidentally shunting another person's car without recourse to insurance claims. I have no experience of it, but I guess the jewish arbitration courts are very much in this vein, or we would have condemned them decades ago. Inasmuch as sharia is like this, I have no problem with it either - though I do not for one second believe that to be the case.

Of course, the danger is that ad-hoc arrangements can become more concrete, institutionalised and eventually start to clamour for official recognition. That should be strenuously resisted, and perhaps there is some merit in the "slippery slope" argument - especially with regard to such a vehemently uncompromising religion as islam. Nevertheless, it is a fact that many muslims in Britain today DO settle their private disputes using sharia-based ideas, on a personal, independent basis and without involving the laws of the land at all. This is their right and their freedom under our constitution - we could not take it away from them, for that would be infinitely more totalitarian than any of us (save perhaps our resident BNP ghoul DavidJMH) would dare to contemplate.

Of course, our laws can be brought in to set things to rights if the personal arrangements break down or there is unfair practice. If there is criminality then the state has a duty to intervene. If not, then by its nature our civil law is powerless to intervene unless one of the interested parties instigates proceedings. Anything else would be a violation of civil liberties. The problem then arises that vulnerable individuals within minority communities might be persuaded or threatened not to seek the legal restitution available. I am sure this actually happens to many vulnerable women in islamic communities already. That is a matter for our criminal law inasmuch as it can ameliorate the problem and provide safety for the victims, and for education and consciousness-raising on the part of our society so that each individual knows what their rights are and is not afraid to stand up for those rights.

So, to recap - inasmuch as sharia is incompatible with British values, legal protections, fundamental rights and sense of decency it is not to be tolerated. Inasmuch as it is a harmless and useful method of dispute resolution it should be permitted. I think Dr. Williams and I would agree on this statement, as would most people who post here, though the values each of us gives to those "inasmuch"s are radically different to the values Williams gives them, and hence the difference of opinion.

It is therefore our duty to open his eyes to the true nature of sharia law as the muslims want to institute it. Given the massive antler-like protrusions the Archbishop sports on his brow however, which must weigh a considerable amount, I fear that this task might be rather easier said than done...

649. Ad 'likely to offend gay people'

Comment #123259 by Cartomancer on February 6, 2008 at 6:12 pm

Sarah95,

The advertising industry in Britain is largely self-regulated rather than censored by statute, though there are legal sanctions in place for those who consistently refuse to abide by the ASA's guidelines. Usually the adverse publicity an organization will receive is enough to discourage future breaches, but if not:

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/codes/cap_code/ShowCode.htm?clause_section_id=24

650. Richard Dawkins talks about The God Delusion

Comment #123245 by Cartomancer on February 6, 2008 at 5:14 pm

Post-Christian British Society eh?

Well, how about legalised homosexuality with an equal age of consent, full marriage rights, full adoption rights, anti-discrimination laws in place, thriving gay culture and serious attempts to root out institutionalised prejudice in society?

And having taught in entirely secular British schools for a couple of years I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the students are infinitely cheerier, happier, better rounded, more stable and nicer people than the sickly, unhappy specimens I spent my childhood with.

And if you want to see drunken street violence try medieval Britain on for size. That would be a... yes, I do believe that would be a strongly christian country.

Oh, and becoming more like the secular, socialistic Scandinavians would be an undeniably good thing too. We'll get there...