Comments by phil rimmer

601. Resentment Over Darwin Evolves Into a Documentary

Comment #165344 by phil rimmer on April 21, 2008 at 11:27 am

Can I encourage anyone who's seen the film to also log their comments on it here?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1091617/#comment

Current IMDB score 3.6 out of ten.

602. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #164751 by phil rimmer on April 20, 2008 at 4:46 pm

It is a wicked, evil thing they have done to you

This is exactly the point. To merely argue against a scientific theory ain't no big thing. But this is the rotten heart of the matter, the core of their intentions, to impute evil.

It is entirely proper that the mirror is held up to them.

603. Gods and earthlings

Comment #164485 by phil rimmer on April 20, 2008 at 10:18 am

moderationsmuse

So when you first read the "Selfish Gene", (which I presume from your easy familiarity with Dawkin's writing, you have) you were not astonished by its key idea?

604. Interviews with Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer

Comment #164480 by phil rimmer on April 20, 2008 at 10:06 am

Jayday

You can re-edit your post. (When logged in, use the edit button on the top right of your article.)

A little subsequent comment that its now been edited will help explain away these posts.

605. Sex for diploma offer caught on tape

Comment #164308 by phil rimmer on April 20, 2008 at 3:25 am

There is insufficient evidence for even Timmeh's! last point to be made with any confidence.

Give it a day or two and some more substantial material may be dredged up. Until then, proving religion poisons everything from this thin stuff just looks a bit desperate.

606. Sex for diploma offer caught on tape

Comment #164301 by phil rimmer on April 20, 2008 at 3:08 am

the main point, as I see it, is the [lack of] educational standards of the school.

But the evidence on display here is paltry. There may well be a problem but THAT story just hasn't been got yet. As an editor I'd say go back and keep digging.

607. Sex for diploma offer caught on tape

Comment #164294 by phil rimmer on April 20, 2008 at 2:52 am

Why is this here? I don't think it reflects well on this site. I would vote for its removal if I could.

608. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163819 by phil rimmer on April 19, 2008 at 5:42 am

Its not so much that people want to shoehorn their God into a particular gap that pisses me off. Its that they want to smash a whole bunch of real knowledge out of the way to make a Nice Big Gap.

Pacman, Vandal!

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

Comment #163780 by phil rimmer on April 19, 2008 at 2:55 am

Is that your real name, or are you a porn star?

Well I've never had any complaints ;-)

610. Flea of the week

Comment #163637 by phil rimmer on April 18, 2008 at 5:02 pm

Paula

And how ironic it is that the ONE thing that really MIGHT make us special in the universe is the ONE thing that the religious want to guard against and subdue with every fibre in their bodies.

Loved this.

611. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #163615 by phil rimmer on April 18, 2008 at 4:02 pm

For instance, each species which has separate genders would have to have male and female evolve side-by-side simultaneously. Ponder that you pompous ivory tower elitists....

Fuck!

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

Comment #163595 by phil rimmer on April 18, 2008 at 3:27 pm

Santi,

Much as I like the various questions you raise (and they have been raised and debated on this site often enough)I am still flummoxed by any possible association they have with with ID proponents.

Ideas of multiverses and abiogenesis have quite proper formulations and respectable pedigrees prior to the ID debate and have gained nothing from it. The ID charge that Darwin does not answer the question of abiogenesis is fatuous in the extreme as evolution is a description of aspects of the reproductive nature of living things. Its use as a charge against the credibility of Evolution I feel verges on the wicked.

ID is NOT a source of these interesting ideas. Had they a single shred of an interesting idea of their own to bring to the table my attitude to them would be different. The closest they came was the idea of irreducible complexity. Sadly for them, this has failed all tests so far and, at root, is a God-of-the-Gaps type argument depending on the failure of all conceivable "reduction to process" explanations first.

They have borrowed my copy of News Scientist and failed to read it carefully. They have offered me nothing. They certainly do not deserve any respect that I can see for being considered useful purveyors of ideas.

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

Comment #163507 by phil rimmer on April 18, 2008 at 12:40 pm

Santi

And some of them, however irritating or however bad you might think their motives are, sometimes say interesting things, and occasionally--and I stress the word occasionally--make a worthwhile observation.

Now THAT threw me. I'm all for openness to evidence. I have a ton of flea books. I regularly read, the postings on a number of religious sites and find a lot of interest in them, but THIS really threw me.

Please, WHAT worthwhile observation??

EDIT You are talking about IDers, right?

614. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #162748 by phil rimmer on April 17, 2008 at 11:51 am

The shame is squarely on Bill Maher here.

It doesn't do to be seen to mistrust your host after such a firm claim.

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

Comment #162720 by phil rimmer on April 17, 2008 at 10:56 am

but it has value as a cultural product

Yes, but that value is negative.

A lie is not elevated in value by achieving a "cultural" status.

I think you meant to say that it has significance as a cultural product.

616. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162078 by phil rimmer on April 16, 2008 at 6:12 am

He is beginning to remind me of Dianelos.

The trouble with DG was that he'd been left on his own for too long before going public. He truly had made a self-consistent world for himself.

I found it truly frustrating that he thought it so satisfying, when no-one else did. Its like any chance of genuine reality checks were subverted by him getting confused between his theories and the real world.

Karda's prognosis is nowhere near so grim.

617. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162055 by phil rimmer on April 16, 2008 at 4:37 am

So he's now a BAC for the FOURTH time?

This is starting to look like a spiritual version of Munchausen Syndrome.

Attention seeker!

I have to say though, if I ever had the need to search out a religious community, the last people in the world I would turn to are DR's loonies. I would go back to my old Methodist minister, who was probably one of the kindest people I had ever met.

Yeah, but think of all the a high-profile attention, you'd be missing out on...

618. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161998 by phil rimmer on April 16, 2008 at 1:49 am

Richard Morgan's experience and behaviour have been interesting to watch, and I too wish him good hunting.

In some sense did RM crave being noticed? Many of his posts came across that way.

It hadn't occurred to me before quite how significant a part of the psychology of religion it may be to feel "noticed" by God.

619. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161518 by phil rimmer on April 15, 2008 at 11:07 am

#160964 by Jon_Sociologist

Just saw this. No, in truth I realize you are not a negotiator. I was perhaps unreasonably wishing you were one.

Nor was Thompson a negotiator as you rightly imply. He was a leader when there was no real leadership around.

Truth is though he didn't get into a fatuous fire fight. He let off some warning shots THEN did what really needed doing.

I'm all for waving around a loaded "ad-fucking-hom" to show I take this as seriously as the next person. BUT those things are value and information free. People are impressed first time you whip it out, then...Pffft.

Anyway, there is only one poster here who has been granted the much coveted Double-O license for use of an AFH, that is, of course 00-Diacanu. It is a joy to watch such marksmanship. Single shot, straight to the head, every time.

AFHs only work when they are funny. Used seriously they they come across too often as desperate. Used spuriously (NOT your failing!) they come across as the mark of an emotionally labile lush.

Footnote: I think epeeist may well be next on the list for a Double-O after his near perfect delivery in comment #161408.

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

Comment #160819 by phil rimmer on April 14, 2008 at 12:31 pm

Today has not been a good day for me.

Now my arthritic fingers have seized up, dutifully scrolling down through the eponymous Bonehead's elegant riposte to Mark Ravenhill.

EDIT: I withdraw eponymous. Some good quotes I hadn't seen. But, please, next time....

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

Comment #160778 by phil rimmer on April 14, 2008 at 11:39 am

Doc. Benway

Posts #160509, #160594

You're a traitor to your Hippocratic Oath. Currently I have a bad chest infection. I discovered that I had lost the ability to breathe more readily than I lost my sense of humour.

You have been warned!

622. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160007 by phil rimmer on April 13, 2008 at 2:09 pm

MaxD

They have no clues how to proceed and I suspect many of them have no desire to do so.

That is exactly my feeling also. I wished to suggest that if by some (as yet unimagined) means they COULD prove an Intervention in an evolutionary process, they'd end up with a Designer/God that no-one would want to touch with a barge pole.

OK so if evolution is Her process, why this discontinuity? Why did She suddenly have to frig the result?

Geof

They have something they call "baraminology",

BARMY! I think "scientific" IDers are rightly keeping schtum about that one.

623. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159890 by phil rimmer on April 13, 2008 at 10:58 am

IPV4

Don't oversell! You will spoil it if you over-claim. Unreliable batteries with outrageous prices have been the problem before now. To say nothing of the eco-consequences of managing the massive waste.

Simple improvements in fuel efficiency through weight reduction and better combustion management is available now in conventional vehicles, with no added cost, eco or otherwise.

My five seater takes the kids, three bikes, all our luggage in great comfort, very quickly. It produces less than one third of the average US vehicle CO2 emission. Why wait?

(Don't get me wrong about electric and hybrid...They'll be great one day. My job depends on it.)

624. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #159872 by phil rimmer on April 13, 2008 at 9:53 am

Corylus,

An excellent idea. If they wished an advocate it would also provide a pre-vetting service for others, indicating that someone wants genuine debate. (I personally would also appreciate a category 5 warning.)

How on earth would it work though? Maybe some kind of "first time for theists" section where they might find the names of volunteering atheists with specific areas of interest? My fear is that it would be way too slow and clunky for commenting on news events.

625. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #159857 by phil rimmer on April 13, 2008 at 9:05 am

Doc.

a)Listen

b)Explain

c)Hope others catch on.

626. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #159852 by phil rimmer on April 13, 2008 at 8:59 am

Under which number do you yourself fall, my good Doctor?

Duh!

Someone take the bottle from him...

and give it to me

627. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159778 by phil rimmer on April 13, 2008 at 5:53 am

Come on, Richard. Are you REALLY gonna take Bill's word for it?

Doesn't matter.

IF he believes a snake talked THEN he is not a bright guy. Is the point.

There is no insult. Richard gave Francis a clean bill of health on the issue to start. If he has been lied to by Bill, the shame is on Bill. Richard has the virtue of being quite trusting.

628. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #159761 by phil rimmer on April 13, 2008 at 3:58 am

Jon

Intentions- Admirable.
Methods- Weird.

Negotiators don't shoot at (well intentioned) vigilantes when they've gone a little gun crazy.

629. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #159759 by phil rimmer on April 13, 2008 at 3:47 am

I'm guessing they will say they all those other flagella that get by fine without certain components are not real flagella.

Nor do they have to be. They only need to be useful somehow. But I take your point. The feeble argument is merely semantic.

630. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #159745 by phil rimmer on April 13, 2008 at 2:59 am

What really frustrates me about IDers is that none have laid out here how the "science" of it is to proceed. I'd love to see a discussion of what sorts of things could be validated and how that information could be used.

Surely, for instance, it is reasonable to have as many hypotheses of what form an Intelligent Designer might take so that something useful might be inferred from evidence of design, should it be found.

Is the Designer God? Is she always consistent in what she does? Is she consistent, but reactive to slip ups, making course corrections along the way? Is she entirely fickle?

Is the designer merely a god, etc. etc.?

Is the designer a hyper intelligent mega-being, etc. etc.?

The contesting explanations are between "process" and "intervention" and most Iders accept large chunks of process as fact, so the process / intervention balance should be key to the "science" of ID and establishing its usefulness.

If examples in biology of Design could be proved, as opposed to simply failing to identify another process for them, how would that information be used? Are the (putative) acts of design that can be identified examples of a Band-Aid on a process that stalled, for instance? Are interventions clustered? What energies are involved? Is the intervention genetic always? Is environmental intervention a useful design tool? And, (surely the question is not excluded?) how is any intervention achieved?

Please, please, would an Ider come here and explain the Science of ID. Also, what is the latest, best piece of ID evidence, now that the flagellum motor thing bit the dust?

631. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #159722 by phil rimmer on April 13, 2008 at 1:22 am

Bit late sorry..

Comment #159533 by myarbrough61

Yeah, I always hated the rather crushing "Dust to Dust" thing the church would do to keep us humble. Far nicer, on a clear night, to look up at the heavens and sing to yourself THAT Joni Mitchell song.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/06/990625080416.htm

632. The simple falsehood at the heart of Expelled

Comment #159025 by phil rimmer on April 11, 2008 at 10:56 am

IBIJesus

I'm here for political reasons. I don't care what wisdom or nonsense people may or may not hold in their heads. It is their behaviour in the public space that counts.

I am deeply shocked that some people fail to see that a Secular State protects all, that it must be morally the least bad and that it will probably (bringing us full circle) prove the most fertile ground for the cultivation of empirical and personal spiritual wisdom.

Top of my To Do list to solve the world's ills- Get you to join my political cause.

Next, come up with possible slogans.

"The Secular State, A Cure for Pride?" (The question mark is necessary!)

Or suggested by one of my Christian friends, an extension to Oliver Cromwell. I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken…and act accordingly..

I guess Hitchen's "Mr Jefferson, Build up that Wall" really gets it.

633. Get out of here, atheists!

Comment #157839 by phil rimmer on April 9, 2008 at 3:35 pm

how I hate that phrase with a passion.

Hmmm! You're right, of course....I didn't think it through. I'd delete it but I think my shame should stand for all to see....

634. Get out of here, atheists!

Comment #157829 by phil rimmer on April 9, 2008 at 3:19 pm

We are our brothers keeper...The job is here, the time is now.

I think a pro-Atheist ad campaign with this in it might be nicely engaging. We need to consistently needle religites about whether they are freer to act morally than we are.

EDIT We are our sisters keeper etc. would make a further point.

635. The Atheist Next Door

Comment #156907 by phil rimmer on April 8, 2008 at 11:37 am

They found this family in America where ALL FOUR of them are rational human beings ?? This is some real weird shit.

Nah! It was faked. You could see when they turned away, they had glinty red eyes....

636. Cult leader Pyotr Kuznetsov tries suicide after realising he was wrong about doomsday

Comment #156884 by phil rimmer on April 8, 2008 at 11:08 am

Quetz

Yes. Please keep us posted. I really do find it fascinating. Was the problem with us at RD.net that we were too honest about our emotional reactions? Or that our moral tone was too diverse (EDIT not enough like a properly ordered religion)? Are we just too much like hard work? Its important to know.

Re Zarbi. :) Junior executives have little clout in their company and only little respect. As they get promoted they get more of both and become more dangerous. Most dangerous is the CEO, with most clout and most to prove. One more promotion, however, to chairman and all is sweetness and light. Your work is done and you can lord it over all others, basking in their praise and they in your reflected glory.

I think we should make jibes at fundies about their middle-management god.

637. Cult leader Pyotr Kuznetsov tries suicide after realising he was wrong about doomsday

Comment #156830 by phil rimmer on April 8, 2008 at 10:01 am

Quetz.

Fascinating link.

http://www.fcosonline.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=79bce46b434b28dc7336ebb5c9952d17&topic=5.msg246#msg246

I roared with laughter, then felt more than a little sad at the sight of someone trying to bash the irritation of coherent thought from their head.

I think the man just needs a cuddle and for some reason he thought this group, linked as it is, only by an absence of belief, was the place to get it.

He even brought gifts, his (really rather good) music.

This is a fascinating reminder of what is possibly a key aspect to the mindset of a religite (albeit lapsed)- Belief (common values?) in a setting of companionship.

638. Get out of here, atheists!

Comment #156790 by phil rimmer on April 8, 2008 at 9:03 am

Doc.

We need a sexy, smart black dude. We need sent2null in there.

He'd get my vote.

Or the Dream Ticket, sexy smart black dude paired with a sassy, brainy chick, preferably with a doctorate and an unerring ability never to mis-speak.

639. Get out of here, atheists!

Comment #156470 by phil rimmer on April 7, 2008 at 3:41 pm

It wasn't always like this.

Completely agree.

It's not an American quirk.

And yet...and yet,,,that graph, a few weeks ago, showing increasing religiosity on a vertical axis against increasing GDP per capita on the horizontal. All countries clustered around the negative sloping line except Kuwait at the poorer end and the US at the rich end. Way off they were. Job security and health-care concerns were the offered explanation. Has this changed over the period?

(EDIT The other theory that has something going for it, is the lack of a national religion coupled with a wildly successful free-market, consumerist mindset. Maybe?)

Or, maybe the Hippies were a blip...?

It can happen in your country, too.

True. Its happening and from here it certainly feels like a fearful response.

EDIT EDIT "Way off they were." For pity's sake! Turning into fucking Yoda I am...

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

Comment #156163 by phil rimmer on April 7, 2008 at 1:43 am

Darwin's badger.

Many thanks for this. It hadn't occurred to me that it had gone to DVD. I urge others to go check it out in about one days time, after I have secured my copy. :)

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

Comment #156072 by phil rimmer on April 6, 2008 at 3:57 pm

Russel T Davies is truly someone we can be proud of in the UK. An unashamed creator of popular culture, he has done more to help us grow up and use our brains than very many more "serious" writers. "Queer as Folk" genuinely changed things and was hugely impressive, but Russel T really kicked off my journey from flaccid agnosticism to a morally-intentioned atheism with his astonishing two parter, "The Second Coming."

For me this still stands as the ultimate response to the religious on how they could lead a more moral life. I wish ITV would repeat it.

642. Cult leader Pyotr Kuznetsov tries suicide after realising he was wrong about doomsday

Comment #155603 by phil rimmer on April 5, 2008 at 3:40 am

I roared with laughter at the sheer slapstick of the image then felt the pain of the wood on my own head (it still rather haunts me) and the bottomless well of despair.

I have had brushes with schizophrenia in two of my friends (both astonishingly bright). Both involved God. The first (thirty years ago now), sublimely and "comically" mad ended in tragedy the second became a thoroughly positive experience for the chap involved, yielding the insight that we have something akin to a "saliency volume control", whose setting at any given time it is useful to know.

I have always believed that a more general acknowledgment of the prevalence of mental illness, its smoothly distributed gradations in the population and its involvement in helping to define the nature of being human, could alter, beneficially, the way we see it. It could make us, at once, more sceptical of the lone voice telling others what to do and more appreciative of the lone voice exploring the edges of human experience.

Lori's post on her personal experience with schizophrenia delighted me. I have been recently pondering the completeness of personality of my subconscious. I now quite deliberately give it/him problem solving work to do. When I have such a problem, I load up with a whole bunch of material I guess might be involved then go to bed. "Subby" often appears to oblige next morning with some solution pretty much thought through. I wonder if I had access to "his" thought processes directly my experience would be the same as Lori's?

643. Dawkins warns of human extinction

Comment #155530 by phil rimmer on April 4, 2008 at 5:04 pm

From Surf Dude's smashing link. (Thanks by the way)

Pascal's Wager with the right conclusion

The only way to truly test human beings is to see if we will become nontheists after serious and sincere inquiry into these matters: to see if we have the courage and fortitude to choose morality over faith or loyalty, and be good without fear or hope of divine reward. No other test will ensure a result of the genuinely good being self-selected into a predictable belief-state that can be observed in secret by god.

I'm proud of us. No, wait. Damn, damn, damn! Now we KNOW! Its the fiery pit for us.

644. Beware the Believers

Comment #155523 by phil rimmer on April 4, 2008 at 4:45 pm

Corylus, for later..

whilst at the same time I seek to investigate why people feel the way they do and whether or not it is rational for them to do so.

I find there is great comfort (and quite some self-empowerment) that comes from knowing what makes us tick. Acknowledging gender predispositions in the nineties was almost as liberating as the Women's movement from the seventies. The continual finessing of self-knowledge lets us, for instance, better understand the extent and nature of Harm. I feel sure this is the key to making more moral decisions.

But what it says about being half Vulcan I just don't know....

645. Beware the Believers

Comment #155505 by phil rimmer on April 4, 2008 at 3:37 pm

Mark Smith, spot on.

Corylus, agreed.

BUT, we may have to expect that in instances of making a "least harm" judgement, harm of some sort will ensue not least because we are merely human rather than Vulcan. We may as parents, for instance, hurt forever more after making the right choice to terminate a foetus with a strong possibility of severe disability...

646. Beware the Believers

Comment #155492 by phil rimmer on April 4, 2008 at 2:58 pm

You can take knowledge of conception as a cutoff point if you wish, but if you do this you still have the problem of deciding what to do in the case of non-viable conception. (I am talking about eptopic pregnancy and cases of severe disability here).

But isn't the range of other factors to be considered wider than this?

If, let us say, the Balance of Harm is the deciding factor, there may be quite other Harms to be considered. In a wealthy society, the Harms to the mother and the family and society as a whole might rightly be judged negligible and the Potential Person for all their current non-sentient existence might be judged in danger of the greatest harm.

But consider a society living on the brink of extinction through the paucity of resources. A birth may prove catastrophic for the survival of other youngsters....There is always a scenario...

The fact is we don't do judging net harm well (like being able to push the one person off the bridge to save five others.) and we'd not be human if we were good at it...we'd be Vulcan.

(No offense Enlightenme..)

647. Beware the Believers

Comment #155476 by phil rimmer on April 4, 2008 at 2:26 pm

Burning widows on a funeral pyre is still wrong

And should be avoided at all costs, providing that is the lesser of two evils...

But, there is always a worse scenario possible, at least in the mind of a Hollywood producer.

EDITED

648. Dawkins warns of human extinction

Comment #155259 by phil rimmer on April 4, 2008 at 9:29 am

I don't think you can attribute Newton's passion for theology only to the fact that Darwin was not around yet to remind him of the fact that it was not actually intellectually respectable any longer to study such a non-subject

My understanding of Newton's Christianity was that he was one of the first to start to unpick it. He was an anti-Trinitarian and had to keep his heretical views strictly to himself for fear of censure. Like Priestley after him, he was well on his way to becoming a Unitarian.

It seems to me that the Gospels represented to him a great, juicy puzzle that was full of inconsistencies. He started on a journey that took him in the right direction. Alas, the sheer isolation such a journey forced on him, probably slowed him down. On this matter, at least, he could not "stand on the shoulders of giants".

EDIT. Looking at the religious affiliations of the great minds of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reveals an astonishing number who counted themselves Dissenters and Nonconformists. A key group were the Rational Dissenters. (I rather liked the sound of them.) There's a good book to be written about this. Any takers? John Gribbin? Jenny Uglow?

649. Anti-Quran Film Fitna Pulled From Web Due to 'Threats'

Comment #153318 by phil rimmer on April 1, 2008 at 11:36 am

The point was that inaction may lead to the death of citizens of our countries and/or the deaths of many Muslims

But this is not the big issue! I believe Brian is right about the numbers give or take an order of magnitude. The big issue is the creeping loss, through accommodation, of freedom, democracy, human rights, creativity, happiness.

650. Anti-Quran Film Fitna Pulled From Web Due to 'Threats'

Comment #153303 by phil rimmer on April 1, 2008 at 11:15 am