701. Fleabytes

Comment #143424 by Sargeist on March 14, 2008 at 5:31 am

The idea of making viability a good criterion has interested me a lot, because I often read statements along the lines of "well, if we were to take the "baby" out of the womb, it wouldn't survive, so it is dependent on the mother, so the mother can do what she wants with it."

The reason this bothers me is that I had to be in an incubator when I was born a little too early. So... it could be true to say that I wasn't viable. Would it have been morally ok to have let me die? I am sure people also bring up the argument of a baby's being dependent on people for food. If we were to starve a child, would this be ok because it is dependent upon others for its life?

I naturally think the answers here are that these actions would not be ok, but I'd like to know *why* I come to that conclusion. Is it all just down to getting used to certain ideas?

Sorry to continue this off-topic thing. I was rather concerned that people would think I was an absolutist anti-abortionist.

702. Fleabytes

Comment #143420 by Sargeist on March 14, 2008 at 5:23 am

Hi.

Well, when I can get around to thinking about it carefully, my opinion about abortion tends to be that I would prefer the world to be a place in which it was not necessary, but given that it is, I think that it ought to be made as simple as possible as early as possible to those who want it. But I still have this niggling feeling that there is a definite point beyond which it would be wrong.

Then I start to worry about innate misogyny, and get all worked up about trying to find out why I have the various opinions I do.

Ultimately, I no doubt come down on the "allow abortion" side of the fence, if only because the only criteria that I, personally, think one can use to determine right from wrong in these sorts of arguments is a utilitarian one. The permission of abortion has made the world a better place.

I think.

In a way, despite the obvious Euthyphro problem, I can see the attraction of big-beardy-morals, handed down from the sky.

703. Fleabytes

Comment #143404 by Sargeist on March 14, 2008 at 5:10 am

Could I tiptoe in and give a response to clearthinker's response to Sharon?

The whole topic of abortion is so very emotionally charged that it is almost impossible to say anything about it without being lambasted, but doesn't clearthinker have a reasonable point here? I don't agree that there are certain actions that are intrinsically, god-givenly "wrong", but I could interpret clearthinker's response as saying "well, there are circumstances in which a person's autonomy is overridden, so might it not be even more appropriate when that autonomy might damage another living thing?"

Isn't it just as incorrect to say that there is an "obvious" right for every woman to control her body in the intimated way, as it is for someone else to say that it is clearly wrong because god says so? Isn't the most we can say simply that, at this point in time, given the state of the world, our society in general has come to the conclusion that some things are ok and some things are not?

The abortion question is often presented as "do you think there are circumstances in which a woman should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term against her wishes?" Well, at great risk to myself with regard to possible replies: isn't the answer yes? Would our society permit a woman who is, say, 38 weeks pregnant to take deliberate actions to kill her baby/foetus?

In a lot of abortion discussions, it seems to me, there is a tacit "we're only talking about when the embryo is still in its small blob stage".

704. Ban anti-Catholic books in schools, says bishop

Comment #143301 by Sargeist on March 14, 2008 at 12:25 am

Thanks for pointing those out to me, Bonzai. As usual, I read the story, found a bit that got my blood boiling and didn't stop to think about the other issues.

I should have been immediately heartened by the fact that the story exists at all: this already intimates what the BBC's attitude towards the views is. If the opinions of this madman were perfectly reasonable, there probably would have been no story.

However, when I went to the (gorgeous and wonderfully information-ful) Parliament website yesterday to find the transcript of the bishop's evidence, I found that it was not yet there. Based on the dates of the evidence that one can access, it looks like we might have to wait 2 weeks to see the full thing. Unless I've just missed it being under my nose?

705. Ban anti-Catholic books in schools, says bishop

Comment #143095 by Sargeist on March 13, 2008 at 12:43 pm

Although it is all pretty absurd, I was most bothered by his referring to the "deluded theory that the condom can provide adequate protection against Aids". I know that some Catholics have been claiming that, unbeknownst to other, less religious, virologists/microbiologists that HIV can nip between the atoms in condoms, but surely this cannot be becoming that widespread that people are starting to believe it in this country?

706. Fleabytes

Comment #142923 by Sargeist on March 13, 2008 at 7:54 am

A party sounds like a very good idea, aside from the spectre of having a load of trolls turn up. Can we perform some kind of rationalism test at the door?

Or, re: Steve's comment about madness some time earlier, perhaps we would all fail?

707. Fleabytes

Comment #142907 by Sargeist on March 13, 2008 at 7:30 am

Well, I for one would be very grateful if someone could sum up the last 2500 posts for me.... Otherwise I'm going to need a strong gravitational field so that my time can run more quickly than yours so I can catch up.

Although.. my recall of my general relativity course is somewhat vague, so I may have that backwards. Damn.

708. Fleabytes

Comment #142876 by Sargeist on March 13, 2008 at 7:01 am

Have I missed anything outstanding since all that talk of the omnipotence paradox, several hundred comments ago? Might need to rush off and put in 6 months of heavy duty philosophy study before being able to make any useful points here, though. :(

709. Fleabytes

Comment #142860 by Sargeist on March 13, 2008 at 6:42 am

Please please slow down! I spent a great deal of my free time yesterday reading these comments, and only made it to page 42!

710. Two More Fleas

Comment #142769 by Sargeist on March 13, 2008 at 5:00 am

In fact, Diacanu even explicitly stated earlier on that a particular book (s)he drew attention to counted as a flea book because it was aimed at "the new atheism".

Although MeIM was not so clear about why the book (s)he mentioned was a flea. And I know I should have gone off to look on Amazon at it, to find out. Sorry.

711. We're All Going to Hell (Music Video)

Comment #113897 by Sargeist on January 21, 2008 at 12:50 am

In a similar vein, examine, if you will, the book at around 1:55 in the following (superb) video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57ta7mkgrOU

712. The God Delusion: Now Available in US Paperback

Comment #113073 by Sargeist on January 18, 2008 at 2:19 pm

I would much have preferred "How religion poisons everything" than "The case against religion". If anything, given the attitudes of the UK and the US to religious topics, I would have expected the subtitles to be the other way around.

Although the UK can be just as stupid as other places of course. Witness the news stories not so long ago just because there was the suggestion that children might learn about atheism in school R.E. lessons.

Excuse me for clearly being obtuse, but I'm entirely staggered that the question of whether to explain that not everyone is a numpty-headed crazed buffoon with an imaginary friend is even debated.

713. The God Delusion: Now Available in US Paperback

Comment #113003 by Sargeist on January 18, 2008 at 12:28 pm

For once, the American version of a book's cover is actually rather nicer than the British one.

God be praised!

714. 'Purity' ring case in High Court

Comment #51298 by Sargeist on June 22, 2007 at 8:39 am

Those crucifixions make it more amusing to me that some girls wear rings to say how they don't want to get nailed.

715. 'Purity' ring case in High Court

Comment #51292 by Sargeist on June 22, 2007 at 8:12 am

What we need, of course, is a time machine. Just get Hawking to fix us up with one, nip back in time, get Jesus to carry around a huge bloody great cross, maybe on his back, and then we can get all our children humping them into school for some "equal treatment".

Oh, hang on, maybe he did do that. Come on Christians! Where's your imagination?!

716. 'Purity' ring case in High Court

Comment #51290 by Sargeist on June 22, 2007 at 8:09 am

I am kind of in agreement with icanus, above. I am aware that I have a tendency (like Michael Jackson) to being black & white, but to my mind this sort of situation leads us to a simple either/or situation:

Either:

Children can wear what the hell they like to school

Or:

They can only wear clothing prescribed by the school.

What bothers me most (and not just me, of course) is that religions don't have any definitive statements about what their supposed adherents should wear/do. We've all seen lately the argument that goes "ah well, that's not *my* religion, those people are not *true* X's". But there is no way to examine this claim and see if it holds up.

An analogy I have used involves programming languages. If I am writing a program that begins:

program test
implicit none

integer :: i,j
double precision :: dblArray

and so on, and tell someone that I am programming in Java, then someone will say: "No, that's Fortran." Now, who are *they* to tell me that I'm not programming in Java? Ah, well, you see there's this Standard produced by Sun Microsystems that tells us that, in fact, I am *not at all* programming in Java.

I'd just like to see the same for religion, once and for all.

717. Rushdie knighted in honours list

Comment #50893 by Sargeist on June 20, 2007 at 10:37 am

It occurs to me that perhaps the reason why Pakistan is such an important ally in the War Against Terror is that they are producing all the Terror.

(ok, I'm kidding, it's really Saudi Arabia)

718. Rushdie knighted in honours list

Comment #50890 by Sargeist on June 20, 2007 at 10:22 am

This is the "British Way", though. Someone treads on your foot and *you* apologise.

Oh, I'm really sorry that I'm about to been blown up by you. What awful things I must have done to cause you (who are obviously perfectly sensible) to take this attitude towards me.

raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhh!

What a fucking stupid stupid stupid world this is.

719. Debate between Sam Harris and Chris Hedges

Comment #50886 by Sargeist on June 20, 2007 at 10:08 am

Hi Rtambree,

Sorry, I was only trying to be funny before. I don't think we should attack people with physical force simply because their ideas are absurd.

I tend to think that I agree with the position of Christopher Hitchens (his position is not unique, of course) in that freedom of speech should include freedom to make hateful speech.

Yes, even threats of death.

Although, I am aware that I could probably be persuaded otherwise.

720. Rushdie knighted in honours list

Comment #50883 by Sargeist on June 20, 2007 at 9:49 am

While looking for the Margaret Beckett update on BBC news site, I saw that the use of the HPV vaccine on schoolgirls has been approved. So at least it's one small victory for common sense against religious nuts.

721. Debate between Sam Harris and Chris Hedges

Comment #50877 by Sargeist on June 20, 2007 at 9:34 am

I realise that Bonzai simply mistyped in the last point, but:

Islam is under attacked

is exactly how I feel at the moment.

Let's attack it more.

722. Debate between Sam Harris and Chris Hedges

Comment #50837 by Sargeist on June 20, 2007 at 7:00 am

That post earlier about Sunni and Shiite has got me humming "I Got You Babe" all afternoon.

Thanks very much. :P

723. Rushdie knighted in honours list

Comment #50827 by Sargeist on June 20, 2007 at 5:33 am

Those lucky Pakistanis - it always seems to be Guy Fawkes night over there.

Just think of all those pennies they can collect on the streets.

To show some solidarity (well, by providing him with a few pennies through royalties) I was going to buy a copy of The Satanic Verses. But I did browse it once in a bookshop, and it didn't really grab me.

724. Atheists: stand up and be counted

Comment #50825 by Sargeist on June 20, 2007 at 5:23 am

A Catholic girl I was speaking to the other day said to me, in response to my ridiculing of the Trinity:

She: "You know a clover leaf?"
Me : (cautiously) "Yeeees..."
She: "Three parts, one body." *smug look*
Me: *totally mindboggled*

I should probably have brought up 4-leaved clovers. (The 4th one is Satan)

725. Rushdie knighted in honours list

Comment #50815 by Sargeist on June 20, 2007 at 4:40 am

I've been trying to find some kind of official government statement with the gravity that is appropriate to the circumstance in which the government of a supposed ally tells us that we deserved to be bombed by terrorists.

Nothing in Hansard this month about Rushdie, so far as my searches can tell. All I have found so far is the comment from the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) on the number 10 website:

Asked how the Prime Minister had reacted to a member of the Government effectively saying that this justified retaliation by giving Salman Rushdie a knighthood, the PMOS replied that he was not going to get drawn into it, as it was best left to the proper diplomatic channels.

I see. A country with a military dictatorship, and which has nuclear weapons, tells us we deserve to get bombed, and *that's* the response we get?

Hmm, funny how all those other countries seem to want some WMD, isn't it? What *possible* benefit could they be?

726. Atheists: stand up and be counted

Comment #50814 by Sargeist on June 20, 2007 at 4:35 am

I really want to make a comment about how religions often think that the birth canal is a One Way Street, but I don't want talk of road signs to overtake the thread.

727. Rushdie knighted in honours list

Comment #50798 by Sargeist on June 20, 2007 at 2:38 am

Sorry, just another comment.

It only occurred to me last night that there is the obvious impending problem of the extra security that may well be needed when Rushdie turns up at the Palace to be knighted.

At least the Queen will have a large sword with which to defend the honour of her subjects.

*cue Yoda-like gymnastic displays and instant YouTube celebrity, resurgence of monarchism, dissolving of government, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria*

728. Rushdie knighted in honours list

Comment #50793 by Sargeist on June 20, 2007 at 2:30 am

I agree with PrimeNumbers. People don't tend to worry about offending the BNP, or other groups who have views that we find absurd, unreasonable or just basically wrong. This is the attitude of a lot of atheists towards religious protest.

The interesting thing about this whole Rushdie affair is the way in which it has kind of morphed into a discussion of whether he deserves his knighthood at all. If we imagine for a moment that the whole fatwa thing had not coloured our views of him - would anyone on the television be making so much noise about it? I mean, for goodness' sake, Nicky Clarke has been honoured for "services to hairdressing"!

Yes, the honours may well be a stupid anachronism, but the point the news should be focussing on is how godawfully *barmy* those effigy burning cretins are.

Has there been an official statement from our esteemed Government yet?

729. Atheists: stand up and be counted

Comment #50664 by Sargeist on June 19, 2007 at 10:08 am

I've rather liked the idea that the Jesus Passion story contains a number of elements nicked from the Julius Caesar cult. You know:

crown of thorns = laurel leaves
Betrayed by a friend = er.. Betrayed by a friend
Judas = Brutus

I really have no idea at all, naturally, whether it is plausible, but I do like it as an idea. I fear, though, that the hypothesis might be a secular example of wishful thinking and over-rationalisation.

730. Atheists: stand up and be counted

Comment #50646 by Sargeist on June 19, 2007 at 7:49 am

Dammit, just cos I'm bored with work and would much rather write my long rambling posts here than do what I'm supposed to be doing, doesn't mean that I can answer *everyone*. :P

What can we do?

Well, I personally seem to have become very good at pissing off my (nominally) Muslim girlfriend at every available opportunity by slagging off religious beliefs and telling her (actually) Catholic friend that her father is a nutter (Antichrist living in the White House since 1960s? Do me a favour...) and that she herself needs to start turning her brain on and *thinking* (oh, the pain).

All that is true. But, seriously, I am not sure what we can do as "body of people". My preference is for the sustained don't-take-it-lying-down attitude of questioning people when they make statements that contain tacit or implicit acceptance of religious ideas.

Someone earlier on said a similar thing - it was lostpoet @ comment 18 of this thread.

I regard myself as a militant atheist - I've offended my mother, girlfriend, girlfriend's friend, various other people at work, including agnostics, and, yes, actually I rather enjoy it. There are worse things than being thought an annoying intolerant godless bugger.

731. Atheists: stand up and be counted

Comment #50645 by Sargeist on June 19, 2007 at 7:44 am

I ought to try to do some non-rambling and be concise (for a change):

If Adam did not exist
Then "he" could not have disobeyed god
So he and Eve could not have been condemned to die and Eve could not have been punished with painful childbirth (thank the good Lord for epidurals, eh? Beholdest thou the anaesthetic works of SATAN!!)
And they could not have stained mankind with "sin"
And so Jesus could not have been saving mankind from that sin that did not exist

I am sure that skeptics have been saying that sort of thing for *ages*, but what are the "official" answers supposed to be? If I want to know the truth about biology, I can pretty much go to any textbook and, if my question is not at the bleeding edge of research, get the right answer.

By contrast, every damn thing in religion seems to be at that bleeding edge. There seems to be nothing that they can agree on, and it really pisses me off. What are the official answers? And, more important of all, how can we know that those official answers are correct?

One could say that Adam never existed, and so Genesis is a philosophical discussion in story form about why it is that we humans seem to always screw things up. But I, personally, would need to see some evidence that that was the intention.

732. Atheists: stand up and be counted

Comment #50638 by Sargeist on June 19, 2007 at 7:18 am

Hi fides,

Sorry, I should have said what I meant about Mass vs Science, specifically Physics. I was referring to the way in which transubstantiation contradicts atomic theory. The rather interesting book "Galileo: Heretic" by Pietro Redondi argues that it was Galileo's support of the idea of atoms that led to his trouble with the Inquisition. Something to do with "accidents" and Aristotle, not my area of knowledge. But, at bottom, how can the wine be blood if it still looks and tastes and responds to scientific enquiry like blood?

well, bang goes your atomic theory, and people just say "cos we say it does".

As for the whole "Adam" thing, well I may have to bow to your higher knowledge of etymology, but it has never been very convincing to me this suggestion that Genesis was *not* meant to be actually referring to the first ever human. Of course I know that the word Adam has its origin as a word meaning "man", but this does not mean that Genesis is referring to *all* of mankind; to refer to just myself, I thought it was talking more about the species of man, and not people collectively.

Maybe they're just wrong and know nothing about what the words are "supposed" to mean, but the Catholic church seems to be quite clear in the catechism that Adam was "the first man" and that Adam and Eve were "our first parents" (taken from http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p6.htm - sorry I don't know how to do links).

I'll go out on a limb: it seems perfectly clear to me that the words that were written in the Old Testament were meant to be taken as being things that had happened. It doesn't seem honest to me to take those words, realise they don't make sense in the light of what we now know, continue to assume that they must, nevertheless, be correct, and seek some way of reconciling them with attitudes of "metaphor", "allegory", "etymology" and so on.

733. Atheists: stand up and be counted

Comment #50633 by Sargeist on June 19, 2007 at 6:45 am

AdrianB:

In fides' comment, he was saying that he has taught in several Catholic schools and that they did not teach Creationism. Much as I find that hard to accept (and my comment was meant to point out that I think that one cannot meaningfully have a "faith school" without that religion's supernatural stuff coming in and pooing all over our children), I don't really think that fides was saying that *all* schools are teaching ID/creationism, or even implying that.

If anything, he/she was saying that *we* are saying that *they* are saying it, and they're not. Or something.

734. Atheists: stand up and be counted

Comment #50629 by Sargeist on June 19, 2007 at 6:35 am

I'd also like to ask fides_et_ratio to enlighten me as to what Christopher Hitchens couldn't respond to on Radio 4. I didn't hear it.

735. Atheists: stand up and be counted

Comment #50624 by Sargeist on June 19, 2007 at 6:08 am

I'd like to try to reply to fides_et_ratio, because he/she feels that no one has properly addressed his/her comment.

Vis [to use a space-saving Greg Eganism] comment #50597 was:

As usual, why let facts get in the way of atheist rhetoric. I teach in a Catholic school and have taught in three others. Creationism or Intelligent Design has not been taught in any of them, and is not taught in any of them.

Evolution is taught in all schools because it's on the National Curriculum so it has to be taught.

and the "atheist rhetoric" being referred to was the following bit in the main article, I think:

In conversation with some of them afterwards, they revealed that creationism was indeed a topic in science and religion classes

If this is the case, then my response is that I look at the possible situations this way:

1) It must mean *something* for a school to be labelled as "Catholic", otherwise the label means nothing

2) Catholic schools must, therefore, incorporate something of their theology in the nebulous idea of "ethos", and they would, I expect (and half-know because I know someone who teaches physics in a Catholic school) require pupils to attend Mass.

3) Catholic Mass involves the assumption of processes that cannot be explained or even measured with the techniques of physics. But they are said to occur nonetheless. Hence: pupils are being told things that are incompatible with the other things that they are being told.

4) Even if they are not taught that god made the cosmos in 6 days, they have to believe, as Catholics, that a human being, the first human, called Adam, performed some actions that lead to all humans being unable to behave nicely. Evolution teaching indicates that there were no "first humans", and so once again we have contradiction.

I've only picked on Mass because it points out the contradictions nicely, I think.

Perhaps the article was being unclear about what "creationism" means. Is it the 6 days stuff, or the involvement of god, per se? Either way, religious education must involve "god made the universe" and science classes in a Catholic school must contain the assumption that there is a god that "makes things go". Even if it is not stated dogmatically.

In a way (sorry, rambling again), I kind of prefer the dogmatic stuff - it is easier to point at for laughter purposes - rather than the insidious creep of theistic assumptions that, I really do believe, infuse and infect almost everything these days.

736. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #50458 by Sargeist on June 18, 2007 at 9:32 am

Those Frank Zappa lyrics reminded me of one of my favourite singers: the Illustrious Lemmy from Motorhead.

Q. Who would win in a fight between Lemmy and God?
A. Trick question - Lemmy *is* God

Okay, so it's not my joke, never mind.

Back to the point: Good old Lemmy and co had a song on their recent Kiss of Death album called "God was never on your side", which includes the great words:

Let the sword of reason shine,
Let the pious vanish for all time.
God' face is hidden, all unseen,
You can't ask him what it all means.

And also:

Let the sword of reason shine
Let us be free of prayer & shrine
God's face is hidden, turned away
He never has a word to say

737. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50354 by Sargeist on June 17, 2007 at 5:45 am

Thanks to those people who responded to my ramblings. That link to the BBC website was very interesting.

I agree with the commenter who said that one can spend an entire evening playing the rationalisation game. I've often thought about trying to draw people out by saying, with a straight face, "Well, contraception is a moral abomination" or similar. But I fear that I would be unable to continue the pretence for more than a few seconds.

The ashes in my mouth would make me sick.

738. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50134 by Sargeist on June 15, 2007 at 7:54 am

Thanks, Sharrie, for being a voice of sense in a sea of lunacy :)

I tend to oscillate wildly between loathing religion utterly and finding that there is some faint "it doesn't really matter" attribute about it. Of course, I think it's all nonsense, but when it has become pretty much a vague philosophical deism like Martin Gardner had, then it doesn't bother me too much.

However, when someone at work says that HIV is a punishment for sin, specifically sexual sin, and when I say "but I thought one could repent of sins and be forgiven, so how come people don't suddenly get cured of AIDS when they confess and repent?" and it leads to no considered answer but a fobbing off, then it really does bother me.

On the subject of contraception, why why why is the Catholic Church so annoyed by it? If god is all that clever, he'd just organise it so that contraception never worked.

We'd be there in our labs trying really hard to work out just why it is that the latex really ought to stop things as small as sperm from getting through. And we'd test it with all sorts of inorganic things, and show that, yes, indeed it is working well, but for some bloody reason it seems to be transparent to sperm. And we'd keep testing, and it would just be a "natural law". It would be odd, but if it were reproducible then that would just be the way it was.

Religious people often annoy me with their "well, that would just be silly" attitude. Like when I said that god could stop people from being murdered by psychopaths if He made, for instance, bullets always miss when their targets were "innocent", I was told "so, you mean god should just turn the bullets into flowers or something?" I said, "Yes, why not?" Once again, if we could investigate it scientifically, and just simply find out, reproducibly, that there was something "special" about humans that meant the universe had its own laws about us, well it would definitely seem odd to us now, but if were true, well it would just be true.

Hmm, another long post. Sorry

739. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50122 by Sargeist on June 15, 2007 at 6:40 am

The point made about women ending up HIV positive after being raped brought to mind a question that I was musing over recently: I seem to have got it into my mind that "the Church" believes that HIV is a punishment from God sent to those who have sinned sexually (usually homosexual behaviour between men). I think that Hitchens says something about it in his book, which I own but have not yet done more than skim through. And an annoying Catholic I know at work has said a similar thing to me (which set me off on a major Rant Bomb).

But... is this actually an official(ish) Church attitude? Has it been even intimated by high up people in any major church that this really is some kind of sin punishment?

740. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50099 by Sargeist on June 15, 2007 at 4:31 am

I know that the topic of abortion can be *really* REALLY controversial and over at Pharyngula there were getting on for 400 comments about a very short post that PZ Myers did recently, so I shall try hard to avoid setting off a Rant Bomb here.

The Catholic Church's position often baffles me on their opposition to abortion. As a previous commenter stated, the Commandments about various topics would appear to have loopholes built in, as demonstrated the Ye Olde Testament. "Thou Shalt Not Kill/Murder" obviously didn't apply to the various -ites that Moses et al were ordered to annihilate, and it no doubt did not apply to the Cathars or people such as Giordano Bruno whom the Church was so pleasant to.

Given, then, that there are always exceptions, I cannot understand why the Catholics are so intransigent about this topic. I tried to have a conversation about this with a Catholic friend of my girlfriend last Saturday. She was taking the position that the soul enters the zygote at the point of conception, which I mentioned was different from Augustine's views on the subject (I hope I was right about that).

So I assumed that the problem with the killing of the zygote was the fact that it has a soul. If there was no soul, there would presumably not be a problem. "What happens," I asked her, "in the case of identical twins?" Was there one soul, and then two? Did God know in advance that the zygote would split, so he had a soul standing by? If so, why not simply "know in advance" that it would be aborted at 12 weeks, and not bother putting a soul in? What about all the pregnancies that spontaneously abort? Something like a third of them do (hmm, need a reference!).

Now, I know that the response to the last point could be "well, god wanted that pregnancy to abort itself because he had a Secret Purpose behind it", which may well be consistent, I suppose. But if the issue is the killing of innocents, and if god would want to avoid causing misery to innocent souls, it seems terribly unfair in this theology to damn both mother and zygote for the mother's actions.

Lastly, cos I have rambled on, I was reminded of the Irish girl who was recently having to fight to be allowed to go abroad for the permission to abort her foetus. Her *anencephalic* foetus. How could anyone, with whatever religious or ethical system, possibly have *any* objection to removing something that didn't even have a brain?

Oh, for G-d's sake, they wind me up!

741. In Saudi Arabia, a view from behind the veil

Comment #49443 by Sargeist on June 12, 2007 at 1:43 am

Hi. Sorry, this is a touch off-topic, but with reference to the link given, above, to the BBC news article about a law to force people to cover up their underwear, does anyone here think that it would actually be *racist* to use the law against black people?

What I mean, specifically, is that if: a) *Anyone* is capable of breaking that law; and, b) the only people who are breaking it are people of some set X; and, c) Set X consists of people who have some obvious other defining attribute (blackness, gayness, femaleness for instance); then does this actually mean that the law is discriminatory?

As I get older, it seems that sensible laws brought in to protect people against persecution end up being applied to almost everything.

742. Protesting the Creation Museum

Comment #48457 by Sargeist on June 8, 2007 at 2:40 am

But do strawberries grow on trees? I think the magic book might be right after all! God be erased!, we.., I mean, Praised!

743. Protesting the Creation Museum

Comment #48444 by Sargeist on June 8, 2007 at 1:51 am

The creation(denial) museum is as offensive to rational thinkers as a WWII museum would be to holocaust survivors.

Now, see, I read this as meaning that rational thinkers should *not* be offended by the creation museum, since a WWII museum is not offensive to Holocaust survivors.

But now I am wondering if perhaps a "faithful reading" of the original comment might require the interpolation of the word "denial" between "WWII" and "museum", i.e.:

The creation museum is as offensive to rational thinkers as a WWII denial museum would be to holocaust survivors.

I am going to presume that that is what was meant.

744. The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos

Comment #48271 by Sargeist on June 7, 2007 at 9:01 am

It seems, kroger, that no one is going to answer you. (Maybe they're all at work?) So I'll weigh in and say: Yes, they can. But I'm pro-capital punishment, so maybe I'm just trying to be consistent.

745. The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos

Comment #47958 by Sargeist on June 6, 2007 at 6:10 am

In response to mmurray @22:

I like to consider those thought experiments, too. If it were a hypothetical in which we had a sound recording of the terrorists, then the best we could do is possibly to get a quick court case going, play the tape to the press, get a quick electronic vote on whether we should take a Black & Decker to their wrists, and see if "public opinion" allowed us to inflict pain to save lives.

I should add an addendum here: No, I'm not really joking. Sometimes I get the feeling that anyone who advocates violence as a means to an end is assumed to be deranged (maybe I am) or ironic.

746. The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos

Comment #47955 by Sargeist on June 6, 2007 at 6:07 am

I've been having a lot of problems (as in: Thinking about it a lot until my head hurts and I don't know what I think) lately with questions of morality. I shall try hard not to ramble in this post by sticking to the torture issue.

The concept of "morality" seems to be really awkward because of the different implicit meanings people have for the words "right" and "wrong". I have recently had a conversation with a friend in which I said something like "Well, I do worry a lot about what ethics is all about. I mean, I am pretty much a moral relativist, even though there are things that I am adamant are right and things I am adamant are wrong. But we can't point at something and say 'That is objectively wrong because blah.'"

His response was that he was absolutely sure that torture is morally wrong. I agree with him (at present) but I don't see that it is self-evident. When I asked why he thinks torture is morally wrong his answer was, "Well, for one thing, I think it is absolutely useless as a means for getting information."

And this is the sort of thing I hear a lot when I want to know the "whys" of people's moral objections. I tend to always get what I would call "functional" answers. They are saying that "X is wrong because it doesn't help to achieve goal Y". Now, I am not well-versed in ethics, but to me this doesn't sound like ethics. It raises the obvious retort: "Well, ok, how about if it *was* a good way of getting information?"

747. One Hell of a Religious Read

Comment #35034 by Sargeist on April 26, 2007 at 3:47 am

Virgins? Raisins?

In the 1960s another prophet arose, the Great Scott Walker, but lo the people did not recognise him for the LORD had hardened their hearts (Exodus, chaps 7-11 - oh, and much of the rest of the Guide, er.., I mean, Old Testament).

But, on this occasion at least, the LORD did not seal their hearing (Quran 2:7) for they did listen with joyous rapture to the Prophet's melodious words about the ONE GOD Jah-Kie:

"My name would then be Handsome Jack,
And I'd sell boats of opium,
Whickey that came from Twickenham,
Authentic queers and *phony virgins*"

God be praised!

748. The God disunion: there is a place for faith in science, insists Winston

Comment #34770 by Sargeist on April 25, 2007 at 7:20 am

Gah! Comment vanished like a god under the spotlight of mild thought.

I'll try again:

Hmmm, I'm not sure I really understand his points.

He says it is "equally deluded to believe that science has all the answers", but no sensible person would claim this, seeing as we obviously do not have *all* the answers. How did life on Earth begin? Why do the fundamental constants have the values they have? Where does consciousness come from? What is the fundamental cause of high-Tc superconductivity? et cetera.

However, I don't think there is anything wrong with the view (which I hold) that "science is the way to find out all the answers". After all, "science" is, surely, just a way of finding things out. And if you want to find answers, you're really just wanting to find things out...

Or am I being an arse-hatter?

749. Vote for the Time 100 - Are They Worthy?

Comment #34728 by Sargeist on April 25, 2007 at 2:35 am

Weeeelllll,

Much as I really love Richard's books and agree to the highest degree with his godlessness and his scorn for all goddist things... I gave Al Gore a higher rating of 80 compared to my rating of 75 for the Prof. Yes, sorry sorry, but I just felt that the influence Al Gore has had on world opinion is higher than that of our man the Prof.

I agree with Goodwithgood in this respect (although he may well disagree with my interpretation) - there was once a list put together of the most influential military leaders, and a lot of noise was generated by the inclusion of Hitler. Simply because when many people read the word "influential" they imagined it meant "did lots of good stuff". What? They've never heard of "he's a bad influence"?

I don't know who the most influential on that list of 200 is, but I like Dawkins and Gore, so I voted for them.

Did anyone else look at the Prof's picture and think "For relaxing times, make it Santori time"?

750. One Hell of a Religious Read

Comment #34719 by Sargeist on April 25, 2007 at 1:56 am

Hi AdrianB and Yorker,

It was basically off-topic, because I was ranting about my personal situation rather than taking up the godlike qualities of Mr Hitchens. But I was led into it by the way in which religion, at least in my case, is very good at making a mice situation become one made entirely of dung.

What makes me so sick is that it is all based on an opinion. As I said to my girlfriend: If your parents can demonstrate the truth of Islam to me, then I won't have to make an effort to believe it - it will simply be true. We don't have to make an effort to believe that the Earth is round, it just is, and we know it. But, of course, if it were possible for the Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Mormons etc etc etc ad vomitorium, to demonstrate the truth of their opinion, then we'd all just know that the (numerous) others were wrong, and they'd pretty much have to STFU.

Thanks again.