701. Religion as a Force for Good

Comment #74684 by mmurray on September 30, 2007 at 1:13 am

Methinks that a military junta can only take foothold from within in a society that is ridden with superstition. Is there anybody who knows if that ever happened in a 'moderately' rational society? I am not sure I see the conection. What about German, Italian and Spanish fascism ? Chile under Pinochet ? The other Latin American right wing dictatorships which probably, like Chile, were CIA operations. The various countries taken over by communism such as Russia and China -- the result was not perhaps what we mean by a military junta probably worse.

Michael

702. Religion as a Force for Good

Comment #74609 by mmurray on September 29, 2007 at 5:17 pm

Presumably

http://www.ianburuma.com/

Nevertheless, faith has an important role to play in politics, especially in circumstances in which secular liberals are rendered impotent, as in the case of Nazi occupation, communist rule or military dictatorship.

So the only people who oppose these things are those with faith ? What an offensive load of rubbish.

Michael

703. Why are we Muslims so self-destructive?

Comment #73261 by mmurray on September 24, 2007 at 3:25 pm

http://richarddawkins.net/article,1594,What-do-these-atheists-understand-of-religion,Yasmin-Alibhai-Brown

704. Crisis of faith in first secular school

Comment #73093 by mmurray on September 24, 2007 at 5:20 am

. Comment #73075 by Richard Morgan on September 24, 2007 at 3:35 am
avatarhttp://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fTzXJMU1sLc

Thank you Richard Morgan. That got 10 out of 10 on the made my eyes water scale or as my teenage kids would say ROTFLMAO

Michael

705. Crisis of faith in first secular school

Comment #72989 by mmurray on September 23, 2007 at 5:40 pm

Either overtly or by default, this country is still a Christian one.

Love it - reminded me of

I find it deeply offensive that, in what is still, after all, basically a Python-worshipping country, fourteen-year-old children can get to see this film.

If you missed Not the Nine O'Clock News I highly recommend it

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ykN-00i7VVs

I really liked the advertisements for some vicars precooked meals -- you could feed a multitude and have enough left over to fill four baskets. The advertising slogan was `They're a bloody miracle'.

There are some examples of the skits here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_the_Nine_O'Clock_News

Michael

706. Religion advances despite science (and thanks to Dawkins)

Comment #72978 by mmurray on September 23, 2007 at 5:02 pm

So who is this guy John Brookes

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

Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion within the Faculty of Theology at Oxford University. He was Director of the Ian Ramsey Center which according to its web page:
"Ian Ramsey Centre is involved in the Oxford Centre for Science of the Mind (OXCSOM), a multidisciplinary initiative at the University of Oxford, funded by the John Templeton Foundation, which is exploring the physiological basis of beliefs and how belief systems affect states of consciousness in the physical brain."

Ah the Templeton Foundation... So my guess is he isn't an atheist arguing about tactics but just another theist of the `its God Jim but not as we know it' variety.

The Ramsey Centre is here

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~theo0038/

Ooh how embarrassing the current director is a fellow countryman.

http://www.hmc.ox.ac.uk/people/pharrison.html

and I just discovered the International Society for Science and Religion

http://www.issr.org.uk/

more wishy washy apologetics. Guess doing mumbo jumbo is easier that doing real science were you might wastes year of work because you got it wrong.

Michael

707. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72474 by mmurray on September 21, 2007 at 7:58 am

There are some other articles on that Ekklesia web site on atheism

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/tags/1111


Nowhere I can find that you can actually reply to anything though.

Michael

708. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72381 by mmurray on September 20, 2007 at 10:57 pm

[but I think that was Mr. Spock]

Oops. Dr Spock was the baby raising guy :-)

Michael

709. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72367 by mmurray on September 20, 2007 at 9:11 pm

I was thinking of outside in the sense of incapable of affecting the physical universe but you are right a God who was so up to date theologically that it doubted its own existence would do just as well!

Michael

PS: Must have been tired yesterday and missed the fact that you were pointing out a typo! Sorry. I meant universe.

710. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72358 by mmurray on September 20, 2007 at 8:05 pm

This article explains something that I had always wondered about. Why don't the people who keep telling us that TGD doesn't address the latest theological thinking tell us what the latest theological thinking is? Sure it might be difficult but people like Richard can explain technical biology to a general audience so surely there is a theologian somewhere who can explain modern theology to us or at least give us a glimpse of it. But they don't want to because it will mean admitting to all the regular church going public that the God TGD has supposedly not demolished is a mysterious deity who isn't really interested in their petty illnesses and concerns or whether they use condoms and by the way there is no heaven or hell. They just want to reassure the church going public that some theologian somewhere has answered the criticisms in TGD without explaining how much the church going public are going to hate the answer!

As Dr Spock would have said `It's God Jim but not as we know it'.

I am with MartinSGill -- if we can get these people to admit that the straw God TGD demolishes is the people's God we are well on the way to winning. If the God that TGD doesn't demolish is outside the University and not interested in telling us how to run our lives then who cares!

Michael

711. Against the grain: There are questions that science cannot answer

Comment #71932 by mmurray on September 20, 2007 at 12:51 am

Also, there is no such thing as a "believing scientist" as to believe in God betrays the whole nature of scientific method and investigation. However, there is such thing as an uneducated, misinformed and misguided pseudo-scientist who should not be taken seriously.

That's a bit harsh. There are certainly scientists who are Deists of some kind or who compartmentalize their science and their religion. I think they are misguided but uneducated, misinformed and pseudo-scientists they are not. Take Frances Collins for example.

Michael

712. Religious education

Comment #71546 by mmurray on September 19, 2007 at 2:31 am

"Use some optical illusions to establish the idea that there are different ways of seeing the same thing."

Why not "Use some optical illusions to show that humans sometimes see things that aren't really there."

Michael

713. Review of Darwin's Angel

Comment #70349 by mmurray on September 15, 2007 at 2:57 am

"His title - Darwin's Angel - is robust enough."

What is so robust about it? Dawkins did not name himself "Darwin's Rottweiler" (which no doubt the title of Cornwell's book toys with), it was given to him.

According to Wikipedia the Darwin's Rottweiler label can be traced to an article

http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Media/seattle.shtml


by Roger Downey where he suggests it came from Charles Simonyi:

Evolution's first great advocate, 1860s biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, earned the nickname "Darwin's bulldog" from his fellow Victorians. In our own less decorous day, Dawkins deserves an even stronger epithet: "Darwin's Rottweiler, perhaps," Simonyi suggests. Now, thanks to Simonyi's gift of £1.5 million sterling to England's venerable Oxford University, the Rottweiler is unleashed.

Michael

714. Review of Darwin's Angel

Comment #70284 by mmurray on September 14, 2007 at 5:50 pm

20. Comment #70185 by Steven Mading on September 14, 2007 at 9:25 am

Great comment. Speaking as someone dragged up a Catholic I find guys like this who would appear to be Catholic to be particularly infuriating. The Catholic Church has a long list of objective opinions about the real world and it is quite clear that it has no room for believers who just detect a vague whiff of deity in the air.


Michael

715. Review of Darwin's Angel

Comment #70282 by mmurray on September 14, 2007 at 5:33 pm

Although I actually think that most people go to church not to hear a priest read from the Bible but rather to see and talk with their friends and neighbors (or attend whatever fun and entertaining activity the church is putting on that week)."

I think these people need to have a good hard look at themselves or better at what their church is doing in the wider world. If it is the Catholic Church then some of it eg aids and condoms in Africa is pretty ugly. By attending the Church they are, in my opinion, lending support to the political organisation. I wonder if any of the SS officers at the Nuremberg trials got away with saying they were just in the SS for the `glimpse of transcendence' or for the tea and scones (or beer and sausage?) after the big rallies.

Michael

716. San Diego Diocese Settles Lawsuit for $200 Million

Comment #68878 by mmurray on September 9, 2007 at 2:15 am

Can you imagine any other organisation being allowed to continue to be involved in the education of children after this appalling record?

Michael

717. The smallest signs of retreat

Comment #68643 by mmurray on September 8, 2007 at 1:56 am

Will one of you Brits fill us Yanks in on who this silly Miss Bunting woman is?

Wikipedia is your friend :-)

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

Michael

718. In God we doubt

Comment #67770 by mmurray on September 4, 2007 at 5:29 pm

Following on from NorthernBrights second excellent post... I've wondered more of late if we shouldn't be taking more seriously the line about `that's not my God you are rejecting'. While I'm sure a lot of the time it is a debating tactic I also suspect there are a lot of people out there who call themselves Christians who are not signed up believers in all the rules of some particular denomination. Coming from a Catholic background I always found this strange because I figured if you don't believe all of it you are out. But for many people this seems not to be an issue. So when we say `how can you believe in the Virgin Mary' they will just say `off course I don't'. A dialogue with people like this has to be more than just pointing out that things they have already rejected are silly.

Does anyone know if there is reliable survey data on what people of various religions really believe? Something with more detail than `they ticked the box Catholic so they must believe in ... ' Obviously it might vary are lot by country, socio-economic background etc.

My other thought is that we set up a `safe questions' section in the forum. Somewhere someone can asks questions of an atheist without getting heavily criticised. It would need careful moderating of course not least to remove the people who were trolling not asking.

Michael

719. In God we doubt

Comment #67767 by mmurray on September 4, 2007 at 5:10 pm

Yorker has the right idea, an occasional swear word, used at the right time makes life interesting by emphasizing a specific point. However, overuse of swearing ultimately dulls the senses and the actual point is lost. jcw

Going off-topic here but years ago I worked on a building site and my supervisor would put f*** or f***ing in between every word he spoke with occasional repeats to emphasise. When he got really wound up he woud say `f***ing, f***ing, c***' to show, I guess, he wasn't a man of few words!

In the context of a web site (as distinct from a building site) it is worth thinking about whether the impact of f*** on some people will just distract from what else you are saying.

Michael

720. In God we doubt

Comment #67526 by mmurray on September 3, 2007 at 5:44 pm

Thanks for the post NorthernBright it was very interesting. I overheard a conversation the other day between two people that I thought was very telling. One I expect was a Buddhist the other I think probably felt they were Spiritual in a modern western style. What interested me was the level of `magical thinking' epitomised by them refering to a difficult job they had had to take on as `things don't arrive till you are ready for them'. There is a clear need for a lot of people to feel there is a purpose in the universe. I can sympathise but I don't think it is true. I don't know how you get across to such people as they are not going to want to be told that they are not special or not being looked after. I think they will reject science with the `scientists are always changing their mind' type or argument. This is particularly true of medicine where a lot of scientific debate gets into the media without all the careful caveats and so it seems medical opinion is oscillating widely.

A couple of people refer to their first read of TDG. Count me into the group who cheered and punched the air (metaphorically). I am really tired of the social convention Richard is trying to challenge that says I can't criticise someone for saying something stupid if the stupid thing is religious. I wonder how much of the fervour of the ill-informed attack on TDG from people you might think were allies is because he has challenged that social convention?

Michael

721. In God we doubt

Comment #67523 by mmurray on September 3, 2007 at 5:23 pm

I thought we had been through all this science has no soul stuff back in the early 90's with books like

Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man. by Bryan Appleyard 1992

Interesting to note it's reissue in 2004 had a new title

Understanding the Present: An Alternative History of Science

The style of the complaints seem very similiar.

Michael

722. What do these atheists understand of religion?

Comment #67520 by mmurray on September 3, 2007 at 5:09 pm

My favourite Feynman quote:

"To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature."

Richard Feynman. The Character of Physical Law

723. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #67282 by mmurray on September 3, 2007 at 2:32 am

The same as when the opposing camp say things like "They're so, um, unscientific" or "Dawkins is almost religious in his convictions" or "The God Delusion has become the holy book for atheists" or any other variation on the theme.

For me the irritation is tempered by amusement at the thought that each person using this technique is clearly quite convinced that they're the first to do so and that they're terribly clever to have thought of it!

I always like the fact that apparently the worst insult they can give us is to claim that somehow we are like them. `Atheism is just another religion etc'

Michael

724. What do these atheists understand of religion?

Comment #67262 by mmurray on September 3, 2007 at 1:38 am

Some aspects of our nature are not susceptible to scientific enquiry, cannot be dissected, categorised and validated in terms that would satisfy the "rational" disbelievers, whose intellect is colossal but imagination puny.

These people are so arrogant. Have they any idea how much imagination you need to invent a radical new scientific theory. No they just want to gaze at their navels and feel all warm and fuzzy.

Michael

725. What do these atheists understand of religion?

Comment #67257 by mmurray on September 3, 2007 at 1:35 am

Of the most awesome creations made my man, most were inspired by God – the pyramids, the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, the temples of India, St Paul's Cathedral and the works of Michelangelo.

Antibiotics, quantum mechanics, general relativity, Mars rovers, Apollo spacecraft, 747, Hubble telescope, lower infant mortality, longer life. Why can't these people see the awesome creations they are surrounded by ? I'd trade the fact that I can be confident that my children will get to adulthood alive and well for all the God inspired achitectural stuff above.

Michael

726. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #67115 by mmurray on September 2, 2007 at 2:32 am

I'm glad to note that The Times at last has put my comments are up - but I notice that Professor Dawkins' are not. I'm a little confused I put my comment on after Professor Dawkins posted here to say he'd commented. I suppose they are checking the identity of the poster but I'd have thought they would prioritise this.

Veronique's seem to have been topped and tailed somewhat ??

Michael

727. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #67094 by mmurray on September 1, 2007 at 9:53 pm

Is this Salley Vickers the author ?

http://www.salleyvickers.com

Michael

EDIT: Yes. Sorry I missed the earlier post that pointed this out.

728. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #67086 by mmurray on September 1, 2007 at 7:28 pm

There are only 12 comments on the Times site.

Michael

729. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #67085 by mmurray on September 1, 2007 at 7:26 pm

How do I send a bottle of something tasty to Dawkins? I'm not going to the thing in DC, but maybe there's a hotel that could receive and hold a small gift?

If this is not just a rhetorical question type `hampers' and `uk' into google. There are lots of firms who will send food and drink for you. Used to use them for Christmas presents for relatives in the UK.

Michael

730. Scientists should unite against threat from religion

Comment #65582 by mmurray on August 25, 2007 at 1:26 am

Chastity can and does go a long way in enhancing trust and strengthening bonds between people in a committed personal relationship.

Could you explain how that works ?

Also it is a better guard against unwanted pregnancy and STDs. If good health is an issue, chastity can be a virtue.

But no better that a monogamous relationship where both partners are being faithful.

so even in a world without religion, chastity can still be a marketable idea, probably creating a small dedicated fan base, like Apple computers or something.

Ouch -- first time anybody has given me a good reason to stop using Apple computers. I hope Richard reads this and is warned!

Michael

731. A hole lot of nothing found by astronomers

Comment #65532 by mmurray on August 24, 2007 at 3:48 pm

What do Astrophysicists mean when they say "Nothing"?

Not sure what qualifies as empty. Certainly there could be a small amount of matter and we would be unable to see it or its effects. Small here would be by solar standards. I can't see why you couldn't put the earth in that void and not notice it from where we are. And of course light, gravity and other fields travel through it.

Yes, void of "matter"... but there's a big freaking space... surely there's "something" filling the space... otherwise there wouldn't be any space there.

Space doesn't need matter in it to make it exist.

Michael

732. Scientists Induce Out-of-Body Sensation

Comment #65377 by mmurray on August 24, 2007 at 1:11 am

After reading about the experiment, it seemed to me that at best, the results demonstrate that it is possible to simulate the sensations and perceptions associated with an OBE. How does it even begin to directly demonstrate that OBEs are 'just in the head' and not associated with a 'soul'. I can see the headlines twisting things to make it seem like more of a breakthrough than this really is. Thoughts?

It demonstrates that it is possible for the brain to create the feeling of an OBE with a pretty simple device. I guess that device could be making the person's astral body leave their real body but I find that implausible. Having this simple technique should also make it easier to postulate a model for how the brain is behaving when we feel like we are having an OBE. Of course you can never rule out the possibility that some people have `real' OBE's but the case against this I think is strengthened by a plausible `in brain' mechanism.

Michael

733. Send In the Clergy!

Comment #65339 by mmurray on August 23, 2007 at 5:15 pm

In one video game (Age of Empires I think) you can use priests to convert the opposition troops to your side. So my kids and their friends started to use a a new verb `to priest'

Michael

734. Scientists Induce Out-of-Body Sensation

Comment #65322 by mmurray on August 23, 2007 at 3:20 pm

Thanks for the other links. I thought that this had been done before using magnetic fields to scramble parts of the brain.

This isn't about God existing or not existing but about whether OBE's show there is a `soul' or something that can separate from the body.

Michael

735. Scientists should unite against threat from religion

Comment #65109 by mmurray on August 22, 2007 at 11:22 pm

I am simply arguing that abstinence is much more effective at curbing the spread of STD's than condoms are. Is that true or isn't it?

Are you talking individuals or populations? I assume from the use of `spread' you mean population. Let's go back to HIV in Africa which was the original issue not STD's in college. There are at least two things you have to take into account. Compliance rate and failure rate. Celibacy has zero failure rate and condoms a small but non-zero failure rate. On the other hand celibacy applied to most groups of people has only a very small compliance rate and condoms have a much higher compliance rate. (Most men I suspect aren't that keen on condoms but they would rather sex with condoms that no sex at all.) In most real life populations the small compliance rate for celibacy makes the failure rate of condoms insignicant. For example assume you have 100 people and you tell them to be celibate. Let's say 30 manage it (a lot higher than I would expect) so that is 70 unprotected sexual acts. Now assume you try condoms and say 80 use them and 10% of condoms fail during sex so you get 100 - (80 - 8) = 72 acts of protected sex. So with celibacy you get 70 unprotected sexual acts and with condoms 28 - celibacy loses big time in preventing HIV spread. Of course in different populations culture bites in different ways to change the numbers but we are talking about Africa now and people are dying and babies are getting infected at birth. The Catholic church's response is an obscenity they are smart enough to know that comparing failure rates is not the issue -- they just don't give a damn if people suffer and die.

Of course for an individual who is committed to 100% compliance then all you need to worry about is the failure rate so celibacy is the way to go.

Michael

736. Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years

Comment #64404 by mmurray on August 20, 2007 at 1:52 am

"When these things are created, they're going to be so weak, it'll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab," he said. "But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen."

Let's hope this doesn't turn out to be one of the great all time failures of the imagination.

Michael

737. Interview with Richard Dawkins about 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #63909 by mmurray on August 16, 2007 at 5:16 pm

At the risk of bringing us back on topic the actual Enemies of Reason show is available as

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8669488783707640763&hl=en-GB

It is also downloadable as a torrent if you search a bit.

Michael

738. Good luck, Dawkins!

Comment #63809 by mmurray on August 16, 2007 at 1:18 am

My memory might be going, but didnt Sue rip Richard a new one for criticising the falsehoods and irrationality of religion?

Doesn't ring a bell to me. Can anybody find this ?

Michael

739. Atheists and believers have got religion wrong

Comment #63605 by mmurray on August 15, 2007 at 4:04 am

For those who haven't heard of Mark Steel,he is a comedian and his articles are meant to make you laugh whilst making serious points.

Didn't work for me.

Michael

740. Interview with Richard Dawkins about 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #63413 by mmurray on August 14, 2007 at 5:07 am

Don't you think your avatar, 'the eye of Sauron' looks like a sort of cosmic vagina? Maybe it could be the basis of a new religious cult. Anyone?

Well it's not far from the Crack of Doom.

Michael

741. The vanishing jihad exposés

Comment #63276 by mmurray on August 13, 2007 at 7:28 pm

Regarding the topic (sort off), I don't understand why western countries are allowing (big) mosques being built in their countries with Saudi money and accept that Saudi Arabia closes their border not only to churches, temples etc. but even to non-islamic religious literature (not only sale, but also possession). One-way multiculturalism indeed.

On what grounds would you say no? Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindu's etc are allowed to build religious buildings -- why not Muslims ? If you say it is because Saudi Arabia is a theocracy the local western Muslims can just say `so what'

Michael

742. Interview with Richard Dawkins about 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #63257 by mmurray on August 13, 2007 at 5:12 pm

Thanks for the link to channel 4 online but it doesn't seem to work outside UK/Eire. It also doesn't work on the officially approved Dawkins brand of computer :-) I will have to get teenager to show me how to tune into Channel BitTorrent.

Am I confused or was this a Channel 4 programme (Richard and Judy) advertising a Channel 4 programme (Enemies of Reason) ? Just wondering if maybe RD wasn't Judy's first choice of interviewee but it was a higher up decision.

Michael

743. The vanishing jihad exposés

Comment #63010 by mmurray on August 12, 2007 at 10:00 pm

If you have a WindowsPC, Palm, PocketPC or some Smart Phones grab a copy here

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/ebooks/bookdetails.asp?BookID=56971

Michael

744. 'Delusion' Revisits Faith Vs. Reason Debate

Comment #63008 by mmurray on August 12, 2007 at 9:19 pm

Surely if Dawkins is being criticized for not being up to date with the latest thinking on theology the same must apply to James who died in 1910.

Michael

745. Why Richard Dawkins is right on alternative medicine - but not when it comes to religion

Comment #62655 by mmurray on August 10, 2007 at 3:56 pm

I guess someone forgot to tell the Bishop of Carlisle

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/01/nflood201.xml

that the CofE has gone all warm and fuzzy. He seems to think the floods in the UK are a punishment from God for their immoral lifestyles.

Michael

746. Curriculum for Baptist School

Comment #62410 by mmurray on August 9, 2007 at 4:29 pm

Everybody should have a look at the links as the extracts given above are a bit short. For example the all important test:

BIOLOGY

Students will study the physical life of God's creation. They will continue to develop skills in the use of the scientific method. The students will learn methods and techniques of scientific study, general attributes of the cell and its processes, characteristics of the wide spectrum of living organisms, the classification, similarities and differences of the five kingdoms, evolutionary models and the creation model, the mechanics of inheritance, disease and disorders, and the workings of the human body. Students will gain experience in manipulating the conditions of a laboratory investigation and in evaluating the applications of biological principles in everyday life.

Actually reading the maths and science parts it looks like a pretty poor attempt to `christianize' a document someone already had by sticking in a few key phrases and sentences everywhere. I am reminded of things I write for my work where you are told to mention the strategic plan. So you write what you would have written anyway and then stick a few references to the strategic plan in here and there afterwards. It would be interesting to know what actually happens in the class room. This could just be principally marketing for the parents.

Michael

747. Curriculum for Baptist School

Comment #62409 by mmurray on August 9, 2007 at 4:27 pm

SCHOOL VERSE:
"But those who hope in the Lord, will renew their strength. They will soar on wings of eagles,
they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."
Isaiah 40:31 NIV

I'll bet this lot win the inter schools cross country each year.

Michael

748. New age therapies cause 'retreat from reason'

Comment #62100 by mmurray on August 8, 2007 at 6:51 am

because I have never seen a Harry Potter movie,

Don't watch the movies, read the books they are so much better :-)

Michael

PS: While we are in confession mode I will confess to reading all the Tuesday Lobsang Rampa books as a teenager. (wikipedia will tell you who he was) I really liked the idea of astral travel and out of the body experiences but never managed them.

749. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason

Comment #61829 by mmurray on August 7, 2007 at 3:43 am

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

750. Philip Kitcher - Living with Darwin

Comment #60154 by mmurray on August 1, 2007 at 6:49 am

And in general wouldn't be nice if people used the General Forum for starting new trains of thought, rather than de-railing existing ones with irrelevancies (or, since I seem to be in carping mood, with those private exchanges between pairs of individuals that really belong in private e-mails)?

Hi

Have you thought about running the site so that all comment goes to the forums ? At least that way people would know the forums are there and *might* use the forum PM option for private conversations. An example is here

http://www.brighthand.com/

(Different use of `bright' here :-) )

Michael