51. What Genes Remember

Comment #184543 by ~manic-depressive on May 25, 2008 at 4:30 pm

Sorry to produce something of no relevance to the above, but some here may be interested by this pre-amble to an article in "What is Enlightenment?"

"In the current issue of WIE, executive editor Carter Phipps offers this intriguing critique of a film about the "new atheists"�quot;Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens:


The Four Horsemen is a fascinating journey through the mind of the modern atheist.... All four of these distinguished scholars are articulate and passionate in their denunciations of religion and mythic belief systems. But even as they discuss these weighty and significant matters, they all also share a strange, breezy, isn't-it-obvious tone that betrays a certain lack of real familiarity with that which they are denouncing. It's sort of like watching British sports commentators talk about American football: They don't like it, they don't understand it, they don't understand why anyone would like it, and they don't have any real interest in learning more about it. It is simply a bizarre custom practiced by foreigners."

52. Kenya mob reportedly burns 11 'witches'

Comment #184461 by ~manic-depressive on May 25, 2008 at 10:43 am

All I need to know is what God has told me in His Word:

King James Bible
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

American King James Version
You shall not suffer a witch to live.

American Standard Version
Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live.

Bible in Basic English
Any woman using unnatural powers or secret arts is to be put to death.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live.

Darby Bible Translation
thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

English Revised Version
Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live.

Webster's Bible Translation
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

World English Bible
"You shall not allow a sorceress to live.

Young's Literal Translation
'A witch thou dost not keep alive.

And the NIV for good measure:
"Do not allow a sorceress to live."

Doesn't it make you feel really good how many translations of the Word of God there are, in English, alone?

/endsarcasm

53. In God's Name

Comment #184456 by ~manic-depressive on May 25, 2008 at 10:21 am

It's so good to see Alister McGrath taking time out from attacking Professor Dawkins and coming out against such extremists.

Wait... that was just a dream,

McGrath:
"That's me in the corner
Trying to keep my self from
Losing my religion
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no, I've said too much
I haven't said enough"

Just a dream, just a dream...
Dream

54. In God's Name

Comment #183098 by ~manic-depressive on May 21, 2008 at 11:41 am

Thanks DavidSJA for the link.

55. Richard Dawkins Responds to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #182170 by ~manic-depressive on May 19, 2008 at 10:22 am

clearmind

Thank you for clarifying for me.

56. The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing, ed. Richard Dawkins

Comment #182034 by ~manic-depressive on May 19, 2008 at 6:25 am

44th post!

I have posted elsewhere my *rationalization* for writing "first post".

Come on people, in this "veil of tears", why deny ourselves a little infantile pleasure?

"Quid opus est partes deflere? Tota flebilis vita est." Seneca

Come on people, don't deny me the infantile pleasure of showing off the only Latin quotation I know!

57. Richard Dawkins Responds to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #181994 by ~manic-depressive on May 19, 2008 at 4:34 am

clearmind

In trying to make sense of what you say, I clicked on your username, but much to my dismay, the user list maintains: "The requested user does not exist."

I would truly like to know what exactly you argue. Could you please clarify, since your name suggests that you are more ague than us a-theist few?

58. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178361 by ~manic-depressive on May 11, 2008 at 9:48 am

I cannot begin to imagine how it must feel to think this kind of thing is remotely acceptable - let alone something to be proud of.

Unfortunately, I am cursed with empathy: I am able to imagine how it might feel to be proud of doing what one has been brainwashed into believing is the "honourable" thing. I wish I didn't have this imaginative capacity.

59. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178345 by ~manic-depressive on May 11, 2008 at 9:31 am

[That's it; I've decided to lay claim to first post whenever I can because the chances are that this is the only happiness I'll get from reading about all this religio-moral idiocy.]

..."he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said."

And here's me, thinking honour had something to do with ethics.

'Even now, I cannot believe my ex-husband was able to kill our daughter. He wasn't a bad person. During our 24 years of marriage, he was never aggressive. But on that day, he was a different person.'

Crazy beliefs are crazy behaviours just waiting to happen. Just for pointing out this obvious point Sam Harris has been called simplistic in his analysis of Islamism.

60. An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee

Comment #176539 by ~manic-depressive on May 7, 2008 at 2:49 pm

I had little idea such vile things went on in this world.

Really, Cartomancer?

61. An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee

Comment #176502 by ~manic-depressive on May 7, 2008 at 1:59 pm

That's it; I've decided to lay claim to first post (or in this case second) whenever I can because the chances are that this is the only happiness I'll get from reading about more religious idiocy perpetuating human suffering.

"This little bit of semantic gymnastics helped transform all of us at the retreat from being merely fucked up to being accursed carriers of demons." Ah, yes, that great science of demonology again. More priestcraft yet again.

62. Is Liberal Catholicism Dead?

Comment #175863 by ~manic-depressive on May 6, 2008 at 7:02 am

a lot of people LIKE their religion to adamantly stand for "The Truth," which it insists that it and it alone has, and then, armed with this "knowledge," tell its members what God (or Allah) wants them to do.

Human beings crave certainty. A bad explanation is preferred over no explanation. It's all so sad...

the greatest irony is found in Jon Stewart's words, "Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion."

63. The detail in the Devil

Comment #175849 by ~manic-depressive on May 6, 2008 at 6:43 am

Someone give this man a copy of Carl Sagan's wonderful "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark". (Wishful-thinking on my part that it would make any difference to one with theology in his blood.)

It's time we brought back the word "priestcraft" to describe what this "profession" is all about: making money out of perpetuating ignorance and cruelty.

64. The detail in the Devil

Comment #175831 by ~manic-depressive on May 6, 2008 at 6:13 am

~Sorry, I know this is so infantile but... hey, first post, yay!~

Well, that was the only bit of happiness I got from this article.

Since he is a minister, I'll assume he knows little if anything about the brain.

"targets tend toward the innocent, highly virtuous and unusually gifted"

How is the field of psychiatry going to make any progress when we have the retarding effect of religion ignorance?

I wonder if this minister has even read anything of a scientific nature. Perhaps he might learn something useful about, oh-I-don't-know, the relationship between genius and creativity e.g. "Touched By Fire" (Kay Redfield Jamison) But he is a minister after all. Why bother with scientific understanding when you have direct access to knowledge by faith.

I have deep sympathy with Nietzsche's hyperbolic statement: "Whatever a theologian regards as true must be false: there you have almost a criterion of truth." (The Antichrist)

65. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175190 by ~manic-depressive on May 4, 2008 at 7:24 pm

Christopher Hitchens seems to have a measure of respect for Pascal's apologetic work.

The wager does sound hucksterish when used today but if Pascal's other false premise was that one could simply choose to believe in something regardless of evidence, then it remains logical. (Please note I'm not trying to defend the wager!)

Interestingly Nietzsche mourned the corruption of Pascal's intellect by Christianity. A corruption that Pascal falsely attributed to "sin", according to Nietzsche in "The Antichrist".

66. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175181 by ~manic-depressive on May 4, 2008 at 6:27 pm

I very much agree with you, Zaphod, on this point:

Humans aren't really born to be sceptical or particularly rational. The sceptical and scientific mind set have to be learned...

It wasn't that I didn't understand that an argument can be logical but based on a false premise. I was simply wondering if this was what brought Pascal to put forward his infamous wager (i.e. a false premise).

67. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175163 by ~manic-depressive on May 4, 2008 at 5:15 pm

Anyone have any suggestions as to how someone as clever as Pascal could have come up with something as stupid as Pascal's wager?

I imagine that, as Sam Harris has pointed out, if you already accept certain premises (e.g. in this case, God = God of Christianity), it might follow logically.

68. A New Jack Chick Tract: Moving On Up!

Comment #174836 by ~manic-depressive on May 3, 2008 at 4:08 pm

If you wanted to create a satire of this, would it even be possible? It is in and of itself so utterly ridiculous. It pains me to know that there will be bright young people who will be mentally shackled by the fear promoted by this kind of ignorant, immoral nonsense.

Forget not the example of Kurt Wise from TGD who "had to make a decision between evolution and Scripture. Either the Scripture was true and evolution was wrong or evolution was true and I must toss out the Bible . . . It was there that night that I accepted the Word of God and rejected all that would ever counter it, including
evolution. With that, in great sorrow, I tossed into the fire all my dreams and hopes in science.
"

69. Evolution's Critics Shift Tactics With Schools

Comment #174832 by ~manic-depressive on May 3, 2008 at 3:55 pm

History_Junky -- as Bertrand Russell pointed out, the whole problem with the world is that fools are so certain while the wise are full of doubts.

On a different note, we could really do with the help of theists like Ken Miller.

And all the moderates who criticize "the new atheists" by saying that we only look at "extremist religion" (as though "faith" were not extremist enough) -- why are they not cleaning up their own house? Are they defending scientific inquiry alongside us? Or are they, as they so-often-do turning a blind eye to the actions of "extremists"?

70. Truly Bizarre : Indians Throw Babies 50ft From Roof To Thank God.

Comment #174710 by ~manic-depressive on May 3, 2008 at 10:13 am

Is there no limit to human irrationality?

I am reminded of Nehru's views on religion: "India is supposed to be a religious country above everything else, and Hindu and Moslem and Sikh and others take pride in their faiths and testify to their truth by breaking heads. The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organised religion, in India and elsewhere has filled me with horror, and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always it seems to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition and exploitation, and the preservation of vested interests. And yet I knew well that there was something else in it, something which supplied a deep inner craving of human beings. How else could it have been the tremendous power it has been and brought peace and comfort to innumerable tortured souls? Was that peace merely the shelter of blind belief and absence of questioning, the calm that comes from being safe in harbour, protected from the storms of the open sea, or was it something more? In some cases certainly it was something more.
But organized religion, whatever its past may have been, today is largely an empty form devoid of real content. Mr. G. K. Chesterton has compared it (not his own particular brand of religion, but other!) to a fossil which is the form of an animal or organism from which all its own organic substance has entirely disappeared, but has kept its shape, because it has been filled up by some totally different substance. And, even where something of value still remains, it is enveloped by other and harmful contents. That seems to have happened in our Eastern religions as well as in the Western." (From his autobiography)

Nehru was one who realized and expressed the conviction that "the future belonged to science".

71. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #174313 by ~manic-depressive on May 2, 2008 at 5:43 am

Just finished watching this. Had to watch it in parts; there was just too much idiocy to tolerate in one go!

Professor Dawkins, I don't know how you do it. As you rightly say it is extraordinary that in the 21st century people are taken seriously for such ignorance. For example, thinking that "the devil" is a useful explanation for anything. The people who suffer because of these idiotic ideas are, more often than not, those who do not have a voice: children & the mentally ill. The retarding influence that it has had in the field of psychiatry cannot be underestimated.

Thank you for doing what you do Professor. A. C. Grayling pointed out rather well how tiresome it must be for you to have to keep confronting the same stupidities coming out of the mouths of intelligent people.

72. Bill Good Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #173674 by ~manic-depressive on May 1, 2008 at 5:34 am

I fully agree with Mr. Steve Zara when he says..

... Carto is right, most people don't know that these points are unoriginal. If we want to act as educators (and I do), we have to generally have patience.

Also, I can very much understand why you say:

I don't have patience with those who try and put forward these kind of questions with arrogance (as we have seen with seeker_of_truth on other threads).

However, when I am most sound in mind, I do try to consider what underlies the arrogance of some of these people. It may very well be insecurity. It is not in the least bit easy to watch your entire worldview start to crumble around you. So when possible, and I know all-too-well that we are all only human, I would encourage my fellow non-theists to take the ethical high ground. We are dealing with other human beings who are ignorant of their own ignorance. Some of us (here I include myself) were once in the same position due to the effects of childhood indoctrination.


BTW, my apologies for posts that are few and far between. Such is the nature of an illness that quite likely would be much better understood if it were not for the retarding influence of religious ideas about evil spirits and the like.

73. Bill Good Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #173667 by ~manic-depressive on May 1, 2008 at 4:46 am

Thank you to sane1 for posting the mp3!

So glad that Professor Dawkins brought up the immorality of the Abraham and Isaac story. Unfortunately all the monotheisms are Abrahamic monotheisms. And the story has therefore had a truly poisonous effect on morality.

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

Comment #162631 by ~manic-depressive on April 17, 2008 at 6:50 am

They didn't license this on purpose - it's a costly publicity stunt.

I agree that this is very likely.

May I suggest that it would do us well to remember that creationists are irrational not [necessarily] stupid. (As Sam Harris has pointed out, once you have some fundamental beliefs which are irrational and can't be questioned, any beliefs which follow may be scrupulously logical.)

It can be a great mistake to underestimate one's opponents.

75. Hitchens vs. Hitchens

Comment #162073 by ~manic-depressive on April 16, 2008 at 5:48 am

I've just reached the segment where Peter Hitchens defends the Abraham & Isaac story. I've lost most of my respect for P. Hitchens. This particular story is both ignorant and immoral.

Is this not obvious to anyone who understands the brain's ability to create absolutely convincing delusions and hallucinations. Surely --surely-- this is a story must be rejected completely!

Should we not be teaching people the very opposite of what this story suggests:

Suppose you become convinced that God is telling you that God wants you to kill your child. Surely the first thing you should do is get as far away from your child as possible? In this way you minimize the possiblity that your delusion will lead you anywhere close to actually committing such an atrocity.

76. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #162056 by ~manic-depressive on April 16, 2008 at 4:47 am

Francis Collins doesn't believe in talking snakes? What a pity!

I believe in talking snakes. I just call them by their other name: Priests.

(For the benefit of theists who don't understand metaphor -- by capitalizing the P, I am referring to the institution of the priestly class and not any particular priest.)

77. Religious education as a part of literary culture

Comment #160720 by ~manic-depressive on April 14, 2008 at 10:15 am

Thank you Professor.

I wonder when we can expect an apology from Mark Ravenhill.

Or can we safely assume that the Guardian no longer considers knowledge a prerequisite for journalists writing for their paper?

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

Comment #160429 by ~manic-depressive on April 14, 2008 at 4:54 am

The Guardian, I had thought, has a good repution. If this is true, then I would imagine that they would want to distance themselves from this kind of article.

Can I ask if anyone knows the best (and/or) simplest way to write to the Guardian about this?

Has anyone done so?

Thanks.