51. 'Flying Spaghetti Monster' Religious Group Turning Heads at MSU

Comment #77234 by kev_s on October 8, 2007 at 8:10 pm

Re: Comment #76333 by prettygoodformonkeys

Brilliant but ... it is time Pastafarians ate fewer Meat Balls and instead spent more time contemplating the mystery of the Holy Trinity, "Pasta Tricolore", a concept which even an experienced pasta lover can find hard to explain.

Those of you with only a shallow understanding of the subject might think Pasta Tricolore is simply a packet of pasta with three different colours of fusilli inside, for example. But to trivialise Pasta Tricolore in this way would be a blasphemy.

Some will try to explain Pasta Tricolore by reducing it to its individual constituents. The penne cooked with tomato sauce bring the red sun from the south of Italy. The green pesto sauce, (excellent with fusilli), are the rolling hills of Liguria and the twisting waves of the green Mediterranean Sea. The yellowish creamy sauce, perhaps based on gorgonzola, and arguably best with tagliatelli, recalls the golden fields of late summer.

But such a reductionist view would fail to reveal two deeper messages; firstly that taken together the Pasta Tricolore represent the flag of Italy, proving that Italians are the spaghetti monster's chosen people. And secondly, when you can't make up your mind which delicious pasta dish to order it is such an elegant solution to lump them all together in one recipe and avoid the problem entirely. (I think you can get the recipe from the vatacan if you ask nicely.)

52. Christianity's Image Problem

Comment #77232 by kev_s on October 8, 2007 at 8:06 pm

"80% of the Christians polled picked "anti-homosexual" as a negative adjective describing Christianity today"

Wow! And I thought Christians had to believe that the homosexuals were responsible for 9/11 and floods in the UK. Them Christians aren't listening to their leaders. Clearly they are not getting their morality from their religion.

53. New Rules: A Religious Test

Comment #73234 by kev_s on September 24, 2007 at 2:24 pm

In Italy there was a case where a Muslim woman refused to stay in a room that had a crucifix on the wall. I think hospitals ask about your religion so they can get the room decoration correct. :-)

54. New Rules: A Religious Test

Comment #73232 by kev_s on September 24, 2007 at 2:21 pm

"We are not the crazy ones".
That would be good on a T-shirt under the A.

55. State Senator Ernie Chambers Sues God

Comment #71721 by kev_s on September 19, 2007 at 2:32 pm

It's funny. It will help.

56. Religious education

Comment #71718 by kev_s on September 19, 2007 at 2:26 pm

We got sex education in some of our RI classes. It was the only time anyone listened during RI.

57. Larry King Interviews Kathy Griffin

Comment #71715 by kev_s on September 19, 2007 at 2:16 pm

Humour is a very good way to attack because it is easily understood by all. Clearly the religious know that humour is the 'universal acid' that can dissolve their false beliefs; that is why they go to such extraordinary lengths to censor it. Keep laughing everyone and recruit comedians.

58. The Dawkins debate

Comment #70464 by kev_s on September 15, 2007 at 3:13 pm

It would be interesting to know the criteria for selecting these comments from the 700. So many are ad-hominem 'name-calling' attacks and you would think that a thoughtful editing would not have included them. If the idea was to 'balance' the comments between the two 'sides' ("equal time") you would have thought they could find more interesting responses to TGD than these.

59. Good News: Both our Foundations are now Officially Recognized as Charities

Comment #70404 by kev_s on September 15, 2007 at 10:49 am

Very good news.

Cregaune: while I agree with much of your post, "they" gets lots of tax breaks and have load of money to push "their" agenda.
Charity status for richarddawkins.net is a small step to level the playing field.

VanYoungman: Nice idea, but surely the contributors here do not need a money incentive to do it. Best anyone using this site can do is fill out a direct-debit/standing order with as much as you can afford so there is a constant, reliable source of income to fund whatever initiatives need funding.

60. Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science

Comment #70242 by kev_s on September 14, 2007 at 1:35 pm

On this subject, I recommend "The Unnatural Nature of Science" - "Why Science does not make (common) sense" by Lewis Wolpert (1992). It is a bit surprising this was not referenced by Bloom and Skolnick Weisberg because it deals directly with the problem. One small quote ...
"The central theme presented in this book is that many of the misunderstandings about the nature of science might be corrected once it is realised just how 'unnatural' science it."
I remember one of my first physics lessons. The teacher had asked us what would happen if we put a lump of lead into mercury. Would it float? The cube of lead was passed from hand to hand so we could feel how much it weighed (perhaps that is illegal these days?) and I said, "If that floats in there I'll eat my hat!"
This was a very strong lesson to me about the counter-intuitive nature of science. In my case the humiliation of being forced to try and eat my hat by my peers never made me forget it! We all laughed so much it was painful but I had to try a bite at least!
I think this shows that perhaps the secret is to teach in this way; directly confront the unnatural, non common-sense things and demonstrate through experiment how things really are. If we started each science lesson with something like, "Now you might think that xxx works like this, seems obvious doesn't it? Well today we're going to find out how it really works."
Maybe it wouldn't take too many of these lessons for the message to sink in and perhaps skeptiscm about 'common-sense' knowledge would emerge.
I am not a teacher so please forgive me if this is stating something that is already well understood.

61. 'Incredibly lucky' find yields important fish fossil

Comment #68747 by kev_s on September 8, 2007 at 12:12 pm

If it came up a drill pipe it was also delivered with the chips! (Sorry)

62. San Diego Diocese Settles Lawsuit for $200 Million

Comment #68746 by kev_s on September 8, 2007 at 12:07 pm

Well, if they choose to 'walk with God' they know what to expect near the end of their life too. No pity if they have a nasty desease and want to end their suffering. Maybe readers on this site are not familiar with the stories of Italians Piergiorgio Welby and Giovanni Nuvoli. Unless you have strong stomach for man's inhumanity to man I suggest you don't follow these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piergiorgio_Welby
http://www.italymag.co.uk/2007/news-from-italy/politics/hunger-strikers-death-spurs-campaign-for-living-will-law/
In case you did read the story of Welby and didn't notice the last comment, after his death the Catholic Church denied him a religious funeral.
Curiously, although I am not religious, I find the denial of a religious funeral to be even more immoral that not allowing him to die in the first place.
But notice that polls showed the majority of italians agreed that his wish to die should be respected.
Interesting that Pavarotti, who was divorced, was allowed a religious funeral. (Although the priest never referred to his wife as 'wife' only by first name. Because of course the church considered him to be still married to his first wife ... she was the one smiling through the ceremony.)

63. San Diego Diocese Settles Lawsuit for $200 Million

Comment #68709 by kev_s on September 8, 2007 at 8:15 am

Literally and morally bankrupt. (Well, almost literally bankrupt and certainly morally bankrupt.)

64. Court bans Christian cross on private land in public park

Comment #68679 by kev_s on September 8, 2007 at 5:41 am

In the Alps there are crosses on almost every peak and shrines every few metres on the way up. No chance of getting these removed but they are often ugly rusting messes and are always irritating to me. However they do serve as good supports for cameras so you don't need to carry up a tripod to get the sunrise/sunset shot. Just because we have to suffer these all over the place in Europe is no reason to allow the same to happen in the US so I think keeping the US parks clean is a worthwhile effort.

65. Fallen Pastor Seeks Aid to Pursue Studies

Comment #67053 by kev_s on September 1, 2007 at 3:19 pm

This is worth seeing again on Haggard ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCze2_YMFp0

66. Can the rest of us have our planet back?

Comment #57813 by kev_s on July 21, 2007 at 8:34 am

If you enjoyed Marcus, you'd like this older stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCOZQSRzKmU
Anyone know of a site brave enough to collect anti-religious humour?

67. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50179 by kev_s on June 15, 2007 at 2:40 pm

Sargeist, you may be interested in this story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/3844945.stm
that investigated the Vatican's claim that there is scientific evidence AIDS can pass through condoms.
There is quite a handy summary of scientific evidence refuting the Vatican's claim.