Comments by hungarianelephant

1101. Fleas on the Horizon: In Defense of God

Comment #138155 by hungarianelephant on March 4, 2008 at 2:15 am

Chris Hedges, a war correspondent and graduate of Harvard Divinity School, believes that evolution alone can't make us good�"we need to believe in something. In I Don't Believe in Atheists (Free Press, Mar.), Hedges equates the new atheists to the fundamentalist believers they critique and suggests that they're just as dangerous. Dominick Anfuso, v-p and editorial director, says, "Hedges attacks the atheists as being as dogmatic, if not more so, than what they're criticizing. Based on his experience as a war correspondent, he takes on their worldview, the idea that we are capable of spiritual improvement. Hedges says we're clearly not progressing morally as a species."

Is this the same Chris Hedges who posted here on the leprechology thread, and was told by revcort that he was on the slippery slope to a worse hell than mere atheists?

Funny, I don't remember him arguing that here.

1102. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #137682 by hungarianelephant on March 3, 2008 at 10:42 am

Jon_Sociologist - Generally I'd be sympathetic to that view, but trying to debate with wooter is about as productive as trying to debate with voicemail. Even if you can wade through the treacle which is his/her posting style, you never get an actual response, just more of the same stuff regurgitated. All the arguments come back to "I don't believe that complexity can arise without a designer, therefore God exists". Each branch of this has been comprehensively debunked several hundred times, as anyone who cares to check the posting history can see. S/he doesn't answer any of the questions put, but just repeats one of his/her own, often in block capitals.

I'm frankly amazed that anyone still has the patience to engage with wooter at all. Even for the purpose of abuse.

1103. Fleabytes

Comment #137673 by hungarianelephant on March 3, 2008 at 10:32 am

What is going on here?

Nearly up to 3000 posts, and we still haven't seen Paula's new frock. Or even her nice polycotton tracksuit from Tesco. Oooh.

1104. Survey shows Non-Religious Outnumber Those of Every Single Faith (But One)

Comment #137637 by hungarianelephant on March 3, 2008 at 9:29 am

Am I alone in thinking that the appropriate response to this article is "So What"?

1105. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #137601 by hungarianelephant on March 3, 2008 at 8:39 am

Buckingham Palace? Buckingham Palace? What happened to Birmingham Palace? This argument looked much better when it was about a curry house rather than a dismal pile in London.

Ok, not "better", maybe, but more amusing.

1106. A natural phenomenon

Comment #137499 by hungarianelephant on March 3, 2008 at 2:10 am

For those of you who haven't seen much of Sir David, here's one of his most famous, and poignant, clips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y

It's probably not an exaggeration to say that he has done more for the understanding of the natural world than any other person. Here's looking forward to the Darwin series.

Side note: he appeared on Irish TV's Late Late Show on Friday. Asked if he believed in God, he dodged the question first time, then second time said he thought the creation story was nonsense but believed in spirituality.

I seem to remember a thread here a while ago about the deletion of his references to evolution in (some) exported versions of his documentaries.

1107. Fleabytes

Comment #135884 by hungarianelephant on February 29, 2008 at 10:19 am

hello - ..but I doubt very much that it was lack of evidence that led you to choose atheism.

I can't speak for Paula, but for me it definitely was. Not, perhaps, the lack of hard physical evidence of creation. No, it was that despite looking and asking really hard for guidance about how to receive his infinite mercy, the lazy bastard never gave me any. Eventually it occurred to me that this might possibly be because he didn't exist.

Any more presuppositions? Atheists tenets that you'd like to share with us?

1108. Fleabytes

Comment #135873 by hungarianelephant on February 29, 2008 at 10:10 am

Bonzai - We might be experiencing a raid by Robertson's minions.

And these are the best he can find?

Oh, that's right. We're talking about Wee Frees here.

1109. Fleabytes

Comment #135544 by hungarianelephant on February 29, 2008 at 4:41 am

This feeling of discouragement, darkness and depression really hit home one Saturday afternoon at Dens Park, the home of Dundee FC.

Well that's understandable. Perhaps our Reverend is human after all?

I was enjoying the game when the thought hit me, what would it be like if the atheist worldview was true? The thought of a life without Christ was for me an overwhelming one. It shattered me.

Oh. Never mind.

1110. Fleabytes

Comment #135534 by hungarianelephant on February 29, 2008 at 4:30 am

The phrase "bald men fighting over a comb" springs to mind.

Oh, and the Charge of the Light Brigade was actually a successful military operation. Albeit somewhat less successful for the protagonists.

1111. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #135527 by hungarianelephant on February 29, 2008 at 4:17 am

Just a minor observation - there's actually less testing of drugs in animals than you might think.

Animals are almost exclusively used for very early stage testing - basic safety (for new compounds) and indicative bioavailability (for reformulations). There's not a lot of point doing extensive studies on animals once you establish that they don't drop dead or become obviously very ill. Because we haven't yet been able to engineer a mouse which is able to say "Ow, my head hurts. I don't like this."

The big studies are done in humans, so you can do a proper evaluation of what the drug does. What is does in a monkey is a better indicator than what it does in a pig, which is better than a dog, which is better than a mouse (generally speaking). But none of them are really reliable. You have to put it into adult volunteers to try it properly.

1112. Fleabytes

Comment #135524 by hungarianelephant on February 29, 2008 at 4:07 am

epeeist - Wilmslow? A village? Did the estate agent see you coming?

I spent my teenage years in Prestbury. Parents still live there. Before you get too excited, I should point out that they bought in the 1980s, before prices got really crazy. It's a much nicer place than I think it appears. Though it must account for at least half the country's sales of H2O2.

My sister was at school with Alan Garner's daughter. He had writers' block for over 20 years. Odd chap. Still, if I'd written the Weirdstone books, not sure how I would have followed up either. It captures the feeling of the Edge sublimely, at least during weekdays when it's not the playground of two million golden retrievers.

1113. Fleabytes

Comment #135489 by hungarianelephant on February 29, 2008 at 3:20 am

epeeist - Handforth, Mottram or Prestbury?

1114. Taking evidence seriously

Comment #135438 by hungarianelephant on February 29, 2008 at 1:13 am

Frankus1122 - Why, why, why has this [double-blind study of homeopathy] not been done already?

Because the nature of homeopathy's claims mean that a sensible study design would mean a huge study, and a huge study would be unbelievably expensive.

And because the whole thing would point out the idiocy of a system in which patients are given an average of 8 minutes and one prescription per visit. While Whitehall mandarins don't mind spending money, they do not like their system looking stupid.

Also what Teratornis said (21 / 135250).

And I'm not going to be drawn on Iraq. I'm not.

1115. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #134828 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 8:41 am

anna - That's a new one on me. What terms are you searching?

I know a lot of animal vaccines use formaldehyde, which is associated with all kinds of unpleasant reactions. I wasn't aware anyone seriously thought the concept of vaccination was Fido's problem.

1116. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #134812 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 8:25 am

I have my doubts about whether most people's objections to vaccines are religious in nature. I commented on this in another thread, if anyone is interested:
http://www.richarddawkins.net/jumptocomment.php?articleID=1992&commentID=96843&URLtitle=This-deadly-religious-resistance-to-vaccinations&URLauthor=Johann-Hari

annabanana - Isn't there a hypothesis that vaccines cause over-stimulation of the immune system which results in autoimmune disorders such as allergies and asthma?

I've also heard that. It appears to have its origin in what our dear Veronique would call "wankery" - pseudoscience. A moment's contemplation of what Jenner got up to should dispel that notion.

steveroot - That was a wise choice. My parents made a comparable one - not to allow my sister to be injected with HGH (human growth hormone). A number of the people who were given it around that time subsequently died very unpleasant deaths from CJD, the human form of mad cow disease. The HGH in question had been retrieved from the pituitary glands of corpses, which were then put into a sort of communal mincer before being preserved in acetone.

Scepticism about scientific advance is sometimes healthy.

1117. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #134759 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 7:22 am

Obviously I can't let a pharma controversy pass ...

The big problem with vaccines is that they have to be put into huge patient populations. It isn't feasible to test in huge patient populations prior to commercial launch. The disparity between trial population and patient population means you're more likely to miss an adverse reaction which affects only a small proportion, but the small proportion can multiply out into a relatively large number.

This was part of the problem with Vioxx and the other Cox-2's. The cardiac issue was known, but it wasn't until millions of people started taking it that you could say with any certainty whether it was caused by the drug or by the absence of NSAIDs which it replaced; NSAIDs are known to reduce cardiac problems. (It turned out to be both.)

The industry tends to find it quite difficult to get insurance to cover vaccines as a result of this.

But that said, within those limits the HPV vaccine (actually I think there is a second) was shown to be safe and effective in trials. A quick Google says 11,000 patients, which is a pretty decent sample.

1118. Fleabytes

Comment #134742 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 6:53 am

I genuinely believe that the answers are to be found in Jesus

Speaking of emotional reactions, I have a visceral reaction to this. "Genuine belief", in the mind of a genuine believer, appears to trump all other considerations. Y'know, like evidence, or practicality, or what other people "genuinely believe".

We have been here before. Tony Blair, anyone? I genuinely believed that Saddam had WMD, even though I knew that the "evidence" presented to the public was fabricated.

1119. Fleabytes

Comment #134739 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 6:47 am

Ah, the English Imperialism card. How original.

1120. Fleabytes

Comment #134719 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 6:20 am

Just so we're clear, clearthinker, are you saying that there are any other tenets of atheism, apart from (a) non-belief in gods and (b) materialism?

1121. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #134663 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 4:43 am

Hey! I'm only 34. The days of our age are threescore years and ten. Says so in the instruction manual.

1122. Fleabytes

Comment #134659 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 4:39 am

Oh, ok. Sex is sinful except when you do it with God, and Mary was a virgin even after a few shags. Albeit, presumably, a somewhat flushed and sticky virgin.

I'm glad we got that cleared up.

1123. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #134657 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 4:37 am

Steve Zara - I'd also like to see the mark showing that we meet approved Alpha Centauri standards of design and manufacture. They'll be receiving a strongly worded letter of complaint about my back problems.

1124. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #134647 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 4:17 am

Spot the wooter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGR0BriodkM

1125. Fleabytes

Comment #134642 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 4:10 am

scottishgeologist - That made my brain hurt. Horse designed by a committee.

1126. Fleabytes

Comment #134625 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 3:51 am

epeeist - Thanks for the link. I haven't read Graves in years.

An alternative hypothesis is that theologians make it all up as they go along. But it couldn't be that, could it?

1127. Fleabytes

Comment #134606 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 3:26 am

Well now the whole Original Sin thing is pretty bizarre too. Eve eats a fruit and that affects all the seed of her womb forever. We hear a bit about second and third generations, and then nothing until Psalm 51, "In sin was I conceived". So apparently it's now about sex, not fruit.

Of course, God is perfectly capable of creating people without recourse to sex. Jesus was conceived without sex. So was Mary. So were Jesus' brothers and sisters. Adam was made from dirt, and Eve from his rib. You'd think, then, that he'd be able to come up with a regular means of reproduction that was not inherently offensive to him. I mean, he's the ultimate creator, isn't he?

Then just to add confusion, humans develop artificial means of reproduction. Does the church delight in our newfound ability to be conceived without sin? No, it has a pink wobbly. I can't imagine why.

1128. Fleabytes

Comment #134589 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 2:57 am

Paula Kirby - What interests me about the liberals' view that hell is just a metaphorical concept is that the whole of Christian theology collapses as a result. What exactly is the Saviour Jesus supposed to be saving us from, if there's no hell?

As I understand it, we're being saved from the "eternal separation from God". I'm not sure exactly why eternal separation from God is regarded as a bad thing. He doesn't seem to keep the kind of company I'd much enjoy.

The whole Jesus in hell thing is more than a little peculiar. I think the rationale is that the soul is eternal, and he didn't go to heaven, so he must have been somewhere else, and since the only places are earth, heaven and hell, he must have been in hell. There's also a theory that he must have gone to hell in order to save the people, or possibly just the Hebrews, who were already there.

This seems to have been dreamt up in the second or third centuries and has zero biblical support. There's even a suggestion that it's the corruption of a sun-worship tradition - after the solstice, the sun's arc stays low for three days before it starts to rise again. Hence the 25 Dec celebration, marking the lengthening of the days.

1129. Fleabytes

Comment #134553 by hungarianelephant on February 28, 2008 at 1:30 am

Morning all. Another 400 posts. Did nice Mr Robertson answer epeeist's question yet, or shall I come back later?

1130. Fleabytes

Comment #134091 by hungarianelephant on February 27, 2008 at 8:30 am

BillySands - Did I also mention I have a friend who was told she will go to hell if she ever married a protestant?

That's nothing. My Irish great grandfather married a Protestant, and as a result was sent to Wales.

1131. Fleabytes

Comment #134076 by hungarianelephant on February 27, 2008 at 7:47 am

I remember hearing a story of a child who was punished once for puking up jesus.

Angela's Ashes?

1132. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #133947 by hungarianelephant on February 27, 2008 at 3:50 am

Having previously argued for the removal of wooter's account here, and for the inclusion of an "Ignore" facility, I have a confession.

I'm developing something of an admiration for wooter. He (I'm assuming not she, or "it" if as I suspect wooter is actually epeeist's random comment generator) doesn't understand even the most basic concepts in evolution, can't get his head around physics, and is utterly unable to look at the universe from anything but an anthrocentric viewpoint.

He has several dozen intelligent and articulate people arguing back at him. He plainly doesn't speak the language properly. And yet he continues undaunted, posting the same utter rubbish, week after week.

He has the tenacity of the Duracell bunny. What a shame he can't apply it to something more useful.

1133. Pakistan blocks YouTube over blasphemous video

Comment #133535 by hungarianelephant on February 26, 2008 at 10:10 am

al-rawandi - That sounds spookily like Bush foreign policy circa 2002, at least as articulated. I recall arguing with a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat that it was the healthiest shape US foreign policy had been in for at least 30 years.

I'm on board with you here & wish that the US would learn not just from its own mistakes, but from colonial and post-colonial mistakes as well. Come to that, it would be nice if Europe could do likewise.

So, what are you going to do about Pakistan? Is Musharraf a good guy or a bad guy? Or potentially both? Do we leave it alone or what?

The point is that it's not always completely black and white, and sometimes you need to swallow hard and make a Faustian pact. Churchill understood this, which is why he felt able to do a deal with that notorious atheist monster, Stalin.

1134. Pakistan blocks YouTube over blasphemous video

Comment #133528 by hungarianelephant on February 26, 2008 at 9:49 am

Now it's you who's misrepresenting me. I didn't attempt to use bin Laden to justify the invasion of Iraq. Whatever other justification there may have been, that wasn't it, whatever a majority of the US population thought.

As I recall, the US government did explicitly request that the Afghan govt turn him over. They didn't. The US tried to bomb him. Didn't work. So now we needed a new plan. If the current one isn't up to much, do we have any better ideas?

We can't turn the clock back to 1980 or 1936 or any other given moment. You have to deal with the situation in front of you. I'm sure very few people here will disagree with the general principle of non-intervention and assistance to decent regimes (the corollary of which is that presumably there should be no assistance to indecent regimes). All I'm saying is that it's not quite so easy to make it stick.

1135. Pakistan blocks YouTube over blasphemous video

Comment #133517 by hungarianelephant on February 26, 2008 at 9:26 am

al-rawandi - 1936 ... oil ... well, that's kinda the point, isn't it?

There was a pretty serious foreign policy issue around that time, as I seem to recall, and oil was going to have some considerable importance in the years to come. If the alternative was allowing the Iraqi oilfields to fall into the hands of Hitler, then I think I'd have been inclined to strike up a few dubious alliances to counteract that. Just as Indian nationalists were quite happy to live with the imperial forces for the time being, when the alternative was the Japanese. No sense in making the best the enemy of the good.

If I've misrepresented what you've said, that is an accident, for which I apologise. "Material resposibility" and "contributing factor" mean pretty much the same thing to me; I guess we're still divided by a common language and I'm happy to adopt yours, if you're prepared to learn to spell "aluminium".

Tree-huggy ideas, as you put them, are great and for the most part sound like a good way of building your foreign policy. Certainly, it seems an improvement on anything currently on offer. But the fact remains that the Monroe doctrine eventually broke. At the most basic level, it's impossible to cut yourself off from the Islamic world when there's a nutter who's declared a fatwa against your entire country, and has established a mountain base from which to launch attacks against you.

1136. Pakistan blocks YouTube over blasphemous video

Comment #133502 by hungarianelephant on February 26, 2008 at 8:56 am

al-rawandi - I appreciate you didn't blame imperialism for all the world's ills. I was making the point that it's a bit more complex than that.

Israel - another post-colonial British state - is also a functioning and stable democracy. A lot of people don't like it, but it ought to make the point that there was no a priori preference for monarchies. India was handed over to democratic rule. So was Malaysia, after the communist uprising was put down. So was most of Africa. Doubtless there were some dodgy deals done in the Middle East and elsewhere, but on the whole the British tried to leave something relatively stable, even if it didn't later turn out to be very successful. Which is why they didn't generate any mess anywhere on the scale of what happened in the Congo, for example.

I don't think the French are a shining example of how to dismantle an Empire. They are still trying to intervene in such places as the Cote d'Ivoire, where they have no business being. Until the going gets tough, when they run away (Indochine, Lebanon, Rwanda ...)

I think you're ribbing us by suggesting that British policy in the Middle East is materially responsible for Islamic fundamentalism. No? If not, then you're going to have to suggest some reasonable alternatives for what could have been done at the time, and why it would have panned out any differently.

1137. Pakistan blocks YouTube over blasphemous video

Comment #133489 by hungarianelephant on February 26, 2008 at 8:35 am

Former British colonies also have a rather unfortunate habit of regressing economically after independence.

Zimbabwe was 5x poorer than the UK when it achieved independence. It is now 28x poorer. Pretty hard for Mugabe to blame that on the imperialists, though he's giving it a pretty good try.

At the time of the creation of the Irish Free State, the 26 counties constituted one of the richest countries in Europe. By the 1960s, the Irish Republic was one of the poorest.

India took 40 years to arrest its relative decline after 1947.

None of this is a justification for imperialism, but it might add a little perspective.

1138. Pakistan blocks YouTube over blasphemous video

Comment #133463 by hungarianelephant on February 26, 2008 at 8:05 am

epeeist - The only improvement that I could see was that you can now go into a pub for a drink on Sunday.

Having recently been in a Holyhead pub on a Sunday (yes of course while waiting for the ferry to Ireland), I'm not sure I'd characterise that as an improvement. A very odd place.

1139. Pakistan blocks YouTube over blasphemous video

Comment #133407 by hungarianelephant on February 26, 2008 at 6:59 am

epeeist, that wouldn't be the prelude to the kissing joke, would it?

1140. Pakistan blocks YouTube over blasphemous video

Comment #133406 by hungarianelephant on February 26, 2008 at 6:58 am

al-rawandi - I am a Welsh Nationalist.

What do I win?

The right to speak a language with no vowels (although no one was preventing you from doing so in the first place), invent place names, have an expensive talking shop in Cardiff paid for by the English taxpayer, and be able to discriminate against anyone who can hold a conversation without spitting.

Next question?

1141. Church is paying a high price for its celibacy rule

Comment #133245 by hungarianelephant on February 26, 2008 at 1:17 am

(OT) mundusvultdecipi - Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm a mere outsider, a blow-in and a Sasanach to boot. My (half Mayo) kids will be growing up here though. I'm hoping that we may be accepted as locals within 70 years or so. Do keep up the northsider jokes.

1142. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #132865 by hungarianelephant on February 25, 2008 at 10:20 am

Cats. Herding.

Good luck with that.

1143. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #132857 by hungarianelephant on February 25, 2008 at 10:03 am

Or we could take the Yahoo approach.

[ignore this user]

It didn't work too well with Yahoo because you were limited to ignoring 100 users. Should be enough here, though. Hell, I'd only need two.

1144. Church is paying a high price for its celibacy rule

Comment #132815 by hungarianelephant on February 25, 2008 at 8:25 am

Evelyn - Fine film, if with a slightly corny ending. I'd add The Magdalene Sisters and Song For A Raggy Boy.

1145. Church is paying a high price for its celibacy rule

Comment #132811 by hungarianelephant on February 25, 2008 at 8:19 am

Tyler - You're a northsider? I'm looking out over the bay towards Blackrock right now.

Last time out, Richard "defend the indefensible" Bruton topped the poll here. But then his opponents were: Spawn of Haughey, Ivor Freebie, Derek McDowell, some very intense woman who claimed to be a Green, Finian McGrath (who makes Jackie Healy-Rae look like a sane, principled gentleman) and the Shinners.

But if you don't vote, the wrong lizard might get in.

Even so, I'm minded to agree with emmet. The indemnity deal was an absolute disgrace, & almost certainly unconstitutional.

1146. Church is paying a high price for its celibacy rule

Comment #132796 by hungarianelephant on February 25, 2008 at 8:02 am

emmet - So we'll put that down as "No I won't be voting for the Soldiers of Bribery next time, thank you."

That's two of us. Anyone else?

1147. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #132788 by hungarianelephant on February 25, 2008 at 7:58 am

"Also, God cannot be self-caused nothing can create itself, because that would mean that it existed before it came into existence, which is a logical absurdity."

Can you spot any logical error here?

1148. Church is paying a high price for its celibacy rule

Comment #132781 by hungarianelephant on February 25, 2008 at 7:48 am

Gymnopedie - I wonder what precise aspect of being a Catholic priest drives them to rape children.

According to the Ferns enquiry, a number of paedophiles were attracted to the priesthood precisely because of the free and trusted access to children. Pretty disturbing stuff.

1149. Evidence can't shake your faith if your faith excludes it as evidence

Comment #132770 by hungarianelephant on February 25, 2008 at 7:39 am

David EldenThe question is, based on the 'clever alien' argument, shouldn't we be agnostic about Genesis 1:1?

Well I'm not absolutely sure that Genesis 1:1 is a strictly deist claim. It's clear from what follows that "God" means something very specific, and not a creator at large. It also posits the existence of heaven, for which not an iota of evidence, other than the book itself, has been put forward. (Interesting that God appears not to have thought of making hell at this point. But I digress.)

Insofar as there may ultimately have been a creator, I personally don't think it's a sufficiently interesting question to bother having an opinion on. If the creator / clever aliens stopped there, it has no bearing whatsoever on what we do with our lives. I'm happy to concede the possibility to theists and say "Now what?" Does that count as agnosticism?

1150. Church is paying a high price for its celibacy rule

Comment #132759 by hungarianelephant on February 25, 2008 at 7:27 am

Slightly more seriously, it appears to me that the whole celibacy thing is a big red herring.

Irish boys used to be pushed into the priesthood because of the status it brought to the family. Now that the RC church has squandered its status, you'd only become a priest if you have some kind of call to ministry and you don't mind people thinking that you're a bit odd. Father Dougal Maguire, of irate_atheist's avatar fame, is a recogisable figure, but doesn't fit any more.

Not even the religious in Ireland are shedding many tears for the demise of the church. In fact, putting the boot in is something of a national pasttime. It would almost make me feel sorry for it. Almost.