1251. Study: Religion is Good for Kids

Comment #34979 by phasmagigas on April 25, 2007 at 8:05 pm

it would probably be easier to study kids who arent considered 'well behaved'. For the most part children behave sufficient to get through school and make a life of their own. Again a difficult one, how to define well behaved as a starter.

1252. Study: Religion is Good for Kids

Comment #34945 by phasmagigas on April 25, 2007 at 4:21 pm

cause and effect?? this is a seriously complex issue. There are so many possibilities for the childs behaviour which may or may not be tied to religion.

In the UK you could put the religious in a few groups eg those who go to church (for eg) quite likely have 'well behaved' kids and this is more likely a result of activities and time with the kids (like going to church or flying kites). Those who got to mosque: as i have previously posted, what happens in a mosque and church are not equivalant but aside from any militant individuals again its a social structure for the kids and they have to behave within that framework and so learn to behave generally.

In the UK what is labelled as an 'underclass' are individuals who generally dont perform well socially and these people are unlikely to go to church or teach their kids religion, they are for all intents and purposes unknowing atheists but a better word would be nihilists, and of course its the children of these individuals who behave worst, the type who will smash your car windscreen if they can get away with it. OK, im typing randomly here but i suspect its less religion per se and more to do with the fact that it means parents are constructing activities with the kids (one of them being religion) and these involve learning to interact socially at many levels.

1253. The Video: Bill O'Reilly Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #34293 by phasmagigas on April 23, 2007 at 6:27 pm

re the overuse of zeus/apollo etc, remember these seem like old arguments to us BUT for many this is new material.

I'll agree the 3 minute platform isnt worth the white noise in the transmission: calling all Americans, is there a credible TV platform for a worthwhile presentation of ideas??

1254. The Video: Bill O'Reilly Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #34292 by phasmagigas on April 23, 2007 at 6:23 pm

I despise bills silly little apollo joke,i notice thats a common tactic with many religious/non sceptical TV presenters, oprah for eg. they throw in a little distracting joke that quickly gives the audience an 'auto' chuckle and then move on to the next point they cannot answer. what this does is distracts less able thinkers into a false sense of security. It is a common tactic, sales people often use itknowingly or unknowingly.

1255. NEXT MONDAY: Bill O'Reilly interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #34288 by phasmagigas on April 23, 2007 at 6:11 pm

i have yet to watch this but the comment about Richard not smiling, I'll agree that a smile does a lot to bring people in but in the face of o'reilley it could be difficult to smile, also MrD is perhaps afraid of looking anything like the very smiley Shirley Phelps!!

phasmagigas.

1256. Pope abolishes limbo

Comment #34063 by phasmagigas on April 23, 2007 at 6:01 am

Try to imagine reading that document, a lot of hard thought and beard stroking for that.

Its interesting to note that this is the church saying 'weve been wrong these last x number of years'. A step in the right direction, and less pain for all those poor sods who believed in limbo prior.

The whole scenario is a perfect soundbite of what is wrong with religion, it can be what you want it to be and when you want it to be.

I wonder how many catholics actually say 'oh well they were wrong there, what about here and here?' I guess that the vast majority will sheepishly just agree and not think anything else of it.

1257. Gay hate church to picket VT gun rampage funerals

Comment #33453 by phasmagigas on April 20, 2007 at 6:24 am

If any violence was directed at the phelps family it would be an interesting situation. You can bet those who commit/ed the acts will be christian and will be in part rationalisng it because they are christian and their less extreme version is the 'right' version.

1258. Dinesh D'Souza says I don't exist: an atheist at Virginia Tech

Comment #33445 by phasmagigas on April 20, 2007 at 5:57 am

dinesh replies to those who see the 'dawkins visit' in literal terms and laughs at them. We know he didnt mean it, any non believer could share sympathy and silence, the difference is that we dont also shove a dummy in the mouth of grievers.

its still amazes me as an expat living in the USA (so i perhaps notice it nore than others) how the most pious people i know are also the most shallow and materialistic, they gorge on factory farmed meat daily, own the biggest trucks, the biggest homes, the biggest TV's own, watch and read the most junk and use the most chemicals on their lawns, not cause an effect of course but it shows me how not to live.

1259. Dinesh D'Souza says I don't exist: an atheist at Virginia Tech

Comment #33441 by phasmagigas on April 20, 2007 at 5:39 am

quote

To no one's surprise, Dawkins has not been invited to speak to the grieving Virginia Tech community. What this tells me is that if it's difficult to know where God is when bad things happen, it is even more difficult for atheism to deal with the problem of evil

unquote

i hate this bit in particular, its trying to argue a case with a thought experiment, ie, as if RD is really going to be invited across the atlantic to, well to do what?? make people feel better? i hold my face in my hands.

1260. Gay hate church to picket VT gun rampage funerals

Comment #33437 by phasmagigas on April 20, 2007 at 5:27 am

interestingly enough a youtube video shows an australian man interviewing them 9hes from a chatshow i believe), he deliberately though half jokingly suggests that phelps son? is 'giving him the eye' indeed the interviewer physically touches him. THe interesting thing is that in the face of an overt homosexual advance/accusation the group start ineffectually start shouting 'pervert' etc at him and hes right there with them, id have expected a lightening bolt or two, anyway it just seemed that they were no 'more' angry with him than with 1000's of dead who they never even knew.

1261. Gay hate church to picket VT gun rampage funerals

Comment #33435 by phasmagigas on April 20, 2007 at 5:21 am

of course the WBC is flawed in most respects but they do some things that some would find fitting. They push the religious righteous agenda so far as to beat many at their own game and so maybe encourage those peole to review their own religious views and infact to the average non believer their views are only slightly less extreme than many religious moderates views on heavenly exclusivity esp with regard to their own (very particular) religious brand. They have given Ted Haggard a hard time, i guess thats over his homosexual behaviour and not the fact that hes an arch hypocrite. I do give them credit for at least sticking to their guns and in fact risking life and limb, and with the upcoming school shooting picket i suspect that things could get very ugly indeed. Their views are seen by some as a type of treason and war on the US itself (freedom of speech anyone?)and as such lower the threshold for violence from otherwise 'normal' people.

1262. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32856 by phasmagigas on April 18, 2007 at 1:47 pm

heck, so my revealing the ins and outs of a childhood circumcision was all in vain, in any case i still wish i hadnt been done!

1263. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32730 by phasmagigas on April 18, 2007 at 5:57 am

its interesting that the 'default' (even though it insnt really the default at birth) American is Christian, so circumcision is also the default, many people have thought past their religious beliefs but when suddenly faced with default circumcision the firewall is back up. I will reiterate that at the age of 9 (not 8 as i said earlier) i was circumcised for medical reasons, i remember many things, i remember being more sensitive prior to the op, I also remember stitches, salt baths, medical dressings stuck to my glans and being VERY painfully removed by a nurse resulting in bleeding(remember this isnt routine in the UK), maybe i got an infection but wasnt aware at the time. Then came the shower room jeerings, interestingly the muslim boys at school would undress with a towel wrapped around themselves so i was totally unaware of their circumcision.

lets just say my experience of circumcision wasnt positive in any way and i know that my penis is NOT as sensitive as before. I dont hold it against the doctors or my parents as this was in the late 70's and seemed the best option at the time. Unfortunately the whole experience singled me out as i even remember my teachers asking me if 'i was all Ok after my operation' so my penis suddenly became this bloody (literally) central object and i just wonder what that does to a kid of 9 and older???

1264. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32520 by phasmagigas on April 17, 2007 at 8:49 am

male and female circumcision are not equivalent. female circumcision is the equivalent of removal of the entire penis and part of the scrotum if im not mistaken (im sure it varies where it is done). I still find it amazing that male circumcision is still so acceptable, its just shows that an activity with religious basis practiced by many can blind the mind to its actual barbarity.

1265. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32516 by phasmagigas on April 17, 2007 at 8:41 am

Im from the UK and was circumcised for medical reasons at the 'tender' age of around 8. I'm not sure that the operation would have been considered today. I will tell you this for nothing, I would MUCH rather have a foreskin than not, I honestly wonder how much i'm missing sensation wise and frankly it PXXXXS me off that it was done. Interestingly it opened me to ridicule at school as of course unlike in the states the majority of males are not circumcised, a learning curve perhaps but not something particularly good for a kid to experience. Aside, funny how a religious mutilation focuses on the genitals, just what is it with religion and sex?

1266. T. rex tissue shows they are related to chickens

Comment #31781 by phasmagigas on April 14, 2007 at 8:52 am

here a BBC link looking at ken hams creation museum, luckily the reporting doesnt come across as being to enamoured of kens beliefs:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6549595.stm

1267. As Religious Strife Grows, Europe's Atheists Seize Pulpit

Comment #31777 by phasmagigas on April 14, 2007 at 7:49 am

In the UK sunday church attendance is a very quite and lowly affair with an older age group in the main and few young men. The pre prayer gathering of people attending mosques is a very different matter. In 'feel' it has far more in common with people gathering for a football match and consists of many young men. What happens in a church and a mosque is not equivalent. The mosque attendance seems to be more than god, more an affirmation of belonging to a group and not belonging to another. I can say this with some authority as I was brought up within a highly Islamic community and aside from ecomomic transaction the communities are unfortunately very separate, religion plays some part in this.

1268. T. rex tissue shows they are related to chickens

Comment #31464 by phasmagigas on April 12, 2007 at 8:15 pm

heres a quote from a creationist website (i opened it thinking it was a valid site as it was discussing the fossil material):

quote 'Soft tissue, blood vessels, and blood cells found inside Tyrannosaurus Rex leg bone! It is not millions of years old, probably not even thousands. Dinosaurs lived with man, and were on the ark, just as the Bible indicates' unquote

how many fallicies there? Strange that creationists didnt consider all the other evidence showing that the fossil isnt 6000 years old first, well what else would you expect. Its interesting that we all, creationists and evolutionists think 'wow, incredible, soft tissue' as our preconceptions bias our expectations (ie that fossils are (mainly)all mineral replacements).

1269. The Coulter Hoax: How Ann Coulter Exposed the Intelligent Design Movement

Comment #31027 by phasmagigas on April 10, 2007 at 5:14 pm

the antievolution parody that is so easy to play probably isnt a good thing as its not really honest but does prove a good point. You can easily pretend to be a creationist and get pats on the back but to be a fake evolutionist takes a bit more thought, and if indeed you can actually explain evolution theres a good chance you will accept it anyway!!(when a creationist brings up evo and challenges it i first play dumb and then ask them 'so what do you mean by evolution?' and lo and behold the VAST majority dont have a clue, but of course that would be like me expecting the average person to explain some highschool stuff like the haber process and rates of reaction, funny how most people are 'experts' in evolutionary science enough to be able to dismiss it but struggle to understand food nutrition information labels for eg.

I recenty posted on youtube (silly me) a sarcastic remark (justifiable in this case) about design, I got a nasty aggressive reply which I felt was interesting as had I said the exact same thing as a creationist and non sarcastically the insulter would probably have felt my words quite reasonable.

1270. Answers To the Atheists

Comment #30656 by phasmagigas on April 9, 2007 at 8:12 am

Taking a step back from all the discussion and details i just thank 'god' that i was born in a country and time when you can believe/or not believe what you want without too much reprehension.

Can you honestly imagine knowing that the slightest admission to friends and family could after a stream of leaks have you subject to death threats. I imagine it is within a religious regime that this most commonly happens.

Its dreadful to think that the desire for such a regime is quite common in the USA and Europe, the proponents of such regimes doing so only to elevate their own status and reaffirm their beliefs, amazingly (but of course unsuprisingly) a purely selfish motive.

Some might argue that atheists would desire an equivalent regime without religion, im not sure that is ever the case, I feel any person can have their religion but it should not be immune to criticism or debate or given any special status especially with respect to its supposed monopoly on truth.

1271. Answers To the Atheists

Comment #30469 by phasmagigas on April 8, 2007 at 6:21 am

re: fundamentalist/dogmatic to describe some atheists.
whatever the definitions of those words are im not sure its fair to use them upon the atheist stance. It would be like a cancer specialist getting a bit hot and bothered that nobody was listening to his/her suggestions for treating patient X despite his/her expertise and evidence that the sugestions will most likely work in the face of a 'bones in the bag shook over the head' type cure. Now you could say the specialist is a fundamentalist in that case but it wouldnt make his/her suggestions any less reasonable. and indeed if the specialist backed down and said ok 'im not going to be dogmatic about this, lets try the bones in the bag then' the specialist would of course be crushed by every section of society for anynumber or charges.

Theists tend towards being specialist cherry pickers, they cherry pick scripture, they cherry pick science.

1272. Militant atheists: too clever for their own good

Comment #30332 by phasmagigas on April 7, 2007 at 4:31 pm

re the pseudonym comments. I use my real name (just the first!)for a few forums where the common interest is benign (eg if you were a member of a model aircraft flying forum). On forums where more contentious issues are involved I prefer to remain anonymous, I cant rationalise this, maybe im just a coward but as im not in the public spotlight I feel that theres no reason to reveal my identity. And re Richards comments on the less inhibited posts, I agree that there is no room for bad language, call me old fashioned but a lot of respect is earned at keeping the convesation polite even when it shouldnt be. I made the mistake of engaging posts on youtube and have found myself subject to all manner of abuse, i supsect many of you have been there (for a few weeks) and then finally clicked away for good.

1273. The Most Hated Family in America

Comment #29772 by phasmagigas on April 4, 2007 at 3:40 pm

I notice that Phelps himself has nothing worthwhile to say, but how could he. He seems very caught up in his own importance, I guess a strong inferiority complex plays a role in his requirement to maintain his prominent position in his little empire. I also notice that there is very little content to the churches discourse. It goes something like this: we read the scriptures, god hates gays, we go to heaven, you go to hell. Repeat ad nauseam.

hopefully a very extreme group like this will allow more moderate extremists to question just what they believe to true and what isnt. I must admit to finding some of the segments amusing such as when Shirley is making fun of the guy in the car who 'dont agree with the lifestyle but...' (if i quote that correctly), i think she hurt his pride a bit and he probably spent the rest of the day with a stiff upper lip and being extra macho.