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Comments by epeeist


1401. The Pagan Christ

Comment #120166 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 9:59 am

Comment #119575 by Steve Zara

I've suggested that the burden of proof should be on you since my belief is the incumbent so to speak and you are wanting to effect a change.
Belief in a God can be positively harmful. Therefore you don't just have the scientific burden of proof, you have an ethical burden - to show that your harmful belief at least has the merit of being true.

Steve has it right. You haven't established your god exists, all you are doing is committing an ad populum fallacy.

The Greeks had a goddess called Selene, a Titan who embodied the moon. Lots of Greeks obviously believed in her, but it doesn't mean she existed. She obviously fell out of favour and was replaced by Artemis and Diana, so much for belief.

1402. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #120144 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 9:42 am

Comment #120139 by al-rawandi

Anna, Grammar Nazi! LOL
Typical al-rawandi comment. Eats, shoots, and leaves (note the Oxford comma).

1403. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #120120 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 9:22 am

michat - another bowl of petunias moment :-( I have started a thread on amazon.com with regard to this thread, pointing out the astroturfing that is taking place.

1404. Hitchens V. Boteach

Comment #120114 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 9:17 am

Comment #120103 by Fanusi Khiyal

That is, that Galloway provably took money from Saddam, from the Oil-for-food program, in exchange for defending Saddam.

For which accusation he was investigated both by the police and the parliamentary committee on standards and privileges. Their report is at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmstnprv/909/90902.htm

Now personally I think Galloway is a loathsome creep, but I think the report from parliament holds more weight than your post.

1405. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120019 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 5:53 am

Comment #120011 by MPhil

I think the cases of Pi and rotation are very good indeed - I might have to revise my position. But I'm not entirely convinced. I don't see where Pi represents a quantity of things that are not conceptual constructs (units of measurement).

My problem is the mathematics I used to have is tucked away in backup storage and the software to restore it isn't that good.

Are you aware of a concept called "Lebesgue measure" (www.math.unl.edu/~gmeisters1/papers/Measure/measure.pdf ). It defines something rather more abstract than your idea of measure. I actually wonder whether you are talking about countability, rather than measure.

On the matter of truth - Tarski semantics is very interesting, but is "only" about language.

Interesting Popper actually thought that Tarski was offering a correspondence theory of truth

Yes, it seems the theists also employ a correspondence theory as default

I don't know whether you misread me, but I actually said "coherence"

1406. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120004 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 4:49 am

Comment #119992 by MPhil

I'd say that's right. But not all numbers represent something real (quantitiy). Only positive integers do.

I am going to disagree with you here, there are certainly non-integer numbers that do represent quantity and other real things. Pi is an obvious example, the square root of -1 is another in that it represents a physical rotation. Kronecker was wrong...

I would probably disagree with you to a certain extent on the separability of logic and mathematics. I am not convinced that there is complete separability, especially if you allow deviant logics.

On a totally different tack - you have talked about truth in one or two of your posts and truth-apt sentences. Given my background the theory of truth I tend to find most congenial is Tarski's semantic theory. From what I have seen of theists they seem to use a coherence theory of truth. Your knowledge and experience of logic is deeper than mine, what do you mean by truth?

And yet one more aside, this message was brought to you using the paragraph "p" tag.

1407. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119940 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 3:25 am

Comment #119934 by BAEOZ

The thing is, I suck at critique, so whilst I may vehemently disagree with vox virus, will I be able to express it coherently?
Can I point you at this site that I have just come across - http://www.austhink.com/critical/

1408. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119936 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 3:23 am

Comment #119929 by Peacebeuponme

I only joined late, and saw Karda confess to hearing voices. I think that makes him game.

A naive hunter walking through the woods comes across a young lady posing in an alluring fashion. "Are you game?" he says. "Oh yes," she replies. So he shot her.

Sorry, but it is Friday. Yes, I agree with you on this.

Comment #119931 by BAEOZ
Oh great, you all get to talk about BTA's ostentation.

You didn't miss much, brain the size of a small peanut.

1409. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #119913 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 2:32 am

Comment #119910 by LorienRyan

can a child who has no concept of god be dubbed an atheist if an atheist is the negative of a theist conceptually?
But atheist is not the "negative" of theist. Converse or opposite would be better descriptions.

1410. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119912 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 2:29 am

Comment #119907 by Adam Morrison

epeeist I agree, but I'm fairly certain that the Afghan gov't (and Islamic gov'ts in general) do not want the population educated to what the rest of the world is like.
Agreed, and I am sure that a goodly proportion of any donated laptops would be confiscated or smashed by the clergy. However, if 25% survive and are used then you have a large wedge in liberating the next generation.

1411. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119909 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 2:23 am

Comment #119905 by Steve Zara

I do suggest we ignore it. It is a sales technique, nothing more.

Agreed, he sent his astroturfers over here to generate quotations for his site, this is just another ploy. To paraphrase RD, it would look better on VD's CV than anyone's from this site.

Could I say that I am somewhat sorry the way that Karda was treated, I am sure if he had come here on his own then the responses to his posts would have been somewhat different. I suspect it was the fact that he arrived with a whole parcel of buffoons that got him tarred with the same brush as them

1412. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119900 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 1:44 am

Comment #119896 by Becomethearrow

Oh yeah delete my comments, cowards.

If you look you can see they have merely been moved to the alternate comment thread. They haven't been removed from the site or censored.

1413. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #119898 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 1:26 am

Comment #119895 by Artful_Dodger

There is no such thing as an "atheist child"
Of course there can be such a thing as an "atheist child", if you don't teach a child about gods it will be the natural position.

1414. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119886 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 1:03 am

Comment #119878 by AtheistAspy

epeeist: Why are you responding to this turd? Just report him to administration.

To be honest all the attacks are just water off a duck's back. The guy (though I still think he might be a program) hasn't enough acumen to land a telling punch. The only time he managed to raise my ire to the extent of me marking his post as offensive is when he made a loathsomely sexist remark to a woman the same age as one of my daughters.

One of the great coaches I have worked with, Zbigniew Czajkowski, talks about two extreme kinds of fencer (it probably applies to all combat sports), warriors and technicians. The warrior tends to win initially, relying on speed and fitness to overcome their lack of technique. However, they are eventually overtaken by the technicians, who use tactics and intelligence. Some people never grow out of the warrior phase...

1415. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119877 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 12:29 am

There is a claim that the Internet sees any attempts to block it as damage and attempts to route around it (an analogy to the underlying protocols).

Perhaps another alternative would be to attempt to route around the barbarities promulgated by the religionists, something that is mooted upon keeping the general population ignorant.

To this end I wonder whether some of the aid money should be diverted into providing an OLPC laptop to each child in the country (http://laptopfoundation.org/). Start educating the children, show them what the outside world looks like.

1416. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119869 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 12:03 am

Comment #119865 by Becomethearrow

peeist You remind me of the teachers pet, bringing the apple. You marked my post as offensive like a good little brown shirt.
I marked your post as offensive because it was offensive.
Now do you want to take that excuse for a penis replacement off of your avatar.

1417. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119868 by epeeist on February 1, 2008 at 12:00 am

Comment #119866 by Kardashovel

In the mean time, tell me if you think it might be inappropriate to be making judegements of my sanity based on some blog posts... Schitzophrenic? Really? Oh dear. You probably have cannot prove that assetion, can you?

No, and it isn't an assertion I would make on the basis of a few blog posts.

However - you claim to speak to god and he responds in your voice (if I have got your post correct, I am not going to trawl back through 20 odd pages of posts to verify it).

If you met someone who claimed to speak to the pharaoh Akhnaten who responded in that person's voice then wouldn't you be somewhat doubtful?

Why should the claim to speak to god be treated with any more deference?

1418. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119858 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 11:36 pm

Comment #119826 by LorienRyan

after you finished wiping you could've saved the tp for a foreword in your book.
Reasonable call, Becomethearrow certainly could be VD. Personally though I think it is a programme, a poor copy of Eliza. Even if it is human it definitely fails the Turing test.

1419. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119380 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 2:45 pm

Comment #119373 by Goldy

being of Penistone descent (near Barnsley), I (or should that read Ah) know.
Ah, the people's republic of South Yorkshire ;-)

I come from Castleford originally, though my wife is from Worsbourough.

1420. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119370 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 2:36 pm

Comment #119290 by Goldy


In some languages, it is considered impolite to use the familiar "you" when adressing others.
It is in Yorkshire - Don't thee thou me, thee thou the'sen and see how thee likes it.

1421. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119360 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 2:21 pm

Comment #119215 by Becomethearrow

[sarcasm]Ah yes, I love intelligent refutations of my arguments. It's so refreshing to see a theist who knows how to debate so prolifically.[/sarcasm]

You love it, admit it.
Not that I don't think Anna can't take care of herself, but I have marked this as "offensive".

1422. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119121 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 10:34 am

Ninth circle of hell:

  1. Caina: Traitors to Kin. These are immersed in the ice with head down.
  2. Antenora: Traitors to Homeland. Dante sees one who keeps biting on another's head.
  3. Ptolomea: Traitors to Guests. They are head up in the ice, which is freezing their eyes.
  4. Giudecca: Traitors to Benefactors. These sinners are completely immersed into the ice.

The ice of the 9th circled is kept frozen by Lucifer's six flapping wings. Lucifer has three faces, with three mouths, each chewing on a sinner: Judas is in the middle mouth with his head inside, Brutus and Cassius are in the side mouths, with their heads hanging out.

1423. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119097 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 10:13 am

Comment #119055 by al-rawandi


Most of my closest friends will be in that lowest part of Dante's Inferno. I have to catch up or I will be lonely. I will pack for warm weather.
The lowest part of Dante's hell, and you are packing for warm weather?

1424. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119025 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 9:20 am

It is their country, so their laws apply.

However, the rulers should be reminded of the amount of effort and funding that is going on. If they still insist on their medieval laws then we should withdraw and let them sink back to a medieval society. No imports, no exports, no travel in or out.

1425. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119017 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 9:11 am

Comment #119003 by Kardashovel


Yes, well once you learn how to travel through time you will be able to do all of your preparatory work at any time of your choosing, including after the event.
Don't be so obtuse. You know exactly the point I was making. Responding with something that is totally irrelevant doesn't advance your argument at all.

1426. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119009 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 9:04 am

Comment #119002 by Becomethearrow


I was going to ask you the same question, what is your purpose?
Ooh look, its a crap copy of the Eliza program.

1427. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119000 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 8:59 am

Comment #118994 by al-rawandi


It must be a Vox Day thing.
Does he have a sister called Agnes?

Oh, and I don't think you can call these people trolls. Astroturfers yes, one sandwich short of a picnic yes, but not trolls.

1428. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118997 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 8:57 am

Comment #118992 by al-rawandi


You are a patient man.

http://marauder.millersville.edu/~fencing/blog/2006/03/second-intention-remarks.html

1429. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118987 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 8:44 am

Comment #118984 by Becomethearrow


good morning
Well, it is mid afternoon here but never mind.

Could I ask a question? What is your purpose in coming to this site and posting comments?

1430. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118982 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 8:37 am

Comment #118955 by Kardashovel


The question is, how does god know he wasn't created last Wednesday?

Because He knows "when" he did it.

I have a picture on my wall of myself at the World Cadet championships in Linz in 2005. I know I was there, and I know I did all the preparatory work with my pupil to get him there.

1431. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118948 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 7:55 am

Comment #118943 by Kardashovel


:) If I am to believe in God, the root of all causes, then it would be weak to avoid the question of the cause of God.

A while ago someone raised the idea of "Last Thursdayism" on this site. Not something that I had heard of before, so I went and looked it up.

Now, if everything was created last Thursday, we are mistaken on our science, history, personal experience, in fact just about everything.

The question is, how does god know he wasn't created last Wednesday?

1432. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #118924 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 7:06 am

Comment #118907 by notsobad

Emancipation of women is the only humane and effective way to stop overpopulation and in the end improve lives of people in the third world.
Well, I wouldn't say only but I am in substantial agreement with you.

The only problem is that there are fscking idiots out there who see this as some kind of symbolic castration.

1433. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118920 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 6:58 am

Comment #118918 by annabanana

Do you have any books that you would recommend that I read?
Well, I am not Steve but Brian Greene's books are a good start.

1434. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #118905 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 6:39 am

Comment #118901 by Opisthokont


The first is the crime: blasphemy simply should not have legal consequences

I am not sure how to read what you are saying here. Personally, I don't think there should be a crime of blasphemy at all.

In fact, I am not convinced that blasphemy should even exist as a concept.

1435. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118874 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 5:27 am

Comment #118865 by Tyler Durden


This is an argument by...?
A whole stack of things, anecdotal evidence, appeal to numbers, appeal to popularity, irrelevant conclusion.

1436. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118834 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 3:48 am

Comment #118792 by LorienRyan


Kardashovel - "For my part, I cannot resist making theories to explain such a bizarre and exceedingly unlikely occurrence such as our universe."

You can make up as many theories as you like - does any actual evidence support them?

Which is why he isn't actually making up theories. What he is propounding are conjectures. What he now needs to do is look at how he is going to test these conjectures.

1437. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118754 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 11:38 pm

Comment #118269 by al-rawandi


Fucking mormons. It is hard swiping at them with a sword while they whisk about on their little bicycles. You really have to wait in a bush and surprise them.

Second intention is the way to go. Let them think you are doing something else entirely and get them reacting to that.

Then slice them.

1438. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118213 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 1:34 pm

Comment #118203 by Pretty Lady


Weak at best, and in this particular case feeble.

Why? How?

If you are going to argue from analogy then you should at least attempt to make your example and analogy reasonably similar.

And even if they are similar then at best you can only give a probable conclusion since the method depends on induction. The less similar your analogy to the original argument the weaker your argument and the lower its probability.

As Cartomancer pointed out, you have a fairly simple example and, as I added, a fractal generator has a fairly low Kolmogorov complexity anyway.

1439. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118195 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 1:11 pm

Comment #118185 by Pretty Lady


For dear Richard postulates that a designer necessarily be more complex than the designed, which is demonstrably untrue when we consider the fact that a system of nearly infinite complexity, such as a fractal, may be generated from a formula so simple as to be readily comprehensible, even to the likes of moi.

Cartomancer beat me to it.

However, argument by analogy, is that the best you have got? Weak at best, and in this particular case feeble.

Oh, and the Kolmogorov complexity of a generator of a fractal set is much less than the fractal set itself.

1440. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118145 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 12:05 pm

Comment #118007 by nordicthunder

I have read both, TIA is better written and logically unassailable.
If he can't make an interview "logically unassailable" then what chance has he got in a book? Lots of assertions, ad hominem attacks, misquotations, straw men. In short a whole stack of informal fallacies.

1441. Atheism and Violence

Comment #118132 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 11:45 am

Comment #118092 by al-rawandi


I read Genealogy of Morals.

Can you give me some of Nietzsche's theories on religion.
Could I ask for a reference for a good book on Nietzsche's philosophy. At a slightly higher level than "Nietzsche for Dummies".

1442. MySpace: No place for Atheists?

Comment #118127 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 11:37 am

I have submitted a summary to Slashdot. They don't often publish my submissions but we can only hope.

Not sure even MySpace could stand up to the Slashdot effect.

1443. A Letter From Hell

Comment #118004 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 7:46 am

Comment #117710 by Goldy


Husband – doesn't that mean house owner (hus bond)? My wife will also be a husband soon – we're going into this new house together with pooled money.
Hmm, I tend to be the lady in our household since I am the only one who can cope with our Rayburn cooker (mini-Aga) and bake bread. From the Anglo-Saxon hlæfdige

1444. Death Sentence for Afghan Student

Comment #117951 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 3:50 am

There is a small update here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7216976.stm

Not just the courts, but the parliament want him dead.

1445. A Letter From Hell

Comment #117604 by epeeist on January 29, 2008 at 8:13 am

Comment #117590 by Steve Zara


And, as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form, as the trees and hills, and as our faces are.

I am afraid I got a sinking feeling.

I thought you might have come across design patterns from the Gang of Four (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns) book. This is extremely good.

As for Christopher Alexander, also good. I am currently doing some extensive changes to my house (a 1750's toll cottage) and his book provides a lot of well thought out ideas.

Oh, might as well post something on topic - I actually don't really care whether onan369 exists or not. However, he might want to go and read some Husserl or the existentialist psychologists like Maslow or Merleau-Ponty.

1446. A Letter From Hell

Comment #117582 by epeeist on January 29, 2008 at 6:43 am

Comment #117573 by Steve Zara

(although I have to resist not being gentle when someone tries to talk to me seriously about Feng Shui), but in my view New Age ideas are even worse intellectually.

So what's your view on Christopher Alexander and Design Patterns (architecture, not software engineering)?

1447. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #117527 by epeeist on January 29, 2008 at 3:52 am

Comment #117524 by hungarianelephant


It doesn't take any great intellectual rigour to be an atheist. You just have to not believe in something for which there isn't a shred of credible evidence. It's easy.

I can see where Spinoza is coming from. The above is fine, until you are challenged to defend your position. With more atheists this has a higher chance of being asymmetric, i.e. a knowledgeable theist against someone who just doesn't believe.

However, at the moment we have the opposite situation in that the majority of believers haven't really thought out their beliefs.

At this site we rarely see anyone who is unconsciously atheist or theist and apart from a few exceptions (revcort for instance) we even more rarely see someone who hasn't thought out their position and hasn't got the acumen to defend it. As a result we are to some extent blind to the more general population who haven't thought about this at all.

Thinking is hard work, which is why most people try to get others to do it for them.

1448. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #117525 by epeeist on January 29, 2008 at 3:42 am

Comment #117523 by liddlefeesh


I can hear the rhetoric now, "Dawkins said that it's better to sexually abuse a child than to take them to church", etc, etc, etc.
Yep - "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

1449. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #117520 by epeeist on January 29, 2008 at 3:01 am

Sitting next to my desk I have a little book Thinking from A to Z by Nigel Warburton. It is meant to be dipped into rather than read.

Occasionally I read through an article like the above and see what entries it matches in my book. This one commits so many formal and informal errors that I just gave up.

I liked the bit about Dennett committing errors in logic. I wonder if Vox Day realises that one of his teachers was Willard Quine?

1450. A Letter From Hell

Comment #117496 by epeeist on January 29, 2008 at 1:22 am

In order to save my blushes I am going to ignore most of the comments above and do a side swerve.

Nyman, Reich, Philip Glass, Avo Pert, John Taverner and the like do get dull very quickly. Anaemic, wishy-washy and directionless.

And Taverner can't even do religious music properly, compare Apokatástasis for 6 Tibetan bowls (http://www.emusic.com/samples/m3u/song/10901269/13846413.m3u) to the other John Taverner's (ca 1490 - 1545) In Nomine (http://www.theclassicalshop.net/mp3samples/SA/SAR02909T01D01.wma).

If you do want to listen to good, modern composers with a religious bent then try Messian, e.g. this from Quartet for the end of time http://www.emusic.com/samples/m3u/song/10870929/13472273.m3u or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VA8AP6/ref=dm_mu_dp_trk12 from Sept Haikai.

Wanders away in a curmudgeonly fashion.

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