101. Documents detail church coverup

Comment #121193 by Adam Morrison on February 3, 2008 at 4:54 am

Maybe if enough lawsuits are successful most of the diocese and various religious groups will have to outright file bankruptcy and disemble. The clergy is notoriously greedy, so hit them where it hurts: The pocket.

As much as I'd prefer churches closing or clergy disassembling due to an increase in rational thought, I'd take a closure due to bankruptcy as a win :D

102. There Are No Ghosts in Your Brain

Comment #120704 by Adam Morrison on February 2, 2008 at 11:01 am

This lecture is fantastic. I didn't know synapse activity could be used to trigger changes in gene transcription O_o!!! This is awesome!

I loved how PZ came right out and said 'We don't know' at the start. That's the difference between a scientist and a ID/Poofist. They never say 'We don't know', it's 'God caused it'.

Silly poofists, tricks are for kids.

103. Are Darwin's Theories Fact or Faith Issues?

Comment #120324 by Adam Morrison on February 1, 2008 at 1:12 pm

"Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute"

That pretty much sums up his integrity as a scientist. I wonder if he's also got a degree in 'Pixie Studies' or maybe he's a 'Genieologist'.

UGGGHHHHH!!!
PZ comes across a little rude at first, but it's certainly justified. Though I think the poofist listeners probably jumped to the 'arrogant evolutionist' assumption right away.

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

Comment #119907 by Adam Morrison on February 1, 2008 at 2:19 am

Re: 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.

105. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #119906 by Adam Morrison on February 1, 2008 at 2:17 am

Steve, That was fantastic.

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

Comment #118975 by Adam Morrison on January 31, 2008 at 8:28 am

Re: Rod the Farmer

Today I will CALL my member of parliament (Canada) who I met personally this past summer, to express my concern... If the opposition party can raise this question in the House of Commons, it may get some play in the media .

107. Secrets of bird flight revealed

Comment #118809 by Adam Morrison on January 31, 2008 at 2:43 am

*reads article*
...
*looks at steep hill on his walk to campus*
......
*looks at bird-man outfit from two Halloweens ago*
........
*thinks*
.........
*gets to campus just a little faster*
'ca-CAWWWWWW'

Fantastic artilce

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

Comment #118806 by Adam Morrison on January 31, 2008 at 2:31 am

Petition signed, email sent to the Canadian Prime minister. If I'm lucky it might even make it past his staff and to him
(but I'm not holding my breath :)

109. The Repeater

Comment #118278 by Adam Morrison on January 30, 2008 at 2:41 pm

I know it is sad, but I feel it is deserved. I have to agree with those who consider him a great writer, but a poor biologist.

110. What should a scientist think about religion?

Comment #118272 by Adam Morrison on January 30, 2008 at 2:29 pm

Hear! Hear!

Fantastic bit of text!
I have my trowel sharpened for the battle!....
uhh sharpened for digging sites, not actually FOR battle.

111. The Repeater

Comment #118261 by Adam Morrison on January 30, 2008 at 2:16 pm

Re: Steve Zara

if an idea was championed by Gould, it is probably going to turn out to be wrong

112. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #118021 by Adam Morrison on January 30, 2008 at 8:37 am

That British MP was midly terrible. Reminds me of the terrible MP I had when I lived in Canada.

Re Maton100:
I never read 'christard' before. That's quite funny.

Re: Communist
While I agree with you that Greek democracy is generally overstated and oversimplified, I don't know that it was 'Christianity' per se that can be credited with the creation of modern liberal societies. Certainly they contained mostly christians upon their creation, but for some 1500 years (if we start with Constantine) Christianity was fine to opress, mutilate, indoctrinate and terrorize its populace. I would argue that philosophy holds greater influence on the birth of secular societies. Though one could argue problems with that as well.

If you believe that christianity is the most progressive religion you should might want to look at Jainism or maybe non-fundamental Zoroastrianism. Jainism is an especially apt example of a pre-christian religion that was much kinder and more open minded that still exists today.

Though, like all religions, they have some crazy beleifs too!

113. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #117760 by Adam Morrison on January 29, 2008 at 2:41 pm

Sorry to double post, but I realized it wasn't the WHO but the NIH. My bad, BBC news has a short article on it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6176209.stm

Re: irate_atheist (part 2).

Oh just got it! The WHO are before my time so I had to look up the name..... very clever... (hides face in shame)

114. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #117757 by Adam Morrison on January 29, 2008 at 2:36 pm

Re: al-rawandi

Hmmm.... but if you're that drunk can you even get it up :P

Re: irate_atheist

Hmmm..... I'm not quite sure I follow...... but don't get me wrong, I'm not pro-snip, but it's not quite as simple as 'It's 100% mutilation all the time'. Granted it's mutilation MOST of the time.

Of course female circumcision is just screwed up (well sown usually)

115. Dawkins is third most prolific internet Briton

Comment #117754 by Adam Morrison on January 29, 2008 at 2:30 pm

Congrats to the professor, but I don't think this list is trustworthy.

John Cleese #37!?!? That's Britain's greatest export.

And now for something completely different.

116. Belief in Belief

Comment #117750 by Adam Morrison on January 29, 2008 at 2:26 pm

In a somewhat related note, I just watched Hitchen's debate with D'Sousa at king's college and have to say that D'Sousa is both simple and outright rude. I was pretty disgusted by the way he behaved in the debate and his lack of anything regarding understanding of scientific methodology. At least someone like Sharpton wasn't a total ass in the debate.

117. Belief in Belief

Comment #117542 by Adam Morrison on January 29, 2008 at 4:41 am

Emancipation.

Hitchen's use of the word in this speech is especially apt. Imagine the acceleration in humanity's growth were we to free ourselves, not from morality, philosophy or ethics, but the systematized and dogmatic oppression of irrational belief systems. This can apply to non-religious dogmatic beliefs such as facism or fasco-communism, but, and the but is exceptionally important, throughout the recorded history of humanity the primary perpetrator of systematic devaluing of human existence has been primarily due to organized religion.

Were we no longer saddled with iron age doctrine cheapening our terrestrial existence, a vast wealth of humanity, who once spent their time converting the unconverted, butchering their neighbours and abusing their children could have used their zealous energy in the construction of a world where humanity genuinely sought to end human suffering, oppression and misery.

Imagine the advances in medicine, physics, palaeontology and a host of other disciplines had individuals not had to avoid those subjects for fear of religious persecution. Instead of living the self-examined and bettered life, most of our species have sought to inflict suffering through continuation of abhorrent belief systems and the search for heresy in one's neighbours.

The emancipation from religion has the potential to do for morality, philosophy and science what the suffragette movement has done for women's rights. Our inclusion of women into society as equals, into the workforce, into the public and private spheres and into cognitive discourse has tremendously enriched our society and been a factor in moving our species towards a more benevolent future. Should we do the same for homo sapiens as a whole by denouncing dogmatic belief, especially in the case of religion, we could earnestly begin the creation of a humanity striving for the peak of its potential.


(Or that's what I think!)

118. Creation college seeks state's OK to train teachers

Comment #117154 by Adam Morrison on January 28, 2008 at 10:37 am

DING DING!!!

Here comes the stupid train on its way to teach your children.

Mind the the gap please.
(By gap I mean the giant gap in trying to explain biblical creationism in the context of scientific geology. Not to mention physics, archaeology, and biology)

119. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #117140 by Adam Morrison on January 28, 2008 at 10:27 am

Re: Again, I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago.


You sir, get a tip of the hat!

Regarding the reduced infection rates, IIRC the HIV/AIDS transmission reduction is supported by the WHO, and I'll trust that they looked into it first.

But it's true that non-STD infection reduction could be exaggerated, I don't know for certain.

120. Banks are helping sharia make a back-door entrance

Comment #117018 by Adam Morrison on January 28, 2008 at 4:59 am

I thought it was great when we didn't legalize sharia law. Taht being said, if Muslims in Canada want a 'Sharia' account, as long as it follows Canadian Law and doesn't include any religious overtures against Canadian common law, let 'em.

But I have to wonder how the rights of wives vs. husbands are played in these shariah accouhnts.

121. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #117016 by Adam Morrison on January 28, 2008 at 4:51 am

The father who is trying to have his son circumsised needs a smack in the head.

For the record, there are medical benefits to having a circumsion. Lower risk of infections and irritation of the penis and lower risk of female to male transmission of HIV/AIDS (though it is still not 100% of course).

I have a friend whose child got some penile infection and the doctors had to circumsize him at 6 years old. He wasn't scared and didn't really freak out or undergo post-traumatic personality change.

That being said, I don't know how I feel about the matter fully. I was circumsized (twice actually... eeeep) as a baby, and am somewhat glad for the greatly reduced infection risks (not the STDs, obviously one should use a condom for that), but don't know if I'd have my kids circumsised. It's a gray issue.

But this guy is an ass. At the kid's age there isn't any reason to do it as I'm sure he's not going to start getting penile infections all the time. The dad's an ass

122. Loneliness Breeds Belief in Supernatural

Comment #117014 by Adam Morrison on January 28, 2008 at 4:42 am

This doesn't really surprise me. It's along the lines of kids making imaginary friends when they don't have someone to play with.

That being said, I'm not crazy about this particular study. There's too much room for other variables and using 'Major League' as a control is pretty wishy-washy science. But then again I'm not very pro-psychology as I think a lot of it is fairly inconclusive.

This from an anthropologist ;D

123. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #111501 by Adam Morrison on January 14, 2008 at 8:31 pm

Best Wishes on your upcoming operation and thank your for your contributions to funding the RDFRS.

I hope you know that to many young people such as myself your military contributions are not forgotten and are still held in the highest regard and it is because of men like you, who not only fight for what they believe in, but are committed to rationality and clear thinking, that my generation has not had to suffer through warfare.

124. What have you changed your mind about? Why?

Comment #108007 by Adam Morrison on January 5, 2008 at 8:12 pm

Thought I'd post my 'changed mind' story:

I was completing the last year of my Undergraduate (Combined Hon. Classics and Anthropology if anyone cares :D ) when the news reports and publications about Homo floresiensis were . While my main research area was Archaeology, I have a strong interest in Physical Anthropology, especially Evolutionary Anthr. so I was following the reports closely, even outside of the Hominid evolution class I was taking. I was fascinated by the new discovery and as soon as I heard about it and got the news reports (prior to the academic publications) I went to my Evolution Professor's room to discuss it.

I was adamant that it should be classified under the genus Australopithecus due to its disproportionally small brain size in relation to it's height and projected mass. To put this into context, it's brain would be smaller than Lucy's, had they been the same height. I was convinced that this alone pulled it out of the genus Homo .

Shortly after the publication Nature came out with the official reports. I decided to write a critical analysis of the current data for my term paper. I read information on the physical anatomy of the new species. I tried to look at body size, dentition analysis, carrying angle of the femur, pelvic alignment, endocast data from the cranium and anything else that would determine it's place in the Scala Natura (Though there were difficulties in applying a lot of these methods as there was still very limited analysis of the skeleton at this point.)

While researching the specimens I had to come to the conclusion that the 'hobbit people' of Flores were indeed members of the genus Homo. Given the other evidence I had to concede that my initial 'small brain, not human' response was invalid given the physiology of the specimens. I completely changed my mind on the classification.

The reason I wanted to share this on this site was I think it's a good example of how the rational mind chooses to critically examine the evidence and consider the issue at hand and come to their own conclusion. Even if I was only an undergraduate, I still followed the scientific process to reach my conclusion. It wasn't a simple obedience to the authors who TOLD me it was genus Homo, it was my rational thought processes and questioning. I look at it as the same process that made me establish my atheism at a young age. What matters isn't that I came up with the same conclusion as what I was initially told, but how I reached that conclusion.

This is my problem with the theistic community. They try to discourage critical analysis and push logical fallacies and sophistic arguments to convince people to follow their dogmatism. There is no critical analysis of the evidence or rational discussion.

Sorry if I've put anyone to sleep with this hastily (and probably poorly) written account. I did attempt to keep it brief, I swear. I just think it's a good story of how critical thinking is beneficial even for a young man not even finished his undergraduate.

Oh and BTW, HELLO to the people on the RD web page (as I rudely did not introduce myself initially)

125. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107797 by Adam Morrison on January 5, 2008 at 11:29 am

I feel that this isn't gonna die very easily....

126. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107787 by Adam Morrison on January 5, 2008 at 10:42 am

Quite a good video. I thought Sam started off a little shakey, but he quickly got into the groove and made excellent arguments. The Rabbi was quite good compared to most theists, but he still fell on the old tricks of using false information (atheist Hitler, no good secular societies, etc) and spouting unproven information on how religious people are happier, more fulfilled, etc.

Quite frankly there have been studies that say religious people are happier, others say less happy, less fulfilled. In short, neither side can prove lack of belief or belief is guaranteed personal fulfillment.

However, as Sam said, no one has ever commited attrocities in the name of 'demanding more evidence'. :D

Yay for Sam. Champion of young Atheists
...
and YAY FOR CHEERLEADERS ;)

127. Richard Dawkins on 'Have Your Say'

Comment #105528 by Adam Morrison on December 31, 2007 at 9:51 pm

I was especially disgusted by the priest who thought it was acceptable to lie on television. Nice to see that some Roman Catholic clerics haven't lost the old touch.

I am continually dismayed by individuals which, like many who wrote or telephoned the program, call in with an accusation or question and blatantly ignore or evade a response that they do not find to their liking.

I did enjoy the discourse between RD and the RE teacher, demonstrating that there exists people of religion who are at least sane. Hopefully they'll become a stronger presence in the future. Even if they don't stop the idiotic simpletons, at least they won't have me wanting to tear my hair out.