1551. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144625 by Bonzai on March 16, 2008 at 12:59 pm

Its not a coincidence that people lose their religion when they learn properly about evolution, learn properly about the history of their church and the History of human societies and culture. When they learn about the brain.

Well education attainment in general (probably except theology) does correlate negatively with religiosity. It doesn't have to be a science education.

Now I don't think it is just learning facts such as evolution doing the trick,--though it is certainly important,-- education level in general also positively correlates with other factors that would undermine religiosity such as being urban middle class and a higher likihood of working in socially more liberal environment and so on.

Though I am not aware of any study, but I suspect that a highschool drop out in a major city is less likely to be religious than a highschool drop out in the rural area. "Aculturation" seems to be an important factor. "childhood indoctrination" is a part of acculturation but it is far from being all of it.

Across the globe societies that have more accessible education also tend to have better social safety nets, thus eliminating the role of churches as providers of services.

Education can be a proxy for a lot of things. That's why in social reseach sophisticated statistical techniques have to be used to untangle these relationships.

On the other hand, many creationists apparently are engineers.

1552. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144618 by Bonzai on March 16, 2008 at 12:42 pm

Goeff,

I think where we disagree is the proportion of those who are "born again" or whatever, as against those who are brought up with it.

Yes, I think you underestimate the proportion because the U.S. is primarily an exporter of make in the U.S.A born again Christianity so conversion from it within teh U.S. itself is probably less appreciable.

But if you look outside the head quarter of evangilism inc. a quite different pattern emerges.

Within one generation South Korea changed from a Buddhist country into a major centre of evangelicalism in Asia.

Another example is the massive conversion of Catholics to evanglical Christian sects in Latin America. These are not just minor changes with a few people converting here and there, they are big. Some Priests are saying that the Catholic Church is facing a crisis there. Since these are traditonally very strong Catholic countries the childhood indoctrination model certainly breaks down completely. Mind you for the outsider they may all be "Christians" but there are a lot of major doctrinal disagreements between the RC Church and the evangelicals.

Of course, it's difficult to quantify "how religious" someone is, but, to use a more global example, lifelong Muslims seem no less intense than recent converts, to me.

Well even within the same country, say Pakistan, the degree of religiosity differs drastically across regions and socio economical classes. I certainly think there is a big difference between Bhutto and the guys demonstrating for Mohammad cartoons. Muslims are not monolithic.

Also, even for the "life long believers", the intensity of religiosity may rise and fall, sometimes rather drastically depending on life's circumstances.

A model for religion is not very good if it doesn't take into account of degree of religiosity, for then "being religious" wouldn't be a particularly informative label.Though I am not a social scientist, but I do know that it is common sense in the social sciences not to attribute single cause to complex phenomena such as religion. That's why, to the extent that it is feasible, techniques such as multiple regression and path analysis are used to discovered the relative strength of various factors and how these factors may influence each other in some kind of complex loops. To attribute religion entirely to childhood upbringing (or any single cause for that matter) is a complete non starter.

1553. In Britain, creationist theory is evolving

Comment #144568 by Bonzai on March 16, 2008 at 10:51 am

JanChan,

I think they do worth debating at least in the school setting as the students in the audience might mistaken a refusal to answer as inability to answer.

1554. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144561 by Bonzai on March 16, 2008 at 10:37 am

Geoff

Take the recent PEW survey, for example; conversions & immigration don't materially affect the fact that non-christian religions are statistically negligible in the US.

But that was not my point regarding immigrants. Overall the (first generation)immigrant population is small so even if there is a 100% conversion it probably won't show up on the national wide survey for a large country like the U.S.

The point I made was that many people seek religion when they undergo big changes in their lives, go through times of uncertainty or find themselves in vulnerable situations where they need emotional supports, social network, friendship and reassurance. Immigration is a scenario where all these happen.

What actual data show, at least for my own community,--Chinese in Toronto,--is that this community is a lot more religious than the general Canadian population and the population from which they come,--primarily Hong Kong or mainland China. The data also show that many were non religious before they arrived, they were converted to Christianity afterwards. "Childhood indoctrination" is almost a non existent factor in these cases.

I think that answers the question why some people become religious much better than a national survey that gives you just a numerical break down of nominal beliefs.

While surveys in particular demographics rarely generalize in all their details, but I think the findings of my local Chinese community do provide some broad insights into why people embrace religion,

1555. Selling science to the masses

Comment #144536 by Bonzai on March 16, 2008 at 10:08 am

TCT,

Thanks for the link.

1556. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144531 by Bonzai on March 16, 2008 at 9:55 am

You downplay "looking at the numbers", but surely that's the most important fact? Take the recent PEW survey, for example; conversions & immigration don't materially affect the fact that non-christian religions are statistically negligible in the US.

You didn't address my point. Read the first paragraph. Childhood upbringing explains nominal religious affiliations,--which is all that the numbers show,-- but they don't explain the intensity of belief, which I think is not that strong if you simply go to Church on Sunday or do Friday prayers. The numbers don't explain why some people become very religious while others don't in spite of the same general cultural background and upbringing,

I said it is not germane to just look at numbers, not that it is not germane to look at numbers at all.Numbers have to be interpreted.

EDIT Christianity,--especially evangelism,-- is spreaded primarily by adult conversions in Asia and Africa where it is growing most rapidly, So I think you are very wrong in saying that this is only a small factor. I am talking about globally, not just the U.S,

1557. Selling science to the masses

Comment #144525 by Bonzai on March 16, 2008 at 9:38 am

We should grant the public at least a common sense grasp of methodological naturalism.

Apparently some U.S judge ruled that Bayesian arguments are not acceptable in court, I will try to find the reference.

1558. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144518 by Bonzai on March 16, 2008 at 9:20 am

Spinoza,

If we had been born in Constantinople, the most of us would have said: "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet." If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana."

If you grow up as a Muslim, you can probably identify with other Muslims who share your upbringing and language and probably know you since childhood more than say, a Zoroastrian. So if you need religion because of those human factors I described in my previous post you naturally would go for some version of Islam rather than, say Zoroastrianism.

I don't think it is very germane to just look at the numbers, As you told others on other threads many times, correlation is not the same as causation. Upbringing certain explains a lot (not completely, see below) about the particular religion one subscribes to, but it doesn't explain why he is religious in the first place. I will grant that it is a factor, obviously, but I have problem with saying that it is a main factor or the only factor. The "cultural" believers usually are pretty relax and are just nominal believers, not the seriously religious type. So are they really "indoctrinated" if they don't even particularly care what they were taught?

There are a lot of adult conversions because of the activities of missionaries for example. Why does the sales pitch of the preacher work? You can't explain that based on childhood indoctrinations.

I also wrote in another thread, many immigrants became religious after they emigrate. Again childhood indoctrinations fail to explain that.

1559. Selling science to the masses

Comment #144508 by Bonzai on March 16, 2008 at 9:06 am

T.H. Huxley wrote a really nice article called 'We are All Scientists' drawing out the routine use we all make every day of the same ways of thinking which characterise science. I would say that getting people to feel ownership of the scientific method, and to recognise the power that it has in their own lives, would be a positive step.

I don't know about that. Most people know the wonder of technology and many creationists are engineers,

I think it is a common mistake to think that science is just about gadgets (see point 1 above) but religion is about answering "big questions". It is not a bad thing to alert people to everyday science, it is worthy goal in itself, but I am not sure how that will persuade people to give up religion. The priest has no problem to go to a doctor or a computer service person who uses "naturalistic" means to fix his problems.

1560. Selling science to the masses

Comment #144494 by Bonzai on March 16, 2008 at 8:23 am

In Canada the public doesn't have the same hostility towards science that some posters describe in the Southern U.S., but their understanding is still quite distorted based on what I see in the media,--with the caveat the media image may be distorted. There are several things I notice in particular.

1.Very often science is confused with technology.
So there is this idea that science = gadgets.

2.science is "sold" primarily as a ticket to economical prosperity. The news tell us we need X number of graduates in science for a knowledge based economy, never mind the fact that the fastest growing sector is the low waged, low skill service sector.

This is a horribe idea. As they say you learn to hate what you have to do solely to get your pay cheque.

Children are sent the message at a very young age that science is just a good meal ticket with some bonus of playing with cool machines. If I were told that everyday I would be turned off from science too,

3. Science is often presented as some kind of gala tricks on a par with magic show, That kind of presentation doesn't necessarily enhance one's scientific understanding in a meaningful way.

4. Science is cold and boring. It is all about mechanically applying formulae and following procedures, it is only for a kind of particularly austere individuals,--nerds or geeks,-- who have neither imagination nor social skills. Many intelligent and educated people in the humanities have that impression.These intelligent people in the humanities who hate science may end up working for the media and influence public opinions with their negative stereotypes about science and scientists.I think the way science is taught in high schools probably contributes a lot to that impression.

A local newspaper once came up with a list of questions to test the readers' scientific literacy. Half of the questions were about who discovered what. They were not even science questions! The people who came up with the test themselves didn't know what science is.

I don't have a specific answer to what should be done to communicate science more effectively, but I think it would be misguided to present science as simply a collection of fun facts and neat tricks..It is a systematic world view. It is a set of methodology to understand the world. A guy who can rant off a long list of scientific facts in trivia pursuits does not necessarily have a very good knowledge of science. Facts are useless if you don't know what to make of them.

1561. Fleabytes

Comment #144473 by Bonzai on March 16, 2008 at 6:59 am

For atheist songs you should check out a punk band called "bad religion". The lead singer Greg Graffin
is actually an evolutionary biologist who teaches at UCLA. The music is so so IMO but the lyrics are nice, the acoustic version of some of the songs are good too..

Here is their theme song:

See my body, it's nothing to get hung about.
I'm nobody except genetic runaround.
Spiritual era's gone, it ain't comin' back.
Bad Religion, a copout, that is all that's left
Hey Mr. Mime, stop wasting my time,
With your factory precision.
Factory precision is your
Bad Religion, regurgitate
Indecision, it's not too late.
Bad Religion, Bad Religion.
Ay!
Don't you know the place you live's a piece of shit?
Don't you know blind faith through lies won't conquer it
Don't you know responsibility is ours?
I don't care a think about eternal fires.
Listen this time, it's more than a rhyme,
It's your indecision.
Your indecision is your
Bad Religion, regurgitate
Indecision, it's not too late.
Bad Religion, regurgitate
Indecision, it's not too late.
Bad Religion, Bad Religion,
Bad Religion.

1562. The business of natural selection

Comment #144389 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 10:54 pm

I don't know how effective this algorithm is but it seems reasonable that if given enough information about a macroscopic system and it's environment the future could be predicted with some measure of accuracy

Then how come we can't even make long term weather forecasts? Weather is quite simple comparing to the market.

Nonlinearity and chaos prevent any accurate prediction for individual trajectories,--say the fate of your company,--for a complex dynamical system.

1563. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144384 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 10:27 pm

Spinoza

Again, RD did reasonably well confronting our mortality, which of course makeS the faith-based sqirm

I am not so sure. I think he came across as a bit elitist and out of touch. How many of us will write books and music for posterity? What about people who don't have a wonderful, healthy and fulfilling life to celebrate? It is often, though not always, people who feel insecure, unloved, unfulfilled and inadequate that swell the rank and file of church goers. In religion they find comfort, support and reassurance,

Richard said as a teenager he gave up religion after he found Darwin. All I can say is that this young man was destined to become a professor. Not too many people become religious because they need a scientific hypothesis! It follows that not too many people will give up religion simply because they find better answers for abstract questions in science..

If atheists want to persuade people to leave religion,--assuming this is a valid goal,-- they need to understand the psychology of the believers and offer alternatives for what they find in religion. It is simplistic,--and even in a sense patronizing,-- to attribute religion simply to childhood indoctrinations.Many believers do get something out of believing, for them religiosity is actually quite "rational" according to the economist's definition of rationality.

My impression of RD is that he is a brilliant man who knows a lot about grand ideas, but probably not enough about people, and he is also a very privileged man.

1564. Fleabytes

Comment #144315 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 3:30 pm

It could be two people using the same account, I know a husband and wife couple who used to do that on another forum. When people expressed surprise at the fact that this person was posting self contradicting messages he explained that it was his wife. Now maybe he was imagining that he had a wife.. who knows.

It is just the internet, I don't think anyone would go through great length to pretend to be an atheist only to say bravo David. I think even David is not that deranged.

Got to go out before the sun sets, it is warm today. Screw work.

EDIT: OK. Almost forgot wooter, There are really some compulsive obsessive deranged characters on the net. Really have to catch some sun when it is still there or I will become weird too..if I am not already..

1565. Fleabytes

Comment #144307 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 3:18 pm

I am sorry to say that, but Paula you may want to stay away from the computer for a while, Go watch some TV, play with the dog or the neighbour's dog if you don't have one. I know, I know I am still here, but it is only because I need to get some work done on my computer and I am procrastinating. :)

1566. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144301 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 3:09 pm

Dr. Benway,

My earliest memory of doubt: wondering why the Bible stories were filled with miracles but nothing miraculous seemed to be going on in my small corner of the world. Miracles seemed really cool and they would make the claims about heaven and hell more convincing. I wished I could witness at least a couple of miracles. Maybe a burning bush in the backyard with a glowing white beautiful angel materializing beside, saying "Fear not!"

I used to live in this house where there was a lovely six year old little girl. It was her birthday and her mother asked her to make a wish before she blew off the little candles on the cake. The little girl said "na, wishes don't come true, last time I wished for candies but I didn't get any.."

She was a smart little cookie.

1567. The atheist delusion

Comment #144221 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 12:03 pm

You are mixing hard science and soft science, and idealising the results of using the scientific method on the kind of questions that I am implicitly talking about: Race, Gender, Sexuality, Social Structures, Law etc

But you have left out pseudoscience. Just because someone wears a lab coat and makes his point with jargons and numbers doesn't make it science, hard or soft. It could be just a PR ploy.

1568. The atheist delusion

Comment #144220 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 11:57 am

Steve,

Dennett makes an interesting point regarding selection of religion.

If he meant it as a loose metaphor than it is a truism,next to being meaningless.

My understanding is that he is more literal than that, he was talking about religion as a "meme" which propagates for its own sake like genes.

I agree with Atran that this is nonsense with no empirical evidence whatsoever to back up. As a social entity religion doesn't have the cohesion and structural integrity to be a unit for "selection" liken genes. Genes themselves don't adapt, they either got passed on or not, they may mutate, but they don't adapt. Religion does and it doesn't exist just to propagate, it serves purposes that may change depending on the context,

1569. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144208 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 10:30 am

Vaal,

I have just revised and edited my post tremendously.

1570. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144197 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 9:59 am

Vaal

Are you not surprised that it took to the 19th Century for somebody to come up with evolution. It seems fairly obvious, although with the benefit of hindsight.

Hmm.. actually it is not fairly obvious even with hindsight. At least to me anyway, maybe I am just dense. :)

It is one thing to make a wild guess that animals transform into each other, which is a common theme in many mythologies, it is quite another to actually find a detailed way to show that this actually happened and to explain how it happened convincingly.

In fact at Darwin's time evolution was not without problems. Besides not having a mechanism to explain how inheritance was transmitted,--genes,--evolutionary theory was in irreconcilable conflict with contemporary physics,--a much more sophisticated and well established scientific discipline than 19th century biology. Kelvin showed that the earth could not have been old enough for evolution to have taken place in the way Darwin described. According to his calculation, the earth would have been much cooler if it had been around for such a long time.

Kelvin's calculation was completely sound and consistent with the best theories of 19th century physics. Darwin himself conceded that, all the objections of the scientifically uninformed religious people not withstanding, Kelvin had struck a fatal blow to evolution.

It wasn't until the early 20th century that we found out what's wrong with Kelvin's calculation. The temperature of the earth is sustained by nuclear reactions in the core,--a fact that they didn't know at Darwin's and Kelvin's time.

Despite his acknowledgment that Kelvin had "blown me out of the water", Darwin stuck to his gun. He had no argument other than that he knew it in his guts that organisms did evolve. He based his convictions on his field work through which he came to know nature intimately, in a first person sort of way , Evidence from direct observations of bones and fossils was messy and open to different interpretations at a time when they didn't have very sophisticated dating techniques and forensic technology,

So evolution was in clear conflict with physics at the time and evidence for it was circumstantial and messy. Yet Darwin was unrepentant (no pun intended) I think many hard nose "rationalists" here would have easily dismissed Darwin as an irrational crackpot if they don't have the hindsights.

(Aside: A moral one can get from this story is that science is not a simply a process where scientists collect evidence and test theories in a straight forward, objective and rational manner.There could be a lot of twists and turns. The verdict may not be in for quite some times before a theory is declared dead or vindicated. In Darwins' case the verdict was in but the ruling was overturned a few decades later when new, completely unexpected evidence came to light from an apparently completely unrelated discipline,--this incidentally showed the beautiful internal consistency of science.)

Even with all the evidence, I have to say that evolution is still very counter intuitive . Those who learn it in biology classes may think it is obvious probably because they have not let the message sink in, I find that it is a common problem with learning anything from school. You listen to the teacher passively, read text books where everything is laid out and do a bunch of exercises and write exams. You don't really reflect on what is being taught until much later. Otherwise they are just facts and "information".. It is not unusual to hear physics undergraduates saying that they understand quantum mechanics, by that they mean they know how to do text book problems and get good marks in exams.

I believe many people have a problem accepting evolution exactly because it is counter-intuitive,even as it is logically and scientifically compelling, especially when we contemplate ourselves in that context, It is one of those things that you know in your head but may not in your guts.

Dawkins did a terrific job in simultaneously conveying the inevitability of evolution yet at the same time how utterly unexpected it is. He captures that sense of improbability and awe which remains even when all the logic and inner workings are laid bare. I think his books on evolution are real gems in the genre

1571. Deadly Sins 101

Comment #144175 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 8:49 am

The Hitler Youth thing is a cheap shot, even Ratz doesn't deserve it, give it a rest.

1572. Selling science to the masses

Comment #144173 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 8:45 am

Why do they have to use the word "selling" as if it involves something dishonest? I usually avoid people who talk to me because they want to sell me something,

I don't know how Dawkins would feel for the implication that he is somehow on a par morally with a guy trying to sweet talk you into buying used cars from him.

1573. The business of natural selection

Comment #144162 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 8:27 am

It is yet more hype.

At one point it was using neural networks to pick stocks, which died a quiet death.

A few years ago they were talking about using chaos theory to do business,.I heard business professors on TV and obviously these clowns knew nothing about chaos theory beyond a few sound bites. Maybe they meant creating a lot of confusions so that they can make money by pulling a fast one, I have no idea.

I actually hate business type with an even bigger passion than I do religious fundamentalists. At least the fundies have some genuine human emotions, I can't say the same about the talking suits. The other day I was reading a book in a coffee shop, this woman behind me began to yack away on her cell phone. She was going on and on about "synergy", "the butterfly effect" and so on, for almost half an hour she was babbling gibberish in business lingo peppered with bastardized scientific jargons. I couldn't even be sure the conversation made sense to her, certainly not to me. I felt like telling her to STFU and pouring coffee all over her notebook. But then I decided to leave before I lost it and got arrested for assault.

1574. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #144154 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 8:08 am

While I am not a big fan of Harris' and I find his explanation of Islamic terrorism very simplistic,--Scott Atran really ripped him to pieces over this IMO,--I can't say he is "comfortable with torture" based on that article.

It seems he was making a "lesser evil" kind of argument. It might be flawed but it is not like he was "comfortable" with torture in the way most of us would understand the phrase "comfortable with". That conveys the impression that he thought torture is no big deal and recommended it as an acceptable, normal way to do business. I don't think that is a fair representation of his position.

1575. Two More Fleas

Comment #144142 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 7:45 am

ww

surely for something to be "fine-tuned", there has to be an agency/force/intelligence doing the fine-tuning..

As a simplify analogy, the word "creature" implies a creator.But the fact that there are many creatures around doesn't prove God's existence except for wooter and his multiple personalities (who refer to each other in the third person)

Language has a way of subtly leading our mind into directions that are not warranted by the facts we seek to describe. Natural language is very powerfully suggestive because it is associated with meanings on many different levels. There is no one to one correspondence between words and meanings, they are entangled like a web,

That being the case it is important to identify the problem clearly and express it in a way that would eliminate the pitfall of language by using precise definitions.

"Fine tuning" is actually misleading on many levels. Aside from what you point out, it also leads us to think in directions that somehow involve the origin and possibility of life, which in turn leads to non answers based on the anthropic principle that roboholic cited in his posts.

The plain way of putting it, without all the confusing emotional associations is simply this: "Why do these constants have the values that they do? Do we have a theory to fix them, or do they have to be fixed by hand? If there is multiverse what are the probability distributions of these constant across the multiverse, what does it mean in a precise way and how we can test these ideas."

In its proper context the question really has nothing to do with the possibility of life. Life arises later. By "tuning" our minds to think in that direction we are opening up ourselves to some kind of teleological thinking, which is rarely useful or meaningful in science.


(Aside: I think language may have an important and non obvious way in shaping the religious mind though I can't quite express it clearly)

1576. Two More Fleas

Comment #144137 by Bonzai on March 15, 2008 at 7:07 am

Brian English,

Science shouldn't care what others read into discoveries. All that matters is that science seeks the truth. Where ever that goes. There will always be numbnuts who misuse or misrepresent scientific knowledge.

Exactly. I tried to make this point rather clumsily on other threads before. You summarize it better than I could have.I am sure I would be a better writer if English is my last name!

1577. Fleabytes

Comment #144007 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 9:10 pm

Who's the dude?

1578. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #143995 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 8:18 pm

Jestyr,

Suicide bombing and other forms of terrorism are an effective threat in an asymmetric struggle. However, here we have to look at morality.

Saying that it is effective doesn't imply that it is moral. Indeed I did say explicitly that it is "desperate, morally repugnant but also effective".

1579. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #143994 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 8:14 pm

Styrer

Their acts are entirely faith-based; they are entirely religion-based. For you to suggest otherwise is moving dangerously close to a notion that is guaranteed to piss me off beyond your little and immoral endorsement of: 'blame the fucking victim'.'

Have you stop beating your wife yet?

Respond to the substance of my question or piss off.

Best,

Bonzai

1580. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #143987 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 7:45 pm

Styrer,

You have added precisely nothing to the discussion with your above post

This was exactly what I intended. I gave you exactly what you deserve for your rambling non sequitur.


Best,

Bonzai

1581. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #143983 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 7:33 pm

And that's not faith-based? Faith doesn't have to be religious.

Is the desire to revenge faith based? How about war over resources and land? How about revolution against tyrannies, or war against foreign occupiers like in Iraq?

If you define "faith" so broadly it wouldn't be very meaningful to ask what is faith motivated because then in a sense everything that appears paradoxical to the survival imperative would be "faith based", maybe even giving up your life to help a stranger or smoking.

Edit: A generic "faith causes it" is just as intellectually lazy as the "God did it" one size fits all answer invoked by some theists to every question and it is almost just as bad, "Almost" because sometimes faith is indeed the culprit but God doesn't exist so couldn't have done it,

1582. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #143980 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 7:25 pm

Styrer,

They were driven - entirely - by faith-drenched doctrines inculcated from the earliest age that their oppressors could manage.

By repeating the same simplistic "bollock" over and over doesn't make it more right. You can type in caps and that wouldn't make an iota of difference.

With all the reserves of patience and of courtesy I have

I would prefer people who are upfront about their emotions rather than hiding behind a facade of fake politeness while making abusive and snide remarks like your usual reptilian self.

And stop pissing me off

Glad I did. At least you sound more genuine,

Best,

Bonzai.

1583. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #143975 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 7:09 pm

I invite you to respond to the substance of my complaint against you.

There is no substance in your complaint. There you go.

1584. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #143972 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 7:00 pm

Styrer,

Shouting "utter bollocks" and ranting against "leftists" like a charging fanatic shouting "Allah akbar" is not going to make your argument more convincing or logical. I notice your tendency to insult and bully others quite a while back, If I have an ignore button I would have pressed it unhesitatingly whenever I see your condescending, simplistic and incoherent bollocks.

Best,

Bonzai

EDIT Please elaborate how does saying suicide bombers are motivated by politics instead of religion is "blaming the victims"? Not that I care for reading your rants anyway but others may want to know how you make that connection.

1585. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #143967 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 6:43 pm

Suicide bombing is a way of waging asymmetric warfare. It is a way for the weak side in a conflict to inflict maximum damage on an overwhelmingly stronger adversary by turning themselves into human bombs and set themselves off at "soft targets". It is desperate, morally repugnant but also effective when the playing field is very lopsided.

While suicide bombing is relatively modern, sacrificing one's own life in order to achieve political-military goal is not new. Religion doesn't have to be involved.

History is repleted with examples of people who died willingly and knowingly for all kind of political causes: assassins went on missions that they knew for sure that they wouldn't come back alive; resistance fighters launching attacks on much more powerful enemies knowing that they would be anihilated; people who willingly sacrifice their lives for political principles, etc. Despite the survival instinct, people can and do often give up their lives for causes they find worthy enough. Politics alone can be quite sufficient a reason, the promise of virgins is not really necessary,

Islam is strongly against suicide, the torture for those who die by their own hands in the after life is quite horrific and most Islamic scholars agree that suicide bombing is not martyrdom. The normal definition of martyrdom is that one has to die by the enemy's hand. Suicide bombing would be the last thing a Muslim would do if he is motivated only by religious fanaticism because mainstream interpretation of the religion is overwhelmingly against it.

There is a minority view which equates suicide bombing with martyrdom. But why are the bombers more receptive to the minority view if religion is all they care about? It seems that they do pick and choose the interpretation that happens to justify what they have already decided to do before hand. Religion is only a kind of rationalization, if the normal interpretation of the religion doesn't provide the justification they seek, they simply find another interpretation that would. So I wouldn't agree that religion is the primary trigger,

EDIT Corrected some typos and made some stylistic improvements.

1586. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #143965 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 6:35 pm

I think the Tamil Tigers are Maoists.

1587. Fleabytes

Comment #143830 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 1:37 pm

MaxD

Further, you will note that not one of us on this site is against abstinance education. We are all (I think)against abstinance-only education because it doesn't fucking work.

Well in fact I am against abstinance education at least philosophically because it portraits sex as something dirty, wicked and dangerous that one should avoid except as a means towards an end,--procreation or as a leash to tie down someone you love. I think this is unhealthy and is a natural development of Christian theology which in general holds the body in contempt.

There are risks in sex like in all other good stuffs in life. The attitude we should instill in young people should simply be get educated, play safe and act responsibly just like we would teach them about everything else, no more, no less.

1588. Fleabytes

Comment #143813 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 12:57 pm

MaxD

but doesn't it seem kind of strange that God is so bad at this book writing business?

My point was that many Christians don't believe God wrote the book except maybe in the U.S. Many would say God inspired humans wrote it. Christians are not theologically obliged to say God dictated their book like Muslims do,--but even Muslims are not obliged to be "literalists" because no where did their God say he was one. Religion is fascinating exactly because it is such a human phenomenon.

The question is how many of them think the nicer liberal interpretive business or the harderline one? And certainly most of them believe some of the silliness literally.

They certainly do, but how does it follow that they must accept the whole book literally? Christians do cherry pick, but not arbitrarily, there are complicated systems of songs and dance to do that, at least for the sophisticated ones.

EDIT But sometimes it is not even "cherry picking". I read in a Chinese history book that describes a particularly brutal battle thus, "the battle field was flooded by a river of blood and even the heaven opened up and wept for the dead" Now I don't see any "cherry picking" if a reader believes the actual battle did happen while the narrative I just wrote are just literary embellishment. Any reasonable reader would.Believing that the battle happened doesn't oblige one to accept literally that the battle field was flooded and heaven actually cried for the dead. It would be silly for anyone to insist that the reader must accept everything literally or nothing at all. Sometimes I do feel that kind of silliness reading some atheists here,--I don't mean you particularly.

1589. Fleabytes

Comment #143809 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 12:48 pm

There are just different rates of gradualism.

Sorry, by that way of thinking even water boiling is a kind of "gradualism" only at a vastly different rate if you choose your time and length scale appropriately. I think you need to choose one time scale through out the discussion in order to say what is "gradual" meaningfully.

1590. Fleabytes

Comment #143795 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 12:28 pm

Steve,

I think it is more parsimonious to assume a continuity from humans to animals.

I don't want to take sides between your debate with Mphil, but just want to point out that the assumption of continuity is often wrong for systems with a large number of degrees of freedom because phase transitions are quite commonly observed. There are probably good theoretical reasons to expect that they do occur quite a bit across the scale of complexity stretching between say the bird's brain the human's.

Parsimony is not much of an argument because it is justifiable only under the assumption of perfect ignorance.it is kind like assuming all faces of a die are a propri equally likely to turn up just because we don't know anything more about it, but when you throw the die 100 times and see that it is always a 6 that turns up you can't argue for uniform distribution because of parsimony. The less parsimonious theory that the die is indeed loaded is probably more likely correct. When you have two theories with identical observable consequences or when you have no good theoretical reason to bias for a more complicated model. Parsimony is a reasonable criterion to pick one because again, empirical observation and theoretical considerations are neutral, this is in a sense a state of perfect ignorance as far as picking the theories are concerned.

1591. Fleabytes

Comment #143442 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 5:48 am

Sargeist,

It would bring up the interesting prospect of future technology being able to carry out in some mechanical way, all the steps in the full gestation period. Which would suggest that abortion would always be wrong, since the fertilised egg would always be able to become a person.

Of course I mean without that kind of artifical interventions, which religious folks would oppose anyway.

With future technology it may be possible to clone an entire person with a skin cell, but it would be absurd to say that since the technology exists to turn a skin cell into a person, it is murder everytime you scratch your nose.

1592. Fleabytes

Comment #143437 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 5:40 am

Ah, I see what you mean. I was talking about deciding when the "person" first appears.

The appearance of some brain maybe? In that case clearthinker has never become a person, this is not to say he should be aborted though cause he is obviously viable. :)

1593. Fleabytes

Comment #143425 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 5:31 am

Should a being be considered less of a person because it is dependent on another? I am not sure.

I am not just talking about survival, but being actually able to grow into a person. I may be wrong on this, but I think if you remove the feotus before a certain stage of development and keep it alive in a machine, it will not turn into a baby. If you put a fertized egg in a Petri dish will it turn into a baby if it doesn't die? At what point will it be able to develope on its own? These may be really stupid questions because I have no common sense about embryo grow at all.

1594. Fleabytes

Comment #143417 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 5:22 am

Steve

I really don't know myself what the answer is. Is birth a special change in status?

I think viability may be a good criteria. If a foetus can survive and develope outside the womb then I think it should be considered a seperate "person". Before a certain time a foetus would not turn into anything if it is removed from the mother's body even if kept alive in a machine and it should be considered a part of the woman's body.

1595. Bishop accuses gays of 'conspiracy' against the Catholic Church

Comment #143381 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 4:21 am

Brian

The only tricky bit is, we need to let these biggots speak and be rebutted publicly.

I think there are certain things that are so dehumanizing that even entering into the debate lends them undeserved legitimacy. For example, we don't debate whether Blacks are fully humans. Legal banning of such speech is a way to send a signal that such ideas are simply not debatable, just as it is not a debatable matter whether we should send handicaped people to death camps. There is a point where ideas cease to be just abstract ideas and become a form of persecution. This is what I am trying to get at.

For the gay muslims in the youtube link I provided, the idea that gays are sub humans is not an abstract philosophical proposition. It is a form of real persecution and people get killed because of that. I think there should absolutely be legal consequences. The society needs to make a clear and loud statement that this is not acceptable, not through debating clubs but the court.

I understand that in practice there are grey areas and lawyers would have to work them out. I am only stating a general philsophical position with blatant disregard of technical details.

1596. Bishop accuses gays of 'conspiracy' against the Catholic Church

Comment #143375 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 4:08 am

That could be a bit of a problem to introduce, seeing as how certain religious groups well-established in the UK aren't exactly in favour of equal rights for women, for example.

That would actually be excellent because if these nutters would dare to declare openly that women should be treated as second class citizens based on their religion, it would be enough to bury them as well as undermining religion in general in a very public way.

1597. Bishop accuses gays of 'conspiracy' against the Catholic Church

Comment #143371 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 3:53 am

Other than incitement I also think that there should be law against those who teach or preach that an identifiable group of people are subhumans who don't deserve human rights.

1598. Bishop accuses gays of 'conspiracy' against the Catholic Church

Comment #143369 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 3:46 am

Once we agree to one form of speech censorship, how can we logically argue that others shouldn't be stopped?

My rule is that ideas are fair game, but targeting people is no no. It's ok to say Islam is a ridiculous religion but it wouldn't be ok to say that all Muslims are scumbags who should be locked up. I don't believe that people should be threaten with arrest for saying stupid things about homosexuality and 'homosexual conspiracy", but I draw the line if they advocate doing harm to gay people, perhaps killing them.

I know sometimes the line is not easy to draw, but that is my basic position.

1599. Bishop accuses gays of 'conspiracy' against the Catholic Church

Comment #143364 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 3:40 am

Having had a long chat with my wise husband about this, I have realised I was wrong(*). The best way is indeed to allow such speech, no matter how nasty.

I draw the line when someone actually says homosexuals should be killed, as it is happening in some mosques in the U.K. Such people need to have the full force of the law brought on their sorry arses.

1600. Bishop accuses gays of 'conspiracy' against the Catholic Church

Comment #143353 by Bonzai on March 14, 2008 at 3:23 am

He replied pathetically saying he must love her, but hate her sin or something stupid. Wanker....

At least he didn't tell her he would kill her with his bare hands.

Pell is one of the most conservative Catholic Cardinals around. It would be a great progress when you can get your average traditional Islamic cleric in the U.K. to tell his gay brother I love you even though I hate your sin.

I think the Catholic Church is an easy target because no one really takes it seriously anymore, at least in most of the Western world. I think Islam is way worse in terms of hatred towards homosexuals and a few other things