1851. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #192696 by Goldy on June 13, 2008 at 11:21 pm

Why are your responses so predictable?

Probably because yor entry is the same. You come in, spout a few extracts from some book, tell us we're fucked ad then say you'll pray for us.
What did you expect?

1852. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #192651 by Goldy on June 13, 2008 at 8:06 pm

Virus are not cells, just bits of protein.

Pedantically speaking, more like DNA or RNA wrapped up in a protein coat...like a chocolate truffle :-)

1853. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #192636 by Goldy on June 13, 2008 at 6:38 pm

From RtG

Please let me give you some advice.

A bunch of Paul's spin doctoring masquerading as Jesus' words then

Stop engaging them

Sound advice! Mind you, a bloody long winded way of saying "Fuck off!", methinks.

I lift you up and will continue to pray for Jesus, to reveal himself to you

Hope you are strong. By the way, Jesus is dead - nailed to a tree, by all accounts. I have nothing to ask forgiveness for and need no salvation. Thanks for the offer, but not wanted.
I, on the other hand, shall continue to provide what knowledge and skills I have to find cures for diseases which prayer just won't cure. You are most welcome to use the fruits of my labour - just say thanks when you get better - not to your god but to people like me and to people like the doctors that cure you.
As this shows...

If one is so confident and positive of their knowledge, they would not feel so threatened.

..you have no idea at all about people. The word you were looking for was frustrated. And incredulous.
Now, fuck off unless you have something decent to say. We also know more about your mythology than you'll ever, ever know :-) Careful when quoting it...


What is it about God that makes him want the terminally stupid??

1854. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #192600 by Goldy on June 13, 2008 at 2:15 pm

I think you misunderstood. I don't think that replication errors produces animals of any sort. That is your theory. You still don't seem to be in touch with the facts about mutations.

Heheheheheheheh! The idiot tells me I don't understand! Priceless!
It isn't my theory, it is the theory of evolution. Verily you are amazing!

I assume you are referring to "junk DNA". If that is the case, I'm afraid you are out of date.

No. I assume you just have no research to fall on.

Of course they do. Unbroken bends in sedimentary rock show that the deformation happened quickly while the sediments were still soft.

Snigger, chortle....

So these are how sedimentary layers are formed? Which one of the things you list here preserves the fossils, like the T rex we've been discussing? Do you suppose it fell down and a continent ran over it?

Waaaahahahahahahaha! Priceless, truly priceless! Oh, what, you know what really happened? What's that? Oh, a global flood, was it?? Which...who? God?? God sent it?? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Man, how deep can one plumb the depths of stupidity?

Well, it seems to me that if very bright, educated and funded mortal men can't make life, or even supposed precursors of life as we know it, chances are like really slim that it formed on an accidental basis.

Conjecture on your part, eh? You have nothing to show life as we know it has not been made - as your research has been shown to be incredibly lacking, you can't say that for sure, can you. And given your propensity to ignore completely anything that you don't like, I can also safely say if you have read it, you'll not admit it.

That's what I meant when I noted they didn't reference mutations in the quote.

Takes a complete idiot to miss it!
Oh dear, so much ignorance so fiercely guarded with such pride! How do you get through each day??

1855. Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech

Comment #192359 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 9:17 pm

I think you are failing to recognize that outlawing guns in America will only leave guns in the hands of those who shouldn't have them in the first place

I belive this is what happened in the UK after Dunblane.
Odd, eh, how criminals never seem to follow the laws in great detail...

1856. Report: Troubling texts at Va. Islamic school

Comment #192346 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 8:03 pm

Interesting facts Goldy...

An absolute wealth of information out there in the ol' interweb - shame so many refuse to use it, preferring some dusty old mythological compendium..
As an aside, I was always told the avo was Nature's butter. Surely that puts it in the dairy category... ;-)

1857. Report: Troubling texts at Va. Islamic school

Comment #192339 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 7:46 pm

Buddhists can be just as violent as anyone

Ask any southern Thai muslim minority. Though a lot of the media focus is on the separatists who kill Buddhists there.
I also remember there being a god of war in Buddhism. Edit - and the military junta in Burma is Buddhist...nominally...
And, if Xinhua is to be believed, there were reports of Tibetan Buddhist suicide squads...

1858. Report: Troubling texts at Va. Islamic school

Comment #192338 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 7:42 pm

But then the whole point is that most Christians are not fundies

If you ask me, most Christians aren't even Christian....at least the ones I know :-)

1859. Report: Troubling texts at Va. Islamic school

Comment #192334 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 7:40 pm

But tomatoes and avacados are also considered a fruit even though it's not something that you would generally associate to the fruit group?

Well, they are a fruiting body...and a carrot is also called a fruit by some (Wikipedia lists it under "simple fruit") though trust me I can't ever see it as one myself!
All to do with definition, which is a man-made construct. Buddhism can be thought of as a school of philosophical thought or as a religion. I dare say all the Buddhists I know see it as their religion rather than them seeing themselves as deep thinkers.
I think a better analogy would be the po-tay-to/po-tah-to thing - both slightly different takes on the same thing :-)
Buddhism, as I far as I can see, is a religion both devoid of and full of gods. All depends how you want to follow it, I guess...

1860. Report: Troubling texts at Va. Islamic school

Comment #192327 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 7:21 pm

Goldy...lol true but buddhism is hardly considered a "religion".

Ceremony, silly costumes, rules and regulations, mysticism, magic - yep, all there. It's a religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist
Friday night at the pub, on the other hand, could be construed as less of a religion as a cultural construct. But don't tell that to the adherents ;-)

1861. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #192326 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 7:10 pm

More for txtpiper

Theory gives stronger roots to the tree of life

Phylogenetic trees are similar to family trees: The top of the tree represents earlier times; a point from which two lines diverge represents a common ancestor for two species; and for species diverging from a common ancestor, it makes no difference which is on the left and which is on the right. For example, the diagram at top left shows the pig developing at an earlier time than the monkey or the mouse, with the latter two sharing a more recent common ancestor. The diagram to its right shows that the mouse predates the monkey and the human, with the monkey and human having a common ancestor. The only diagram for all four species that can represent this is that shown at middle left. Using similar reasoning, the middle right and bottom diagrams can each be constructed from the preceding pair.
Biologists now have powerful newtools for reconstructing the tree of life, thanks to a novel mathematical theory for combining evolutionary relationships.

The theory has been developed by Marsden researchers Associate Professor Mike Steel and Dr Charles Semple at the University of Canterbury's Biomathematics Research Centre, together with mathematicians in Germany and Canada.

Their results describe how trees that show the evolution of groups of species can be combined into an evolutionary "supertree" for all the species under study. Until now only ad-hoc methods have been available for this problem.

The figure illustrates some of the main ideas. Each of the four trees at the top shows how groups of three present-day species are believed to have evolved from ancestral species. Each of these four trees is constructed by statistically analysing DNA sequences in each of the species and, from the differences, working out how long ago the species diverged.

Dr Semple said the big question was whether these trees could together form a supertree. And if so, did they fit together in just one way?

"In this example, the first two 3-species trees fit together in only one way ­ they 'force' the 4-species tree in the middle left of the figure. That is, each of the first two trees 'sits inside' this larger tree, yet none of the other possible trees of these four species does this.

"Similarly the last two trees on the top layer force the 4-species tree in the middle-right. As for the two forced trees in the middle layer, these in turn force the 6-species supertree at the bottom. So this is the only tree (among 945 possibilities) that accommodates all the four trees at the top of the figure.

"If you believe those four 3-species trees are true, and the evolution of species is described by a tree, then you are forced to accept the 6-species tree," he said.

While this is just an example, the group has developed techniques for combining more complicated trees into supertrees.

"This has led to new techniques and results in a series of papers in mathematics, computer science and biology journals," Associate Professor Steel said.

"So while some biologists can build up an evolutionary tree for their particular favourite group, others can start to piece together these trees for different groups ofspecies, to gain a larger and more accurate picture of the way species evolved."



For further information, contact Associate Professor Mike Steel, Biomathematics Research Centre, University of Canterbury Tel: (03) 364 2987 ext 7688 Fax: (03) 364 2587 Email: m.steel@math.canterbury.ac.nz http://web.math.canterbury.ac.nz/~mathmas/ Address: Private Bag 4800, Christchurch

In http://www.rsnz.org/funding/marsden_fund/news15/index.php
Research is conituing. It appears to be getting more powerful than prayer. Of course, you'll not believe a single part of it - you know why I think that is so ;-)

1862. Richard Dawkins lecture at ASU's Tempe Campus

Comment #192310 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 6:29 pm

After the posts were removed, there are a series of Goldy saying: "Have a banana" "Have a banana", now that is funny

Damn! Now people will think I'm strange!!! Again, my attempts at building a serious persona are thwarted ;-)

1863. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #192308 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 6:20 pm

Something for txty
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/2000yearold-seed-grows-into-tree-of-life-for-scientists-846247.html
2000 year old seeds - and still viable.
Interesting line here...

...a preliminary genetic analysis has revealed it shares about half its DNA with three modern varieties of the date palm from Morocco, Egypt and Iraq.

Only half the DNA? But it is still a date palm...

1864. Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech

Comment #192305 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 6:12 pm

Another British/US take...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2119950/RAF-pilot-refuses-US-order-to-trim-moustache.html
:-) Enjoy!

1865. Report: Troubling texts at Va. Islamic school

Comment #192301 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 6:06 pm

I was going to mention the Dalai Lama as not particularly dangerous, but the Chinese Communist Party would not agree with me...

1866. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby

Comment #192286 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 4:44 pm

Give me a call editor@christianstogether.net

How does one call on an email address?
Given the religiously minded folk I have come across here, debate must mean a different thing to you than it does to me.

I can't believe that those who so actively participate in the this on-line message board are all unwilling/unable to defend your viewpoint in live discussion

Nah - you can't shout down words ;-) And your asinine comments will be forever open to scrutiny and peer review. Hitler's speeches sounded mightly fine, but when written lost quite a bit of their lustre. And we athiests are polite sorts - not hysterical screamers like the religious.
Debate with us here.
Oh, and if you do want someone to call, how about providing a number?

1867. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby

Comment #192283 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 4:37 pm

WeeF

As a Christian I teach that real faith is based upon truth and evidence

But you miss out the interpretation issues, eh? So more a case of do as I say, not what you see...

1868. Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech

Comment #192268 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 3:56 pm

Believe me, the seemingly constant insinuations on this board of American backwardness drive me insane. I think at least 50% of my posts here are in defense of America and trying to explain that we really aren't run by evangelical psychos. That's not what I thought I'd be doing when I first joined this site.

Jealousy, old boy, jealousy! ;-)
Personally, most of the English I know actually live anywhere but England (like me :-D). Of the ones that still lag in Blighty, one has a mother from Arkansas and the other was almost a New Zealander (parents succumbed to parental pressure not to emigrate).
All countries in the west have a great debt to each other. The US is, I believe, greatly derived from immigrants of European extraction. Europe has accepted greatly from US technology and know how and has learnt and used the US for it's own furtherment.
Like it or not - we're family ;-) And they do say families bicker...

1869. Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

Comment #192189 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 2:30 pm

Also depends on the definition of intelligence. I am sure many of the cretinists are very smart - look how they can manipulate data and evidence to show the opposite to what we see as bleeding obvious.
Militant ignorance is not less clever - it is just intelligence going down a dead end ;-)

1870. Report: Troubling texts at Va. Islamic school

Comment #192185 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 2:27 pm

History_Junky
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/08/30/borob126.xml
Another view...
;-)

1871. Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

Comment #192177 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 2:18 pm

Loved this

"Really clever people ?quot; .. Shakespeare .. ?quot; are big enough to believe in God"

Shakespeare's a bad example; he was Elizabethan and, if I recall correctly my school history lessons, the Christians who ran Elizabethan England had declared atheism a capital offence. If Shakespeare had declared himself an atheist, the intelligent, peace-loving Christians (those who believe "thou shall not kill") would have killed him.
Posted by Mike on June 12, 2008 4:09 PM

Talking of the Bard, UoA has this (that's the Uni of Auckland)

Watch, listen to or download this fascinating series of conversations between well-known broadcaster Kerre Woodham and six top academics from the Faculty of Arts. The eclectic range of topics includes New Zealand politics, the sociology of genocide, and whether Shakespeare believed in God

Check it out - http://www.auckland.ac.nz/

1872. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #192171 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 2:08 pm

Hmm. Suddenly I feel very very tired. I think Dostoievsky once wrote, when referring to his time in a Siberian labour camp where he spent four years breaking up stones and moving them from one random place to another equally random place, 'If you ever want to break a man's soul, give him an utterly pointless task to do, over and over again.'

I now know what he meant.

I dunno, Keith. I'm actually quite enjoying this. As I work in a university, I don't get to play with idiots too often. I'm just seeing how far the depths of militant ignorance can go :-)

1873. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #191858 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 2:26 am

Billy, he'll fail. Maybe he's read this and been disheartened...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2111174/Intelligent-people-'less-likely-to-believe-in-God'.html
Probably doubly annoyed when he read this in the sidebar!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/2111096/Clever-people-could-live-15-years-longer.html

1874. Holiday in Hellmouth

Comment #191857 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 2:18 am

Just as I was starting to get irritated by the religous I come across here, I see this
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2111174/Intelligent-people-'less-likely-to-believe-in-God'.html
Poor WeeF - must be hard to think he is a minnow in this sea of intellectual titans :-)

1875. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby

Comment #191856 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 2:16 am

Fanusi, I take it you're not overly familiar with the Telegraph's pages then....

1876. Holiday in Hellmouth

Comment #191855 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 2:10 am

You think that all answered prayer is a miracle? Who teaches that? The funds did appear by some naturalistic agency. That is normally how God works. When I buy my wife some flowers and they are delivered by the flowershop - my wife does not turn round and say that because they were handed over by a van driver I had nothing to do with it. Think about it.

OK. A Sinophobe was cut up in traffic by an Asian looking driver. He utters a prayer suring all Chinese adn lo and behold, an earthquake occurs, killing thousands. This then is the fault of the Sinophobe? And by God's blessing?
God doesn't normally work at all. Have you prayed for an amputees limb to grow back? After all, this god you mention gives you 80-odd quid at your request - simple monetary gain with no meaning at all outside your own life. Nothing earth moving or life changing. Hell, if your god can lend you a few quid, why not a limb? Why not make a real difference, a real miracle? £80-odd made only you happy and gave you a story but nothing more has come of it. A conjuring trick, no more. Tell me something meaningful - and don't give me crap about how I would not appreciate it. If Jesus had that mentality, he'd have shut his trap adn whittled wood like his "dad". Mohammed would have stuck to trading with the odd bout of camel theft. Your god saw fit to give you £80-some - surely it was not purely for the anecdotes.

1877. Holiday in Hellmouth

Comment #191849 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 1:52 am

Mordacious1, you will find that those of a religious bent tend to
A) call themselves something they generally are not. Clearthinker is a case to point.
B) enjoy the trappings of open fora but not allow it when they are in control. See how the Church, once it's evil claws were entrenched into society, actively supressed all other thought. Islamic countries are a good case to point even today.
I have to say the humourless WeeF did come up with one truth

Mordacious - you got me.....(weeps buckets)....I confess....I had and have no friends and just made up the God of the Bible out of my head.....please help me....thank God (if he exists) for your sheer brilliance and perceptiveness...

The god he professes to worship and follow does not exist outside that space between his ears. Indeed, it "is not the God I worship", according to the vast majority of Protestants (to name but one sect of his cult).
He should take comfort from this - at least his morality is his own (like ours) - just he needs the security blanket we have grown out of.

1878. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby

Comment #191845 by Goldy on June 12, 2008 at 1:42 am

Having only ever had one letter published (in the Torygraph), don't be surprised if a mightily fine example of penmanship is reduced to a soundbite ;-)

1879. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #191811 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 9:19 pm

I think this is more of an anomaly for you than me since to really do any explaining you have to imagine the sequence of DNA replication errors that produced these animals. I don't think the fossil record will be very cooperative either.

Mate, you also think the Flood is real, that the anti-christ is soon to visit us (an inference to your reply to Diacanu) and you think that some being, the likes of which you will not tell us, made everything as is.
I don't want to know what you think - I want you to research or at least look up and tell me what you can find out. Of course there are replication errors that lead to these animals (hint - it's called evolution) but as you keep trying to tell us, errors are corrected...so how can these come about? Fossils tell us plenty - even our DNA contain fossils :-)

I'm not really avoiding it but I'll be honest and say I dread it. It isn't about lack of decent arguments or reasonable questions. It's that decent arguments don't count.

I'll say you're dreading it! You have been shown to be militantly ignorant and arrogant in maintaining your stage of blissful ignorance. How did all that sediment end up on the continents? Hmmm - so the buckling of the sediments as shown in the mountains just don't mean much to you, do they? Or that earchquake in China recently (another hint - India is moving into China) didn't tell you something, did it? OK, millins of tons of sediment got to the contimnents because , surprise, surprise, the crust moves! Up and down, underwater and over water. Ever wonder how many tons of Saharan sands end up in Europe? Or how the Gobi can be found in Beijing? Or those magical events too?
this one is really the highlight of your incredible assininity!

We live on a planet loaded with water and there are plenty of well-equipped laboratories staffed by people who have tried to coax life into existence. So far, despite all their applied intelligence, they haven't even gotten remotely close. Call me incredulous, but I don't think a shortage of water is the holdup.

Because mortal men can't make life as you know it, other planets must be barren until God pops over? Can you tell us how you think men have not made life? Or indeed its constituents? Specualtion on your part, isn't it? Tell, then - if God likes life, where are the other life forms on other planets? He would have made then, wouldn't he...
Well, there's no need to imagine souped-up evolution. It has been observed, and of course,

It happens courtesy of the selection fairy, without reference to the mutations that have to be selected:

And, pray tell, just what do you think were "selected" to enable this adaptation?
C'mon, then, Moron. The Flood. And your "well developed" belief. Spill it.

1880. Debating creationism in Louisiana schools

Comment #191805 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 8:37 pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/opinion/l11evolution.html
I am astounded, really. Maybe we scientist should start making our presence felt in theology more.

1881. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby

Comment #191787 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm

On another note, I see your letter, Paula, has pride of place in the Independent!

Teenage suicide bomber was a victim of religious abuse

Sir: I hope that your article on the 14-year-old Afghan suicide bomber (10 June) has been read carefully by those desperate to claim Islamic terrorism is really about politics and not religion. This boy was told to die because it was what God wanted, not because it was what a political movement wanted, or what his country wanted.

His potential victims' offence? That they were fighting against Muslims (not Afghans). This boy is from Pakistan, so he wasn't putting his life on the line for his nation or for a political cause, but for his religion. What about the people who taught him such actions were virtuous and praiseworthy; who forced him to do as they said? Mullahs, Islamic religious leaders, not politicians, not campaigners.

And they were reaping the harvest of a whole childhood of religious indoctrination, during which this boy was taught that violence in support of Islam is good because it is God's will, that God looks with favour on martyrs, and that mullahs are able to declare God's absolute will.

Any religion that indoctrinates its young to believe that it is not only acceptable but actively a virtue to believe as absolute truth claims that cannot be substantiated by evidence, to accept as truth something that has merely been asserted on the basis of authority and tradition, is guilty of abusing its children, just as these mullahs are.

Paula Kirby

Inverness

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-the-14yearold-suicide-bomber-845061.html

1882. Tribute to a Beloved Mentor

Comment #191766 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 4:02 pm

Have a banana

1883. Tribute to a Beloved Mentor

Comment #191763 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 3:59 pm

Have a banana

1884. Richard Dawkins lecture at ASU's Tempe Campus

Comment #191762 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 3:58 pm

How can a cat or a young child disbelieve in god without first knowing about god?

People (and cats) are not born athiests either.

From Wikipedia

Atheism, as an explicit position, either affirms the nonexistence of gods[1] or rejects theism.[2] When defined more broadly, atheism is the absence of belief in deities,[3] alternatively called nontheism.[4]

Allow me to draw your eyes to "When defined more broadly, atheism is the absence of belief in deities,[3] alternatively called nontheism"
Absence of belief. Not disbelief - that's different. So small children and cats are atheists.
Of course, language being what it is, other attributes ate attached to atheism. That, I think, is where your confusion lies.
On another note, I am running low on bananas - anyone got one to feed the chimp?

1885. Tribute to a Beloved Mentor

Comment #191759 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 3:53 pm

Oooh, a chimp. Have a banana

1886. The 14-year-old Afghan suicide bomber

Comment #191736 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 2:32 pm

I have a thing about having racial slurs directed towards me

If I may paraphrase...."But Nazism is NOT A RACE!"
Aaah, that's better - good to get that off my chest :-D

1887. New British Petition: Stop the Nightmares

Comment #191734 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 2:25 pm

Maybe I'm lucky - parents not too religious. But all the Goddites had nothing against what i got as a child.....Struwwelpeter!
http://www.bugpowder.com/andy/e.hoffmann.html

1888. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #191730 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 2:17 pm

The PRIDE they take in their rabid anti-intellectualism.

Can you think of any other set of silly buggers who feel the urge to stand in a street or public square, their mythology in hand and prove that they can read? And even proclaim that what they read but don't digest is the truth?
You can take a horse to water, but you sure as hell can't make it drink. These people are so thirsty they've gone mad...

1889. Fleabytes

Comment #191725 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 2:12 pm

Give the chimp a banana...

1890. The 14-year-old Afghan suicide bomber

Comment #191724 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 2:10 pm

The article was called "Stumbling towards Eurabia".

Dunno, Al. there's only so much a population can take, and then there's the media...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/education/2106757/Muslim-parents-to-blame-for-children-turning-to-extremism.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2105429/Muslim-children-in-Britain-'brought-up-to-hate-their-homeland'.html
Just reading the British media makes e feel as if there is some sort of backlash coming on.
I must, however, apologise for the source - it is the Daily Telegraph...

1891. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #191721 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 1:59 pm

I enjoy jousting with cretinists and IDiots becasue it makes me go out and look up things for my rebuttals. The fact that it can take all of seconds with Google to get a decent article speaks volumes to me - the evidence is there, the cretinists are just militantly ignorant and wish to drag all others to their level.

1892. The 14-year-old Afghan suicide bomber

Comment #191469 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 2:54 am

Actually, I was referring to Ayatollah Khomeini's wife (if it wasn't clear)!

Ah - perils of not reading earlier posts! Ah, well. Arab News is full of young wives. A recentish one I read was about some 60-something divorcing his oldest wife to marry a 12-13 year old. It didn't seem too outlandish to the writer of the piece...
As for edifices crashing down - tell me about it! Had to explain to a cretinist that if the Flood was true (and Islam doesn't, according to Arab News, make that flood a global one...) and all the fossils were dead flood victims, then all science, every branch, is wrong. Which would we rather believe - mythology and hearsay or some refutable, peer reviewed process of explanation?
Sad.
Interesting about Indonesia banning that Islamic sect for heresy. It is, after all, a tolerant religion - shame the adherents can't be too sometimes...
:-)

1893. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #191462 by Goldy on June 11, 2008 at 2:47 am

Something else regarding different species. But I guess a bird is a bird, eh, txty?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7446647.stm

1894. The 14-year-old Afghan suicide bomber

Comment #191405 by Goldy on June 10, 2008 at 9:18 pm

And here is the article link
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=5§ion=0&article=23375&d=8&m=3&y=2003
I was wrong about her being 29 - she was, apparently, only about 19.

1895. The 14-year-old Afghan suicide bomber

Comment #191403 by Goldy on June 10, 2008 at 9:03 pm

Speaking of which, different sources give different ages for his wife when he married her. One book says that she was 11, two others say she was 15 (he was 27 and a virgin).

An Arab News piece had her as old as 29, if I remember right. Might try and look that up again in the archives.
I do thoroughly recommend reading the Islam section in Arab News. Some crackers there!

1896. Storm erupts over 'virginity' divorce

Comment #191401 by Goldy on June 10, 2008 at 8:53 pm

A follow up article...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/world/europe/11virgin.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

1897. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #191400 by Goldy on June 10, 2008 at 8:48 pm

I don't believe that reptiles became mammals and birds.

Care to explain avian and reptilian DNA? And indeed the recent genome showings of the duckbilled platypus and it's similarity to both mammals and reptiles? Why do birds have scales (a reptilian marker) and lay eggs, like reptiles? So many other pointers - and we have not even gotten to the nitty gritty DNA yet :-)

I think cats are cats, canines are canines, bears are bears, etc

So a polar bear is the same as spectacled bear? A tiger is the same as a European lynx? And the wolf is kissing cousin to the fox? Does this work with this statement?

Speciation as I understand it, seems to hinge around reproductive capabilities, specifically resulting in offspring which are not sterile. That being the case, I have to think that the number of chromosomes is an important factor in defining a species.

You concede that okapi and giraffe may be related. Okapi and llama too?
Don't forget these classifications are made by humans, not the animals themselves. We call cats cats and give the label to a range of them. Pandas - we call them a bear, Chinese call them Daxiongmao; literally: "big bear cat" according to Wikipedia, making them a bear-like cat. See where the argument falls a bit?

I have some questions for you: Do you believe in an Intelligent Creator, a first cause? Or do you not? Or are you 50-50 on its existence?

Yes, I'm completely convinced and comfortable about it. But I have to say, that my theological and doctrinal views are very developed. One of the fine details, which I will not discuss here, is about why some people get it and some don't.

Then you are a moron. You ignore what is evident in front of you for that which does not exist. You may assume your doctrinal views are well developed, but the dodo was well developed for Mauritius before man arrived, as was the moa in NZ, etc. It doesn't make it right. And, as a back up to hide your inadequacies in the modern world, you refuse to tell us why your views are so developed. Shy? We don't need convincing - we are convinced. We see it everyday, in front of our eyes. You, on the other hand, never developed beyond the phantasy that is religion. And I am truly sorry for you.

1898. Court Claim: Chimps Are People, Too

Comment #191337 by Goldy on June 10, 2008 at 3:40 pm

Funny chimp. Have a banana

1899. Faith no more as World Youth Day fans flames of disbelief

Comment #191334 by Goldy on June 10, 2008 at 3:26 pm

*Passes banana through cage, watches chimp eat*

1900. Faith no more as World Youth Day fans flames of disbelief

Comment #191328 by Goldy on June 10, 2008 at 3:16 pm

Science evolved Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,

Correction - science showed Adam, Eve and Steve all evolved. And Adam liked Eve and Steve, though Steve only really liked Adam. Eve fancied Steve but had to make do with Adam.
God made Adam and Eve in his image. Some homosexual nature in God made Adam fancy Steve (Steve being one of the men made on the sixth day) but seeing as God was suppressing his homoerotic urges, he made sure the other men made on the sixth day were defective. Incidently, god also made the smake and let it loose in Eden, along with planting the famous Tree knowing full well what was about to transpire. Shows what a shit he was, eh?
What the hell am I doing talking to a chimp?