Comments by Ygern

Comment #141773 by Ygern on March 11, 2008 at 7:25 am

If I was a kid in Oklahoma I'd be really upset and disillusioned right now. Afraid that my education was going to be worth nothing, that I would struggle to find a place in a legitimate college when I left school.

I have no doubt that this moronic bit of legislation will be struck down by the courts in the end, but I think that its about time that courts got tougher on the groups that keep on wilfully wasting both time and money by persistantly pushing this sort of drivel through over & over again. For two - nearly three decades - various states in the USA have had to deal with this very issue in one form or another.

Justice usually prevails, but what bothers me is that this group of hate-mongering ignorance-peddling liars simply slink off into the shadows to regroup and try again.

How about lobbying that such groups get prosecuted under the criminal justice system? Why is it always left up to brave private indiduals to take them on under civil law?

152. Seven new deadly sins: are you guilty?

Comment #141382 by Ygern on March 10, 2008 at 10:26 am

I ironically enough, regard anti-abortion laws as an affront to 'the dignity and rights of women'. In fact, I can't think how they explain themselves on that one.

Personally, I don't think many Catholics pay much attention to this sort of thing anymore, which is why the powers-that-be tend to get a little foamy at the mouth about it. I mean, even their very own faithful regard them as bordering on the lunatic fringe.

This is a pathetic attempt to guilt-trip the faithless faithful into falling back into line, a metaphorical yank on the chain.

153. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #141257 by Ygern on March 10, 2008 at 8:01 am

Schmeezers wrote:

...if people here were to discuss the issues...and ask...Do their views on religion make sense?

I think I can safely say that the majority of (not all, but most) people on this site have come to their own conclusions about religions and Gods of every persuasion a long time ago.

As a result, no, of course they don't 'examine' Hitchens' view on religion every time he says something against it. They came to the same conclusion as he did and agree with him.

Don't mistake agreement with 'blind faith'.
They are not the same thing.

154. Oklahoma: One Step from Doom

Comment #141212 by Ygern on March 10, 2008 at 7:08 am

Take a look in Sweden, where it is against the law to teach creationism/ID in private schools

I'm not American, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the Supreme Court has said that it is against the law in the USA too?

155. Hebrew University researcher: Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai

Comment #140265 by Ygern on March 7, 2008 at 4:52 am

One of our friends over at atheist.ie (yep, the Irish Atheists who bought http://www.catholic.ie/) is writing a book on Moses. It's a work in progress at the moment, but a free downloadable version is available at http://www.therealmoses.com/ if you'd like to give it a read.

156. God, power and money

Comment #139631 by Ygern on March 6, 2008 at 8:46 am

Bonzai wrote

Does anyone know whether children under drinking age are allowed to drink communion wine?

Yes they can & do. In Ireland, kids as young as 5 make their First Communion. At a regular Sunday mass, however, only the priest drinks the wine, the congregation just gets the wafers.

On the other hand, in Europe laws regarding legal drinking age are lower than in the States. And in certain countries within the EU, it would not be unheard of for children to be offered a small glass of wine on special occasions.

That being said, underage drinking is a very serious problem in Ireland.

157. God, power and money

Comment #139629 by Ygern on March 6, 2008 at 8:41 am

Gymnopeie wrote:

When you can just claim that any opposition is the work of Satan, you are invulnerable

True enough.
And, at the end of the day, while nothing can extenuate the crass deceit of Hinn, the adults who follow him are not without blame. I mean, there comes a time when you have to start acting like an adult and taking responsibility for your actions.
If your actions are that of a gullible fool, then... well. you get where I'm going with this.

158. Church exhumes Padre Pio

Comment #139152 by Ygern on March 5, 2008 at 8:18 am

I think the rather ghastly fascination with dead bodies probably stems from humankind's deeply ingrained fear of death.

To show the 'faithful' that by being 'good' you can implausibly escape the horrors of decomposition no doubt gave some people a sense of security. Being able to trot out evidence (or what you call evidence) helps win over the superstitious peasant in us all.

Ironically, how an incorrupt dead body is supposed to be a comforting or even desirable state for anyone who is expecting to be twanging a harp on high is just one of those ineffable mysteries of Holy Mother Church In Her Wisdom.

Have a look at these pics
http://www.catholicpilgrims.com/lourdes/lourdes_photo_aa.htm
of the supposedly 'most beautiful' of the incorruptible saints. They don't even pretend to hide the fact that the face is in fact a wax mask (a la Madam Tussauds).
If someone is supposedly miraculously and perfectly preserved, how come they need a wax mask?

Hmmm, just found this very interesting titbit
http://www.daylightatheism.org/2007/09/on-incorruptibility.html
which offers a few more hard facts about supposed 'miracles' of incorrupt saints.

159. Bulldozers tear down giant religious teapot

Comment #139093 by Ygern on March 5, 2008 at 5:50 am

Sometimes I think it's a shame that there isn't just 5 minutes of Afterlife - just long enough for the world's fundamentalists, true believers, aka crackpots & twits to realise how bloody stupid they spent their entire lives being...

What a waste of what could have been a wonderful life.

160. Hebrew University researcher: Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai

Comment #138410 by Ygern on March 4, 2008 at 9:22 am

@ Bentleyd

I've read an interesting article somewhere that argues that Moses was none other than the Egyptian Akhenaten (book by Ahmed Osman, but I think Freud first came up with the idea).

Needless to say, Akhenaten's motivations had little to do with the Judeo-Christian god.

161. Hebrew University researcher: Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai

Comment #138403 by Ygern on March 4, 2008 at 9:11 am

Well, I always thought Revelations read like a mushroom-tripper's ravings. It would make sense if Moses was a bit of a substance abuser too. I mean, 40 years in a desert has to be a little on the dull side.

Check out this site on the medicinal properties of rue http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/r/rue---20.html
Note, it mentions that it is an acro-narcotic in large doses .

162. Church exhumes Padre Pio

Comment #138387 by Ygern on March 4, 2008 at 8:58 am

Do a google search for any of the pro- Padre Pio sites. Even though these sites are loyal supporters of their favourite saint, to the discerning reader all the descriptions of the man paint the picture of someone with deep mental problems.

It's kind of sad. In more ways than one.

163. Church exhumes Padre Pio

Comment #138342 by Ygern on March 4, 2008 at 8:08 am

@ Hungarianelephant - some Catholics *do* still practice self-flagellation, for example the infamous Opus Dei, the Legion of Christ... there are probably others...

Scary, true.

164. Church exhumes Padre Pio

Comment #138308 by Ygern on March 4, 2008 at 7:26 am

@ Sharrow: Considering the lack of scars, I doubt he was a very committed self-harmer :-)

I (as an erst-while Catholic) have always found the Vatican's obsession with so-called 'intact' corpses of supposed saints macabre in the extreme. Not to mention delusional. I once had the misfortune of being shown a calendar of these 'miraculous intact saints' by a nun, you know the type, a different corpse for every month of the year (charming). What really got me was how decayed and badly mummified all of them were. Not one was 'intact' at all, some were dessicated mummies (but certainly no more miraculous than those of ancient Egyptian pharoahs) others were hideously eroded.

All of this to my mind, points to one thing - the Church is extremely good at ignoring evidence right in front of it's face and deluding itself and its followers with whatever story it wants to believe.

165. God, power and money

Comment #138232 by Ygern on March 4, 2008 at 4:52 am

Agreed, Gymnopedie.

David Millikan may have unintentionally proved everything he needed to about this snake-oil seller, by including this description in his article.

If anything about Hinn's act was genuine, he would not need to resort such obvious parlour tricks.

People are so overwhelmed by the mass hysteria, (not to mention performance anxiety) that they probably don't really notice that they are being played like a cheap fiddle.

Mind you, Catholics pretend not to notice when one of their parlour tricks doesn't work every Sunday: changing wine into blood, except that after the Hocus Pocus bit, it's still wine...but you pretend that it isn't.

166. God, power and money

Comment #138170 by Ygern on March 4, 2008 at 2:59 am

Hinn reached out and with thumb and first finger pushed on Toohey's neck ... and Toohey collapsed

Ooh! The first documented evidence of the Vulcan Nerve Pinch in action!

This is exciting!

Seriously, though, do the 'faithful' not see through this little trick? How deceitful and crass.

167. Earth's Final Sunset Predicted

Comment #135488 by Ygern on February 29, 2008 at 3:12 am

Dr Nev

Here's the link.
http://csmres.jmu.edu/geollab/fichter/PlateTect/heathistory.html

I'm no scientist, so I don't know how accurate or accepted etc the article is.

168. Earth's Final Sunset Predicted

Comment #135455 by Ygern on February 29, 2008 at 1:59 am

I was reading only yesterday that the molten core of the earth would probably have cooled completely within four and a half billion years (ie long before the sun is expected to go nova), which would leave the planet pretty lilfeless too. This would pre-empt any plans to do any planet-moving, surely?

Or is that theory disputed?

169. Pakistan blocks YouTube over blasphemous video

Comment #133326 by Ygern on February 26, 2008 at 4:22 am

I'm with Dr Nev on this one. Ever since the internet naysayers arrived, I have defended it (sometimes foaming slightly at the mouth) as one of the most effective blows against those who would repress freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas and knowledge.

Those who complain the loudest about it are invariably those who don't like their control over how people ought to think eroded.

170. Church is paying a high price for its celibacy rule

Comment #132804 by Ygern on February 25, 2008 at 8:10 am

Are we caring about this anymore?

I mean, seriously, I know I don't give a tinker's cuss.

171. Evidence can't shake your faith if your faith excludes it as evidence

Comment #132681 by Ygern on February 25, 2008 at 5:58 am

Oh dear. I suspect the author has never actually read anything by RD.

After all, a genuine atheist must interpret such an event as a temporarily inexplicable hallucination, or a sudden psychotic break, or a clever technological trick �" in short, as anything but evidence that atheism is false.

Hmm... a genuine atheist would interpret nothing... a genuine atheist would investigate until he or she had the facts.

An atheist who questions the truth of atheism is ceasing to be a genuine atheist precisely to the extent that he is asking himself a genuine question.

Did he dream this one up, or is he just hoping it would be true? Atheism is all about questioning the truth. Either the author is real ignorant, or hoping that all his readers are ignorant.

172. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #131278 by Ygern on February 22, 2008 at 7:10 am

The other thing in this article that is

overly broad and vaguely worded

is the phrase 'discrimination against Muslims'.

It is unfortunate that Acts like this are even in existance. Unfortunately, in Britain statistically fanatical Muslims are less likely to be from the White population group. It is unlikely that any government, anywhere is going to start performing 'screening, searches, interrogation and arrest' on a quota basis for the sake of appearing to be politically correct.

There is also an inherent and irreconcilable contradiction here:

She argues that religion should not have a lower ranking when competing rights are being balanced.

However, she does acknowledge concern about "informal matrimonial courts operating within the Muslim community based on sharia law."

C'mon: either religious rights or human rights get to win. You can't have it both ways. It sounds more politically correct, I'll grant you that. But in practice, you have to get off that fence and commit to a side.

173. Cutting Edge: Baby Bible Bashers

Comment #129543 by Ygern on February 19, 2008 at 9:31 am

JasonDragon wrote:

It's also very interesting how shy he is when not on stage

It's fairly common among actors actually. The shyness evaporates while performing for one simple reason - it's not the real you up there - you are pretending to be someone else.

So, to my mind, this proves even more than anything that the poor kid is not sincerely 'witnessing', but has been trained to recite a script.

174. Cutting Edge: Baby Bible Bashers

Comment #129394 by Ygern on February 19, 2008 at 3:57 am

ghuckin wrote:

...There's a lot to be said for freedom of speech, and a few things to be said against it...

A child being coerced into spouting propaganda is not free. This was not an example of free speech, any more than a child forced to carry a rifle and pose for the international press is exercising their right to freedom of expression.

It is child exploitation, simple as that.

175. Archbishop's 8 March centennial message: Let Sharia Law govern women's lives, Amen!

Comment #128811 by Ygern on February 18, 2008 at 2:38 am

This is a very well written article. Is it getting any exposure in the so-called mainstream media?

If not, is there any way of getting it into the mainstream? It makes so much valuable sense that it would be tragic if it goes by largely ignored.

176. The argument from oranges

Comment #128807 by Ygern on February 18, 2008 at 2:31 am

Actually, after watching that appalling display of ignorance I feel a little better. With people like that on their side, Creationists barely even need enemies...

Its embarrassing watching someone preen and strut, puffed up with pride at what they assume to be both witty and irrefutably smart; and yet leaves no doubt that he's neither.

In fact, if ever there was evidence that humans *are* closely related to cabbages, he is it.

177. Council pays psychic for exorcism

Comment #126698 by Ygern on February 14, 2008 at 1:41 am

Frankly, I can't help but think that the Council had it's metaphorical tongue in it's metaphorical cheek when they hired the psychic. Hey, if £60 can sort out a potentially expensive housing 'problem', they got off lightly.

Well done to them, I say.

178. Exorcism undergoes a revival across Europe

Comment #125306 by Ygern on February 11, 2008 at 8:10 am

Part of me wants to laugh.
Part of me is ashamed that some humans can delude themselves to this degree.

I hope the inhabitants of Poczernin send him packing, but sadly, this will probably not happen.

179. Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'

Comment #123983 by Ygern on February 8, 2008 at 4:38 am

The thing that strikes me the most is that so many liberal 'Westerners' (for want of a better term) have been almost brainwashed into believing that the only correct response to another person's conflicting religious ideology is 'I respect your religion'.

It was meant in the best possible way, but it causes so much indecision and uncertainty when people are confronted with behaviour/ practice that is by all other measures morally unacceptable.

How do we begin to undo the damaging part of 'Thou shalt respect other people's religions' without regressing to basic intolerance of other people just because they are different.

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