151. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159535 by Mark Smith on April 12, 2008 at 12:26 pm

ThoughtsonCommonToad
I think I see what you are getting at. Would you prefer I had said something like, 'I do worry that he puts some people off changing their minds and taking more rationally-established positions (which might eventually lead to atheism among other things) with this approach'? :)

152. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159523 by Mark Smith on April 12, 2008 at 12:04 pm

Who cares?

153. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159517 by Mark Smith on April 12, 2008 at 11:42 am

I do think RD is wrong in his seeming refusal to accept intelligent people can hold literalist-type beliefs. To repeat what I said some time ago on the 'Richard Dawkins on the Alan Colmes Show' thread:

While I agree with a good deal that RD says, I wish he would not imply, or at least seem to imply, that believers must not be very intelligent (unless their belief is of the type held by Einstein etc). I think he needs to find a way to acknowledge that there are a very large number of highly intelligent people who nevertheless hold to many of the standard Christian beliefs. He could talk about compartmentalisation etc in this regard. As it is, people hear him to say something close to 'all Christians are stupid'. They know this isn't the case, and it gives them reason to suspect his other assertions may be false.

154. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #159213 by Mark Smith on April 11, 2008 at 4:47 pm

ASMarques

Can you please enlighten me

155. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #159179 by Mark Smith on April 11, 2008 at 2:34 pm

I understand that people love conspiracies, but why?

And why go for one that is so obviously false and repugnant. There is a big difference between, say, questioning who was responsible for the JFK assassination and denying that there really were vast numbers of horrifically treated and then murdered jewish people.

Actually, when I think about, perhaps it is the sheer ludicrous audacity of the holocaust denial that makes it attractive in some way? (But why?)

156. Richard Dawkins on The Big Questions

Comment #159164 by Mark Smith on April 11, 2008 at 2:18 pm

Can anybody enlighten me as to why people like ASMarques commit themselves to something so silly? I can see that there are various reasons why religious people commit to their silliness (community, what their parents told them, general fear of what will happen to society without religion, etc). But I don't see those applying to holocaust deniers. So why do they hold to it in the face of all the evidence? What is in it for them, as it were?

157. Cult leader Pyotr Kuznetsov tries suicide after realising he was wrong about doomsday

Comment #157886 by Mark Smith on April 9, 2008 at 5:09 pm

Corylus, Dr B
I didn't want to get into either questioning or disagreeing with your judgements. We all have to make at least provisional and private judgements about people all the time. I suppose I felt and feel sympathy for mike if it happens to be the case that the judgements you have made public might be wrong.

I appreciate though that there are times when people feel it is necessary to make their judgements public, and I can understand in view of the perceived sexism that you felt it so here.

Indeed, I hope that I will call people out if I perceive sexism, homophobia and the like. I haven't perceived it in this case, though I can see how the things you point to could be interpreted that way. I can see how they could be interpreted other ways too. In fact I was going to suggest the examples you just gave, Dr B, could be interpreted as 'her' being dawn and him thinking you were a gay married couple like Steve. But this time I checked the postings before submitting this one and see that Mike has already said that.

Things become extremely difficult when we start reading things into obscure things people say.

158. Cult leader Pyotr Kuznetsov tries suicide after realising he was wrong about doomsday

Comment #157842 by Mark Smith on April 9, 2008 at 3:42 pm

Corylus, Dr Benway
I hope you are right. Because if you aren't, these are very serious things you are saying and I suspect they will have caused some pain. It seems quite something to diagnose somebody from such a distance.

[Edit: for what it is worth, I submitted this without seeing mikejswalker's above post.]

159. Cult leader Pyotr Kuznetsov tries suicide after realising he was wrong about doomsday

Comment #157183 by Mark Smith on April 8, 2008 at 4:10 pm

Must go to bed now. Tomorrow's another day.

[Edit: wanted to say something more hopeful than that, but I'm crap with words for that sort of thing]

160. Cult leader Pyotr Kuznetsov tries suicide after realising he was wrong about doomsday

Comment #157158 by Mark Smith on April 8, 2008 at 3:41 pm

You are free to disagree with who you like. But that freedom extends to other to disagree with you in any manner they choose. This is the nature of the internet. If you can't deal with it, either don't post or ignore responses you don't like.

161. Fleabytes

Comment #156412 by Mark Smith on April 7, 2008 at 1:46 pm

Steve

After having made an ass of myself by preaching to people on the "Cult leader" thread, I am going to try and take some comfort by indulging my narcissism. I would be interested in opinions on this blog entry... does it make sense?
http://zarbi.livejournal.com/114429.html

162. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #156009 by Mark Smith on April 6, 2008 at 1:31 pm

sdbranum
You replied to my suggestion that you post something substantive by lumping me in with a highly generalised and negatively stereotyped 'you' and by making entirely unwarranted assumptions about me. So be it. But the approach you are taking will not lead to constructive debate. I assume that you are aware of this, but perhaps I have misjudged you.

163. Dawkins warns of human extinction

Comment #155964 by Mark Smith on April 6, 2008 at 12:38 pm

fides
Would you be happier if RD had been somewhat more nuanced and said something like 'Religious fundamentalism is a key contributing factor in a great many (perhaps the large majority) of suicide bombimngs, and so without this kind of extremism there would be far fewer suicide bombings'? Or are you, in a round-about way, suggesting religious fundamentalism is not a key contributing factor?

164. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #155955 by Mark Smith on April 6, 2008 at 12:20 pm

sdbranum
I think many of the readers and posters here, me included, would appreciate it if you said something of substance rather than demonstrating your ability to swap insults.

165. Dawkins warns of human extinction

Comment #155771 by Mark Smith on April 5, 2008 at 5:05 pm

I wouldn't say the historical record supports his non-existence. Loads of people existed in those times without a contemporary record being made of them. I personally think the origin of the first Christian groups and the subsequent literary record (ie New Testament and other writings) is best explained if there was a chap called Jesus proclaiming that a messianic kingdom was about to arrive. This chap, though, was no doubt very different from the Jesus of popular imagination.

(And I recognise plenty others on this site seem to think Jesus never existed.)

if the earth is only 6000 years old as our YE friends claim, how do they explain the size of the universe, when it can be clearly demonstrated that the speed of light is approximately 300000 km/sec, and that gazillions of stars are farther away than 6000 light years?

166. Dawkins warns of human extinction

Comment #155766 by Mark Smith on April 5, 2008 at 4:47 pm

Thanks very much Cartomancer

I read a debate on the resurrection between Craig and Bart Ehrman in which Craig threw Earman at Ehrman(!) and Ehrman's response effectively was 'I can't believe we are doing maths with history'. Unfortunately, this didn't come across as a very good rebuttal, and I wish he had given the sort of response you have.

Oh, I also agree with you that Craig sounds like someone trying to talk the talk of modern ideas but without properly coming to terms with them.

167. Dawkins warns of human extinction

Comment #155759 by Mark Smith on April 5, 2008 at 4:05 pm

Cartomancer
Your discussion of miracles and historical evidence: have you come across William Lane Craig at all? He claims that Hume has been refuted re miracles and refers to John Earman (a professor of philosophy of science apparently) and his book 'Hume's Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles'. Craig claims (I am simplifying somewhat, but hopefully not unfairly) that while the probability of a particular event may be extremely low (eg a miracle), if all the alternative explanations (ie naturalistic ones) are even more improbable, then the miracle becomes the probable explanation. This argument underlies the views of many Christians who post on this site about the resurrection.

I know why I regard Craig as wrong, but I'm interested whether historians have discussed Earman's arguments and what the reaction is.

168. Dawkins warns of human extinction

Comment #155749 by Mark Smith on April 5, 2008 at 2:59 pm

Kaiserkriss
I'm not Cartomancer, but I did study biblical history in the 80s at university. The ossuary with the name 'Jesus' on had been discovered at the time. The consensus seemed to be that the claims that were being made were highly speculative and could not be given much credence. As far as I am aware, this consensus remains.

169. Beware the Believers

Comment #155495 by Mark Smith on April 4, 2008 at 3:11 pm

If I can add my tuppence, when I was a Christian I believed that according to that worldview abortion was wrong. So that is the position I held. However, I never felt any emotional commitment to it. Now that I have rejected that worldview, I have no objection to the morning after pill or relatively early abortions. But as the fetus develops I think it must develop such that it is capable of suffering and begins to develop 'personhood' and therefore this ought to be born in mind when considering abortion. I am not sure that there is a definable moment that this 'tips over', so I think it is better for the law to make late term abortions more difficult to obtain, but for them still to be possible in various circumstances, as happens in the UK.

[Edit] Sorry for the overuse of 'develop' in that sentence, but on a Friday night after a hard week I can't think of a better way of putting it.

170. Pastor attacks scientist's talk

Comment #154744 by Mark Smith on April 3, 2008 at 4:38 pm

Artful Dodger
Can you hear yourself? Your rhetoric of 'Yeah guys', 'your reactions' and 'I wouldn't have expected a different reaction from you' just comes across as petty and pathetic. The people who post here are highly diverse, with many different opinions, and your failure to recognise this is a reflection on your narrow way of thinking, nothing else.

171. Fleabytes

Comment #154530 by Mark Smith on April 3, 2008 at 12:00 pm

gimlibengloin
You don't appear to be taking the Bible very seriously. You have claimed 'God doesn't lie', but brushed aside evidence to contrary. 1 Kings 22 clearly states there was a 'lying spirit' with whom YHWH conversed. Such a spirit was one of YHWH's messengers, an angel in later theology. It acted in accordance with YHWH's will. It did as YHWH wanted. YHWH lied just as a president or prime minister lies when he/she orders a civil servant to put out a lie.

172. Fleabytes

Comment #154521 by Mark Smith on April 3, 2008 at 11:51 am

mlearnedfriend
Glad to see you back. If you get chance, I'd like to read your answer to my post #150271, copied here in case you can't find it. It seems crucial for a 'Bible-based' believer such as yourself.

mlearnedfriend

if you want to get a message around the world then you use the commonest trading language. In NT times this was Greek - today you'd use English.

By 'you' here I assume you mean god. Given you accept the humanity of the Bible, on what basis do you reach the conclusion that god has put a message in it? Of course if you assume there is one in there you will find it. But you have to make the assumption first.

Christians make the assumption because other Christians tell them the message is there. And so the myth propagates itself. The same thing happens with all the religions. It is how holy texts become holy.

173. Fleabytes

Comment #154105 by Mark Smith on April 2, 2008 at 4:20 pm

Mixmaster
how about Nick Cave and Into My Arms:

I don't believe in an interventionist god
I know darlin' that you do
If I did I would kneel down and ask him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Not to touch a hair on your head
Leave you as you are
If he felt he had to direct you
Direct you into my arms
Into my arms O Lord

...

I don't believe in the existence of angels
But lookin at you I wonder if that is true

...

But I believe in love
And I know that you do to

...


Nick Cave's take on religion seems ambiguous. But (perhaps also partly because of that) I love some of his music and he has some very interesting things to say.

174. Beware the Believers

Comment #151732 by Mark Smith on March 29, 2008 at 9:16 am

What's been most peculiar about this is that even after repeatedly mentioning that I really enjoyed it (mostly as an animation, mind you), I've been accused of being humourless because of my interest in analysing the intention and the message behind it. The maddening conceit is that some things are 'just entertainment' and that unpacking and exploring this video is a waste of time. As though 'entertainment' describes an innate property (presumably magical) that we can't break down and talk about rationally.
Who made it?
Who is it made for?
Who benefits?

175. Beware the Believers

Comment #151722 by Mark Smith on March 29, 2008 at 8:54 am

I guess I might be repeating myself, but I think Steve, RD and others are in danger of trying to read a message into this that is not necessarily there. Somebody has made a video and posted it and somebody here has put a link to it. As far as I can tell, whoever posted it didn't say 'And it's message is X'. Giving the link to it is a bit like somebody saying why don't you pop into the Tate Gallery and have a look at such-and-such a picture, it is very interesting. We don't then have to get all worried about what 'the message' of the picture is. (Though I can see that since Richard is featured he would have particular reason to be concerned.)

176. I always aim to misbehave

Comment #151708 by Mark Smith on March 29, 2008 at 8:37 am

If you go here http://atheismsucks.blogspot.com/2008/03/behind-scenes-sort-of-with-ben-stein.html there is a 3-part video of Ben Stein talking with a theologian about Expelled. I've watched the first part only. The quality of thinking is pretty dire in my opinion.

177. Beware the Believers

Comment #151699 by Mark Smith on March 29, 2008 at 8:20 am

Art (good or bad) doesn't have to have a clear message. Once the artist has put a song or poem out there, it is a thing in its own right which may or may not cause reactions the artist wished to evoke. I know this might sound a bit 'artsy', but I think it is the case. And therefore it can be a mistake to try and definitively claim it as having been intended either for or against your position. I suppose if we knew who the artist was we could ask them what they intended, but that might be different again from the reaction(s) it provokes.

178. Beware the Believers

Comment #151629 by Mark Smith on March 29, 2008 at 4:58 am

I think it is a very well done entertaining piece (if you like 'that sort of thing' - I can understand why some do not). As with most 'art', it is ambiguous and can be interpreted a number of ways. In a sense, I think it laughs at both sides of the argument, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Edit: I think Dr Benway above probably has it right also.

179. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #151439 by Mark Smith on March 28, 2008 at 5:37 pm

nshowalter
You end your post with a question, 'What am I missing here?' I think what you are missing is an accurate interpretation of what Dawkins intended to say.

Dawkins writes, "My own view, frequently expressed (for example in the The Selfish Gene and especially in the title chapter of A Devil's Chaplain) is that there are two reasons why we need to take Darwinian natural selection seriously. Firstly, it is the most important element in the explanation for our own existence and that of all life. Secondly, natural selection is a good object lesson in how NOT to organize a society." Isn't it amazing that Neo-Darwinism can be trusted to explain how the universe and all life forms got to their present place of complexity, but not to explain the human (animal) social behaviors that organize society. Survival of the fittest seems to be a perfectly acceptable explanation for all animal development except human development after we start organizing societies. How convenient!

Again Dawkins writes, "Organized complexity cannot just spontaneously happen. That, for goodness sake, is the creationists' whole point, when they bang on about eyes and bacterial flagella! Evolution by natural selection is the only known process whereby organized complexity can ultimately come into being." But of course natural selection is not a good object lesson on how to organize a complex society. It is the only known process for getting to organized complexity, but not a good object lesson on how to organize a society. We should accept the logic of natural selection everywhere except among ourselves. What am I missing here?

180. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #151346 by Mark Smith on March 28, 2008 at 2:30 pm

Jason 29

Interesting point that the Christian God requires mystery to understand.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but so does evolution? But it's not a mystery because it just hasn't been discovered yet.

181. Fleabytes

Comment #151334 by Mark Smith on March 28, 2008 at 2:12 pm

Frankus

This concept [perfection] and the one of God's omniscience - where do these ideas come from? I don't think these ideas are Biblical are they?

So, as i see it, we have made up Bible stuff and we have made up stuff to explain the made up stuff of the Bible.

I hope this is not too technical for anyone.

182. Fleabytes

Comment #151190 by Mark Smith on March 28, 2008 at 8:51 am

I've remembered where YHWH lies (with the help of a concordance - my memory is going to pot!). 1 Kings 22:22. YHWH causes a lying spirit to enter some prophets so that they will deceive King Ahab to go into a particular battle and be killed there.

Anna
Traditionally, the 'in the day that you eat of it you shall die' is read as saying that, while previously they were immortal, on the act of disobedience mortality set in and it is in this sense that they died 'on that day'. Arguably, this is what the original teller/writer of the myth must have meant.

183. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #151067 by Mark Smith on March 28, 2008 at 5:31 am

I was thinking of some earlier comments Steve, not yours specifically. And perhaps I should have said 'try to bring a new perspective'.

184. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #151057 by Mark Smith on March 28, 2008 at 4:58 am

I agree Bonzai. It is important to remember the real world nature of science and also not to jump down people's throat when they bring a new perspective.

185. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #151054 by Mark Smith on March 28, 2008 at 4:51 am

The Christian God is also an interventionist metaphysical God - which would violate the conservation of energy and momentum, and in extension the 1st law of thermodynamics. For all we know these hold... therefore the Christian God does not exist.

You know that won't wash with a christian. Even if you say "The God of The Bible", I think they would just claim mystery, the god is outside of physics or somesuch.

186. Fleabytes

Comment #151050 by Mark Smith on March 28, 2008 at 4:39 am

I seem to remember there is an occasion when YHWH lies in the Old Testament. Can't quite remember where it is at the moment. But YHWH was certainly a very human character in places. It is only with the later Christian theologians that he got 'perfected'.

187. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #150911 by Mark Smith on March 27, 2008 at 3:24 pm

RD asks

Am I right?

188. Fleabytes

Comment #150271 by Mark Smith on March 26, 2008 at 4:25 pm

mlearnedfriend

if you want to get a message around the world then you use the commonest trading language. In NT times this was Greek - today you'd use English.

189. Fleabytes

Comment #150233 by Mark Smith on March 26, 2008 at 3:44 pm

Steve
Sorry for the late reply - had to take the kids to badminton.

I see your point, but I don't see how this is going to work. Believers just aren't going to accept your standards for interpretation. This is the David Robertson problem: "my use of 'evidence' is not the same as Dawkins' use of 'evidence'".

190. Fleabytes

Comment #150005 by Mark Smith on March 26, 2008 at 11:49 am

I would phrase it just a touch differently: it matters to us that believers think that the interpretation of holy texts matters.

191. Fleabytes

Comment #149900 by Mark Smith on March 26, 2008 at 10:23 am

Richard Morgan
I can see why you might wish society as a whole should no longer be guided by ancient holy texts (and I would agree). But while ancient texts do still have an influence I do think their interpretation matters. And while it matters, it makes sense for some of us to know something about it, rather than leave the field open to the believers.

192. Fleabytes

Comment #149879 by Mark Smith on March 26, 2008 at 10:11 am

mlearnedfriend
When I was a Christian I was very concerned about this question of interpretation. As I saw it, it was the key question because without an answer everybody could claim the authority of the Bible for anything they wanted. I went with those who said the only thing you could do was agree as a group to make authoritative the original intention of the original author of the text under consideration. (Though then other rules of interpretation also had to be brought in, but I'll not go into those.) It therefore made sense to do your very best to understand the original authors in their context and thereby understand their intention better. What I found though was the utter 'humanness' of the Bible. Some parts may be 'great literature' (depending on your taste), others seem downright stupid, others just dull, but all very, very human. This seems to be why many religious leaders are afraid of academic study of the Bible: it will make their flock see it for what it is.

Of course, sophisticated theologians say it works like Jesus's divinity (ie is hidden by his humanity). But that just didn't cut it for me. How could such a human book be the basis for a religion? If your answer is that we must have faith, then isn't your faith in the wrong thing, ie in a book rather than a god. Or at least, don't you have to have faith in the book first, before you have any 'reason' to have faith in god?

193. It looks like Man crucified

Comment #148727 by Mark Smith on March 23, 2008 at 5:00 pm

Spinoza
I hear what you are saying. But isn't 'dumbing down' the nature of anything that becomes a 'mass-movement' (if that is what has happened, which I think is still very much in doubt)? If atheism is in some sense 'correct', then it is right that it be communicated to the non-intellectuals. Do you have some way of doing this that avoids the pitfalls you describe?

194. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148714 by Mark Smith on March 23, 2008 at 4:25 pm

MPhil
I understand where you are coming from. An insinuation of naziism is pretty serious. But an ironic reference by RD need not be taken that way, and I doubt very much that is what he intended. I think he intended simply to point up the irony of PZ's treatment given the attempt by the film to tar Darwinism with naziism.

Of course, politically, it can be and often is a mistake for well known people to use the ambiguous language necessary for irony and wit, because it is open to misinterpretation and even malicious interpretation. In my view, though, that is a different matter.

195. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #148698 by Mark Smith on March 23, 2008 at 3:56 pm

If this doesn't justify the fascist analogy, what ever would?

196. The science of religion: Where angels no longer fear to tread

Comment #148654 by Mark Smith on March 23, 2008 at 2:28 pm

how is it a "misfire"?

197. Fleabytes

Comment #148632 by Mark Smith on March 23, 2008 at 12:48 pm

Mixmaster

thanks for your contributions

198. The Secular Conscience

Comment #148567 by Mark Smith on March 23, 2008 at 10:06 am

PlagioClase
McGrath constantly harps on about his 'conversion' away from atheism and seems to imply it was based on 'evidence'. But he is strangely silent on what that evidence was. The closest he seems to get in his books that I have read is in the introduction to 'Dawkins' God'. He says there (I paraphrase from pages 4 and 5) that as an atheist teenager he had assumed science was equivalent to atheism; he then read some philosophy of science books before going up to university and realised this simple equation was unwarranted; at university he 'began to discover that Christianity was rather more exciting than' he had realised, while 'the intellectual case for atheism was rather less substantial than' he had supposed. In other words, it wasn't a question of evidence, it was a question of competing worldviews. McGrath strikes me as somebody who just wants to make himself rhetorical space to be able to talk about 'mysterious things', and whatever evidence there may be doesn't greatly concern him.

199. Fleabytes

Comment #148539 by Mark Smith on March 23, 2008 at 9:16 am

pathfinder
If you were as clever as you seem to think you are, you would know you can prove anything you want in cyberspace, particularly when the person you are trying to prove it to is yourself.

200. The death-of-god debate

Comment #148523 by Mark Smith on March 23, 2008 at 8:49 am

babrock
try again with an a in Gray not an e. He is the one at the top of the resulting listing: John N Gray, British philosopher