Comments by epeeist

2201. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119370 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 2:36 pm

Comment #119290 by Goldy

In some languages, it is considered impolite to use the familiar "you" when adressing others.

It is in Yorkshire - Don't thee thou me, thee thou the'sen and see how thee likes it.

2202. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119360 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 2:21 pm

Comment #119215 by Becomethearrow

[sarcasm]Ah yes, I love intelligent refutations of my arguments. It's so refreshing to see a theist who knows how to debate so prolifically.[/sarcasm]

You love it, admit it.

Not that I don't think Anna can't take care of herself, but I have marked this as "offensive".

2203. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119121 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 10:34 am

Ninth circle of hell:

Caina: Traitors to Kin. These are immersed in the ice with head down.
Antenora: Traitors to Homeland. Dante sees one who keeps biting on another's head.
Ptolomea: Traitors to Guests. They are head up in the ice, which is freezing their eyes.
Giudecca: Traitors to Benefactors. These sinners are completely immersed into the ice.

The ice of the 9th circled is kept frozen by Lucifer's six flapping wings. Lucifer has three faces, with three mouths, each chewing on a sinner: Judas is in the middle mouth with his head inside, Brutus and Cassius are in the side mouths, with their heads hanging out.

2204. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119097 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 10:13 am

Comment #119055 by al-rawandi

Most of my closest friends will be in that lowest part of Dante's Inferno. I have to catch up or I will be lonely. I will pack for warm weather.

The lowest part of Dante's hell, and you are packing for warm weather?

2205. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119025 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 9:20 am

It is their country, so their laws apply.

However, the rulers should be reminded of the amount of effort and funding that is going on. If they still insist on their medieval laws then we should withdraw and let them sink back to a medieval society. No imports, no exports, no travel in or out.

2206. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119017 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 9:11 am

Comment #119003 by Kardashovel

Yes, well once you learn how to travel through time you will be able to do all of your preparatory work at any time of your choosing, including after the event.

Don't be so obtuse. You know exactly the point I was making. Responding with something that is totally irrelevant doesn't advance your argument at all.

2207. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119009 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 9:04 am

Comment #119002 by Becomethearrow

I was going to ask you the same question, what is your purpose?

Ooh look, its a crap copy of the Eliza program.

2208. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #119000 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 8:59 am

Comment #118994 by al-rawandi

It must be a Vox Day thing.

Does he have a sister called Agnes?

Oh, and I don't think you can call these people trolls. Astroturfers yes, one sandwich short of a picnic yes, but not trolls.

2209. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118997 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 8:57 am

Comment #118992 by al-rawandi

You are a patient man.

http://marauder.millersville.edu/~fencing/blog/2006/03/second-intention-remarks.html

2210. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118987 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 8:44 am

Comment #118984 by Becomethearrow

good morning

Well, it is mid afternoon here but never mind.

Could I ask a question? What is your purpose in coming to this site and posting comments?

2211. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118982 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 8:37 am

Comment #118955 by Kardashovel

The question is, how does god know he wasn't created last Wednesday?

Because He knows "when" he did it.

I have a picture on my wall of myself at the World Cadet championships in Linz in 2005. I know I was there, and I know I did all the preparatory work with my pupil to get him there.

2212. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118948 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 7:55 am

Comment #118943 by Kardashovel

:) If I am to believe in God, the root of all causes, then it would be weak to avoid the question of the cause of God.

A while ago someone raised the idea of "Last Thursdayism" on this site. Not something that I had heard of before, so I went and looked it up.

Now, if everything was created last Thursday, we are mistaken on our science, history, personal experience, in fact just about everything.

The question is, how does god know he wasn't created last Wednesday?

2213. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #118924 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 7:06 am

Comment #118907 by notsobad

Emancipation of women is the only humane and effective way to stop overpopulation and in the end improve lives of people in the third world.

Well, I wouldn't say only but I am in substantial agreement with you.

The only problem is that there are fscking idiots out there who see this as some kind of symbolic castration.

2214. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118920 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 6:58 am

Comment #118918 by annabanana

Do you have any books that you would recommend that I read?

Well, I am not Steve but Brian Greene's books are a good start.

2215. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #118905 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 6:39 am

Comment #118901 by Opisthokont

The first is the crime: blasphemy simply should not have legal consequences

I am not sure how to read what you are saying here. Personally, I don't think there should be a crime of blasphemy at all.

In fact, I am not convinced that blasphemy should even exist as a concept.

2216. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118874 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 5:27 am

Comment #118865 by Tyler Durden

This is an argument by...?

A whole stack of things, anecdotal evidence, appeal to numbers, appeal to popularity, irrelevant conclusion.

2217. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118834 by epeeist on January 31, 2008 at 3:48 am

Comment #118792 by LorienRyan

Kardashovel - "For my part, I cannot resist making theories to explain such a bizarre and exceedingly unlikely occurrence such as our universe."

You can make up as many theories as you like - does any actual evidence support them?

Which is why he isn't actually making up theories. What he is propounding are conjectures. What he now needs to do is look at how he is going to test these conjectures.

2218. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118754 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 11:38 pm

Comment #118269 by al-rawandi

Fucking mormons. It is hard swiping at them with a sword while they whisk about on their little bicycles. You really have to wait in a bush and surprise them.

Second intention is the way to go. Let them think you are doing something else entirely and get them reacting to that.

Then slice them.

2219. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118213 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 1:34 pm

Comment #118203 by Pretty Lady

Weak at best, and in this particular case feeble.

Why? How?

If you are going to argue from analogy then you should at least attempt to make your example and analogy reasonably similar.

And even if they are similar then at best you can only give a probable conclusion since the method depends on induction. The less similar your analogy to the original argument the weaker your argument and the lower its probability.

As Cartomancer pointed out, you have a fairly simple example and, as I added, a fractal generator has a fairly low Kolmogorov complexity anyway.

2220. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118195 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 1:11 pm

Comment #118185 by Pretty Lady

For dear Richard postulates that a designer necessarily be more complex than the designed, which is demonstrably untrue when we consider the fact that a system of nearly infinite complexity, such as a fractal, may be generated from a formula so simple as to be readily comprehensible, even to the likes of moi.

Cartomancer beat me to it.

However, argument by analogy, is that the best you have got? Weak at best, and in this particular case feeble.

Oh, and the Kolmogorov complexity of a generator of a fractal set is much less than the fractal set itself.

2221. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118145 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 12:05 pm

Comment #118007 by nordicthunder

I have read both, TIA is better written and logically unassailable.

If he can't make an interview "logically unassailable" then what chance has he got in a book? Lots of assertions, ad hominem attacks, misquotations, straw men. In short a whole stack of informal fallacies.

2222. Atheism and Violence

Comment #118132 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 11:45 am

Comment #118092 by al-rawandi

I read Genealogy of Morals.

Can you give me some of Nietzsche's theories on religion.

Could I ask for a reference for a good book on Nietzsche's philosophy. At a slightly higher level than "Nietzsche for Dummies".

2223. MySpace: No place for Atheists?

Comment #118127 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 11:37 am

I have submitted a summary to Slashdot. They don't often publish my submissions but we can only hope.

Not sure even MySpace could stand up to the Slashdot effect.

2224. A Letter From Hell

Comment #118004 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 7:46 am

Comment #117710 by Goldy

Husband � doesn't that mean house owner (hus bond)? My wife will also be a husband soon � we're going into this new house together with pooled money.

Hmm, I tend to be the lady in our household since I am the only one who can cope with our Rayburn cooker (mini-Aga) and bake bread. From the Anglo-Saxon hl�fdige

2225. Death Sentence for Afghan Student

Comment #117951 by epeeist on January 30, 2008 at 3:50 am

There is a small update here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7216976.stm

Not just the courts, but the parliament want him dead.

2226. A Letter From Hell

Comment #117604 by epeeist on January 29, 2008 at 8:13 am

Comment #117590 by Steve Zara

And, as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form, as the trees and hills, and as our faces are.

I am afraid I got a sinking feeling.

I thought you might have come across design patterns from the Gang of Four (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns) book. This is extremely good.

As for Christopher Alexander, also good. I am currently doing some extensive changes to my house (a 1750's toll cottage) and his book provides a lot of well thought out ideas.

Oh, might as well post something on topic - I actually don't really care whether onan369 exists or not. However, he might want to go and read some Husserl or the existentialist psychologists like Maslow or Merleau-Ponty.

2227. A Letter From Hell

Comment #117582 by epeeist on January 29, 2008 at 6:43 am

Comment #117573 by Steve Zara

(although I have to resist not being gentle when someone tries to talk to me seriously about Feng Shui), but in my view New Age ideas are even worse intellectually.

So what's your view on Christopher Alexander and Design Patterns (architecture, not software engineering)?

2228. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #117527 by epeeist on January 29, 2008 at 3:52 am

Comment #117524 by hungarianelephant

It doesn't take any great intellectual rigour to be an atheist. You just have to not believe in something for which there isn't a shred of credible evidence. It's easy.

I can see where Spinoza is coming from. The above is fine, until you are challenged to defend your position. With more atheists this has a higher chance of being asymmetric, i.e. a knowledgeable theist against someone who just doesn't believe.

However, at the moment we have the opposite situation in that the majority of believers haven't really thought out their beliefs.

At this site we rarely see anyone who is unconsciously atheist or theist and apart from a few exceptions (revcort for instance) we even more rarely see someone who hasn't thought out their position and hasn't got the acumen to defend it. As a result we are to some extent blind to the more general population who haven't thought about this at all.

Thinking is hard work, which is why most people try to get others to do it for them.

2229. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #117525 by epeeist on January 29, 2008 at 3:42 am

Comment #117523 by liddlefeesh

I can hear the rhetoric now, "Dawkins said that it's better to sexually abuse a child than to take them to church", etc, etc, etc.

Yep - "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

2230. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #117520 by epeeist on January 29, 2008 at 3:01 am

Sitting next to my desk I have a little book Thinking from A to Z by Nigel Warburton. It is meant to be dipped into rather than read.

Occasionally I read through an article like the above and see what entries it matches in my book. This one commits so many formal and informal errors that I just gave up.

I liked the bit about Dennett committing errors in logic. I wonder if Vox Day realises that one of his teachers was Willard Quine?

2231. A Letter From Hell

Comment #117496 by epeeist on January 29, 2008 at 1:22 am

In order to save my blushes I am going to ignore most of the comments above and do a side swerve.

Nyman, Reich, Philip Glass, Avo Pert, John Taverner and the like do get dull very quickly. Anaemic, wishy-washy and directionless.

And Taverner can't even do religious music properly, compare Apokat�stasis for 6 Tibetan bowls (http://www.emusic.com/samples/m3u/song/10901269/13846413.m3u) to the other John Taverner's (ca 1490 - 1545) In Nomine (http://www.theclassicalshop.net/mp3samples/SA/SAR02909T01D01.wma).

If you do want to listen to good, modern composers with a religious bent then try Messian, e.g. this from Quartet for the end of time http://www.emusic.com/samples/m3u/song/10870929/13472273.m3u or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VA8AP6/ref=dm_mu_dp_trk12 from Sept Haikai.

Wanders away in a curmudgeonly fashion.

2232. A Letter From Hell

Comment #117288 by epeeist on January 28, 2008 at 1:51 pm

Comment #117286 by Deepthought

Am I going to regret asking "Who is Dianelos?"

Bane of the site for a time. An idealist theist who could turn out stuff that looked incredibly plausible at the rate of what seemed like half a novel a day.

You had to read him fairly carefully to realise that his stuff had significant holes in it.

2233. A Letter From Hell

Comment #117280 by epeeist on January 28, 2008 at 1:36 pm

Comment #117275 by Corylus

P.S. Epeeist don't you do programming sometimes? ;-)

Well, that's what I am paid for. These days my major interests are accessibility and usability engineering.

Public manifestations of my efforts include http://www.sallekiss.org.uk

2234. A Letter From Hell

Comment #117265 by epeeist on January 28, 2008 at 1:15 pm

Comment #117249 by omega369

Because you can't prove that anything exists

To quote a bowl of petunias "Oh no not again".

I knew I shouldn't have mentioned Dianelos.

2235. A Letter From Hell

Comment #117245 by epeeist on January 28, 2008 at 12:56 pm

Comment #117237 by Goldy

This Omegaism is cool - like ADH's evangelism. Doesn't matter what you do, it's a belief, like God's hand is everywhere in ADH's mind.

Don't forget Dianelos (shudder)

2236. A Letter From Hell

Comment #117230 by epeeist on January 28, 2008 at 12:42 pm

Comment #117221 by omega369

Computer Programming is all about logic, logic was founded in philosophy.

For someone who is professing to know something about logic that is pretty sloppy. Some computer programming is about logic, for example Prolog implements Horn clauses and Lisp implements the Lambda calculus. Both of these come out of symbolic logic, invented by Boole and De Morgan who were mathematicians rather than philosophers.

Lots of other languages are really just various implementations of process.

And yes, I do know that all computer programming languages are Turing complete.

As for mathematics, you might class intuitionists as believers but you would have a great deal of difficulty with the formalists.

2237. A Letter From Hell

Comment #117214 by epeeist on January 28, 2008 at 12:19 pm

Comment #117204 by omega369

* Concrete Belief: The belief in something which we have evidence for. This is where I feel that most Science is.

To echo al-rawandi and Paula, science has got nothing to do with belief.

While this is overly simplistic the process is

We have a problem, say something like the ultraviolet catastrophe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_catastrophe)

We raise one or more hypotheses

We generate critical tests of the hypotheses

Those that aren't eliminated by the critical experiments we keep, repeating tests until we have one that explains the problem

After sufficient tests this becomes a theory, in this case quantum theory

Note that our theory isn't true, it is simply well tested and corroborated, it is contingently valid. Another experiment tomorrow or next week may falsify it.

2238. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #116982 by epeeist on January 28, 2008 at 12:51 am

There was a bit on UK Radio 4 this morning about Tiktaalik and "Your Inner Fish". Handled reasonably well.

It was just before "Thought for the Day", I wonder if John was listening.

2239. Ken Ham in Leicester April 2008

Comment #115880 by epeeist on January 25, 2008 at 1:22 am

I have been pondering how one should speak at these events, these are some initial thoughts:

You are not there to promote or even defend atheism or the theory of evolution. All this will get you is a whole lot of D'Souza like spew which you will be forced into trying to rebut, with no credence being given to your answers. If your "allegiance to god" is raised then refuse the gambit, "I thought we were here to discuss science education, I don't see how my religion is of any relevance."

Don't try to point out the stupidities in the assumptions "You claim that the universe is 6000 years old, be we can see light from stars millions of light years away". Again, this will just get you into a series of rebuttals that the ~~preacher~~ lecturer will be ready for

Push the burden of proof on to them
- "Science that I am familiar with, such as the theory of relativity, has given us things like satellite navigation systems, chemistry has given us antibiotics and biology has allowed us to breed for better crops, could you tell us some of the underlying theories that you are presenting us with and how they have benefited us?"
- "You say that the earth is 6000 years old, what drove you to this theory? What evidence have you for this?"
- "What experiments have you done to show how the Grand Canyon could have been formed by this flood?"
- "You claim that the speed of light has changed since the beginning of the universe, could you tell us how you have verified this?"
- Refuse to allow a move to attacking conventional science, "I am sorry, I know that there are problems with getting accurate ages for fossils, but you haven't explained how you date the ammonites in the Manchester museum collected by S.S. Buckman
- Let them raise the god, but bring it back to topic, "I am sorry, I thought we were discussing science, not religious education."

There are three basic ideas behind this:

Push the burden of proof on to them. If you start trying to prove your own position then the burden of proof is shared and it leaves you open to attack. All you need to do is undermine their position

Ensure that the discussion stays relevant, you are discussing science education, not religious education.

Reading through the AiG site (must put my keyboard in the dishwasher again) it is full of tu quoque attacks "Well you might say we have problems with light coming from millions of light years away, but the big bang has problems too." There are no positive results there, so pushing them to show any positive results will be a problem to them.

Above all, stay polite, don't attack their religiosity, keep it very tightly focused and keep pushing for definitive answers.

2240. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115508 by epeeist on January 24, 2008 at 9:14 am

Comment #115503 by Henri Bergson

Thirdly, I would say that there were general, I say general, differences in mental capacity between so-called 'races'. But I cannot 'prove' this, it is just an observation.

You can't really frame it like this. Your hypothesis should be that "there are no differences in mental capacity between races". (With suitable caveats for things like equal educational access, demography and a whole stack of other things). This is capable, in principle, of disproof.

Bloody hard and incredibly expensive to set up a good designed experiment even at the meta-level and even then I don't think you would get any clarity in the result.

2241. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115457 by epeeist on January 24, 2008 at 8:04 am

Comment #115451 by Henri Bergson

But that's the fact of inequality, not the value of inequality. You cannot 'prove' a value one way or another.

Which is why science doesn't concern itself with proof, but disproof.

EDIT: sorry, misread your actual text and my response is not apposite. As you intimate, science can deal with the fact though not the value.

2242. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115453 by epeeist on January 24, 2008 at 8:02 am

Comment #115449 by Artful_Dodger

It reminds me of the poem by (I think) Lewis Carroll:

"As I was walking up the stairs

I think I prefer a song from my youth, the chorus of which went

"Trip, trap, trip, trap
Over the rickety bridge"

2243. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115443 by epeeist on January 24, 2008 at 7:51 am

Comment #115441 by Henri Bergson

eepeist,
(what are we on about??)

Well it is phenomenologically difficult to decide, but perhaps you have some Ideas about that.

Err.. Mornington Crescent.

2244. Three Little Pigs 'too offensive'

Comment #115435 by epeeist on January 24, 2008 at 7:40 am

Comment #115433 by JemyM

why do most articles from Britain sound like the Brits are nutters these days?

Because most of our press is owned by foreign nutters or ex-pornographers?

2245. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115432 by epeeist on January 24, 2008 at 7:38 am

Comment #115427 by Henri Bergson

epeeist,
like the subtlety there. You're really gay about your science.

Just so long as I am not an ecce homo...

2246. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115420 by epeeist on January 24, 2008 at 7:13 am

Comment #115406 by al-rawandi on

What about learning abilities. Linguistic abilities. Quant abilities. Logical reasoning abilities.

Sounds a reasonable start

Can you tell me you believe that a child born in England and kept in an intellectual vacuum and tested would not score better than an African child given the same treatment. Both children receive the same education and resources?

An here you have the beginnings of a designed experiment.

I don't really know what "intelligence" or "intellect" are. I can see some manifestations including those that you give in the list above. But as you intimate, these may be tied to education and culture. And is the "intellect" required to produce a theory of relativity better than one that is used to create an opus 131 string quartet or an "Also Sprach Zarathustra"?

2247. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115404 by epeeist on January 24, 2008 at 6:49 am

Comment #115387 by Henri Bergson

What if Darwin, Galton, Spencer, et al were right about the hierarchy of human races? Of course it is a value judgement, but so is one which states that humans are superior to apes (in terms of intellect).

First define what you mean by intellect, then you can do your critical experiment to test it.

2248. Mixing Mammals

Comment #115376 by epeeist on January 24, 2008 at 5:39 am

Comment #115366 by Johnny O