201. I didn't know the FLEA CIRCUS was back in town!

Comment #85052 by prettygoodformonkeys on November 4, 2007 at 5:39 pm

When bad music comes on the radio, I lunge at the dial so I won't be infected when I am composing later. My friend is a painter and does the same with art in restaurants; we all know to seat him facing the window.

And I try, I try to read the fleas so I will know their arguments (I will not buy their books), but I have the same old feeling creeping over me: that researching these apologist websites with an open mind is contaminating anything good about me (whatever that may be). That Becky Garrison, for instance; what a vacuous postulator she is. Why even breathe, if you're just going to do THAT with it? And "The Wittenberg Door" site? Please.

I'm getting tired of these quacks; it's crushing sometimes, this ignorance thing. But coming to this site and hearing all your well-thought views, and sudden insights, and humor, is keeping me going. Thank you all; nice work.

202. The Turning of an Atheist

Comment #84931 by prettygoodformonkeys on November 4, 2007 at 9:20 am

Excellent job, Mr. Oppenheimer; and very even-handed considering the despicable methods used.

We may have a new category here:

"argument from hijacked authority".

203. Huge Black Holes May Hold Keys to Galaxy Formation

Comment #84068 by prettygoodformonkeys on November 1, 2007 at 5:26 am

There is a great little movie on this project called: "Horizon: Supermassive Black Holes". I'm sorry I don't have a link because I downloaded it on a bit torrent site a couple of years ago, but you could get it with a quick search. It's about 45 min. long.

Or, come on over, I wouldn't mind watching it again!

204. Science and Religion BOTH make faith claims

Comment #83950 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 31, 2007 at 7:24 pm

Science says that if a circle's diameter is 1, then its circumference is 3.1415926535897932.., and this is proven every time you measure any circle. Any circle.

Religion's answer to this is in the Bible, is revealed magically in the hands of the fellow to my right (your left) and is to be taken on faith as the Word of God (theirs).

Measure by faith and you will not fill your cup. Measure by science and die in your unbelief.

But, until then, at least you will get your sums right.

205. You can't prove that you love someone, so don't expect proof of God

Comment #83086 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 28, 2007 at 10:39 pm

"Can you prove what color I am thinking about? No?
See, GOD!

Stupid atheist."

I don't accept the simile; one has nothing to do with the other, it is just an emotional trick that one should not be drawn into, one that ties love into something invisible, and does it very badly.

To my thinking, the best tack would be keep asking them to explain how the two are connected as a proof, and don't get tricked into looking like you don't know what love or God is, because I bet that's where this is headed.

The evidence of love for each other is everywhere. Let's look at the evidence of God in the universe: unimaginably vast cold empty space, confusion, horrible disease, disaster, cruelty, poverty, noting that religious people fare no better with these fates than anyone else, and then of course there's the prostate.

There are huge clouds of methane hundreds of light years across just floating out there for no "reason" (and all we have is reason, so don't say God's reasons are inscrutable, because you pretend to know them) unless, of course, the cloud of methane is a celestial fart. There is more than enough evidence that a God isn't there.

206. I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist

Comment #83085 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 28, 2007 at 10:19 pm

Atheism is: not filling in the blanks with wishful thinking. It is rigorously holding to the working hypothesis that makes the most sense according to the facts that are present, using the best tools of reason available, changing the hypothesis when necessary, and continuing to wonder about the rest. It actually requires a lack of "faith" to be able to look at things freshly and make good use of the insights of others; faith makes this impossible, because to entertain an opposing view even for a second requires suspending your faith (that you already have the correct view)

"Atheism is a religion the way not collecting stamps is a hobby"

The question is only asked by someone who cannot imagine other ways of looking at the world.

207. Face to faith

Comment #82926 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 28, 2007 at 9:25 am

What a steaming pile of horse puckey.

"Are you nostalgic for being a primitive ancestor on the savannah (read: miss your own childhood sense of wonder)? Then work with me against science wherever it conflicts with the awesome wonder of ignorance as expressed by religion (read: don't betray your own childhood)."

Pythagoras and Bacon: who cares what they imagined, or guessed - what did they FIND OUT? Pythagoras' animal sacrifice is used as an example of the ignorance of science (?!?). ARRRGH!

Silly ass. From whence issues the horse puckey.

208. Italy's Padre Pio 'faked his stigmata with acid'

Comment #81834 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 25, 2007 at 8:58 am

"We would like to remind Mr Luzzatto that according to Catholic doctrine, canonisation carries with it papal infallibility.

"We would like to suggest to Mr Luzzatto that he dedicates his energies to studying religion properly."

209. Arguments Against Evolution

Comment #81548 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 24, 2007 at 10:34 pm

Ask them what their theory is: what does it predict, is it falsifiable, etc?

Patching holes makes you look like you're protectionist, on the defensive, weak and afraid. If they don't have an alternate theory based on internationally accepted principles of reason and logic ("Magic" isn't a theory) then they have to move on to another topic.

This argument is usually made by ID 'theorists', who claim they are not postulating the Christian god, just a Designer. So if you get drawn in, call the Designer "Aliens", and call their involvement "Invisible Magic", or, "and at this point in history a Presto! happens", etc. etc. Because they have no theory.

Never miss an opportunity to pour ridicule onto something ridiculous, I say.

210. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!

Comment #81541 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 24, 2007 at 10:19 pm

Hitler was a Christian; they will say, not my kind of Christianity.

Nevertheless, he was an avowed Christian, talked about Jesus in his speeches, letters, and interviews, appealed to Christians regularly regarding the Jews, had the continuous blessing of the R.C. Church (Mein Kampf has never been, and is not now, on the Vatican list of banned books - unlike Galileo, Copernicus, Pascal, Voltaire, etc, etc), and had large crucifixes everywhere, even in his unpublicized mountain retreat. As an art student in 1914, he painted the baby Jesus as a blonde, blue-eyed aryan child, held by Mary, with the future shining Jerusalem shimmering in the distance http://www.nobeliefs.com/mementoes.htm. He also painted Christ appearing to him on the battlefield http://www.adolfhitlerresearchsociety.org/index8_files/Page487.html.

He inherited and exploited the weaknesses of a people made gullible by religion, and his success (and Stalin's, and Mao's) was more due to the power of the new mass media and his use of the Strong Father archetype than it was to a coherent ideology.

But it is wrong to call him an atheist; more correct to call him a Christian.

211. Arguments From Design, First Cause, Something Rather Than Nothing, Fundamental Constants

Comment #81532 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 24, 2007 at 9:49 pm

Another argument from design is the watch found on the beach, that must have had a designer. A parallel is the tornado going through a junkyard and assembling a 747.

What is missed (by us, usually) is that watches (and 747 parts) evolved over thousands of years of random tinkering with levers, springs, gears, metallurgy, and there never at any one point is an actual designer.

The watch on the beach is actually one of the best arguments for evolution, and yet is frequently lost to the ID proponents because of the acceptance of a false premise in the beginning.

Nothing is designed. If you sit down to design something, you are borrowing from all the evolution that has gone before you.

212. Pascal's Wager

Comment #81497 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 24, 2007 at 8:53 pm

5. Comment #81409 by LordSummerisle

Spot on, sir!

213. Arguments From Design, First Cause, Something Rather Than Nothing, Fundamental Constants

Comment #81496 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 24, 2007 at 8:51 pm

The fundamental constants are not fine-tuned, you are just witnessing the anthropic principle, which leads to: "Because I am here, the Creator wants me to be here. Because I am here now, and all of time is behind me, then I am the the pinnacle, the ultimate reason for the universe to have existed: it was all to get me, here, now. And I stand here as proof of that."

It is the flip side of the same psychosis: "It is all empty, so I must have been created to be tortured by its pointlessness." We should be able to agree that both are equally useless descriptors, or the original argument must be dropped.

Having said that, it is much more probable, in the view of physics, that there would be something rather than nothing. To assume otherwise is simply an argument from incredulity: "It's amazing that we're here at all, therefore GOD!"

The fundamental constants are not all that fine-tuned; it's the difference (for instance) between 10 to the negative power of 35, and 10 to the negative power of 36; it is an order of magnitude, but the difference of one small integer is easily exploited by the credulous.

Also, there are many different probable universes (to use the spring-board of the presented argument of fine-tuned universes), and the majority of them work out to be something rather than nothing (refer here to the work of Hawkings and Victor Stenger, and don't try to be a physicist yourself - another trap).

And, while you're at it, explain that probability is a science. They hate that.

214. Science can answer how questions but only religion can answer why questions

Comment #81481 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 24, 2007 at 8:12 pm

4. Comment #81403 by Robert Maynard

"Why" questions presuppose purpose.

215. If you don't accept the supernatural, you obviously think life is depressing, meaningless and cold

Comment #81478 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 24, 2007 at 7:57 pm

Loving music, art, and poetry have made my life more difficult, in the sense that I have never fit in, but life is more confusing yet more worthwhile when it isn't black and white. Losing illusions opens your eyes to the world around you, and atheism is just another liberation from another illusion.

Unhappy: "if you just believe there is a father in the sky, you will be as happy as us." How long could one pretend this, and what kind of happiness is that? I left my father, grew up: born right the first time.

Depressed: being surrounded by the deluded is depressing; is that the fault of atheism?

Loveless: My wife, family and friends are the most important 'part' of my life. It is the truly loveless who imagine a supernatural love in order to escape the excruciatingly beautiful poignancy of our temporary nature. Surely this is more of a bond than the simplistic club rules of "believe, and you will be saved with us"; or, more correctly, "you will FEEL saved, like us". And, if you join us, we will feel less alone, which kind of feels like love.

Indifferent: it just looks like that to you from the artificial viewpoint you have created. Put down the goggles of religion, or just set them over there for a moment while we weigh things. See if you can, just for a moment.

216. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #81471 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 24, 2007 at 7:30 pm

Reasoning coming about as a result of non-rational forces is exactly what has happened. No problem; this does not refute reasoning.

The study of evolution shows that reason is an extremely recent development, and was not needed before that. Still, reason is what makes sense to us as thinking primates, it is what defines falsifiability, it explains why we can agree on things, why some things work and others do not, and why some things are (we can agree) ridiculous. Never mind what they are, it is always reason that we use to make the determination.

The fabrication of an all-knowing being does not make any reasonable sense, nor does it set up a usable framework that would be an alternative to reason.

217. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #81422 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 24, 2007 at 5:40 pm

From the Debate Points page:

Here is a list of common debate points we will all most likely meet, either in a formal debate or casual setting. To participate, click on a debate point, and use the comment space below each point to write out your rebuttal. Let's try and be clear and concise, as if these were to be used in a real debate. Suggest new Debate Points here. Also see: AskTheAtheists.com

218. Does fundamentalist religion cause the rejection of evolution? or is it the other way around?

Comment #80679 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 22, 2007 at 3:29 pm

42. Comment #80539 by Fathom:

I was thinking of printing the Excel sheet for fun, but at $0.40 a copy it would be $147.00!

Another cool visual that I recall goes something like this:

Stretch your arms out to both sides, fingers extended.

The tip of your left middle finger represents the first primitive life on Earth, the tip of your right middle finger is the present moment.

Now take a nail file and give the nail on your right middle finger one stroke.

You just erased all trace of humans in the timeline.

219. Does fundamentalist religion cause the rejection of evolution? or is it the other way around?

Comment #80310 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 21, 2007 at 9:30 am

33. Comment #80304 by Kingasaurus;
Excellent, very usable; thanks!

220. Does fundamentalist religion cause the rejection of evolution? or is it the other way around?

Comment #80309 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 21, 2007 at 9:23 am

I apologize in advance for the length of this, but it helped me, and may clear it up for someone else.

My personal experience (and when talking about intuition, that's how it gets 'quantified'!) has been this: when I would read creationist claims about evolution, I actually had to research pretty hard - for a layman - to find out what the position of evolution was. Even then, I did this for months and months, and each issue seemed to be separate - it made me think the creationists had an over-arching view that I hadn't considered, and I kept trying to see what it was.

Eventually I started looking more into the science than the religion, and made an Excel spreadsheet of the evolution timeline to graph the results (because I couldn't find one - which i found hard to believe). I used rough dates (which I would happily be corrected on!), and made the graph easily (it wasn't impressive) but I couldn't see the most recent parts of the graph, only down to apes:

Earth 4,500,000,000
PhotoSynth 3,000,000,000
Complex cells 2,000,000,000
Multicells 1,000,000,000
Simple Animals 600,000,000
Fish 500,000,000
Insects 475,000,000
Amphibians 400,000,000
Reptiles 300,000,000
Mammals 200,000,000
Birds 150,000,000
Flowers 100,000,000
Dinos Gone 65,000,000
Horse 50,000,000
Dog 34,000,000
Apes 15,000,000
Humans 700,000
Harpoons 80,000
Religion 3,500
Industrial 150

I stretched the graph out horizontally so I could see everything on the legend, then started stretching the bottom of the graph (left click, hold, and drag) down to get humans to appear at all, a tiny sliver in one of the cells. I never succeeded in getting harpoons, religion, and industry to appear.

I went down 13,250 lines to get humans to appear in visual scale. At that resolution, one line is 25,000 centuries, one page is 950,000 centuries, and to scroll back up through the visual representation of our history you have to go back 368 pages (the limitations of the accuracy of the PC screen skews the totals slightly). Dinosaurs, horses and dogs look like relatively reasonable lengths of time, though still unimaginable; everything previous is off the scale of visualization even with a graph. And this is just the history of the Earth, not the Universe.

The first, unstretched, graph is the one where creationist logic comes from, and it is intuitive, it feels right, but it doesn't make sense. However, one can see the whole thing, and there's no denying it: Excel doesn't lie.

I couldn't have had a feeling for the massive lengths of time that evolution has had to simmer on the back burner if I hadn't done this visual exercise, and I recommend it to anyone. Describing it does not do it justice. You can't find one on the internet because it's not possible to represent.

I can't believe I wasn't taught this in grade school, but then, we didn't have Excel, and I'm starting to see that not many people understood this, in order to teach it.

Thanks to the proper scientists among you for your indulgence.

221. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07

Comment #80148 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 20, 2007 at 7:55 am

Nicely done, everyone.

My two cents worth, tongue in cheek:

Can I be good without God?
Can I be bad without the Devil?
Can I make tea without the Celestial Teapot?

Can there be dialogue between Reason and Christ-inanity?

Can there be there truth without the Trooth Fairy ©?

Can I exhibit the essence of an invented (accepted) quality without invoking the other thing I invented (accepted)?

Can I continue getting dressed in the morning, knowing that massive black holes in an infinite, indifferent universe are eating light itself, even as I pour my cereal and read the paper?

Never mind getting up in the morning – how can I even sleep?
And yet I do, very well.

It's the weekend, and watching Hitchens rise to the challenge of words is one of my favorite things! Playing guitar is another - music without words - the antidote, or the expression? Don't know that either.

I think I'd like a cup of tea, Doctor.

222. God's honest truth?

Comment #79864 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 18, 2007 at 7:27 pm

30. Comment #79794 by Martin S:

their child....belongs to itself

223. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79584 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 17, 2007 at 9:00 pm

bluejway:

you refuse to take his ideas seriously from the outset

224. Help Counter the New Atheist Crusade to 'Evangelize' America!

Comment #79582 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 17, 2007 at 8:56 pm

Nazgul:

I predict they will become violent. That's what the fearful do when they get cornered

225. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79580 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 17, 2007 at 8:50 pm

BAEOZ:

god has the same truth status as the tooth fairy

226. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79573 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 17, 2007 at 7:17 pm

192. Comment #79570 by bluejway

Which of McGrath's "ideas" would you like to delve further into?

Shout on.

227. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79568 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 17, 2007 at 6:21 pm

187. Comment #79565 by Rtambree

F--ing Googlevideo; I didn't get to see more than 1/2 way through McGrath's piffle. He's like a neutered cobra, swaying side to side and promising never to spit.

Hitch is better with the neanderthals than RD is, more killer instinct, but you lose a bit of edge with the drink. I think so anyway; I haven't done all the research!

228. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79566 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 17, 2007 at 6:06 pm

185. Comment #79561 by ab_initio

I wouldn't know :)

Yes, he's clearly moved on from making model airplanes in his parent's basement, and found some arcane way (DH Lawrence ?) to contact the Mother Ship.

229. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79564 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 17, 2007 at 6:00 pm

157. Comment #79455 by Rtambree

You made my day! Thanks

A debate with the Postmodern Generator; perfect.

230. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79558 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 17, 2007 at 5:24 pm

Hitchens is a master debater, and McGrath is, well, something that rhymes with master debater. What a wanker!

I finally got Googlevideo to give me a bit of it, and thankfully it failed in the middle of the intellectual mush of A.M.'s copious dishing of warmed margarine.

The fascinating thing for me is how this crap actually works. He is saying exactly what will float with the converted, and none of us can understand it! It's like a secret language that only termites can understand, and as we gloat over how stupid they are (and they are), they slowly chew the house down.

231. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #78764 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 14, 2007 at 7:23 pm

I can see why someone further down the line preferred to translate Logos as 'the Word'!

PS: I recently read "The Bible Against Itself" by Randel McCraw Helms, and I found it very helpful.

232. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #78757 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 14, 2007 at 6:27 pm

77. Comment #78746 by 35bluejacket:

KJV Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the "substance" of things hoped for, the "evidence" of things not seen"

233. Richard Dawkins receives the Deschner Prize

Comment #78752 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 14, 2007 at 5:59 pm

Congratulations, Richard.

Until now, I didn't know there was a prize for combating ignorance; I am heartened by that as much as anything.

We are all lifted by this.

234. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #78691 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 14, 2007 at 10:24 am

57. Comment #78680 by scottishgeologist,
From the article:

"It's just a bit of fun and another thing to bring a smile during Christmas time," he said. "The archbishop doesn't think there will be a great rush for these, but he was happy to give his blessing if it helped raise funds."

The ornaments have been hand-made by women working in cottage industries in Thailand.

235. The benefits of 80 million years without sex

Comment #78435 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 12, 2007 at 9:42 pm

What a positively immaculate way to conceive!
No muss, no fuss.

Unless of course, they're married.
That's another way of explaining the lack of sex.

80 million years without sex, though.
That is a serious grudge.

On the other hand, these could be the chosen ones.
Not an unfaithful one in the bunch.

Some of them are pretty hot, though.
I'd totally do that little "Flosculariacea"!
www.microimaging.ca/rotifer4.jpg

I'll stop now.
(what are the odds?)

236. A Revelation

Comment #78428 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 12, 2007 at 8:31 pm

41. Comment #78423 by Cartomancer:

I still can't reconcile:
"the facts which needed explaining in the first place come from scriptural assertion"

and that this is:
"not really all that different from modern science"

The form is the same, but that is all. If you have a perfect tree but it is made out of iron (or, in this case, excrement) you will never get any apples from it.

Also:
"...burning at the stake...almost never happened to an academic theologian."

Well, it didn't really have to did it? The 16th and 17 centuries saw an estimated 200,000 'souls' burned at the stake. But we shouldn't say it quickly: they were slowly roasted. If the church allowed, family could bring extra wood to make it go faster. I think the message was writ plainly for the academics, lest they be burned, and let's not forget that academic theology is at least a step apart from science, and that anyone 'in the fold' is worth more (for no reason) than a nameless peasant.

And:

"..a simple recanting of your errors was almost always enough to secure pardon."

Marvellous. Such a deal. Surely you're not making a case for the benign influence of the church on free thought, let alone it being the architect of the scientific revolution? Especially since its sentiment toward knowledge is much the same today, without the burning. And not just difficult new ideas, but established theories: explaining germs, evolution, weather, the age of the earth. These are concerted efforts to increase ignorance.

I realise we can't go back and say they were all stupid for not knowing what we know now (but neither then should we bring it forward and assert that that's what Ricardus of Dawkins would have thought), but they were actually burning people. The witch who was burned for turning herself into a cat knew perfectly well that they were lying, and at least suspected that their philosophy was bankrupt. There have always been people in history (such as Lucretius), famous and not, before and after 33 A.D., who saw through the scam and saw these people for what they were. And there have always been people who will (as an extreme) burn other people; they're out there still. Religion, or politics, or business: many of us can recognise what drives people. And what drives people like this is power and schadenfreude, not the thirst for knowledge. They have recognised intelligence in others and have seen it as a threat, wielding any club at hand. That has been the primary role of the Church in the 'quest for knowledge': CONTROL.

IMHO

237. A Revelation

Comment #78375 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 12, 2007 at 2:59 pm

31. Comment #78367 by Veronique:
"Good morning everyone, a brew of Quetz's favourite libation is in order"

Friday evening here; hope G&T is ok

32. Comment #78369 by Vendetta:
"V, based on your post I'd say that pride and reverence are called for."

I second that! Cheers!

238. A Revelation

Comment #78359 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 12, 2007 at 1:51 pm

26. Comment #78342 by Polydactyl

Thanks; that was helpful. I mean it. But:

Copernicus' book was suspended until corrected by the Index of the Catholic Church in 1616, because the Pythagorean doctrine of the motion of the Earth and the immobility of the Sun "is false and altogether opposed to the Holy Scripture". These corrections were indicated in 1620, and nine sentences had to be either omitted or changed. The book stayed on the Index until 1758. In that period Galileo Galilei was found guilty in 1633 for "following the position of Copernicus, which is contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture ...", and was sent to his home near Florence where he was to be under house arrest for the remainder of his life in 1638.

I do find medieval history interesting, but I am not a historian and am fuzzy with the dates. I learn a lot on this site from academics; I am not one. However, I think my initial point is a simple one, still unaddressed: that most everybody was Christian by default of birth, and many, if not most, scholars were clerics or monks (who else had time for it?). But what did Christianity, with its doctrines and the subsequent conduct of the church, do to further progress in science?

Of course they were in favor of science, they didn't yet know what it held; "by all means, let's have a look around", and so they did. And then they didn't like it.

It seems you were free to elaborate your theory, and the church was free to throw you in confinement for it; not much of a recommendation for having begun the scientific revolution.

And now here we are today, with Christianity doing its best to cut science off at the knees: Archaeology, Biology, Physics, Astronomy, Geology, etc. etc.

It galls me that they would also take credit for having started science in the first place. That puts "History" on the list as well.

239. A Revelation

Comment #78321 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 12, 2007 at 12:28 pm

19. Comment #78262 by Cartomancer:

"..Christian doctrine .... was no more restrictive than .... Darwinism is now.."

You're correct; perhaps I should have said dark ages, not Dark Ages, to demonstrate a layman's understanding. I'm sure, if only by your tone, that your dates are accurate, but perhaps you could expand further on the above excerpt for me, especially in relation to things like the church's general historical approach to geocentrism, disease vs. demons, the astronomy of heaven and hell, the persecution and torture of those who dissented? I would be so surprised to learn that it WAS "Christianity that began the scientific revolution", but I'd be open to the idea if it were true.

Thanks.

And, my apologies to all medieval intellectuals.

PGFM

240. A Revelation

Comment #78227 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 12, 2007 at 7:56 am

"..whether it was Christianity that began the scientific revolution.."

Are you fucking kidding me? That same old saw again, that just because everyone in Christendom was by definition "Christian", then all of our accomplishments as a species have been therefore Christian.

It's true that Christianity, as a world view, has been intimately involved in the struggle for knowledge, namely during the centuries-long bloodbath called the Dark Ages (and long before) during which it monitored all thought like a pinch-brained, hook-nosed old crone, and suppressed every new idea for as long as it possibly could, then put a godly spin on its inevitable failure. Some contribution.

I hope it was quickly ridiculed, and that they moved on...

241. 'Flying Spaghetti Monster' Religious Group Turning Heads at MSU

Comment #78044 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 11, 2007 at 3:25 pm

35. Comment #77234 by kev_s on October 8, 2007 at 8:10 pm

Pasta Tricolore:

It is Three, and yet it is One!
It is One, and yet it is Three!
I am lost in the mystery....

Honk if you love Cheeses!

242. Ban teachers from religious dress, Quebec group says

Comment #77800 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 10, 2007 at 3:30 pm

Arise, and follow me, and I will make you fishers of fuckwits.......

http://www.evolvefish.com/fish/emblems.html

243. The Squirrel Wars

Comment #77404 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 9, 2007 at 8:01 am

Take heart, V; didn't mean to make anyone sad, but what did I expect from such a black little comment? It's just sport.

The odd thing here is that the logging over the last 100 years (mostly too expensive now) has created habitat for bears, cougars, moose, deer, wolves in this area - they weren't really here before. I hope that helps a little.

I just meant to remind (myself, us) that we are primates (hence the PGFM). In an odd way it soothes, because it is amazing that we have accomplished what we have, even though it's not all good; it's not so amazing that we haven't done it perfectly. It reminds me of the monkeys typing for a hundred years and coming up with all of Shakespeare's plays - that's exactly what we've done, and more!

And here we are, still typing away, still trying to figure it out; it's good.

Tea is important; we have to cut ourselves some slack.

Cheers,
FGFM

244. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77250 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 8, 2007 at 9:08 pm

Confession: I think I may be an Islamophobe, or just paranoid.

But I'm pretty sure that if they can't control me, they're going to try to kill me.

245. The Price of Freedom

Comment #77248 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 8, 2007 at 8:45 pm

I'm glad I'm not in the position to have to decide what to do next. But democracy means that if our voices are heard, our representatives must pay attention. We help the situation by being heard.

Having said that, the situation is difficult. Some may say that she has personal responsibility for the consequences of her actions. Others may say this is a fundamental struggle for free speech, and she deserves the protection of the group. Then other voices rise, saying that in that case, holocaust denial must be protected, crazy religions must be protected, Larry Flynt must be protected, and it turns out that we can not afford to pay all these bills. And on, and on.

But this is my favorite cause, so I say, pay the bill. Let our representatives work out the ramifications, and if they can't, they fall - that's the job. We make them pay lip service if they have to, and then make them go farther, because if it's a groundswell, money and lobby groups take a back seat. This is how we got all our laws, the ones that no longer need private police to protect them, or Ms. Ali, or any of us.

There's no substitute for speaking up, for coming out.

246. CBC Atheism and Humanism Documentary

Comment #77128 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 8, 2007 at 1:56 pm

8. Comment #77098 by Bonzai
I don't see it as "U.S. envy", but as evangelism in a new stage of defensiveness. The religious lecture circuit knows no borders, so they all start to sound the same, the same as all the books they read - that's how they can all agree on such fantastic convolutions.

6. Comment #77092 by onlysky
They don't know any other way of saying it, because the rhetoric is so completely woven into the fabric of any discourse. They actually can't think outside of the religious framework. It's not that they're not interested in finding new phrasing, they really see it as another religion. Speaking as one who has had to do a lot of painful mental deconstruction work in this area, I think they don't yet see it as something that CAN be deconstructed, so complete is the cultural fabric.

BTW: I was brought up Xtian, lapsed, tried to be born again, tried to escape into Taoism, Zen (was even ordained), reacted by being an angry young man (until the 'young' thing fizzled out) but couldn't escape it until I turned around and faced it with the blowtorch of logic. I don't expect a commentator to do the same work just for a story. I'm just glad it gets air time!

247. The Squirrel Wars

Comment #77033 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 8, 2007 at 8:56 am

Really, you guys: squirrels?

I chased off a black bear in my driveway last month, with a slingshot.

1n 1960, when I first came here (British Columbia), as children we could roam the bushes and climb small mountains (wilderness, right up to the edge of town) and never see a bear. No one ever saw a bear, of any kind, near the city (20,000 pop). A friend came for dinner last night and had a black bear running along beside her car; she slowed down so it could cross the road in front of her (we had a lovely dinner, Thanksgiving here in Canada). Another work mate had a black in his carport last week, right in town, and two years ago I saw an Ursus Horribilis cross the road (less than a block from my office) in front of two ladies out for their morning stroll; it was only interested in the apple orchard nearby, but still……

Hunters forty years ago would travel for days on the highway to get to a moose area, and would then skillfully track one on foot through the forest. Last week a friend filled his family's cooler just two kilometers from my house. Anyone without hunting skill can do it now. Yesterday I made fences around my apple and flowering crab to save them from browsing moose. BTW: I don't hunt. I'm not against it; I'm just busy with other things.

Likewise with cougars: no mention, no sightings, impossible that they should be in this area when I was a child. My neighbour has lost three Labrador retrievers to cougars over the last 20 years; 2009 will mark the first official cougar hunting season, ever, in this area. I have seen prints in the snow on a much-used, only an hour-long, recreational trail on the edge of town.

This has been all within my own lifetime, but no problem: one hikes with a rifle now. Something worth noting, though, is that it is not we primates in most of the above cases that are encroaching on these habitats.

The pest that is the most obnoxious (no, not the mosquito – they're really not that bad here) is the little flower that was introduced in the 1800's from somewhere across the pond to someone's window-box or flower pot in New York City: the dandelion. They have choked out most of the diversity in many residential areas. Which is why I like to hike.

Veronique: #1 pest - Wandering Primate!

Cheers to all,
PGFM

248. 'Flying Spaghetti Monster' Religious Group Turning Heads at MSU

Comment #76727 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 6, 2007 at 11:34 pm

Veronique (#76399)and Big T (#76725):

Thank you, very nice! After suffering through so much of it in my formative years, I shouldn't be surprised how easily it rolls off the tongue; feels good to strike back!

249. 'Flying Spaghetti Monster' Religious Group Turning Heads at MSU

Comment #76548 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 6, 2007 at 7:39 am

The reporter's style puzzled me at first, then I realized that it would be impossible for a TV station to laugh along with something like this. Along with their power to broadcast, they actually have an address to stalk and vandalize, and most likely shareholders, and bosses.

I think they colluded as much as they possibly could, and the whole thing was a success.

Another small noodly appendage has slithered its way through the drainboard of society: on to the next!

250. Scandal brewing at Oral Roberts U.

Comment #76401 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 5, 2007 at 5:52 pm

Oral is an abomination.

So is Anal.