251. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234869 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 6:07 am

Paula, they say Darth Ratzinger is a smart intellectual. But I've not heard a substantial sentence from him yet. Go figure.

252. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234857 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 5:46 am

My favourite being that men should always be head of the household because women were more likely to get hysterical and not be able to deal with things with a level head.

253. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234853 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 5:43 am

Actually, the only indecent thing I can see about you is that ridiculous avatar which marks you as an Essendon supporter. Enough said...

254. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234847 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 5:32 am

Quetz, see AllanW's comment for the less vomit inducing equivalent...

It's always good to know the limits because I never know when I've stepped over the line. ;)

255. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234839 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 5:21 am

Particularly when someone as thoroughly decent as Philip gets riled

256. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234770 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 2:08 am

Stupid question, but no one on the site has confirmed or denied it as far as I know.

Are these the infamous Dawkins' letters?

http://www.pcea.org.au/articles/dawkins_letters/

I was interested in reading them, but the bit I have read didn't contain an argument. So, I hope that David Robertson wrote something more substantial....

257. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234768 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 2:07 am

Paula, can I ask you a question (he says to delay you leaving)?

258. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234766 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 2:04 am

Found it:

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
Seneca the Younger

259. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234765 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 2:02 am

Quetz, there's a quote that often appears on the left sidebar of this site. It's from seneca the elder I believe (but am most likely wrong and will be shot down for saying that) who said that religion is only believed by the uneducated, and used by the leaders to control them (or something along those lines).

260. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234762 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 1:57 am

Sargeist, the big difference is that the universe came before the gods, and the gods, while powerful were still subject to human problems. For example, Zeus got a boner over every second cute Grecian girl born and had so many demi-gods. Back then, Gods were more like excuses for bad luck or unexpected events. They weren't the beginning nor end. Then again, Plato gave a lot of early christianity justification with his heaven and Earth stuff in the Republic and other dialogues. But that probably just shows that for a few hundred years, Greek civilization was open enough to consider all possibilities and experiment with ideas like never before.

261. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234758 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 1:49 am

The logic I use is very much decided on a case-by-case basis.

262. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234755 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 1:41 am

Quetz, what type of logic? Informal or Formal. If formal, what subtype? Propositional, predicate, modal?

263. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234750 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 1:27 am

Quetz careful with that logic there, you might hurt someone('s feelings)!

264. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234744 by Brian English on August 22, 2008 at 1:18 am

John Locke:

"yay! still here...not got cancer and didnt die in the night from a blood clot"

265. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #234708 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 11:56 pm

I'm probably derailing another thread. Oh well, it's hometime in a minute.

266. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #234707 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 11:55 pm

Aha! So you are immoderate then! It's all a sham. Jackboot Steve has been unmasked!

267. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #234704 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 11:51 pm

How does one expel moderately? With a gentle kick in the behind? A caressing firearm gently jammed between the shoulder blades? A tender fist to the nose?

268. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #234700 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 11:46 pm

You have the power to expel someone from Britain? That's seems a tad immoderate for someone of your renown clemency.

269. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #234698 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 11:41 pm

Steve, I think it's your fundamentalist moderation that leads you to be so damn middle of the road. It'll be the perdition of all of us who value taking and extreme viewpoint. You're the non-extreme, reasonable devil I tell you!

270. A flea we missed?

Comment #234695 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 11:28 pm

Thanks hawt4dawk it's good to see that some atheists are compassionate. ;)

Philip1978, Did you just have an epiphany?

271. A flea we missed?

Comment #234688 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 11:06 pm

but it sucks for everyone else when one person is cosseted and protected from legitimate criticism out of favoritism and that is the essence of my complaint.

272. The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

Comment #234683 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 10:52 pm

Hi David. Interesting points, I'd be interested to know how you think atheism (lack of belief in any god) can inspire one to do bad things. After all you don't believe in Zeus, or Woden, yet you seem to be claiming morality. A Hindu can be moral, yet not believe in your god. So it would appear that morality and belief in your particular god are not related.

The topic: I have no idea who this Millibrand is, but I wouldn't vote for him because he was an atheist but a cruel of vicious person. Just like I don't mind having a Christian as PM here because he seems to be governing along secular lines. The only thing that matters to me is the a government and PM govern for all people, not just Christians, or Muslims, or atheists or the majority rule.

273. Supernatural science: Why we want to believe

Comment #234669 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 9:18 pm

See ya Goldy

274. A flea we missed?

Comment #234665 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 9:04 pm

Nope, just have to be from an English public school to be a wowser apparently!

275. A flea we missed?

Comment #234658 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 8:55 pm

Well, I'm afraid it's worse than I feared. You seemed like such a likable lad. Then came the warm beer snobbery, and now the truth that you're landed gentry. Where will it end?

276. A flea we missed?

Comment #234653 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 8:49 pm

From Wiki:

# Australia and Canada: A school funded from tax revenue and most commonly administered to some degree by government or local government agencies. This usage is synonymous with its British English equivalent, state school. (See also: Public education.)
# United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries: A traditional privately operated secondary school which commonly requires the payment of fees for its pupils, and is usually a boarding school. This usage is common in the United Kingdom (although can be ambiguous in Scotland). These schools, wherever located, often follow a British educational tradition and are committed in principle to public accessibility. Originally, many were single-sex boarding schools, but most independent schools are now co-educational with both boarders and day-pupils

277. A flea we missed?

Comment #234652 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 8:47 pm

Is British public school like Australian private school? That is, not provided by the state?

278. A flea we missed?

Comment #234649 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 8:44 pm

Thanks for that Goldy, ya sicko.

279. Supernatural science: Why we want to believe

Comment #234647 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 8:41 pm

Well, a road kill possum (not opossum) and road kill cat are easy enough to tell apart in most cases.

280. A flea we missed?

Comment #234646 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 8:40 pm

Good, glad we sorted that out you bunch of fucking retarded fucktards. :)

281. A flea we missed?

Comment #234635 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 8:15 pm

So where did TWP go? Holiday or something? Perhaps to India where they make some cricket bats?

OK, I'll go

282. A flea we missed?

Comment #234633 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 8:14 pm

If anyone has a criticism of me don't be a coward, tell ME. Don't wait until I leave then tell everyone else.

283. Supernatural science: Why we want to believe

Comment #234630 by Brian English on August 21, 2008 at 8:05 pm

Laurie and Goldy, what I find a bit of a mind fuck is that God is his only begotten son....

284. Life Is Short...

Comment #234174 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 11:54 pm

That sounds promising. I hope they do something like that. As then we can hope to have a viable, wild population if the worst happens in Tassy and we can then take the piss out of the Taswegians for importing South Australian Devils....

285. Life Is Short...

Comment #234170 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 11:48 pm

It is, there is some hope, apparently females are breeding and raising only one litter, but are doing it much younger than if the disease hadn't wiped out older females. Perhaps evolution is kicking into gear.

If I had my way, I'd grab a few hundred healthy ones and chuck them on French Island or something. But it seems the only plan is to capture young devils and put them in zoos. This to me seems stupid as the devils or their offspring won't be able to survive in the wild in years to come as they've always been hand fed. The zoos and wildlife parks have no issue with receiving young, healthy devils at no cost to themselves...

286. Life Is Short...

Comment #234166 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 11:36 pm

I like to think of them as horny little devils now that I know they are related.

287. Life Is Short...

Comment #234163 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 11:33 pm

I didn't know that Antechinus were dasyurids. Cool, little devils or Quolls (even little Thylacaines?)

288. Life Is Short...

Comment #234161 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 11:30 pm

Yes, quite intriguing. The various schemes that genes employ to continue their existence. How that is realized by the genes.

289. Life Is Short...

Comment #234157 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 11:22 pm

From Wiki

Breeding occurs in winter (usually August�"September) at a time when there is little food available in the environment, and in order to ensure breeding success, male antechinuses strip their body of vital proteins and also suppress the immune system so as to free up additional metabolic energy. In this way an individual male trades away long-term survival in return for short-term breeding success, and following the breeding season there is a complete die-off of physiologically exhausted males.

290. Life Is Short...

Comment #234155 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 11:20 pm

Laure, what about the good old antechinus? The male shags itself senseless and to its own death. Thus the landscape is left with only (hopefully) pregnant females and they and any future offspring don't need to compete with males due to their vigorous, and fatal lovemaking.

291. Life Is Short...

Comment #234141 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 11:05 pm

And the relevance to chameleons is ?

292. Life Is Short...

Comment #234130 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 10:46 pm

equivocal20, you should grab Richard's attention if he's still posting and see what answer he has.

293. Life Is Short...

Comment #234128 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 10:46 pm

kkelly, that ties in with Singer's idea that an animal that doesn't understand it has a life to loose is less likely to suffer, and so can be Euthanized or eaten, than an animal that knows its life is to be cut short and suffers because of this knowledge.

294. Life Is Short...

Comment #234125 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 10:41 pm

From Singer's website:

Q. I've read that you think humans and animals are equal. Do you really believe that a human being is no more valuable than an animal?

A. I argued in the opening chapter of Animal Liberation that humans and animals are equal in the sense that the fact that a being is human does not mean that we should give the interests of that being preference over the similar interests of other beings. That would be speciesism, and wrong for the same reasons that racism and sexism are wrong. Pain is equally bad, if it is felt by a human being or a mouse. We should treat beings as individuals, rather than as members of a species. But that doesn't mean that all individuals are equally valuable â€" see my answer to the next question for more details.

Q. If you had to save either a human being or a mouse from a fire, with no time to save them both, wouldn't you save the human being?

A. Yes, in almost all cases I would save the human being. But not because the human being is human, that is, a member of the species Homo sapiens. Species membership alone isn't morally significant, but equal consideration for similar interests allows different consideration for different interests. The qualities that are ethically significant are, firstly, a capacity to experience something -- that is, a capacity to feel pain, or to have any kind of feelings. That's really basic, and it's something that a mouse shares with us. But when it comes to a question of taking life, or allowing life to end, it matters whether a being is the kind of being who can see that he or she actually has a life -- that is, can see that he or she is the same being who exists now, who existed in the past, and who will exist in the future. Such a being has more to lose than a being incapable of understand this.
Any normal human being past infancy will have such a sense of existing over time. I'm not sure that mice do, and if they do, their time frame is probably much more limited. So normally, the death of a human being is a greater loss to the human than the death of a mouse is to the mouse â€" for the human, it cuts off plans for the distant future, for example, but not in the case of the mouse. And we can add to that the greater extent of grief and distress that, in most cases, the family of the human being will experience, as compared with the family of the mouse (although we should not forget that animals, especially mammals and birds, can have close ties to their offspring and mates).
That's why, in general, it would be right to save the human, and not the mouse, from the burning building, if one could not save both. But this depends on the qualities and characteristics that the human being has. If, for example, the human being had suffered brain damage so severe as to be in an irreversible state of unconsciousness, then it might not be better to save the human.

295. Life Is Short...

Comment #234122 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 10:38 pm

I was trying?

296. Life Is Short...

Comment #234121 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 10:37 pm

equivocal20. Peter Singer has written a lot about the morality of eating animals. I'm not sure it's from an evolutionary point of view however.

Here's the thing as I see it, morality takes us outside of evolution. We can make choices that are not necessarily those that a Lion, for example, could make. A Lion must eat its cousins or perish. We don't need to, if we were in a situation where we did, then it would not be a question of morality.

297. Pastor Rick's Test

Comment #234116 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 10:09 pm

I agree Gordon. That was my point, that popularists would feel such a need. If it wasn't the popular idea, then they wouldn't do it.....

298. Pastor Rick's Test

Comment #234108 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 9:51 pm

Over the top? You summed up a lot of my opinions about certain aspects of the states, that I sometimes hold. That's when I'm thinking the states is all sizzle and no steak to borrow a phrase. Anyhow, it is troubling that leaders of a country with a supposed strict separation of church and state feel the need to get all pious to win election.

299. Pastor Rick's Test

Comment #234101 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 9:37 pm

You might just need to lighten up a bit and be thankful that you live in the greatest country on earth.

300. Life Is Short...

Comment #234007 by Brian English on August 20, 2008 at 5:50 pm

red gold and green! to rhyme with dream