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Comments by Shuggy


401. Shout your doubt out loud, my fellow unbelievers

Comment #34627 by Shuggy on April 24, 2007 at 6:13 pm

Theism was actually an improvement on the rationality scale as it compartmentalized and structured the superstitions.

I don't get that, can you spell it out a bit? One god is more rational than several?

In my understanding of the neolithic culture of this country, it was certainly riddled by superstitions, but also had a deal of insight into human nature expressed in "spiritual" terms, and their propensity to make war against each other also honed their diplomacy skills to prevent that. I think there were checks and balances in all cultures, because of traits universal to humanity, and we would do well to remember how recently it was that we took on board concepts like the equality of races or sexes.

402. Pope abolishes limbo

Comment #34570 by Shuggy on April 24, 2007 at 2:32 pm

There was a cartoon in the New Yorker after Vatican II, showing a demon asking Satan "Hey Boss, what are we going to do with all the people who ate meat on a Friday?"

Now there can be a parallel one, an angel asking God "Hey Boss, where are we going to put all the babies from Limbo?"

403. Pope abolishes limbo

Comment #34568 by Shuggy on April 24, 2007 at 2:27 pm

ridelo asked:

And what about Hitler? If he was aborted he would now be in heaven. Just bad luck?

What a fascinatingly confused question! It seems to be based on the answer to an old one (whose punchline was "Congratulations! You have just aborted Beethoven!") which was "Or Hitler!"

Does this mean:
  • "If the foetal Hitler had been aborted, he never would have grown up to be Der Fuhrer, but would have gone to Heaven (and not Limbo), and it's bad luck he wasn't"? or
  • "The foetal Hitler had an evil soul that did not deserve to go to heaven, but, bad luck, now we know there's no Limbo, he would"?
Both are fascination conflations of nonsense on nonsense, and we will be able to argue about them instead of angels on pinheads for generations to come.

404. The Video: Bill O'Reilly Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #34564 by Shuggy on April 24, 2007 at 1:54 pm

DreaMasterR wrote:

What if its two sides of the same coin, the same idead from different views, like god and matter, god is everywere like matter, so god makes us and we are made of god(matter) when we die we are re-used in a new way. we become one with god.

And The Spaghetti Monster wrote:
maybe God is the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves…. Maybe God is the answer to why there is something rather that nothing. I don't believe that God and the universe add up to two, any more than my envy and my left foot constitute a pair of objects. But that's what I choose to believe.

These are very similar to the more "sophisticated" versions of theism that RD doesn't challenge. Sure, you can believe that kind of thing, nothing to stop you, they don't challenge science, but with no evidence for or against, what does it mean to say they are "true" or "false"?
I'm a little weary of both sides laying claim to absolute truth….

Since when did science lay claim to "absolute truth"? Science is a search for whatever truth can be found about the universe. Religion claims to have found it, but by methods so dubious they are often laughable.

405. The Video: Bill O'Reilly Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #34407 by Shuggy on April 24, 2007 at 1:45 am

re the overuse of zeus/apollo etc, remember these seem like old arguments to us BUT for many this is new material.

Actually, RD could refresh this argument very easily by using gods people have never heard of - which makes the argument even stronger. (There's a little list at http://www.cafepress.com/wero/1649800) "Why are you an atheist with regard to Merodak or Baast or Nana Buluku?"

And when he said "I'm a Roman Catholic" it would have been true (if not polite) to say "That's more because your name's O'Reilly than through any truth of Roman Catholicism."

(I didn't get O'Reilly's putdown of Apollo - can someone explain it?)

406. One Hell of a Religious Read

Comment #34404 by Shuggy on April 24, 2007 at 1:27 am

16. Comment #34379 by shmooth on April 23, 2007 at 10:51 pm

Hitchens, the alky, is a first classist fantasist, opportunist, and aholist, nothing more.

What's an aholist? (or is that just a-hole with a matching suffix?)

407. Pope abolishes limbo

Comment #34395 by Shuggy on April 24, 2007 at 12:32 am

97. Comment #34235 by devolved on April 23, 2007 at 3:15 pm

why is luck a more plausible basis for life than an intelligent creator?

Because
"any creative intelligence of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution."

- TGD, p31


If not, then how?

408. Atheists split on how to not believe

Comment #34244 by Shuggy on April 23, 2007 at 3:51 pm

27. Comment #33976 by Pieter on April 23, 2007 at 12:06 am

the problem with humanism is that humans are a pretty awful species when you think about it. -Pieter

Who are you comparing us with? Sheep? Goldfish? Tigers? Piranhas? Dahlias?

Now that it comes down to it, what is the definition of "humanism"? Is it the idea of favouring humans? At the expense of other species? I find that both specist and self-defeating (because we're all interconnected). Unfortunately the best alternative expression is taken: "pro-life"

409. Pope abolishes limbo

Comment #34234 by Shuggy on April 23, 2007 at 3:13 pm

89. Comment #34219 by Bob Russell on April 23, 2007 at 2:28 pm

Who says the current wee babes in Limbo will be let out....just think of the queue at the gates of heaven....

Aww! It'll be just like an Anne Geddes photo.

(http://www.annegeddes.com/)

410. Pope abolishes limbo

Comment #34226 by Shuggy on April 23, 2007 at 2:59 pm

...scrapping the 13th-century notion, which he termed a mere "hypothesis."

When I read this I really did Laugh Out Loud, a great from-the-belly "HOH!" that echoed in the room.

A mere hypothesis! Unlike well-researched, peer-reviewed theories and established facts like the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the Atonement, the Life Eternal, the Communion of Saints (whatever that is), Heaven, Hell, and God.

411. 'The Day They Kicked God out of the Schools' & Rebuttal

Comment #34223 by Shuggy on April 23, 2007 at 2:32 pm

weefree wrote:

Let the people grieve. You can discuss it later.

Who's stopping them? How much later? I find this kind of "sympathy" repugnant. We're not bursting into their parlours and pushing the flowers aside and insisting they discuss the killer's motivation or whether "keeping God out of schools" had anything to do with it. Those who are grieving won't be going to YouTube or RichardDawkins.net, or if they do, they can easily click away from anything they don't like. When I've had a death in the family, I've sometimes welcomed a distraction.

412. 'The Day They Kicked God out of the Schools' & Rebuttal

Comment #34215 by Shuggy on April 23, 2007 at 2:23 pm

Love your video, Brian, especially the way the text doesn't match the voice-over, so you get plenty to think about. (I can't stand having a PowerPointTM read to me!)

But there are no direct links from the AFA one to yours at YouTube. I think that's because you haven't got "God" in the title or the keywords.

413. Atheists split on how to not believe

Comment #33966 by Shuggy on April 22, 2007 at 10:58 pm

Atheists split on how to not believe


- unlike theists, who all believe exactly the same thing. As the song says so truthfully, "We are not divided, all one body we." {sarcasm off}

I wouldn't be so hard on humanists. The ones I know are full-blown atheists, who just use "Humanism" as a basket for all their humanitarian, social justice, altruistic concerns that the rest of us leave lying all over the place.

414. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #33907 by Shuggy on April 22, 2007 at 3:32 pm

214. Comment #33817 by Abdi Sanati on April 22, 2007 at 2:17 am

Lots of debate over 2cm of forskin!
2cm length in the baby, maybe, but 98 cm2 in the adult, and muscle (the dartos fasica) and blood vessels and thousands of nerves.

God wanted to kill Moses because he wasn't circumcised (if you don't believe me read the Bible)!
You do know where you're posting, don't you?

The reference that was given earlier from WHO that circumcision can reduce the rate of transmission of HIV is true. It has been shown in 3 randomised controlled trials in Africa. Quite solid evidence and replicated too.
Not really: the studies were cut short. They were not (could not have been) double blind, and the control groups had more exposure to safe sex information than the experimental group. The men reported hardly any same-sex experience when other evidence is that it is common in those countries, so what else were they underreporting? There was considerable genital ulcer disease, a confirmed co-factor for HIV transmission. Did they circumcise men with weeping ulcers, or treat them first - while leaving the control group untreated?

It is NOT a substitute for safe sex though.
You can say that again: the non-circumcised control group in Uganda got less HIV than the circumcised experimental group in Kenya, probably because Uganda has strong campaigns against promiscuity ("zero grazing"). It will be a tragedy if funding and energy is diverted from one programme to the other. There is clear evidence that men think circumcision makes them immune and condoms unnecessary. Circumcision does not protect women and will disempower them. Just because something "works" doesn't mean we should do it.

415. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #33813 by Shuggy on April 22, 2007 at 1:38 am

Queen5012 wrote:

I had my son circumcised because 11 months before my son was born, my uncircumcised 53 year old father died of penile cancer. Almost no one who is circumcised ever gets penile cancer.

This is a case of the fallacy of the Vivid Instance. The death of your father must have focussed your mind wonderfully. However the penile cancer link is false. The penile cancer rate is much lower in intact Denmark than the circumcising US. The study that claimed to show a link didn't correct for age, penile cancer is a disease of older men (usually much older than your father), and the men in the study were born when circumcision was coming into fashion, so older men were intact.
Penile cancer is among the rarest of cancers (rarer than breast cancer in men) and it is hard to get good statistics for it.

416. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #33801 by Shuggy on April 21, 2007 at 10:37 pm

I imagine the father's explanation would put an entirely different gloss on the facts (and add some new ones).

What explanation could the father possibly give that would result in a court validly ordering that part may be cut off his son's penis?

417. Street Evangelist Saves 300 Souls From Enjoying Park

Comment #33779 by Shuggy on April 21, 2007 at 6:12 pm

Briancoughlandworldcitizen wrote:

A few of us co-operated online to make the following response.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_z9WgV5jkQ

It's excellent, but it needs to link from the original. All the "related videos" there seem to have "God" in their titles, but maybe "god" in the keywords would help. Looks like the best reponse to any video would be "[original title] - a response"

(All the ones "related" to this one are about puppies... what is that?)

418. Mozart doesn't make you clever

Comment #32975 by Shuggy on April 18, 2007 at 10:42 pm

Shaker2007 wrote:

Ooops, with one or two exceptions I can't stand Mozart. My bad.

Seriously, many people don't really like Mozart until they're in their 30s. Britten didn't. I didn't. (Namedropping and anecdotal!)

(So the question arises, did Mozart appreciate Mozart before he died?)

And yes, scottishgeologist, the thunderstorm is in the 6th (the Pastoral).

419. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32963 by Shuggy on April 18, 2007 at 9:21 pm

People who don't want to donate but do want to express their opposition to involuntary genital cutting can add their names to the Ashley Montagu Declaration, a petition to the World Court at The Hague, at

http://www.montagunocircpetition.org/.

Signatories include Francis Crick, Jonas Salk and Susan Blackmore.

420. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32897 by Shuggy on April 18, 2007 at 4:17 pm

Adrian B wrote:

...we have both discovered it is actually touch to the prepuce of the penis and clitoris that gives the most pleasurable sensation, rather than touch to the glands directly. For both of us the most intensely pleasurable feeling comes from the action of the prepuce riding back and forth over the glands.

Your discovery is supported (at least for males) by this study:
http://www.circumstitions.com/Sexuality.html#sorrells

It would be interesting to see such a study run on females too. I suspect that, as you both found, the clitoral hood is more important than previously suspected. It too was commonly casually cut off for many of the same "reasons" as the male, before the rise of feminism put a stop to it.

421. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32863 by Shuggy on April 18, 2007 at 2:05 pm

...the case sounds like a loser. If people are genuinely concerned about the rights of minors to consent to or refuse medical procedures in Oregon, they need to write Oregon legislators and urge changes to Oregon statutes.

Trying to argue any case against circumcision in the US is an incredibly uphill job. There is an ingrained mindset that it is safe, painless, trivial and beneficial. Even Sikh parents who had it done contrary to their wishes and their religion have been told they were done a favo[u]r and they're lucky not to be charged for it.

422. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32857 by Shuggy on April 18, 2007 at 1:48 pm

rabidchihauhau, I know John Geisheker personally and have emailed him about your concerns. Why don't you just ring him up? He and DOC are genuine (if small), and I have no reason to doubt the case is too. (Though I suspect the father's religious motivation is just an excuse to spite the mother - talk about "Cut off your nose..."!) I assume "Mischa" is a pseudonym to protect the child's anonymity. This is certainly not a plot to discredit RD, as the appeal is being circulated on many other fora, and the use of real names and phone numbers make it very easy to punish any scam, and destroy John's career.

423. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32853 by Shuggy on April 18, 2007 at 1:31 pm

On the general issue, though, isn't it interesting, Richard, how memes do play a big role in discussion regarding the topic of circumcision?

There is a discussion of circumcision as a memeplex at http://www.circumstitions.com/meme.html

This has been published as a paper in "Bodily Integrity and the Politics of Circumcision" the proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Bodily Integrity in Padua in 2004.

424. Atheism isn't the final word

Comment #32669 by Shuggy on April 18, 2007 at 1:19 am

Though no one can prove or disprove God's existence, our history reveals the unmistakable footprints of something greater than man.

Of course, the Universe is greater than (hu)man(kind) - it has to be, to hold us and keep us alive. So Feder is a pantheist?

One thing our history does not reveal is the unmistakable footprints of an anthropomorphic, invisible, transcendental, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, supernatural Entity. (I don't think of Bigfoot, I think of the Id-Creature in Forbidden Planet.)

425. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32647 by Shuggy on April 17, 2007 at 9:30 pm

Tim Marsh wrote:

3.4% of the uncircumcised group were infected.
1.6% of the circumcised group were infected.
Yet rather than reporting this directly, they focus on the fact that 3.4 is twice as large as 1.6.

That's in Kenya. In Uganda, "HIV incidence over 24 months was 0·66 cases per 100 person-years in the
intervention group and 1·33 cases per 100 person-years in the control group"
In other words, the uncircumcised men in Uganda got less HIV than the circumcised men in Kenya, and the reason is not hard to find: In Uganda, there has been an intense campaign of "zero grazing" (few partners). It will be a tragedy if funds and energy are diverted from this to a less effective circumcision campaign.

426. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32642 by Shuggy on April 17, 2007 at 8:58 pm

Krogercomplete wrote

an infant's foreskin being snipped off.

It's really rather more than that. Watch this video, and make sure you have the sound turned up: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6584757516627632617&hl=en

427. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32601 by Shuggy on April 17, 2007 at 2:42 pm

"Could sand have anything to do with it?" Probably not: http://www.circumstitions.com/sand.html

Langerhans cells are everywhere on the skin and they protect from HIV:
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=79688

The problem with circumcision to prevent HIV transmission is the hopelessly mixed message you must give the men involved: "circumcision will protect the community epidemilologically (just try and get that idea across!) but it won't protect you personally enough for you to think about giving up condoms. Now lie down here."

The problem with neonatal circumcision to protect against HIV transmission is first ethical, and then the long time-lag before it becomes relevant. The money might be better spent enabling him to reach adulthood.

428. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32397 by Shuggy on April 17, 2007 at 2:06 am

Spinoza:

and the pain is probably (given various factors I don't need to delve into) not all that bad for an infant... and you don't remember it anyway.

On the contrary, all the evidence is that it is excruciating (it makes a measurable difference to his reaction to vaccination pain, months later), and since the baby has no idea what is happening, he can't even brace himself against it as an adult can.

And pain you can't remember is OK? Now let's apply that to drug-rape.

Oh and "cuts off the most sensitive part of the penis" is not hyperbole, it's just been demonstrated.
See http://www.circumstitions.com/Sexuality.html#sorrells".

429. Against God

Comment #32285 by Shuggy on April 16, 2007 at 4:52 pm

I wonder what McGrath considers to be the "limitations of reason", because I have absolutely no idea what the **** he's talking about here.

Simple. The 'limitation' of reason is that it doesn't seek to tell people what they want to hear.

I would say the limitations of reason lie in the areas of art and love. A fortune waits for the person who can put those on a rational footing.

430. Against God

Comment #32284 by Shuggy on April 16, 2007 at 4:50 pm

Is a there a term for someone who doesn't care if there's a God? Apatheist?

Wasn't the more common term among us atheists (as I understood it) "practicing agnostics"? =P

Shouldn't an apatheist be a NON-practising agnostic?
A practising one would wish they knew.

431. For Some Hispanics, Coming to America Also Means Abandoning Religion

Comment #32283 by Shuggy on April 16, 2007 at 4:39 pm

Megachurhes are like rock concerts. Even smaller churches have choirs and multimedia performances. Sermons are getting shorter and after-service social receptions longer. And preachers are expected to be young, energetic, entertaining and charasmatic (e.g. ted hagggard, rick warren as the most well known) and selectively focus on the nice versions of god and jesus.

I'm struck by the similarity between televangelists and sideshow barkers and snake-oil merchants (and the commentators at Seaworld). They all go back to the revival-tent tradition, don't they? Mark Twain skewered them in Huckleberry Finn Or is there something earlier?

432. For Some Hispanics, Coming to America Also Means Abandoning Religion

Comment #32282 by Shuggy on April 16, 2007 at 4:35 pm

Hispanics from Cuba were the most secular national group, at 14 percent,

This suggests that many Cubans who've migrated to the U.S. have grievances against Castro's regime other than religious ones.

Mmm? On the contrary, I wondered if some communist atheism had rubbed off?

433. The Age of Darwin

Comment #32279 by Shuggy on April 16, 2007 at 4:24 pm

"The logic of evolution ... holds that most everything that exists does so for a purpose."

WHOA! Whenever anyone says "purpose" and "evolution" in the same sentence, they're spreading confusion. Evolutionarily, structures and behaviours have functions. Only intelligence gives purpose.

As for "most everything that exists", no way! Just as overwhelmingly most of the universe is implacably hostile to life (I speak figuratively), so the great majority of what exists has nothing to do with life, of which only a tiny fraction has intelligence, of which only a small proportion involves purpose.

434. New Primate Species Found In 42 Million-year-old Texas Fossils

Comment #32277 by Shuggy on April 16, 2007 at 4:07 pm

"The formal name of the new genus, which means "primate of the coastal lagoons", will be released at publication time, Westgate said."

Someone with better Latin or Greek than me ought to be able to jump their gun. "Littorolacapithicus"?

435. Prophets of the new atheism

Comment #30557 by Shuggy on April 8, 2007 at 4:22 pm

My letter to the Seattle Times

David Klinghoffer (Prophets of the New Atheism, April 6) refers to "a religious phenomenon that has been dubbed the 'new atheism'." Dubbed by whom, pray? Certainly not by any atheists, we're too logical. Can there be a "new zero" or a "new vacuum"? Lack of belief in supernatural beings is by definition lack of belief, not belief. What's interesting is that Klinghoffer seems to think calling atheism "a faith" and "a religion" is to tar it with the brush of irrationality. With that I can agree.

436. Debate between Alister McGrath and Peter Atkins

Comment #28925 by Shuggy on March 31, 2007 at 3:51 pm

JJoe asked

Can religion make the same claim? Since when did religion ever alter it's explanations of the world except when there was overwhelming social pressure or the rare papal epiphany?

Well, I think the Catholic Church no longer says the bread and wine really, really, really and truly turn into the body and blood of Christ, only really and truly. IE, they no longer claim that if you stomach-pumped someone who'd eaten nothing else for a few days, you'd find digested blood. Instead, they now have a wonderful Platonic explanation involving "essence" vs "accidents" so that it looks like bread, it waddles like bread, it quacks like bread (sorry, that's a duck) it chews like bread ... but it's really, in its true nature, meat and blood - and all because Jesus reportedly said "This IS my ..."

(Though as Frazer all but pointed out in The Golden Bough, the communion came first, the Last Supper story was made up to explain it.)

437. Selfish genes may drive out disease

Comment #28908 by Shuggy on March 31, 2007 at 2:58 pm

Ridelo wrote:

on the one hand we are trying to eradicate all diseases that plague the developing countries and on the other hand there's a population explosion that maybe will lead to mass starvation.
I know the solution should be reducing disease, education (not religious!) and birth control. But is that realistic?

Yes. I think it's been established, that where the standard of living goes up, the birth rate goes down. There may be an evolutionary imperative "Where life is short, have more children in the hope that some will reach maturity" but I could well be wrong.

438. A History of Violence

Comment #28902 by Shuggy on March 31, 2007 at 2:25 pm

Meanwhile, according to political scientist Barbara Harff, between 1989 and 2005 the number of campaigns of mass killing of civilians decreased by 90 percent.

16 years seems far too short a timespan, and "number of campaigns" far too crude a measure to demonstrate a trend. Say there were 10 campaigns during 1989 and one during 2005, that would make the calculation accurate, but there could be 11 tomorrow....

439. 'The Evolution of Homer' Intro

Comment #28764 by Shuggy on March 30, 2007 at 5:01 pm

shetlandforpeace:

Why do we have a 24-hour day? Who says a week has 7 days?

Before good artificial lighting, day and night were far more distinct, so instead of thinking about a 24-hour day, they thought about a 12-hour day and a 12-hour night, and 12 is that smallest number that can be divided into both quarters and thirds (though their hours would grow longer and shorter with the seasons - not so much towards the equator).

I think the 7-day week has to do with some mystical/numerological power they gave the number seven. Or maybe it was the smallest number they could economically afford a day off. I'm pretty sure the story about God resting was back-formed from that.

440. Dawkins says religion is 'like sucking a dummy'

Comment #28752 by Shuggy on March 30, 2007 at 4:03 pm

Veronique:

The argument from artistic endeavour is also pathetic. RD handles in the best possible way - We will never know what Beethoven's Mesozoic Symphony may sound like.

Like the Pastoral, but with dinosaurs? (Instead of hippos, Walt. Uh oh. Does that mean it would sound like the Rite of Spring?)

Fishpeddler:

I don't know why an atheist would still participate in these debates without insisting that the theists' god be defined in advance.

I think - and I'd love to be corrected - that a liberal theist would say something like "The God I believe in is beyond definition."

441. 'The Evolution of Homer' Intro

Comment #28750 by Shuggy on March 30, 2007 at 3:40 pm

Of course, this is the version of evolution the creationists mock (and it leaves out natural selection). Maybe if the original Homerunculus had diversified into Homeresque plants, Homersauruses, etc as well as the true Homer....

But it's very funny in its own right.

(The music is familiar: what is it?)

442. The Fifth Flea!

Comment #28347 by Shuggy on March 28, 2007 at 9:35 pm

Duff wrote:

It is comparable to christian "music", which I would characterized as being melodiously simplistic, lyrically moronic and pathetically corny.

I trust you're referring to the likes of "From a Distance" and not Bach's St Matthew Passion or Handel's Messiah?

And this is something I don't think RD does justice to. Religion has inspired the most sublime art, music and architecture. I'm sure that if there were no religion, people would have expressed their deepest emotions in music just as good with different words, buildings just as lofty with different purposes, but it needs to be spelt out.

443. Stephen Hawking Says Universe Created from Nothing

Comment #28318 by Shuggy on March 28, 2007 at 5:58 pm

Yorker wrote:

It is my understanding that the IQ scale does not go higher than 170

IQ is just mental age over chronological age x 100, so if a 10 year old can solve problems like an (average) 18 year old, they have an IQ of 180. But as someone wise one said, "Intelligence is what intelligence tests measure", and what intelligence tests measure is the ability to solve problems, usually on paper, hence two-dimensional, at speed.

444. Peanut Butter, The Atheist's Nightmare!

Comment #28104 by Shuggy on March 28, 2007 at 2:30 am

He begins by saying "If you study a well-made banana..." So who made the others? Or are badly-made bananas a result of the Fall?

445. Peanut Butter, The Atheist's Nightmare!

Comment #28103 by Shuggy on March 28, 2007 at 2:24 am

FYI, the "guy on the right" in the banana video is former child-actor Kirk Cameron. Now he appears as the main character in the "Left Behind" series of feature films.

You mean it's not satire? Oh my goodness!

Is there some theory of abiogenesis I missed? One that holds that four million years ago the earth was without form and void, except for pockets of peanut butter?

And since peanut butter implies prior peanuts, which implies prior life, doesn't that prove life couldn't have evolved from peanut butter?

And how do we know life hasn't appeared in peanut butter - but some kid ate it?

446. Hell is real and eternal: Pope

Comment #27994 by Shuggy on March 27, 2007 at 2:24 pm

The Pope, based in the Vatican in Rome, is the figure head for Christianity throughout the world. Similar in role to that of a President.

Hang on, the Pope is only head of the Catholics. Protestants and Episcopalians (Anglicans) don't recognise him except as Bishop of Rome. Some Protestants consider him the Antichrist.

The Bishop of a territory reports to a corresponding Cardinal, who covers an even larger area.

They have archbishops between bishops and cardinals, though there can be cardinal archbishops. It's confusing, because Episcopalians don't have anything above Archbishop and (at least the Anglican ones) consider themselves Catholic.

(if clergy can be said to have a rank system)

They most certainly can, only they call it a hierarchy (= rule by priests), and it's the original rank system.

447. Hell is real and eternal: Pope

Comment #27991 by Shuggy on March 27, 2007 at 2:12 pm

In October, the Pope indicated that limbo, supposed since medieval times to be a "halfway house" between heaven and hell, was "only a theological hypothesis" and not a "definitive truth of the faith".

I thought Purgatory was the halfway house, and Limbo was a sort of Nowhere Land for babies (especially "unborn" babies, ie concepti, embryos and foetuses).

"definitive truth of the faith" indeed! Translation: thing the church gets really nasty if you disagree about.

448. Hell is real and eternal: Pope

Comment #27989 by Shuggy on March 27, 2007 at 2:05 pm

Fedler wrote:

Beneath the Bishops are your local parish priests.


And off to one side are Monsigneurs. This is where they shunt priests who are good enough to be Bishops, but can't, for example because they're gay. One (gay) one told me that of the six Monsigneurs invested at his sitting (or prostration?), three were gay.

449. The many forms of fundamentalism

Comment #27771 by Shuggy on March 26, 2007 at 3:55 pm

"The ticket to Communion is an uncritical acceptance of what the pope calls, in a striking echo, "fundamental values," which include defense of human life "from conception to natural death." The key declaration is that "these values are not negotiable.""

Then how come the Catholic Church is so hard on abortion and euthanasia and so soft on capital punishment and war?

450. The Case for Teaching The Bible

Comment #27768 by Shuggy on March 26, 2007 at 3:38 pm

"And, oh yes, there should be one faith test. Faith in our country."
Oh you Americans! As if patriotism, unlike religion, was value-free. How would that quotation play out in Dusseldorf in 1933?

Teach the Bible? Maybe, IF you give equal time to the Qu'ran and the Bhagavad Gita and the Tao Te Ching ...

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