1. The History Channel might do something right

Comment #176267 by agki on May 7, 2008 at 3:37 am

I'm so tired of the History Channel's showing of nothing but crap about Nostradamus, the Knights Templar, Adolf Hitler, the Masonic plot to rule the world, and UFOs. Maybe this will redeem them.

2. New Atheists Are Not Great

Comment #145279 by agki on March 17, 2008 at 12:57 pm

"...blood chilling encounters with a childhood schoolmarm"?

Did whoever wrote this actually read "God is not Great"? Hitchens depicted no such person! Mrs. Watts was a very loving and caring woman (according to Hitch) who was just too pious toreally understand what she was teaching. The writer is propagandizing right off the bat!

Agki

3. AAI 07

Comment #82682 by agki on October 27, 2007 at 8:03 am

Did anybody get the name of the movie and the director to which the old guy (well, a little older than I) alluded in the Q&A session? "Tender Something" or "Something Tender"? I checked everything I could think of on IMDB.COM and couldn't find it.

Agkistrodon contortix

4. Der Digitale Planet (lecture)

Comment #58628 by agki on July 25, 2007 at 12:39 pm

Never mind. I found it at http://www.muffathalle.de/Mediacenter/web_tv_archiv.html

5. Der Digitale Planet (lecture)

Comment #58625 by agki on July 25, 2007 at 12:23 pm

Does anyone know where the video or audio file is now? I keep getting 404 messages.

6. The 'Is God...Great?' Debate

Comment #48102 by agki on June 6, 2007 at 3:41 pm

According to someone who commented on Youtube, Zombietime.com edited Hedges's comments out. The commenter said that Zombietime is a rightwing creation that doesn't like Hedges's liberalism. We need to see the whole thing to judge it.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that the history of ideas of what god is must end in a clear statement that we have given him/her/it up and become atheists. The god of the Old Testament is a "real" entity with fantastic powers of creation but also with a very evil, immoral, and violent personality. Somehow, this "real" thing transmutes in history into a loving principle that becomes more and more shadowy and substance-free. Where it goes from where it is now is obvious. We must admit that it doesn't exist and that loving is one of the (apparently) few positive human traits. Love, kindness, goodness, compassion, and all that are from and within us and not out there as a vague principle no matter how good it may be. When we understand that, we will be what we are but don't know it, intelligent human beings.

I do not believe that many humans can be characterized as "intelligent" no matter how skillful at science, mathematics, or automechanics! They are clever but intelligent? Not a chance.

Agki

7. Should Science Speak to Faith? A dialog between Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins

Comment #47361 by agki on June 4, 2007 at 8:23 am

How come the PDF gives a URL for a follow-up extendewd discussion but when you go there, you can't find it?

Agki

8. Should Science Speak to Faith? A dialog between Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins

Comment #47360 by agki on June 4, 2007 at 8:22 am

TIKIAL said:

The neighbor's cat was run over yesterday with a bird in her mouth and one in her claws, so she died as happy as a fat megachurch preacher on top of a convention hooker.

I say:

Damn good one!

TIKIAL:
She is a good example of how dangerous tunnel vision can be. (apologies to Mutual of Omaha's Merlin Perkins)

I say:
That's MARLIN Perkins. Merlin Perkins is a small raptor. Marlin Perkins is a billfish.

Agki

9. I Don't Believe in Atheists

Comment #45889 by agki on May 29, 2007 at 1:52 pm

What the hell does this mean?

"God is that mysterious force—and you can give it many names as other religions do—which works upon us and through us to seek and achieve truth, beauty and goodness. God is perhaps best understood as our ultimate concern, that in which we should place our highest hopes, confidence and trust. In Exodus God says, by way of identification, "I am that I am." It is probably more accurately translated: "I will be what I will be." God is better understood as verb rather than a noun. God is not an asserted existence but a process accomplishing itself. And God is inescapable. It is the life force that sustains, transforms and defines all existence."


Hedges, whom I also admire for his book about the religious right "American Fascists", says "God is that mysterious force—and you can give it many names as other religions do—which works upon us and through us to seek and achieve truth, beauty and goodness." THAT is NOT the god of the Bible or the Koran! That is the Cosmic Muffin.

10. Dawkins' Christmas card list

Comment #45886 by agki on May 29, 2007 at 1:42 pm

Read "Higher Superstition : The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science" by Gross and Levitt to get an idea about the utter rubbish of post-modernism and its attacks upon science. It is not only the right-wing loonies like the deceased fat bigot Falwell that we have to worry about.

11. A meeting of unlike minds

Comment #43262 by agki on May 21, 2007 at 3:06 am

I was at that "debate." It was a debacle for Dr. English. Here's an English comment:

English's God allows people to chart their own destinies. This freedom makes faith flexible, allows it to evolve with human knowledge and experience -- to accept Darwinism, the Big Bang and the changing role of women.

He was asked by a questioner just how the god he refers to is the god of the Bible and, given that it certainly is not the god of Moses, how did it change from the Hairy Thunderer to the Cosmic Muffin. And, if it did change, is it not of human origin amd, therefore, does not exist? Why not just admit that and give it up?

12. Evolution Opponent Is in Line for Schools Post

Comment #43026 by agki on May 20, 2007 at 9:45 am

I've already sent an email to the Director of the NC State Board of Education to request that the NC rep vote for Mr. Schloemer.

13. Hitchens' flat world

Comment #41992 by agki on May 17, 2007 at 12:16 pm

I saw Hitch at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Raleigh, NC, USA Tuesday night as he debated a professor of theology from Campbell University named English. Professor English answered Hitchens with little more than platitudinous gunk about how Jesus was the focus and everything must be seen through the "lens" of Christ. One questioner from tha audience had a good point to make, I think, but the question required considerable framing and he was rushed to a premature conclusion. As I understand it, it was on this wise:

He was asking English to explain why he persisted in hanging on to his view of Jesus as a real figure (although reduced to almost an abstraction) in light of the historicity of continual changes in the nature of "God". We began with the very concrete, violent, vengeful, and demanding god of Abraham and Moses who becomes more and more vague and neutral as time
goes on. He transmutes in the New Testament into a god who is benevolent (except to those who don't believe in him/her/it) and continues to transmute into some kind of "principle" (as Freud put it) in modern times for most "Christians." The historical trajectory
from concrete to abstract is a clear as the evolutionary trajectory of losing digits of the hands of maniraptoran dinosaurs from five to
two (in _Tyrannosaurus_)from the Jurassic to the end of the Cretaceous. Since the next step is obvious and inevitable, why not just face the fact that god is non-existent and be done with it and find a new way of seeing things and do it now? Maybe understand the world through the "lens" of science and deepen and expand a personal concern for humanity's condition.

That question was deeper and required more development than he was given time to do. What was asked wasn't answered but there were some
boos that came from the audience (the Fundies in the back) when the question was asked. One person yelled at the questioner soemthing
about "You're going down in the Apocalypse!" and "You'll burn for that."


Agki

14. Christopher Hitchens to God: Drop Dead

Comment #41984 by agki on May 17, 2007 at 12:04 pm

"Yes, yes. Atheists and believers alike know that religion has lubricated mass acceptance of misogyny, slavery, and tyranny. But so have secular, non-religious leaders and regimes."

Yes, yes. That old worn out chestnut again. The believers just can't leave it alone. Seldom does one of these people realize that "secular, non-religious leaders and regimes" are only parenthetically atheistic. They always had some grander political or economic principle that motivated their terrors. That Stalin was an atheist everyone accepts but he did not have people killed merely because they were believers in a religion. He had them killed because they were in the way of his political goals and would not budge. Same with Pol Pot, the other favorite of these people. Does anyone know of any system with atheism as its core that has ever dominated the political system of any nation and murdered people simply because they believed in Zeus or Jesus or Jehovah? There are many who slaughtered others because their victims believed in Allah instead of Vishnu and vice versa. Locally, in India, there have been wars between believers who wanted Shiva to dominate and those who wanted Rama; all within the context of Hinduism, one religion. In Europe, you could be slaughtered because your Jesus allowed you to be baptized by getting sprinkled instead of being fully immersed. No, Leora, you're way off base.

She goes on: "Even after reading Hitchens' catalogue of atrocities committed in the name of religion, I am still unconvinced that religion, in and of itself, is the problem."

But maybe she would admit that even if MOST religious people don't slaughter others for religious reasons, it would still be best to get rid of it all together.

Agkistrodon

15. The Creation Museum: Prepare to believe

Comment #41019 by agki on May 15, 2007 at 10:53 am

Did you notice they are open on Sunday? And get a load of the admission charge!

Hours
Monday – Saturday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Sunday* 12 p.m. – 6 p.m.
*Memorial Day to Labor Day Only
Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve/Day, New Year — Eve/Day

Admission
Adult (13-59 yrs) $19.95
Senior (60 yrs & up) $14.95
Children (5-12 yrs) $9.95
Children (under 5 yrs) Free
Planetarium with admission, $5

16. Unintelligent Design

Comment #40168 by agki on May 13, 2007 at 1:24 pm

Emailed to Dr. Atran:

Dr. Atran:

I found this paragraph from your essay on Edge.org to be very strange coming from a scientist:

Science is not particularly well-suited to deal with problems of human existence that have no enduring logical and or factual solution, such as avoiding death, preventing deception, anticipating catastrophes, overcoming loneliness, finding love or ensuring justice. Science cannot tell us what we ought to do or what should be, only what we can do and what is. Religion endures and thrives because it addresses people's deepest emotional yearnings and society's foundational moral needs. No society has ever endured more than a few generations without an unquestioningly true, but rationally inscrutable moral foundation.

With regard to your first sentence, as a fellow scientist, I have to say you really missed the mark on that one! Science is the primary or even the only means we have of doing all those things except the last three, maybe the last two. But I ask you if anything else is suited to those ends? I surely cannot accept that religion has anything to say about any of them - except to offer a few platitudes about how we should rely on some "spiritual being" for solace. It has never supplied love or justice and its approach to overcoming loneliness seems to be to have you literally buy your way into a group and then conform. It is a superficial defeat of loneliness.

It is true that science cannot tell one what he or she ought to be or do but it can tell one, within limits, what one may expect if a particular action is undertaken. The person can then apply a hedonistic or moral calculus and determine the actions. Even religion fails to tell one what to do but can only offer sympathy when the wrong choice is made. Advise one of the right choice? No chance!



Nor does religion address anyone's "deepest emotional yearnings" nor any society's "foundational moral needs." The former are present in the individual and represent yearnings that others maybe able to address far better than any institutrion and the latter form with a society as it grows. Never are they static but religion tries to make them so. People, sooner or later, reject those old moral ways of thinking for new ones and, to survive, the religion undergoes a metamorphosis because it's only along for the ride.

Particularly disturbing for its inanity is your last sentence of the paragraph. Exactly what is an "unquestioningly true, but rationally inscrutable moral foundation"? Dr. Atran, nothing is "unquestioningly true." As a scientist, you must see that. And a " rationally inscrutable moral foundation" is one that cannot survive modern critical thought. Before the apes we call men could not read, before paper and ink, before we realized that thunder was not a sky god belching after a good meal such foundations could last only as long as the tribe who had such a foundation could defend itself from another tribe with a different foundation. We are not that any more. Praise be to Ahura Mazda for that.

Jim Sutton

17. Sam Harris in conversation with Oliver McTernan

Comment #38758 by agki on May 9, 2007 at 5:47 am

Stevieb:

if anyone has either these two audio files or the hitchens/sharpton available as mp3s, i'd be grateful for the chance to listen to these on my portable player.

Agkistrodon:

Download a file converter. There are many available. Do a Google search for them and then select.

18. Bonobos and chimps 'speak' with gestures

Comment #37290 by agki on May 4, 2007 at 2:33 am

Bonobos are fantastic animals. If chimps are only, as Hitchens says, half a chromosome from humans, bonobos are only a tenth of a chromosome away. After all, the bonobos and us invented prostitution.