1. Atheism FLEAmix

Comment #223676 by lpetrich on August 3, 2008 at 6:04 am

I think that we need to add the more recent covers to the collected-covers flea-book graphic. In fact, I'm willing to compose such a graphic if this site's maintainers are interested.

2. That's it. Texas really is doomed.

Comment #187382 by lpetrich on June 2, 2008 at 4:52 am

This discussion has progressed *very* far afield; it's produced yet another libertarianism flame war.

Turning back to Teratornis's comments, I think that he is right in focusing on the few percent that are capable of contributing on an intellectual level. But the rest of the population ought to be kept from getting in their way with superstitious beliefs.

I'm not impressed with libertarianism, because I've yet to see libertarians give a coherent account of how they'd keep the Animal Farm effect from happening. What's going to keep some new statism from emerging? Like buying the favor of politicians or hiring goons to bully rivals into submission. Look at the Mafia, and look at Somalia -- according to libertarian ideology, those societies ought to be utopias.

Also, it's fun to use libertarian rhetoric against military and police protection -- if governments are so irredeemably evil, then why put them in charge of military and police forces? Why not form one's own volunteer militias and mercenary armies and vigilante posses?

And to continue with libertarian rhetoric, if you want to be protected, then do it with your own money. And don't do it by having the government steal from other people to protect you just because you are too lazy to protect yourself.

3. Pelosi, Reid shunning Ten Commandments?

Comment #181654 by lpetrich on May 17, 2008 at 7:50 pm

And why all this Ten-Commandments fetishism? Why no paying attention to the Sermon on the Mount? I'd expected all those Bible-bangers to be intently studying the teachings of their Lord and Savior, but they aren't.

http://www.rantsnraves.org/showthread.php?t=2645

So I've distilled the SoM into 24 commandments:

1. Do not hide your true self; let it come through and enlighten everybody
2. Follow all the Laws of Moses; they all still apply
3. Do not get angry with anyone; that is as bad as murder
4. Do not call people insulting names
5. Settle disputes as quickly as you can
6. Do not look at people with lust; that is a form of adultery
7. Remove parts of your body that make you commit sins
8. Divorce makes you guilty of adultery, except if done for unfaithfulness
9. Do not swear oaths by anything; just say "Yes" or "No"
10. Love your enemies and care for them; do not hate them
11. Let your enemies continue to attack you and exploit you
12. Do not advertise your piety to others in an effort to seem virtuous to other people
13. Use simple, straightforward language in your devotions, and not impressive-sounding nonsense
14. Accumulate heavenly treasures, like piety and virtue, and not earthly ones, because the latter are vulnerable and can easily be lost or destroyed
15. Do not try to serve both God and money; you cannot serve two masters at the same time
16. Do not concern yourself with your future, because God will do a much better job of taking care of you, just as he takes care of the birds and the wildflowers
17. Do not judge others, because you will be judged in the same way
18. Do not complain about a speck in someone else's eye when you have a log in your eye
19. Do not give anything holy to anyone unworthy; it is like throwing pearls to pigs
20. Ask, and you shall receive; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you
21. Do to others what you would want them to do to you
22. Even when it is awkward and troublesome for you to be virtuous, be virtuous
23. Watch out for false prophets, who are like wolves in sheep's clothing; you can recognize them by their actions
24. Do not expect to make it into the Kingdom of Heaven by bragging about what good things you have done

4. Moderates Storm The Religious Battlefield

Comment #108172 by lpetrich on January 6, 2008 at 7:00 am

I notice these supposed moderates' unwillingness to challenge or criticize the fundies or say in plain, simple language why they think that many fundie beliefs are just plain wrong; why are they so masochistic?

It almost looks like they are running interference for the fundies, trying to protect the fundies from even the wimpiest sort of opposition.

5. Monkey, Business

Comment #108051 by lpetrich on January 5, 2008 at 11:04 pm

I like the persectives of Rtambree, epeeist, and annabanana, though I don't think that capitalism is necessarily evil. I think that the problems come from in part from (1) the nature of certain sorts of markets and (2) the tendency to produce a ruling class in the form of business leaders. Yes, a ruling class, despite the pretensions of capitalism groupies that a capitalist utopia is a classless society. And a ruling class that many capitalism groupies enjoy singing hosannas of praise to.

In fact, many of the capitalism groupies here seem to be saying "We've created a capitalist utopia, except for the presence of that pesky government. And if you don't like it, that's just too bad."

If you want to see what happens to capitalism in the absence of government, look at the Mafia and organized crime in general. The non-ruthless and non-thuggy capitalists end up paying protection money to the ruthless and thuggy ones.

And even in the absence of such nastiness, businesses are run internally like a capitalism groupie's caricature of government; in fact, I wonder if many capitalism groupies are projecting their bad experiences with businesses onto governments.

And as to al-rawandi on the CIA, I'm surprised that he wasn't saying something like "When it comes to fighting socialism and Communism, you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs."

6. Monkey, Business

Comment #105190 by lpetrich on December 30, 2007 at 8:53 pm

Seems like capitalist Panglossianism to me -- something like the adaptationist Panglossianism that one sees all too often.

7. 2 fleas for the Christmas week

Comment #105183 by lpetrich on December 30, 2007 at 8:35 pm

It's curious that some people are so willing to believe that Adolf Hitler had been an atheist. But what kind of atheist declares that he is willing to do the will of "the Almighty Creator" and that fighting the Jews is "the Lord's work"?

And as to Malcolm McLean's four types of miracles, the second, third, and fourth are indistinguishable from non-miracles; only the first would be hard to call a non-miracle, especially if it was accompanied by a deep booming voice coming out of the sky and expressing credit for that action.

And as to ADH's argument from religious scientists, has he(she?) bothered to try converting to whichever religion his favorite scientist believes in? Should ADH become a Trinity-denying nominal Anglican (Newton)? Or a Sandemanian (Faraday)? Or a Catholic (Descartes)? Or a Jansenist (sort of a Catholic Calvinist: Pascal)?

8. ...and another FLEA...

Comment #96950 by lpetrich on December 11, 2007 at 6:36 am

I agree on calling on people to read some of those "flea" books. Some big public library might have some of them by now, so one won't have to shell out any $$$ or GBP or EUR or whatever to read them.

But not only Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens have attracted fleas; the Rational Response Squad has also, in the form of the "Righteous Responders" and some other such sites.

9. Megachurches Add Local Economy to Their Mission

Comment #93012 by lpetrich on December 2, 2007 at 1:08 am

Jesus Christ's teachings on wealth:

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21)

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." (Matt 6:24)

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matt 6:25-34)

Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. "It is written," he said to them, "'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of robbers.'" (Matthew 21:12-13)

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, "Is it not written: 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers.'" (Mark 11:15-17)

Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. "It is written," he said to them, "'My house will be a house of prayer'; but you have made it 'a den of robbers.'" (Luke 19:45-46)

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" (John 2:13-16)

(all quotes from the NIV translation)

10. In a consumer society, browsing for belief

Comment #87481 by lpetrich on November 12, 2007 at 8:39 am

I am reminded of Jesus Christ's Temple temper tantrum:

Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. "It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of robbers.'"
Matthew 21:12-13 (NIV)

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, "Is it not written: " 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers.'"
Mark 11:15-17 (NIV)

Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. "It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be a house of prayer'; but you have made it 'a den of robbers.'"
Luke 19:45-46 (NIV)

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"
John 2:13-16 (NIV)

11. Washoe, the sign-language chimp dies

Comment #85819 by lpetrich on November 7, 2007 at 9:17 am

Although chimps and gorillas can make lots of individual signs, and can use multiple signs to describe objects, they do not seem capable of constructing coherent sentences. Can they make subject-verb-object constructions?

I've read Koko's AOL transcript, and Koko did not even come close to constructing coherent sentences, and Koko's handlers did a lot of creative interpretation. I remember arguing about this with a believer in ape-language ability, and he claimed that Koko had been having a bad day. I was never able to get him to point out a well-documented example of Koko making full-scale language on a good day.

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

Comment #85612 by lpetrich on November 6, 2007 at 12:11 pm

From post 189 by clodhopper:

.....This means that we need to cultivate a much greater awareness of both the limits and the oppressive effects of a debate dominated by the opinions of a small clique of white English-speaking men staging a mock battle about rationality and God, which fails to address the most significant humanitarian questions of our time. This includes the many different roles played by religion in sustaining and generating hope, meaning and creativity, without which we would be less than the humans we are.

13. What the New Atheists Don't See

Comment #85481 by lpetrich on November 6, 2007 at 2:06 am

Seems like Theodore Dalrymple believes in Plato's Royal Lie theory of religion -- but without Plato's honesty.

Plato at least had the honesty to try to invent a religion for his Republic; he did not make excuses for his society's religion. In fact, he wanted his society's religion banned from his Republic as full of bad examples, like heroes lamenting and gods laughing.

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

Comment #83869 by lpetrich on October 31, 2007 at 1:52 pm

This argument reminds me of the classic editorial "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus", stating that the Universe would be horribly dull and drab if there was no Santa Claus.

I have created a Mad Libs version of it here:

http://homepage.mac.com/lpetrich/YesVirginia.html

15. Science owes its origins to Christianity or Religion

Comment #83550 by lpetrich on October 30, 2007 at 11:36 am

And to add to my previous post, Albert Einstein is a bad example for Xian apologists, since he was a Jewish deist/pantheist -- he did not believe in Jesus Christ, and he used "God" in an almost metaphorical sort of sense.

And here's my favorite one-liner rebuttal:

The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras was a great mathematician who believed in the wickedness of eating beans. Does that mean that to be good at mathematics we must stop eating beans?

16. What's the evolutionary advantage of offering your place to an old woman on a bus?

Comment #83397 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 10:58 pm

Think of it this way -- instincts are rules of thumb that usually work, but that can be subverted on occasion. Think of the Navy survival guide "If it moves, salute it. If it doesn't move, paint it."

Consider nest-parasite birds like cuckoos and cowbirds, which lay their eggs in other birds' nests. When the baby cuckoos and cowbirds hatch, they kick out the other eggs and baby birds, and their unwilling foster parents end up feeding them.

Nesting birds have an instinct that says "feed whatever baby birds are in my nest", which works most of the time, since those baby birds are usually theirs. And since those birds inherit that instinct, it gets passed down to the next generation.

So those birds end up feeding those unwanted foster children.

They are not absolutely vulnerable, of course; they may kick out of the nest any eggs that do not resemble theirs.

So a niceness instinct could emerge in the same way, by kin selection in small and somewhat-inbred groups.

Kin selection is willingness to be self-sacrificing for fellow possessors of one's genes, like one's offspring; it is something that helps those genes persist and be represented in later generations. This is what Richard Dawkins meant by "the selfish gene" -- genes have a tendency to propagate themselves even at the expense of the organisms that contain them.

Aside from kin selection, another source of such niceness is reciprocal altruism; I'll help you out if you help me out. It even helps to be a bit forgiving of small wrongs, because otherwise even the smallest accident would destroy such relationships. But not too forgiving, of course.

17. Most religious people are moderate, and don't hurt anybody

Comment #83394 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 10:27 pm

This argument is that there is a silent majority of moderate Xians or Muslims or whatever who reject the fundamentalists and extremists.

However, if this alleged silent majority stays silent and lets the extremists be the public face of their religion, one wonders how serious they are about their moderation. It would certainly be in their interest to have a higher public profile, so why be silent?

And by not challenging or opposing the fundies and extremists when they are in a position to, they are enabling those fundies and extremists. I don't think that moderates *necessarily* enable extremists, but many of them seem willing to do so, even when it might be in their self-interest not to enable them.

18. Science owes its origins to Christianity or Religion

Comment #83386 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 10:11 pm

Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers were the ones who had invented science; it took a LONG time to rediscover it, and the rediscoverers were Xians because Xianity was the only religious game in town.

Also, it's strange to see Xian apologists making heroes out of people that they would normally dismiss as hellbound heretics -- a sort of inverse No True Scotsman fallacy.

Like evangelical and fundie Protestants making heroes out of Catholic and mainline-Protestant and Jewish scientists.

Sir Isaac Newton was one of the world's greatest scientists, but he was also a religious nut, someone very interested in the Biblical prophecies in Daniel and Revelation. He also came to deny the Trinity, believing that Jesus Christ was not co-equal to God the Father, but subordinate to him. He also thought that God has to fix the Solar System every now and then to keep it in shape, a "God of the Gaps" argument.

Newton kept his Trinity denial a secret, out of concern that it would severely limit his career chances; that's another reason that so many of the earlier scientists were card-carrying Xians.

Galileo considered himself a good Catholic, but he argued that the Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go; he'd seem dangerously liberal to many conservative and fundie Xians.

In fairness to many early scientists, they might have thought it possible to develop a "science of God", as it were. But such efforts have clearly been unproductive.

19. The US is a Christian Nation

Comment #83384 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 9:57 pm

The US Constitution starts with

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

which has no God or Jesus Christ in it. In fact, it's a good statement of the social-contract theory of government, in which people decide to have a government to do various things for them. It is a complete rejection of the divine-command theory of government ("We are only following God's orders"), and it certainly did not state that God has appointed a God-surrogate (king) to rule. Which is what King George III had believed about himself.

The original Constitution mentioned religion only once, in Article 6: "... no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." Its First Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Some God-is-an-American apologists retreat from there to the Declaration of Independence, but the God in that document is a deist sort of God, one who is an ultimate lawgiver, but one who does not meddle in human affairs or fix political contests as if they were football games. It also makes no mention of Jesus Christ.

The reference to "year of our Lord" does not prove much; the signing on Thursday, July 4, does not prove that they worshipped Thor or Julius Caesar.

20. Was religion beneficial to the development of society? Is it now?

Comment #83380 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 9:43 pm

This is the argument of Plato's Royal Lie, a religion which Plato invented for his Republic so that that Republic's citizens will accept the legitimacy of the rule of its philosopher-kings. And philosopher-queens, for that matter; Plato thought that women were capable of being philosophers.

And Plato did not make excuses for the deficiencies of his society's religion, a welcome departure from a very annoying practice of many Xian apologists; he proposed that it be banned as full of bad examples like heroes lamenting and gods laughing.

That aside, Dinesh D'Souza rewrites history enough to make a Stalinist proud. I find it curious that he is willing to celebrate blatant heretics like Quakers and evangelicals; anything to win arguments, I guess.

Furthermore, many Xians defended slavery as justified because black people have the curse of Ham on them; given his skin color, Dinesh D'Souza also has that curse on him.

And later, during the US civil-rights struggle, many people defended segregation as a Xian principle of morality, that God intended the races to remain separate and not mix.

Furthermore, DDS's defense of the Inquisition in India is much like the traditional Communist apologetic that "you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs"; the end justifies the means.

As to democracy and republican government the words "democracy" and "republic" go back to pagan Greece and Rome; though they had lots of slavery, they often thought that governments are to represent their citizens and serve their citizens rather than of being their citizens' masters.

In fact, many early-modern supporters of democracy used ancient Greece and Rome as examples, even if rather romanticized ones; some of the US Founding Fathers admired the Roman Republic.

And Xianity can't get much credit for feminism; it has been a mostly secular movement, with hardly any churches supporting it.

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

Comment #83375 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 9:17 pm

It seems to me that this argument is almost like saying "I have to lie to myself to make myself happy."

I know of someone who was an atheist for a while, and a rather fervent one at that, but he snapped and ended up inventing a religion for himself to believe in, so he would not go nuts. He even came close to saying that he had to lie to himself in order to maintain his sanity.

It was a woozy New-Age-ish sort of religion, it must be said, and not some hard-boiled Abrahamic sect like the Orthodox Judaism which he had believed in before he became an atheist.

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

Comment #83373 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 8:55 pm

I'd say:

What are the standards of proof here?

If it is possible to reject solipsism of the moment, it is possible to conclude that someone loves you.

Solipsism of the moment is the theory that there is nothing but your consciousness (solipsism), and that you did not have a history.

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

Comment #83371 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 8:38 pm

I think that, like "atheism is a religion", that this is a lame attempt at sarcasm. It's a way of suggesting that atheists are guilty of what they profess to reject.

But if the more Faith the better, then they ought to admire us for having so much Faith.

24. Science and Religion BOTH make faith claims

Comment #83369 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 8:24 pm

As cdhabecker has noted, Dinesh D'Souza has recently claimed that science requires belief in:

1. The universe is rational.
2. The rationality of the universe is comprehensible in the language of mathematics.
3. The rules of the universe are comprehensible to us.

and that these notions were the result of Xianity. This is historical illiteracy if not an outright lie. Dinesh D'Souza ought to be familiar with ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, many of whom anticipated all three claims.

Yes, *all three* of them.

Consider that Pythagoras and his followers considered mathematics to be the Key to the Universe, and they went off the deep end of mystical notions about numbers while doing some good mathematics, including discovering some Satanic Verses: irrational numbers.

And consider the sort of Universe the Atomists and Epicureans believed in: strikingly close to what modern science has discovered about the Universe. Richard Carrier once wrote about Epicurus vs. Mohammed, and showed that by Bible-science and Koran-science standards, Lucretius's On the Nature of Things was greatly successful at anticipating the discoveries of modern science.

And science does not assume that the Universe is "rational" or comprehensible or describable with mathematics; it treats such claims as hypotheses to be tested -- hypotheses that have been enormously successful in some cases.

25. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #83367 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 8:18 pm

The Argument from Platonism, as I like to call it:

Mind and thoughts and abstract ideas exist, therefore, this is not a completely material or physical Universe, and therefore God may exist. Or even must exist.

26. Atheism is a religion and you're as bad as the fundamentalists

Comment #83366 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 8:04 pm

I find it strange when religious believers use "religion" as a dirty word.

Especially believers who believe that their religion is the One True Religion and that it is very important to them to believe in it.

27. That's not MY God or Religion you're criticising

Comment #83362 by lpetrich on October 29, 2007 at 7:53 pm

I'd also ask such people why they seem so happy to let the fundies and extremists be the public face of their religion. Where's their outrage at how the fundies claim to speak for all Xianity or Islam or whatever?

They also sometimes claim that they represent some silent majority. But if a silent majority prefers to stay silent, then it is letting itself become irrelevant.

In fact, I sometimes wonder if such apologists are being hired by the fundies to run interference for them. It's certainly convenient for those fundies.

28. Don't write off religion - it can be the key to a stable family

Comment #83060 by lpetrich on October 28, 2007 at 7:10 pm

The royal-lie theory of religion raises its ugly head again. :p

At least Plato was honest enough to recognize that if you take it seriously, you might as well invent a religion for the purpose of making people virtuous, instead of making excuses for existing ones. And he certainly did not make excuses for his society's religion, which he wanted banned from his Republic and replaced with his Royal Lie.

And I wonder if some studies that seem to show that religion is a Good Thing are affected by what might be called the social-dropout effect. In that effect, those who are social dropouts or something similar would not participate in religious activities as much as someone with a better social position, simply because of their social situation.

It must be significant that relatively educated and affluent and "successful" people tend to be less religious than those lower on the social scale; why aren't such people typically super-religious?

29. AAI Convention webcam

Comment #74969 by lpetrich on October 1, 2007 at 8:40 am

Sapient, you might find this amusing: in IIDB, there was once a gentleman named Pogue, who once started a thread:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=64168

I am an atheist.. and TOTALLY against Church/State Separation, in which he stated:

America was founded on belief in God, and most people have garnered their moral subset from that belief. I myself get my morals from Christian society, even though I have come to reason my morals out a little differently than most Christians do. I told my friend that most people are not capable of reasoning out their own set of morals without religion playing a part.

We see it every day now. Religion is being pushed out of every facet of our lives. Morality is also. Now, I am not trying to commit the fallacy of false cause here, but we all know that for most people, religion and morality are pretty much the same thing. If you take away religion totally, what is left to fill the vacuum as far as morals are concerned?

I "feel" that religion getting pushed out of American's lives is responsible for a lot of the societal troubles we are havng.

This provoked a very heated discussion over several pages, with Pogue howling about how religion is supposedly necessary for morality and so forth, and otherwise seeming hard to distinguish from a supporter of the US Religious Right. I noted that he seemed to believe in Plato's Royal-Lie theory of religion, but he did not respond to that. But when he stated that he looked back to a Good Old Days of Americans being very hostile to atheists, I asked if he would enjoy being considered the moral equivalent of a mad dog. And when he spoke about "scripture" being "warped" to support slavery, I asked what kind of atheist uses "scripture" instead of "the Bible".

The result was some great pwnage; he totally lost it.

30. VOTE on the 'Faith smackdown': Richard Dawkins vs Francis Collins

Comment #72827 by lpetrich on September 23, 2007 at 4:29 am

Fraction of the votes that Francis Collins got in each round:

Round 1: 18%
Round 2: 16%
Round 3: 10%

Collins did the best when his position was the closest to agnosticism, which was in Round 1. But in Round 2, he talked about what God is like, though he could be interpreted as speaking hypothetically; he scored a little bit less there. And in Round 3, where he was the farthest from agnosticism ("God did it!" is not exactly "I don't know"), he did the worst.

31. Christopher Hitchens and Bill Donohue on Mother Teresa

Comment #66446 by lpetrich on August 30, 2007 at 2:41 am

Is it the latest fashion among anti-atheist believers to brag about their doubts, to say "Look how doubtful I am about my beliefs! You are MUCH more dogmatic than I am!"?

Especially when the theology that they subscribe to teaches that doubt is a sin.

Is it a way of accusing us of what they consider themselves often accused of, of being dogmatic?


Also, if Bill Donohue is going to wield his Irishness with "an Englishman has to be quiet when an Irishman talks", then I wonder if he'd enjoy being described as fitting an old stereotype of Irishmen as being drunken brawlers.

And as to Mother Teresa being "married to Christ", she and other nuns would make him a polygamist on a massive scale.

32. A force for good?

Comment #55295 by lpetrich on July 10, 2007 at 1:25 pm

Something else that Mr. Vallely brings to my mind:

PZ Myers's satire of pretentious religious sophisticates in his blog Pharyngula with "The Courtier's Reply":

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/12/the_courtiers_reply.php


And his argument that the religion business is a Good Thing reminds me of Plato's Royal Lie, a religion that Plato invented for his Republic in order to make its citizens virtuous and accept the authority of its rulers.

Plato was also MUCH more honest than many present-day Xian apologists in that he made no excuses for his society's religion. Yes, he proposed that it be banned from his Republic as full of bad examples, like heroes lamenting and gods laughing.

So is Mr. Vallely willing to promote some religion that he considers false because he thinks that believing in that religion and practicing it will make people virtuous?


And how can we be "made in the image of God" if God is some airy metaphysical entity like Pure Being, or else is an ideal? If anything, humanity allegedly being "made in the image of God" indicates that God must be very anthropomorphic -- exactly the sort of God that religious sophisticates whine is not the kind of God they believe in.

And if anything, such a claim seems like pride, and pride is supposed to be a sin. And it is contrary to the notion of Original Sin, according to which we deserve eternal damnation just for existing.

Which almost seems like a case of bipolar syndrome.

33. A force for good?

Comment #55218 by lpetrich on July 10, 2007 at 9:14 am

That article is a big load of blatant selectivity; I'm a bit surprised that Mr. Vallely did not trot out the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Although I will concede that Christopher Hitchens had done that with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Who was a very liberal sort of Xian, it must be said.

And note how Mr. Vallely talked about MLK, and not the secular supporters of the US black civil-rights movement, and not all the churches that were more-or-less apathetic about it, and certainly not the opponents of the civil-rights movement, who included the Religious Right of their day.

And also Mr. Vallely omitted all the supporters of the Divine Right of Kings.

--

And yes, the reason that death tolls were so high is that there are many more people available for killing. Consider that the Thirty Years War, which was largely Catholic vs. Protestant, killed about 20% of the people of Germany. Now try scaling that to present-day populations.

In fact, the idea of religious tolerance in modern Europe started as a reaction to the Wars of Religion -- was there any need for people to kill each other over what those sacred crackers become, among other arcane theological issues?

--

And Adolf Hitler? Though Nazism was as secular as most other of its contemporary political ideologies, Hitler cited Jesus Christ's Temple temper tantrum as the prototypical example of what to do about the Jews, and claimed that he was following the will of "the Almighty Creator."

And he was good buddies with the Vatican, which never complained very much, even after it became completely safe for them to do so. And even after what the Nazis did to Catholic countries that opposed them like France and Poland.

Martin Luther, the original Protestant, wrote that Jews ought to be made second-class citizens and slave laborers in his "The Jews and their Lies". Not surprisingly, some Nazis admired that book.

34. In the name of the Father

Comment #51617 by lpetrich on June 23, 2007 at 7:45 pm

And to expand on TIKI AL's points, most people, including most educated and intellectual and artistic people, have been at least nominal believers in whatever religion was common in the society that they had lived in.

Including religions and sects that Bishop Harris considers false. I don't see him converting to Lutheranism because of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, for instance. Or to medieval Catholicism because of Augustine and Aquinas. Or to Hellenic paganism because of Plato.

35. Let us pray for the soul of Richard Dawkins

Comment #42068 by lpetrich on May 17, 2007 at 2:53 pm

Richard Dawkins was describing a deist god to Ruth Gledhill, but he hasn't exactly converted to deism. And Ms. Odone would likely find deism almost as bad as atheism, at least if she carefully thought it through.

And Ms. Odone might want to ask how far she'd ever get in the hierarchy of the church that she loves so much, as opposed to the rest of society. Would she be allowed to become a priest or a bishop or an archbishop or a cardinal or a pope? Yet in secular society, she became a journalist and a newspaper editor.

36. How dare you call me a fundamentalist

Comment #41332 by lpetrich on May 15, 2007 at 11:41 pm

The Wee Flea's response is yet more content-free whining. He has yet to state where he disagrees with Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson or Ted Haggard; it seems to me that he is praising such gentlemen with faint damns.

And he is guilty of what he accuses Richard Dawkins and other "New Atheists" of -- he's made lots of accusations without really supporting them -- and sometimes false ones.

He's rather blatantly misrepresented RD's position on God. RD does NOT start with ANY presupposition one way or another about the existence of the Xian God or any other -- he *concludes* that they most likely do not exist, and then works from there. Fancy theology he dismisses with PZ Myers's excellent Courtier's Reply because he believes that that fanciness has no foundation -- it's an elaborate superstructure built on the swampland of unsupportable premises.

37. Unintelligent Design

Comment #40588 by lpetrich on May 14, 2007 at 2:47 pm

The viewpoint that some form of religion is desirable as opium for the people is as old as Plato. He recommended that his society's religion be banned from his Republic as full of bad examples like heroes lamenting and gods laughing. And in its place was to be a "royal lie" that was designed to support its philosopher-rulers.

Elsewhere in the classical Greco-Roman world; Polybius, Strabo, and others had maintained that superstitious forms of religion are necessary to make people behave themselves by positing imaginary cosmic bogeypeople.

Fast-forwarding over a millennium to the Italian Renaissance, we find Niccolo Machiavelli arguing that organized religion is good as a social cement even if not necessarily true. He praised the pagan Romans for pretending to believe in auguries, official divinations of the will of the gods, and punishing those who disregarded them.

But nowadays, it is hard to find advocates of such positions who are willing to state them very honestly, with the possible exception of Leo Strauss and his admirers. And perhaps not surprisingly, Leo Strauss had admired Plato's Republic.

38. Better God-fearing than sneering

Comment #40502 by lpetrich on May 14, 2007 at 11:22 am

I wonder if Stephanie Merritt enjoys reading:

Women should shut up and let their husbands instruct them (1 Corinthians 14:34-35, 1 Timothy 2:11-12)

The hierarchy women < men < Christ < God, how women come from men instead of men from women, how men are in the likeness of God and women are in the likeness of men, etc. (1 Corinthians 11)

Women should submit to their husbands and reverence them (Ephesians 5:22-24, 5:33, Colossians 3:18).

These are all New Testament, so she can't dismiss them as Old Testament stuff.


And I wonder what she thinks of a male Muslim who talks about the great consolation he gets from his belief that he'll have a harem of lovelies in the next world.


http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com - the Skeptics' Annotated Bible; includes the Koran and the Book of Mormon

39. Lou Dobbs Interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #37506 by lpetrich on May 4, 2007 at 4:51 pm

I think that a lot of atheist writers are rather careless, repeating things that they ought to check -- and that they can easily check. If you have good Internet access, there isn't much of an excuse, is there?

But just the same, there is a strong case that much of the Gospels is mythical -- Jesus Christ fits Lord Raglan's Mythic-Hero profile remarkably well.

40. Lou Dobbs Interviews Christopher Hitchens

Comment #37498 by lpetrich on May 4, 2007 at 4:30 pm

CH's list of "virgin births" includes:

Jesus
Perseus
Buddha
Attis
Huitzilopochtili
Genghis Khan
Krishna
Horus
Mercury
Romulus


I have a lot of quarrels with that list. Some of its members do indeed qualify, like Romulus and Perseus, but others don't, like Krishna, whose mother had had 7 children before she had him.

However, Krishna is an avatar or incarnation of the god Vishnu, and the Buddha was a reincarnation of someone very enlightened.

And I think that CH mixes up the Buddha's birth with his soul entering his mother's womb. She had a dream that a white elephant had entered her side, and this was interpreted as her having become pregnant with the Buddha.

Divine impregnation is not very prominent in the Old Testament, if it is present at all. "Children" and "sons" and "daughters" are often used metaphorically there. But it is almost absurdly common in Greco-Roman mythology, where gods not only begot other gods, they also made lots of mortal women pregnant. And pregnant not only with several legendary heroes, but also with some real people, like Pythagoras, Plato, Alexander the Great, and Augustus Caesar.

So I think that it's a combination of pagan influence and of overly literal interpretation of "Son of God".

41. Why the Gods Are Not Winning

Comment #37003 by lpetrich on May 3, 2007 at 5:26 am

weefree: I am sorry about the lack of italics etc. I have no idea how to get the blockquote. Any help would be appreciated.

Then pray for that god of yours to reveal to you how to make blockquotes and italics and the like here.

wf: I have plenty proof of the existence of God ...

OK, prove to me:

* That your favorite sort of god exists without using the Bible or any of the teachings of your particular sect.

* That that god is, in fact, the god of your particular sect.

* That that god is worthy of respect.

wf: Faith in things that you cannot prove and have no evidence for. (multiverse, the origins of life, matter from non matter etc).

weefree, I thought that you guys considered faith a *virtue*. And why do you claim that we believe all those things?

wf: Perhaps it might be better to ask for you to name one modern democracy that did not arise out of a Christian tradition?

All of them, with the possible exception of some connections to some dissenting Protestants. There isn't anything close to the idea of democracy in the Bible, whose God is the Supreme Autocrat. And many early modern supporters of democracy were admirers of ancient Greece and Rome. Thomas Jefferson admired the Roman Republic, and the author of the Federalist Papers wrote under the pseudonym Publius, using the name of an early Roman-Republic politician. The US Senate gets its name from ... guess where?

42. Shout your doubt out loud, my fellow unbelievers

Comment #36994 by lpetrich on May 3, 2007 at 4:50 am

weefree: HUMAN BEINGS ONLY LIKE TO KILL IF AND WHEN IT IS NECESSARY. YOU LIVE IN A VERY DIFFERENT WORLD TO ME. JUST READ YOUR NEWSPAPER TODAY.

OK, weefree, here go the velvet gloves. Read Deuteronomy 7:1-5 and many other parts of the Bible in which mass murder is considered a Good Thing:

When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you- and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.

wf: THE BIBLE. WE ARE ALL SINNERS. EVERYONE. THAT FITS THE FACTS.

And because we also do good things, does that mean that we are all also saints?

"Also, your slams of the US as "godless" are laughable. US political culture has lots of obnoxious pietism, like a President who claim that he appealed to a "higher father" rather than to his human father for advice on Iraq. By comparison, a Blair spokesman claimed "We don't do God".

wf: Mr Blair claims to be a Christian, attends church, reads his bible and prays. And your problem is?

Which makes him the most religious prime minister in decades. And since he is an Anglo-Catholic, why haven't you converted to Anglo-Catholicism?

"As to Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs, historian Richard Carrier has concluded that he was indeed a Catholic, though a rather eccentric one;"

wf: Indeed a Catholic who never went to Church, did not attend mass and hated Christianity. A little eccentric!

A rewrite of history, as this site explains: http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm

This is someone who talked very approvingly of "the Lord" Jesus Christ in private as well as in public, and described his Temple temper tantrum as what to do about the Jews. I don't have the patience to detail that site's abundance of evidence.

Although in fairness, he seems to be the George W. Bush sort of Xian.

"weefree, haven't you ever heard of the Middle Ages? And the Reformation and its Wars of Religion?"

weefree: Yes - But the reformation did not have 'Wars of Religion'. The political powers (including the Catholic Church) went to war against the people who wanted to be different.

Like believe in the "wrong" religion. Weefree, look at all the persecutions of people for believing in "false" religious beliefs back in the Reformation. And the smashing up of Catholic churches and artwork as idolatrous.

"I don't see why. Your argument is nothing but a "God of the Gaps" argument, and the Universe could just as well be eternal. I suggest that you review Richard Dawkins's Ultimate 747 argument some time."

wf: Have done so several times. What is your evidence for eternal matter? Does it make any sense and do you have any proof for it? You are just operating a science of the gaps.

Laws of conservation of matter and energy. Weefree, where did you go to school?

"Good and evil aren't metaphysical principles, they are features."

wf: Features? Of what?

Get a clue.

"weefree, it's strange to see religious leaders like you slamming "religion" and using "religion" as a dirty word."

wf: Strange but true.

You hate your own profession? Why don't you find one that you can stomach more easily?

"So you are claiming that your fellow Xians have a right to commit whatever sins they want to, as long as they finance the Church and support its political program?"

wf: Nope. The very opposite. I am claiming that we are sinners and that we do not have a right to sin and that all the religion in the world will not save us - no matter how much money we give to the Church. Only Jesus can.

Look what happens in practice -- you can get away with many of your sins as long as you do all those things and condemn the presumed sexual sins of others.

*** 9. "The Bible."

"Except that you have to pick and choose to do that -- and one can do that with other works of literature."

wf: Nope. If you read the Bible in context and fairly there is no need to pick and choose.

I agree. Which is why I believe that the Bible contains a LOT of errancy.

*** 10. "Jesus."

"Content-free nonsense. The Trinity is a fairy tale; it isn't even in the Bible."

wf: I suggest you read the Bible again. It is clearly taught in the New Testament.

Where?

43. Shout your doubt out loud, my fellow unbelievers

Comment #36931 by lpetrich on May 2, 2007 at 8:43 pm

*** 1. "The Creation."

You obviously take this as a given, even though creation may be putting too fine a point on it. The mere fact that the heavens, earth and we exist, does not necessarily mean we were created by God."

wf: Agreed. But the fact that we exist, and that the conditions for our existence are there, is a powerful indicator that someone or something created those conditions.

I don't see why. Your argument is nothing but a "God of the Gaps" argument, and the Universe could just as well be eternal. I suggest that you review Richard Dawkins's Ultimate 747 argument some time.

*** 2. "The Human mind and spirit. Why are we conscious? Why are we special? And life. Where does it come from? How can we get life from non-life?"

"We evolved that way. Who says we are special; we are probably just a more advanced life-form. Life from non-life is just as likely as being created from dust."

wf: Why? Why is it just as likely? And who says we evolved that way? You are just posting your beliefs/faith without any evidence because it all has to fit in with your metanarrative that their cannot be a God.

weefree, why don't you study evolutionary biology some time? And what's been done on abiogenesis? All you are doing is invoking the God of the Gaps again.

*** 3. "The Moral Law. How do we know what good and evil is? Why do we have a sense of that at all?"

"Because we don't like to get killed, hurt, cheated, lied to, stolen from, etc. The golden rule developed over thousands of years of evolution and the growth of human civilization. "

wf: I see – we are evolving towards a better and more moral stance. This is not immediately obvious. Perhaps we don't like to get killed – but maybe we like to kill. How does the golden rule make sense in the world of the Selfish Gene?

But we don't *universally* like to kill other people. Do bees in a hive indiscriminately sting each other? Do wolves in a pack indiscriminately hunt each other? Your argument is the God of the Gaps again.

*** 4. "Evil."

"Why can't humans be innately good? Christianity may have it wrong, as many other faiths do not ascribe to this theory. Besides good and evil are concepts to describe certain modes of behaviour, nothing more."

wf: So good and evil are just 'concepts'. ...

Good and evil aren't metaphysical principles, they are features. And from the viewpoint of metaphysical naturalism, it is not surprising that both physical evil and moral evil exist. Is there a law of nature saying that they ought not to exist? If one thinks that they ought not to exist, then all that means is that it is legitimate to try to get rid of them.

Also, the Argument from Evil is a powerful argument against the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent entity, especially one that had supposedly created Heaven.

*** 5. "Religion. Yes there is so much in religion that is wrong and in many ways I hate religion. Generally I think it is a human imitation that more often than not blocks the way to God rather than opens it. And yet it is an imitation of something that is real.…"

Strange comments about hating religion and being an imitation of the real! Real what? Isn't this kind of an admission that man created God? Besides, hearts were "made" to pump blood. "

wf: Why strange? I hate Macdonalds but I love real food. I hate techno-pop but love real music. What's the problem?

weefree, it's strange to see religious leaders like you slamming "religion" and using "religion" as a dirty word.

*** 6. "Experience. I believe because I have tasted that God is good."

"Wow, tasting God and a hippie poster! Hardly proof of God since ice cream tastes good and I've seen lots of inspirational posters (we have them hanging around the office). "

wf: I'm afraid most atheists on this site frequently cite their experience. Rightly so. However it is not absolute. Nonetheless experience is an essential part of being.

Different people experience different things. Many Catholics have experienced the Virgin Mary and various saints; why haven't you converted to Catholicism because of that?

*** 7. "History."

"Conjecture on your part that history makes more sense only in the context of God. Proof?"

History itself.

*** 8. "The Church."

"How do "beautiful people" behaving in the "most wonderful, inexplicable ways" have anything to do with the existence of God? There are "beautiful people" (and "ugly" ones) in all faiths, not just Christianity, and among atheists too. If the church represents God as you would have it do, it would be at its best all the time."


wf: why? Is there no scope for sinners in the Church? Is there no scope for freedom? Is there no scope for mistakes?

So you are claiming that your fellow Xians have a right to commit whatever sins they want to, as long as they finance the Church and support its political program?

*** 9. "The Bible."

"There's nothing wrong with using the Bible as a source of "challenge, comfort, truth and renewal". But your assertions that it speaks to you, even without the loopyness and esoteric interpretations, still doesn't go anywhere near proving the existence of God or its inerrancy."

wf: Agreed – not on its own, but in conjunction with the other stuff it works very well.

Except that you have to pick and choose to do that -- and one can do that with other works of literature.

*** 10. "Jesus."

"One of the great enduring mysteries is why God, who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent actually needed a son "appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe." ..."

wf: Amusing. Who says God 'needed a son'. God is triune, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I think this reflects more the nature of God as love than anything else.

Content-free nonsense. The Trinity is a fairy tale; it isn't even in the Bible.

wf: As for the masses not thinking for themselves – the very thing that the early church did was to encourage its followers (who were mostly slaves) to think for themselves.

Rewrite of history. Thinking for oneself has long been a sin -- one is supposed to beeelieeeve more than anything. Consider how in the Middle Ages the Church frowned on vernacular translations of the Bible, and consider all the centuries of hunting down heretics.

wf: The last thing most atheists seem to want is people to think for themselves – especially when they end up disagreeing with the atheist belief system.


Pure projection.

And I note that democracy and republics and such things were practiced in the classical Greco-Roman world; the word "democracy" comes from Greek and "republic" comes from Latin.

44. Shout your doubt out loud, my fellow unbelievers

Comment #36921 by lpetrich on May 2, 2007 at 7:58 pm

weefree, the churches in northern Europe survive mainly as traditional forms, just like the monarchies that several of those countries have. Several nations in the world, including several northern European ones, have constitutional monarchies, which are republics with a monarch as nominal ruler.

Look at what people believe and do in practice, like how many people go to some house of worship on a regular basis? As opposed to only doing so for hatching, matching, and dispatching.

And weefree ought to be familiar with the example of his home nation's monarchy, if not those of Holland and Sweden.

Also, your slams of the US as "godless" are laughable. US political culture has lots of obnoxious pietism, like a President who claim that he appealed to a "higher father" rather than to his human father for advice on Iraq. By comparison, a Blair spokesman claimed "We don't do God".


wf: "I have to stick with the facts and so far the only atheist states in the world have hardly been shining examples of tolerance and freedom."

I will concede that imposing atheism by force has been a bad idea; especially associating atheism with Marxism-Leninism and Communist governments' claims to legitimacy. What is interesting is atheism emerging *without* a government forcing people to be atheists.

And the example of Marxism also goes to show that being an atheist won't keep one from believing in a quasi-religious belief system.


As to Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs, historian Richard Carrier has concluded that he was indeed a Catholic, though a rather eccentric one; he has read Hitler's Table Talks in the original German, and he has found that common quotes of him are bogus. The original contains things like "The most marvelous proof of the superiority of Man, which puts man ahead of the animals, is the fact that he understands that there must be a Creator," with the seemingly anti-Xian content being slams of specific doctrines like transubstatiation.

http://ffrf.org/fttoday/2002/nov02/carrier.php

The Nazis had "God With Us" on their belt buckles, they disparaged Communism as Godless, and they even held that against the Jews. Though Nazism was overall a secular ideology, the Nazi leaders were happy to coexist with any church that supported them or at least did not get in their way. And many Nazis, including apparently Hitler himself, believed Jesus Christ to be a noble Nordic who was persecuted by the Jews.

wf: "A Christian is someone who follows Christ."
Can anyone say, "No True Scotsman"?

wf: "Christ was of course not a follower of himself."
He could have tried to practice his own teachings.

wf: "As regards the comment above anyone who reads Nietzsche can clearly identify his anti-Christian and his anit-Jewish hatred."
Friedrich Nietzsche did NOT hate Jews; he was not even much of a German nationalist. However, he had a sister who did hate Jews. Like Ayn Rand, he was a believer in heroic self-assertion -- and he looked down on Xian ethics as a slave mentality, that of perpetually groveling before the Xian God.


"..when the Church had the upper hand it was happy to persecute, imprison or behead non-believers and fight crusades against other religions."

wf: "Again fabulous (in the mythical sense) historical ignorance."
weefree, haven't you ever heard of the Middle Ages? And the Reformation and its Wars of Religion?

45. Two idiots get a forum

Comment #35663 by lpetrich on April 28, 2007 at 6:38 am

Both teams have a "pretty" member:

RRS: Kelly M.
WotM: Kirk Cameron

So might we have those two debate each other one-on-one?

46. Mormonism: A Racket Becomes a Religion

Comment #35648 by lpetrich on April 28, 2007 at 5:34 am

Mormonism makes me think of the Mormon cricket, the katydid Anabrus simplex; that association comes from a book on insects which I had read in my childhood.

And I've discovered a nice video that shows, in cartoon form, Mormon beliefs: "What Mormon Theology Is Really All About Cartoon". I've asked some ex-Mormons about it, and they agree that it's mostly accurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_cricket - the cricket
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7v_V8qSIIo - the video

47. We aim to misbehave

Comment #35190 by lpetrich on April 26, 2007 at 2:17 pm

The term "feminazi" was popularized by right-wing talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, whose "Undeniable Truths" include

"Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society"

He has used the word to mean someone who wants as many abortions as possible. Though he first claimed that there are less than 12 true feminazis, he has later used the word more broadly.

48. Jesus 'Love-Bombs' You

Comment #34884 by lpetrich on April 25, 2007 at 2:03 pm

That reminds me of RD's interview with Ted Haggard. After TH stated that he did not want his flock to be a bunch of personality cultists and yes-people.

After which we cut to TH asking his flock "What are we called to?"

"Obedience!" they all said.

Which makes me wonder if these fundies will now deny that they love-bomb.

49. Pope abolishes limbo

Comment #34150 by lpetrich on April 23, 2007 at 11:11 am

The eminent theologian St. Augustine had claimed that babies are terrible sinners, guilty of such sins as gluttony and jealousy (Confessions, Bk. 3, Ch. 7).

And as to the Earth being inhabitable as evidence of "design", it's more evidence of natural selection. What Daniel Dennett has called "Darwin's dangerous idea"; he has written a book with that title.

As to the Moon not being too close or too far, the Moon got to where it is by tidal drag, so the "too close" scenario is very improbable. However, an absent Moon would not be as debilitating as devolved seems to think, because the oceans would still have currents in them and because rivers would still flow.

The main problem would be that the Earth's spin axis would precess too slowly, with periods comparable to the periods of oscillation of the Earth's orbit's orientation and shape. This can cause big and potentially troublesome variations in the Earth's obliquity. If it gets high, then midlatitude and polar regions would have superhot summers, making it difficult for complex organisms to survive on a long-term basis on land.

50. Iran Exonerates Six Who Killed in Islam's Name

Comment #33299 by lpetrich on April 19, 2007 at 8:00 pm

Muslim apologists brag about how feminist and pro-woman Islam allegedly is, but claiming that women are worth only half as much as men belies that claim.