1. What Binti Jua Knew

Comment #236084 by seqenenre on August 24, 2008 at 7:04 am

Maybe I am missing something, but I googled the event described in comment 28 by A but nothing relevant came up.

2. Pastor Michael Guglielmucci spun gospel of lies

Comment #234931 by seqenenre on August 22, 2008 at 9:08 am

Why people are encouraged to pray to a, uhm, well, whatever, who obviously is completely incapable of protecting his people from the cheapest of cheats is beyond me.

3. The rebellion of the child-brides

Comment #230215 by seqenenre on August 14, 2008 at 12:37 pm

bamafreethinker (5)
I agree

4. The amazing intelligence of crows

Comment #181135 by seqenenre on May 16, 2008 at 1:12 pm

Can I remove my previous post. I had not seen the video, I just read the text. How embarassing. HELP!!! (on the sunny side: it was Attenborough!)

5. The amazing intelligence of crows

Comment #181124 by seqenenre on May 16, 2008 at 1:00 pm

I remember reading the story of a birdspecies in Japan but I have no idea where I first read it (somehow the name David Attenborough pops up). The bird found out that if you dropped a nut on one of these black stripes on the earth one of those boxlike animals with round limbs would smash the nut and you could eat it. It was very dangerous though, chances were you were smashed like the nut yourself.
Until one day, one of the birds dropped the nut in between a couple of white bars on the black patch and half of the time you could savely eat the smashed nut, but half of the time you yourself would be smashed, like the nut.
And again, a clever bird found that once you had dropped the nut in between the white bars and waited until many humans walked over these white bars you could savely eat your cracked nut (of course avoiding being stepped on, but most humans never step on birds). If you paid enough attention, you could even predict when these humans would dare walking on these black patches. Somewhere a red light would turn green…
I am absolutely sure this is a genuine story,…I think. Does anyone recognise this piece of avian genius?

6. Flipping particle could explain missing antimatter

Comment #146827 by seqenenre on March 19, 2008 at 1:15 pm

"...and back again 3 trillion times per second before decaying into other particles."
If I would have Designed the universe Intelligently I would have made the damn thing do this either not at all or 2,7182818 trillion times per second. Just to give Mister Dembski an extra argument. (or, just to tease Mister Dembski 2,7282818 trillion times per second)

7. A God blog

Comment #136919 by seqenenre on March 2, 2008 at 3:08 am

"His name is Richard Dawkins", while neo-con firebrand Ann Coulter (who Dawkins initially took to be a satirical character from The Onion) apparently gets a kick out of imagining him burning in hell."
I am having some problems here with the English language (I am Dutch). Who held whom for a character from the Onion. Did Coulter think Dawkins was a character from the Onion or did Dawkins think Coulter was a character from the Onion?

8. Archbishop's 8 March centennial message: Let Sharia Law govern women's lives, Amen!

Comment #129575 by seqenenre on February 19, 2008 at 10:31 am

To katsuosgrl:
The article is all about one law, equal to all and the fact that social pressure within muslim communities will prevent women from disagreeing with letting a case being heard in a sharia-law court. These are tangible phenomena.
The last two paragraphs, well at least the penultimate paragraph, deal with (something of) a conspiracy theory. How credible this one is is not important. It is very difficult to proove these conspiracy theories and easy to debate against. And you can use a lot of words to deal with it.
Divert and digress I am afraid, is a well known line of defense.

9. Archbishop's 8 March centennial message: Let Sharia Law govern women's lives, Amen!

Comment #128830 by seqenenre on February 18, 2008 at 3:31 am

The article is great but I am afraid the last two paragraphs (will give the archbishop) give the opportunity to divert from the main message of the article.

10. Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Comment #128473 by seqenenre on February 17, 2008 at 4:44 am

Two questions:
What is the capital of Idaho?
Who was Seqenenre T'aa?
If you don't know the answer to each of these two questions but you do know what the capital of Hungary is, my guess would be you are a European
Two other questions:
What is the capital of Hungary?
Who was Seqenenre T'aa?
If you don't know the answer to each of these two questions but you do know what the capital of Idaho is, my guess would be you are an American.

11. The challenge of finding peace in Lourdes

Comment #125104 by seqenenre on February 11, 2008 at 1:15 am

I don't understand Comment #124787 by steveroot on February 10, 2008 at 8:46 am and 18. Comment #124788 by Ian Bamlett on February 10, 2008 at 8:50 am
They give the impression I said something very silly.

12. The challenge of finding peace in Lourdes

Comment #124690 by seqenenre on February 10, 2008 at 4:14 am

In a Dutch novel about a veterinarian in the catholic south of the country (Docter Vlimmen) one of the cararcters states that the miracles of Lourdes always have a possible explanation, some of them not at our grasp yet. What never, absolutely never happens is a miracle that indeed cannot be explained: a woman with one leg walks into the water and after 5 minutes returns with two healty legs. That, my dear God, would be a true miracle.
I am waiting, but not holding my breath.

13. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120583 by seqenenre on February 2, 2008 at 3:58 am

The fifth argument is a perfect example of children's ethics: if something results in punishment, don't do it; if it doesnot result in punishment do it (well, if you want to do it anyway).

14. Did mozzies, not a meteor, do for the dinosaurs?

Comment #108699 by seqenenre on January 7, 2008 at 12:46 pm

On the possible explanations of mass-extinctions:
"Catastrophes and lesser calamaties:
The causes of mass-extinctins" by Tony Hellam (Oxford University Press 2004)
He arrives at the conclusion that the meteor 65 MYa was a mere 'coupe de grace' and that there is no proof (or indication) whatsoever that a meteor played any role in one of the other 5, 6, 7 mass-extinctions in the last 500 million years
The main culprits of extinction seem to be: transgression and regression of sealevels, volcanism (flood-basalt provinces like the Deccan Traps; a lot bigger than even a supervolcano!) and lack of oxygen in shallow seas.

15. 2007, a bad year for God squadders

Comment #101886 by seqenenre on December 21, 2007 at 4:28 am

It all sounds a bit desperate

16. Monotheism was a con from the beginning

Comment #91144 by seqenenre on November 27, 2007 at 12:12 pm

There is a theory that links Akhenaten's sun cult to the jewish monotheism. Bluntly: Jahweh = Aten. This is how it works:
Akhenaten lived around 1350 BC. Ramesses II, the farao who had to deal with Moses, lived during the 13th century BC (1300 BC till 1200 BC). Akhenaten's heresy was short lived and the old religion was restored without any problem during the reign of his successor Tuthankamun (yes, that guy).
But a few Egyptians liked the idea of monotheism. And so it survived for roughly a century as a relatively small sect or cult but still rememerbed as an enemy of the Amun religion. Then Ramesses had enough of them and kicked them out of the country, together with their leader, Moses.
End of story.
This is mostly armchair-science, but the theory is so beautiful it would be a shame if it were not true.
If geneticists could do research in the genetic history of Egyptians and Jews this 'nice idea' could even be tested!

17. Poll: Which religion do you associate with?

Comment #64895 by seqenenre on August 22, 2007 at 8:22 am

just added another one