1. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178575 by Cartomancer on May 11, 2008 at 4:02 pm

"Naruredidit, just wait and see". "Nature of the gaps".

Last time I checked we had fairly good evidence that nature exists...

2. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178572 by Cartomancer on May 11, 2008 at 3:57 pm

I meant "moral consciousness" (concience)

If you're talking about why we are aware of our instinctive moral urges, and have the ability to override them if we decide to, the mechanisms behind those are very complex indeed. If you want a good model of how and why they evolved, you would have to ask a neuroscientist who can explain the mechanisms in terms of neural pathways, synapses, protein structures etc. But working on the macro-level of animal behaviours, it is precisely the sort of thing that gets selected for. If possession of moral awareness and the ability to make moral decisions rationally increases the durability of an animal's social networks then it will result in increased survivability. Being able to organise effective societies is hugely beneficial, and moral awareness enables that on a completely different level to the one other social creatures such as ants or wolves operate on. On the most basic level, if people do their own moral policing then it frees up the social group from having to devote resources to weeding out advantage-takers, rogue elements and those unhelpful to cooperative endeavour.

3. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178562 by Cartomancer on May 11, 2008 at 3:38 pm

There are never any sons who are "disgraces" that we read about.

ummm...

http://www.stophonourkillings.com/?name=News&file=article&sid=2339

4. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178558 by Cartomancer on May 11, 2008 at 3:32 pm

You cannot explain the presence of consciousness (conscience) in terms of survival advantage.

Apart from the fact that they are two separate things, why on earth not?

5. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178555 by Cartomancer on May 11, 2008 at 3:30 pm

The books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ruth, Daniel, Esther read like history - and the events can be substantiated in many cases by reference to contemporary Mesopotamian (for example) historiography.

By Jove I think he's got it! Treat the bible as you would any other example of its literary genre. Most sensible thing he's ever said on here.

Of course, the thing about historical writing is that when it makes fanciful claims without any corroborating evidence (or in the face of the evidence) then it positively behoves the historian to dismiss what it says as fabrication or misrepresentation. It also behoves him to treat it as a product of its own time and culture, rather than trying to pretend it has any relevance in modern society.

Well done Artful, you'll be an atheist by the end of the week if you keep this one up!

6. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178548 by Cartomancer on May 11, 2008 at 3:19 pm

These are questions that anyone committed to natural selection and convinced of its explanatory power needs to address. So far answers have been thin on the ground!

The question you asked was essentially "how do we make moral decisions?" On a technical level, that's a matter of neuroscience, and the neuroscience of decision-making is a very new discipline. Research continues apace in exploring its subtleties.

But we have understood for quite a long time that those subtleties are there to be explored: that decision making is entirely a function of the evolved brain. There is no evidence anywhere which suggests that it is not, and masses of evidence which shows that it is. Given this I fail to see where you raise anything remotely resembling a legitimate concern.

Or are you seriously saying that you fail to see any survival advantage in the possession of a decision-making capacity along with a set of inbuilt moral guidelines?

7. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178537 by Cartomancer on May 11, 2008 at 2:53 pm

Why then, I wonder, do you insist on asking these questions again and again as if there were not good enough answers in the literature? If you have neurophysiology questions that need answering, ask a neurophysiologist, not a web forum!

8. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178526 by Cartomancer on May 11, 2008 at 2:42 pm

There is an innate sense of right and wrong within every human being. The question to be addressed is this: on what basis do they choose or fail to choose what is right?

I think you will find that the calculations which are made differ from individual to individual. As does the precise nature of the innate evolved moral sense. For most people there is a creative tension between what simply "feels right" and what has been reasoned out using the critical faculties. There are plenty of good articles on this site describing the progress of psychology and neurophysiology in mapping this phenomenon, why don't you go and read some of those? And then follow the links to some more?

9. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178518 by Cartomancer on May 11, 2008 at 2:25 pm

people conveniently forget that Japanese fanaticism was as lethal as the Islamic kind is today, and the military was prepared to order the entire population to fight an invading army to the last man, woman and child

This is a gross misrepresentation - stemming directly from postwar US anti-Japanese propaganda - and more than a little insulting to the Japanese of the mid twentieth century. When did the Japanese ever proclaim a desire to humble the world beneath their ideology? When did they ever pass beyond the very same imperialistic rhetoric the western powers had used for over a century? When did ordering a last-ditch defence of one's homeland become the action of a crazed fanatic?

And it is conveniently forgotten on american shores that the Japanese were almost certainly gearing up to sign an accord of surrender BEFORE the nuclear bombs were dropped. As a flexing of military muscle in front of the Russians no doubt (in the opinion of most of the high-ranking US military commanders, including Eisenhower, MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz).

10. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178513 by Cartomancer on May 11, 2008 at 2:17 pm

'People from western countries might be shocked, but our girls are not like their daughters that can sleep with any man they want and sometimes even get pregnant without marrying. Our girls should respect their religion, their family and their bodies...

...Homosexuality is punishable by death, a sentence Abdel-Qader approves of with a passion. 'I have alerted my two sons. They will have the same end [as Rand] if they become contaminated with any gay relationship. These crimes deserve death - death in the name of God,' he said.

These passages got me thinking. It seems that this horrible man was not just responding spontaneously to what he encountered using the only cultural responses he knew, but was actually sitting there waiting for specific things to happen so that he could punish them. Why did he mention homosexuality? What has that got to do with the case in hand? I think what is happening here is not just that he's a muslim, but also that he is actively trying to show the world how excssively muslim he can be - probably all the harder because it's in the face of non-muslims whom he considers to be aggressors.

In short, he was spoiling for trouble. I suspect his sons were too - such behaviour is commonplace among testosterone-heavy youths, especially highly frustrated ones. Not that this excuses him for a moment - in fact the element of premeditation makes it even more culpable and vile in my opinion. If he really had lost his temper, if he really were psychopathically uncontrollable, that might have ameliorated the situation slightly. But this wasn't the case - clearly he had been watching her like a hawk, as he is now watching his sons for any sign of homosexual tendencies. He probably evaluates his life by the degree to which he can control his family and impose his own muslim values onto them. This smells deeply of a nascent obsessive disorder to me.

11. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178483 by Cartomancer on May 11, 2008 at 1:40 pm

if we get everything from natural selection, and natural selection "selects" for individual and group survival, where do we get the idea that we must transcend this natural impulse?

You've answered your own fatuous question Artful: We get it from natural selection, same as everything else. Being able to think rationally is a tremendously useful survival trait - much better than simply following instinctive programming to the letter. Instinctive programming was useful before reason came about, but once reasoning had developed its carriers were almost bound to out-compete the old units working on the less effective software of instinct alone. Only someone who misconcieved of natural selection in a narrowly teleological way could possibly be confused by this simple idea.

12. Church of Scotland mediators to quell disputes

Comment #178301 by Cartomancer on May 11, 2008 at 5:50 am

"We have seen situations where the patterns of aggressive behaviour are so embedded in the genetic codes of a congregation's life that conflict becomes a way of life.

Embedded in the genetic codes of the congregation? Recently? Is this via natural selection or genetic engineering then? Methinks the church of Scotland needs to do a little reading up on its elementary biology...

13. My Response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #177223 by Cartomancer on May 8, 2008 at 7:28 pm

Haggard clearly didn't have a clue what a Nuremberg rally was. He only got mad and threw RD and his crew off the property because he perceived his congregation as being called animals (his own conclusion, if evolution were true).

Well, either that or he had a slew of expensive rent boys coming round in the afternoon with a bucket of crystal meth and needed to get the film crew away as fast as possible.

14. My Response to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Comment #177156 by Cartomancer on May 8, 2008 at 4:58 pm

Now that is comedy gold.

15. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177062 by Cartomancer on May 8, 2008 at 2:04 pm

You know, maybe my quip about finding it hard to separate late antique christian literature from 21st-century christian oratory carries more than just facetious value.

There are academic theologians who try to reconcile modern science and knowledge with what their scriptures say. They generally stick to writing articles for journals of theology and eating big dinners at university high tables. The monastic theologians keep themselves to themselves, picking their toenails for Jesus or whatever it is they do to pass the hours of intolerable cloistered tedium between writing books that nobody wants to read. But the secular clergy - the ones who make it their business to tell other people what to do - are, I have found, almost to a man, living in a strange pseudo-intellectual world that has advanced very little since the thirteenth century.

The uneducated layman seems to view these people as intellectuals. If they are intellectuals then they're intellectuals of the most banal and derivative sort. They give the impression of reasoned argument in their pronouncements, but the substance is entirely lacking. Whenever I hear them I can follow garbled bits of age-old debates that were long since consigned to anachronistic irrelevance among real philosophers and thinkers. They present this cold soup of dead thought without any reference at all to its original context and the complex historical and cultural factors which led to the prominence of such arguments - as if these questions really were questions of universal human significance rather than derived completely from historical accident. Then they seek to gloss it with the veneer of relevance by drawing fatuuous parallels to modern experience of quite a different character - as if coincidence were evidence of universality.

Why more religious laypeople don't see through the facade I am at a loss to explain.

16. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177033 by Cartomancer on May 8, 2008 at 1:40 pm

Do people think it is worth bothering to go on the radio to talk about it?

That someone who carries the respect of a significant portion of the public can stand up and say absolutely nothing of substance for that long, then receive the warm appreciation of said public for the apparent reasonableness of his words, is a travesty that deserves speaking out against in my opinion.

A lot of people, I suspect, will go away from this thinking that it is profound rather than facile. It might also be a good opportunity to call out the catholics on their hypocrisy regarding homosexuality, stem cell research, abortion, AIDS in Africa and the rest. In fact Cormac himself has been instrumental in opposing progress on all these things in the House of Lords in recent years. This man speaks for an organisation that has done untold harm to human society through its misguided pontifications, yet speaks as if it is unquestionably benign and helpful - and benign and helpful precisely because it offers a substitute for reason in social and community matters.

17. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177020 by Cartomancer on May 8, 2008 at 1:21 pm

I took a break from translating patristic literature to read that. To be honest I found it hard to mark the changeover.

And at the end of it all I find myself chuckling merrily away. He starts off by saying that the catholic church embraces reason completely, but finishes by saying that reason alone will only take you away from believing in god and you simply have to take that bit on faith, concentrating instead on things that everybody thinks are important and pretending they are therefore especially relevant to your religion. His deployment of Aquinas (Summa contra Gentiles I believe) is especially telling:

'The divine substance,' Aquinas says, 'surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is.

How anyone with a basic grasp of epistemology and the knowledge of modern science at his disposal could take this as recommending belief in the imponderable I am at a loss to fathom. Even Aquinas eventually realised that god's existence was ultimately a matter which rested on faith alone, gave up and refused to write any further. I like to think he died more than a few steps down the road to atheism.

To reconcile faith and reason, you need to have a good reason why faith is a valid approach to the truth. No sect has ever produced one - the catholic church most certainly hasn't - so in the end they just retreat to the warm, emotive fuzziness of their unreasoned prior convictions.

If this is the best they have to offer I can see christianity in Britain dead and buried before I am. Now there is a thought to give one hope...

18. Faith in Britain today

Comment #177016 by Cartomancer on May 8, 2008 at 1:12 pm

The Wisdom writings of the Old Testament are permeated by Greek philosophical ideas. And why not?

Tsk tsk Cormac, would those be the very same wisdom writings your own church confirmed as apocryphal at the council of Trent in 1545?

19. Trouble ahead for science

Comment #176944 by Cartomancer on May 8, 2008 at 11:21 am

Which religion is the most believable?

Sounds like a perfectly legitimate scientific question to me. The one with the least crazy supernatural nonsense in it. Atheistic Buddhism sounds like a front runner, or Einsteinian Pantheism. Of course, you could do it as a psychology experiment rather than a physics experiment and see which religion most people in the world actually believe and why - what characteristics it has which encourage proselytisation, how it indoctrinates children, whether it has a hold on fast-breeding societies, that sort of thing. Maybe speculate on what evolved psychological characteristics it exploits.

I'm guessing they didn't do it either of those ways though, did they?

20. Citing Faith, Bush Defends War Actions

Comment #176920 by Cartomancer on May 8, 2008 at 10:42 am

He went on to praise the broadcasters for "standing up for our values, including the right to life," and pledged to veto any legislation that would reinstitute the so-called "fairness doctrine," which required broadcasters to give air time to opposing views.

First they came for the communists...

21. Trouble ahead for science

Comment #176912 by Cartomancer on May 8, 2008 at 10:32 am

Sounds like a jolly sensible chap this Kenneth Miller. Well, apart from his mild dose of god delusion, but hey, everyone needs a hobby. He's just the sort of keeps-the-supernatural-nonsense-firmly-to-himself religious person I have no quarrel with.

If only they were all like him...

22. Home-schooling special: Preach your children well

Comment #176902 by Cartomancer on May 8, 2008 at 10:00 am

Last year, Exodus Mandate introduced a resolution asking SBC parents to conduct a "homosexual school risk audit" of their local public school, a survey to "make Christian parents and pastors more aware of the aggressive homosexual activism being sponsored by many public schools". The resolution was passed. The "risk audit" claims, among other things, that being homosexual "reduces life expectancy at age 20 by at least 8 to 20 years" or "substantially increases the risk of contracting breast cancer".

Why is this not illegal in the states? Surely such vileness should be anathema to a country which values tolerance and inclusivity among its founding virtues? This is hate speech - incitement to discrimination, plain and simple. It's fraud, misrepresentation, corruption of public information - it's just plain lying.

Would such things be allowed if the bigoted christian machiavels demanded a "negroid school risk audit" and claimed that being black reduced life expectancy by twenty years? What about a "sinister school risk audit" which claimed left-handedness increased the risk of breast cancer? Why is your government not doing anything about it?

Oh yes, that's right, it's because these worthless sacks of suppurant human detritus are actually running it...

The foul black ichor that serves me for blood is veritably boiling in my veins.

23. An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee

Comment #176544 by Cartomancer on May 7, 2008 at 2:57 pm

Really, Cartomancer?

Indeed so. I've encountered the idea of cultic brainwashing in fiction before, but I always assumed that it was all highly exaggerated and hardly ever happened in the real world (generally the sinister cults in the sort of books I read use diabolic magicks to control their victims - I tend to write off cults as a fantasy phenomenon, like griffons and dragons and the living dead). I still find it very difficult to believe that there are a significant number of people who really behave like that - how can they just suspend their critical faculties without a moment's pause? Why do they buy in to such obvious nonsense? The phenomenon is one I struggle very hard to understand.

But it's the manipulators who I find hardest to understand. Can they really be so unscrupulous and unprincipled? Do they seriously believe their own nonsense? Seriously? Surely it's just cynical advantage-taking? But can human beings really be that cynical?

I guess I've never actually been to a religious service of any kind before, so I haven't really got a point of reference for comparison. People tell me that sporting events and musical concerts are similar, but I've never been to one of those either. The closest I've come to experiencing that sort of focussed communal event is probably attending theatrical performances - but this weird feeling of uncritical assent to dangerous nonsense he describes in the article was entirely absent.

24. An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee

Comment #176520 by Cartomancer on May 7, 2008 at 2:34 pm

Ugh! I had little idea such vile things went on in this world. These people sound utterly revolting - foul, swaggering, macho-posturing, militaristic, homophobic, anti-intellectual, anti-rational, hyper-conservative, nauseatingly arrogant demagogues who prey on the vulnerable and the confused. Everything I most despise about america rolled into one sickeningly awful package. I think I need more than a couple of those anti-daemon sick bags myself after reading that.

People often say that Richard is going too far in comparing religious behaviour with psychological delusions, but from this account I think that his comparison hardly does it justice.

Surely there must be some way these people can be closed down for hate speech against homosexuals or scientists, or libel against JK Rowling, or taking advantage of the vulnerable or something? The more I hear about these horrible cult brainwashing events the more I am convinced that they must be expunged from civilised society once and for all, and sooner rather than later.

25. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #176410 by Cartomancer on May 7, 2008 at 9:11 am

As a gay person I would like some serious ass fucking but unfortunately haven't gotten any action lately because I spend too much time on Rd.net ...

The happy feeling you get from RD.net generally lasts much longer I find. And you don't have to have a shower afterwards...

26. Is Liberal Catholicism Dead?

Comment #175918 by Cartomancer on May 6, 2008 at 8:38 am

They have Brights at Brasenose? I must have misjudged the place. Seemed very murky to me last time I looked...

27. Life after Jehovah's Witnesses: website offers help to followers who lose their faith

Comment #175862 by Cartomancer on May 6, 2008 at 6:59 am

For Catholics, the Eucharist is the literal body and blood of Christ. Only it still looks like bread and wine. Why? Not exactly sure. It could be to test the faith of the faithful.
Or it could be because the Holy Spirit did not actually come down from heaven to do his magic and what the priest holds up is still bread and wine.

The traditional explanation for this is an Aristotelian one, codified in its most authoritative form by Thomas Aquinas (following late eleventh and early twelfth century debates between Berengar of Tours, Hildebert of Lavardins, Peter Abelard and others). As far as we know Hildebert first came up with the word transubstantiatio to describe the process in about 1080, and this was made the official term over a century later in 1215 by the fourth Lateran Council, by which time Aristotle had begun to influence Latin thinking massively. Essentially Aristotelian physics posits that all entities are made up of matter and form, and that the form is either substantial (essential or intrinsic, cannot be removed without changing the thing into another thing - breadness, wineness etc.) or accidental (can vary without changing the thing into something else - size, weight, colour, texture, taste etc.). Now, during transubstantiation the substantial form of the bread and wine (panitas, vinitas) is removed, but the accidents remain, inhering now in the substance of the body and blood of christ instead. This is why it still looks and tastes exactly as it did before.

Of course, that throws up a whole gamut of thorny philosophical and theological problems, such as what happens to the disembodied accidents of the body of christ, or how that body (which was supposed to have ascended to heaven) can be in two or more places at once (or, rather, in a place and not in a place at once, since the highest heaven was technically outside the universe and thus did not count as a place in the strict Aristotelian definition of the term), or how the quantity accident of a human body can map on to the substance of bread which would not naturally be able to support that much quantity. And it gets even more complicated when you bring in such concepts as the prima forma corporeitatis, matter-signed-by-quantity and the great chain of being.

The (heretical) alternative is consubstantiation, wherein both the body and the bread are present at once. This gained some popularity among Lutheran protestants in the early modern period, but was very much beyond tolerating for medieval catholics. It was also considered physically impossible by most theologians...

See, much more rational stuff than those silly Jehovah's Witnesses spout!

28. The detail in the Devil

Comment #175846 by Cartomancer on May 6, 2008 at 6:39 am

Oh, and it would be dereliction of my duty to oppressed left-handed people everywhere if I didn't register my disapproval at the title "Sinister Among Us". Yet another example of big religion shoring up the Worldwide Dextral Tyranny in its... daemonisation of the left-handed minority!

29. Is Liberal Catholicism Dead?

Comment #175835 by Cartomancer on May 6, 2008 at 6:20 am

Twentieth Century catholicism? Now there's an oxymoron if ever I heard one...

30. The detail in the Devil

Comment #175833 by Cartomancer on May 6, 2008 at 6:16 am

Sorry, I know this is so infantile but... hey, first post, yay!

Don't worry, a daemon probably made you do it!

(I do so much prefer to see it spelled with the original Greek ae)

America's first strictly academic daemonologist eh? Pfft. We've had academic daemonologists in Europe since... well, since the Middle Ages to be exact. Late antiquity anyway. So glad that the states (and Scotland) are rapidly regressing to the fourteenth century while the rest of the world presses ahead into the twenty-first - soon my discipline will become an experimental science and the people in white coats will stop calling me useless over dinner!

I wonder if there will be a chair of Theoretical Cartomancy for me to occupy too?

31. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175829 by Cartomancer on May 6, 2008 at 6:11 am

Perhaps the certainties of scholastic learning (if you refer to the content) were unwarranted certainties? And the murky depths of the 19th century (especially Neitzsche, who was -I think- very correct in his analyses of culture on the brink of modernity and post-modernity) perhaps got it entirely right that there are little certainties, but many social constructs, which comprise the murky depths that they laid bare.

Yeah, that was kind of the joke... It's usually the medievals who are described as the murky ones

32. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175695 by Cartomancer on May 5, 2008 at 10:13 pm

you should know there never was such a book by Nietzsche. That was a fabrication by his sister.

It was going to be Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, but just this once I thought I'd push the boat out and choose something a bit more modern - for the sake of those on here who prefer their philosophers in three piece suits rather than gathered robes. Quite what made me go for the mad Prussian with the moustache is anyone's guess though (unless his sister fabricated the moustache too...).

Just goes to show what happens when an impressionable medievalist ventures away from the certainties of scholastic learning into the dim and murky depths of the nineteenth century...

Though, irrespective of its provenance, it is still a book, containing moral philosophy, composed by someone called Nietzche! And fondling it is still going to be severely frowned upon...

33. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175569 by Cartomancer on May 5, 2008 at 3:56 pm

Lets do a little study to see whether philosophy or science can help people to lead more moral lives.

Find two identical deserted islands. Strand a group of scientifically illiterate philosophers on one of them with five works of ethical philosophy. Strand a group of philosophically illiterate scientists on the other with five works of cognitive psychology. Check back at regular intervals to observe the moral progress or decline. First island to achieve a perfectly harmonious, maximally happy and productive society wins.

Anyone caught fondling Nietzche's Der Wille zur Macht or making paper hats from Chomsky is automatically disqualified.

You could set up a third island full of priests and theologians too, but it's probably wise not to give them one with a volcano on it, for fear of who they might decide to throw in.

34. Dumb and Dumber: A discussion between Ben Stein and Glenn Beck

Comment #175565 by Cartomancer on May 5, 2008 at 3:45 pm

Diacanu, comment #55 -

Have you ever considered becoming a professional theologian?

35. The emerging moral psychology

Comment #175558 by Cartomancer on May 5, 2008 at 3:31 pm

ChrisMcL, comment #2

I suspect this mysterious element of "Purity" or "Divinity" or whatever the researchers call it is actually just a shorthand way of describing evolved concerns for physical or mental health and wellbeing. Visceral concepts of "purity" and "pollution" derive pretty directly from our instinctive desire not to become ill or injured, not to expose ourselves to sources of infection, harrowing experiences and so forth.

I would quibble with the semantics they use, but the sentiment seems a sound one.

36. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175387 by Cartomancer on May 5, 2008 at 10:34 am

Idiocracy eh? Going back to the original Greek that would technically be the exercise of power by those who do not participate in the political process. Interesting.

I guess we could do that by holding elections and then appointing the people who lost to power instead of those who won. Oh, wait, sorry, you tried that in the US ten years ago didn't you?

37. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175380 by Cartomancer on May 5, 2008 at 10:30 am

Of course I was bloody joking!

38. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175376 by Cartomancer on May 5, 2008 at 10:26 am

Here is a solution. Instead of everyone getting one vote, everyone gets one vote for every IQ point they possess

We could adjust it from the other end too, by multiplying the number of votes a candidate gets by a percentage equal to their IQ score. That way it becomes much easier to elect intelligent candidates as well as those who are popular with the intelligent voter.

39. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175330 by Cartomancer on May 5, 2008 at 8:57 am

I finally managed to get it working. My faithful handyman showed me how to do it. I shared the cake with him as a reward though, so in a roundabout way it did come in useful.

I must say, however, that I am somewhat confused by the nature of the questions. Obviously there are questions on the basics of religious belief, morality and so forth, but what's with all the blatantly obvious ones about the US Government only having three employees or the buildings in America being 4000 years old? I can imagine they would be useful if the subject were in some kind of brain imaging contrivance which could see which parts of their brain they were using to answer, but what's the point of them on an internet survey? To weed out all the silly people who aren't taking it seriously or have such a skewed perspective on reality they need mental help?

40. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175314 by Cartomancer on May 5, 2008 at 8:01 am

You need to enable cookies.

I can't find any biscuits anywhere! I've got a large cake though, will that do?

41. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175289 by Cartomancer on May 5, 2008 at 5:52 am

Yes. Ten of Swords inversed. Quite how that translates into computing lore I have no idea...

42. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #175286 by Cartomancer on May 5, 2008 at 5:45 am

I tried taking the surveys, but once I had filled in the first page and clicked on the "submit" button it brought up that page again and wouldn't move on to the next one. My knowledge of arcane technomancy is feeble, so I haven't a clue how to solve this problem...

43. A New Jack Chick Tract: Moving On Up!

Comment #175179 by Cartomancer on May 4, 2008 at 6:17 pm

I like to use my real name, but I also like to get people to work to know it...

I guess I should go the other way then, and call myself "They shall conquer" (third conjugation plural, future indicative active).

At any rate, it sure beats Soho Slut Girl (lost count of the number of conjugations, singular but can be talked round to plural, doesn't matter about the tense or mood, active, passive, versatile - take your pick for a bacardi and coke)...

44. A New Jack Chick Tract: Moving On Up!

Comment #175175 by Cartomancer on May 4, 2008 at 6:14 pm

well, I saw the graffiti (why are so many such words Italian?) on the doors of G.A.Y. the other week

Whatever it said about me was a gross exaggeration! Don't believe a word!

45. A New Jack Chick Tract: Moving On Up!

Comment #175167 by Cartomancer on May 4, 2008 at 5:39 pm

bringing out the latin is something you unfortunately share with some of my fellow atheists. They seem to turn into freshers when it comes to wannabe pretentious use of latin alternatives.)

Aww, no fair! pretentious use of Latin soubriquets on the internet is one of the few pleasures left to me these days. I've even started using classical Greek ones on some, less than salubrious, websites...

You should have seen the graffiti in the toilets of the Bodleian Library before they were refurbished. I don't think I've ever seen anyone deploy Catullus or Aristophanes in that setting before, let alone someone else come along to correct their grammar. At least I ended up learning a few dirty words for future reference. And you were never quite sure whether the scratches on the cubicle doors were just scuffing or someone's painstaking attempt at early Hittite cuneiform...

46. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175151 by Cartomancer on May 4, 2008 at 3:56 pm

Actually, I am a little disheartened at the way the interviewer dealt with the homosexuality issue. I get the feeling she is not homophobic herself, but she did present the position of religious homophobes without the antipathy it deserves from a public figure in the media spotlight. I almost got the impression she respected it as a viable moral position to take - even that's going too far for someone in her position.

Richard, as ever, made no such compromises. He sure is an unlikely public champion of gay rights, but a welcome one nevertheless. In fact I think he brings something very special and important to the cause - the link with rationality, sensible ethics and scientific understanding. I warmly approve.

47. A New Jack Chick Tract: Moving On Up!

Comment #175148 by Cartomancer on May 4, 2008 at 3:49 pm

I just noticed, while perusing the RDFRS site, that I live less than 300 metres from the UK office of the RDFRS. Well who would have thought it...

48. A New Jack Chick Tract: Moving On Up!

Comment #175144 by Cartomancer on May 4, 2008 at 3:23 pm

By 'we're' you mean 'you' presumably, in which case 'I'm' is probably more appropriate.

No, I think I speak for a greater constituency than just myself here. Of course I would never dream of putting myself forward as a self-appointed spokesman for all atheists on all matters everywhere - that's the great thing about atheism, no prescribed thinking. But here, on this thread, on RD.net, I think I am expressing a very common point of view. To wit, the point of view that it is important to speak out against and combat this particular kind of revolting (and highly popular) anti-scientific drivel, but that if theists keep their opinions privately to themselves and don't try to foist them on others then they are perfectly entitled to believe in whatever they wish.

In fact, it's not just a common sentiment, it's pretty much the sentiment explicitly endorsed by this site, by Richard Dawkins and by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Observe:

http://richarddawkinsfoundation.org/foundation,ourMission

You will note, perhaps, dear credulitas_et_ratio, that I did not say "we atheists". I did not even say "we RD.net atheists". I simply said "we". Membership of this "we" group thus extends precisely to and no further than those who approve of the sentiment. Given the mission statement of the foundation I cannot but conclude that it falls within this category, as, by extension, do those who sympathise with its aims. That a large number of people on this forum do sympathise with its aims is hardly a leap of imagination great enough to require the support of something so worthless as faith...

49. Shaw TV Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #175123 by Cartomancer on May 4, 2008 at 1:34 pm

Humans are the only animals we positively know have subjective consciousness? I would have thought that one's own self is the only entity we 'know' to have subjective consciousness

That is a rather pedantic thing to say, especially given that Richard is clearly talking as a scientist here (i.e. the evidence for the existence of subjective consciousness in humans is overwhelming, in other animals less so) rather than as an abstract epistemologist (i.e. absolute knowledge of subjective phenomena in others is impossible). To take that as a serious argument against the existence of extra-personal human consciousness in the real world is much akin to the "well you can't disprove the existence of god" line we usually get.

Though if you want to be even more pedantic still I might point out that the language used is sufficiently imprecise to admit either meaning. Take the following syllogism: I am human. I know I am conscious. I do not know of any other being which is conscious. Therefore the category of humans is the only category I know to contain conscious beings. That could quite easily be contained in the phrase "Humans are the only animals we positively know have subjective consciousness".

I shall resume underlining all the split infinitives in the newspaper now...

50. A New Jack Chick Tract: Moving On Up!

Comment #175039 by Cartomancer on May 4, 2008 at 8:34 am

A much more balanced approach is taken by many Christians. These approaches don't seem to gain much coverage in the athiest [sic] world.

But we're not in the business of pointing out where religion leaves science alone and keeps quietly to itself without interfering - we're in the business of pointing out where it oversteps the line and starts pretending in public that it has good answers to the questions that legitimate academic disciplines ask.

Do people who campaign against paedophile abuse spend some of their time congratulating people who aren't paedophiles for not abusing children? Do animal rights people go around patting people on the back who don't abuse animals? Do those who fight against holocaust deniers give prizes for people who admit that it happened?

We're here to address a problem, not write a sociological study of differing cultural prejudices. Given that 45% of americans have apparently been taken in by this kind of facile nonsense I think there is more than enough of a problem to tackle, don't you?

Also, I'm not sure what other worlds there are apart from the atheistic one. Our world is 100% atheistic because there are no gods in it anywhere! This is the world that everyone, whether they understand that fact or not, has to live in - and anything which damages their ability to do so cannot but be a negative imposition.