1. Richard Dawkins on Doctor Who

Comment #201703 by AntonAAK on June 30, 2008 at 5:45 am

It's also worth remembering that Dr Who is a children's programme. So many adults (myself included) watch and enjoy it that this is easy to forget.

Let's try to judge it for what it is.

2. Aliens need Christ's redemption, too

Comment #201656 by AntonAAK on June 30, 2008 at 2:18 am

Men can indeed lose their faith through a loss of imagination. Many are lost to the faith, merely because the modern and scientific view of the world leaves no room in their imagination for God.

Yes, that just about sums it up. That's exactly where he belongs.

3. Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong

Comment #177979 by AntonAAK on May 10, 2008 at 5:37 am

If we cannot dismiss religion without a careful study of theology how can their supporters embrace it without the same?

Most christians have little or no knowledge of theology and an understanding of their own religion and indeed scripture that many atheists would put to shame. Does this mean they are not qualified to be believers?

If we have no valid reason to disbelieve without theological study then rank and file theists have no valid reason to believe.

4. Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says

Comment #169438 by AntonAAK on April 26, 2008 at 5:05 am

Current figures from the MySpace ID poll.

Should ID theory be taught in the classroom?

Yes (793 votes) 0.45%
No (173657 votes) 98.30%

On their own site! Fantastic.

Having said that it would be interesting to see how many of their supporters could say which number is higher. Theirs does begin with a 7 after all...

5. Gods and earthlings

Comment #166304 by AntonAAK on April 23, 2008 at 5:37 am

Comment #166269 by coolwainy

Surely in order for something to be created, its creator must be more probable than the thing it created otherwise it could not have created it in the first place?

This statement is a tautology. In essence you are saying that 'if something has been created by an intelligent agent then that agent must exist (or have existed in the past)'. It is self evidently correct.

It is not, however, the same as saying that 'if something exists it must have been created by an intelligent agent'.

6. Did pre-big bang universe leave its mark on the sky?

Comment #158926 by AntonAAK on April 11, 2008 at 7:17 am

Comment #158793 by aquilacane

What roles do the other universes beyond our own universe play? What if our universe collides with another universe, what would happen then, would they pass through each other like a galaxy. I'm disturbed that we only ever seem to consider our universe as the only universe, hence the uni. I can imagine several universe existing side by side in a soup of universes.

I've always been puzzled by the concept of 'other universes'.

Wikipedia states that 'The Universe is most commonly defined as everything that physically exists' and this is what I've always understood the word to mean.

So how can there be other universes? They would have to be included in this definition and be just part of 'the universe'.

How can you have something that is not included in 'everything'?

7. 'Darwin chip' brings evolution into the classroom

Comment #157885 by AntonAAK on April 9, 2008 at 5:07 pm

Would it be wrong to say that this chip is Intelligently Designed?

*ducks*

No. It would be absolutely correct to say that this chip is intellegently designed.

But where did the designers come from?

Are they supernatural beings who exist outside of reality but can still interact with it? From the point of view of the chips and the 'life forms' evolved on it perhaps. But we can explain where the designers came from and how they evolved.

The problem with ID and any God hypothesis is that it is just assumed that the creator doesn't require an explanation.

If you cannot explain the designer, design is no explanation whatsoever.

8. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #149276 by AntonAAK on March 25, 2008 at 11:28 am

Comment #149094 by bibanu

Ideas/theories have consequences. Are you sure that Darwin would NOT have agreed with many of the logical consequences of his theories (e.g. superiority of the white race etc)? I am not so sure, though I am afraid that some of you would be ready to die to defend EVERY aspect of Darwin's life (?) :)

What Darwin would or would not agree with is immaterial. Darwin did not invent evolution by natural selection. He discovered it. It is a fact about the way life on our planet works. If Darwin had never been born someone else would have worked it out, as it was sitting there waiting to be discovered, and we might now be calling it Wallacism. I know very little about the life of Alfred Wallace but I suspect that if he had been the first to publish on natural selection I would know much more, largely because those whose world view is challenged by evolution would dig up any skeletons they could find in order to discredit his theory.

They do this to this day when they accuse Darwin of racism. All of the evidence suggests that Darwin was not a racist but even if he had been it is irrelevant to the truth of natural selection. Isaac Newton may not have been a very admirable man in his personal life. He may have behaved dishonestly over the calculus dispute with Liebniz but this has no bearing whatsoever on the calculus.

So if you disagree that evolution by natural selection is the mechanism which explains the complexity and diversity of life on our planet then come up with some evidence against it. Or provide evidence for an alternative theory. Leave Darwin himself out of the argument as he is not responsible for the facts he discovered.

Darwinism is also not a political ideology. It is a natural process. Evolution by natural selection is not (morally) right or wrong, good or evil. It just is.

If someone chooses to harness it for evil ends (which is impossible as we will see later) it has no bearing at all on its validity. If Hitler, Stalin et al had performed all of their evil acts directly in the name of Darwinism (which they didn't) this would not make the theory false. Likewise if they had performed all of their atrocities in the name of atheism (which they didn't) this would not have any bearing on the existence or non-existence of God.

If an evil dictator were to execute his opponents by throwing them to their deaths from a high tower who should we blame? Newton? Galileo?

Eugenics is not a Darwinian process. It is based on artificial selection which mankind has practiced for millennia. Darwinian selection is natural selection and any attempt to harness it or accelerate it by human intervention negates this and it ceases to be Darwinian in any real sense. If Hitler had wanted to prove the superiority of his blue-eyed Aryan race by Darwinian means the best thing he could do would be to wait.

So again no amount of personalising the issue really has any bearing on the truth or otherwise of natural selection. It just displays a narrow mind-set where all problems have to be personified and all observed phenomena ascribed a purpose.

9. Exorcism undergoes a revival across Europe

Comment #126390 by AntonAAK on February 13, 2008 at 6:22 am

It was believed that demons had intercourse with woman and that witches were the result. Sagan's picture of the the enormity of the witch hunts in Europe makes it much worse than I had realized.

This makes even more galling a particularly weasely tactic employed by Dinesh D Souza during debates. In an attempt to minimise the negative impact of religion on society over the years he states that only 18 people were killed in the Salem Witch Trials. This is, in fact, nearly correct (19 were hanged, one pressed to death and 5 died in prison) but is a total red herring. He seems to be trying to equate a local tragic event in a small New England community with all executions following witch trials over several centuries (estimates vary from 12,000 to 60,000).

Surely someone as educated as Mr D Souza does not believe that the only occasion when the church put people to death for alleged witch-craft was in Salem in 1692. This seems unlikely but otherwise I can only put it down to deliberate obfuscation with the intent to deceive.

10. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117585 by AntonAAK on January 29, 2008 at 6:58 am

I must agree with this.

Cartomancer's post #102 is very interesting and enlightening.

Perhaps it should be reposted into the appropriate Debate Points thread.

11. The Group Delusion

Comment #110279 by AntonAAK on January 10, 2008 at 9:02 pm

Am I the only person who wishes there were more articles and discussions like this on this site?

Issues like this are what brought me to Professor Dawkins writing in the first instance (ever since reading an abridged chapter from The Selfish Gene in Dennett and Hofstadter's excellent book The Mind's I) and I have been fascinated and illuminated by his books ever since. Unfortunately much of the content of this site is negative in tone, focussing on the debunking of religion, rather than positively exploring that which is real. This is not meant to be a criticism of the site administration at all, but an observation on a society where a great scientific communicator has to spend so much of his time dealing with inconsequential hokum. If only scientists could return to the real issues and continue to enlighten us about the nature of the universe unhindered by a need to justify doing so.

I agree that the battle against irrational superstition in our society is an important one and I applaud Professor Dawkins for his fine efforts in this field but I still prefer to hear him speak passionately about the very real wonders of the natural world.

Thank you Professor for a body of writing which has helped a scientific lay-person gain some sort of understanding of why he is here.

12. Mother dies after refusing blood

Comment #85227 by AntonAAK on November 5, 2007 at 10:18 am

12. Comment #85217 by Comets on November 5, 2007 at 9:57 am

To say that children growing up without a mother is a good thing because she held beliefs we don't agree with is heartless in the extreme.

Even a mother who has deliberately abandoned them.

My comment is not at all based on whether I agree or disagree with her beliefs but on her actions.

She had a choice to fulfil her responsibility of care to her offspring or not and she made that choice.

I certainly do not think that the children growing up without a mother is a good thing and if you care to re-read my post you will see that I never said that. I think it is a tragedy that they have no mother and her action to deprive them of one is abuse. However perhaps it is better to have no mother at all than one who would do such a thing.

A

13. Mother dies after refusing blood

Comment #85209 by AntonAAK on November 5, 2007 at 9:41 am

Good point Tyler D. This is a very good argument against those who dismiss the child abuse analogy as extreme.

14. Mother dies after refusing blood

Comment #85206 by AntonAAK on November 5, 2007 at 9:38 am

Thankfully if it were a child the doctors can ask for it to be made a ward of the court and perform the transfusion against the parents wishes. Not so with adults though so there is nothing the family could have done even if they wanted to.

Thanks Quetzlcoatl, I'll try to find the relevant passages.

15. Mother dies after refusing blood

Comment #85196 by AntonAAK on November 5, 2007 at 9:20 am

I don't understand how the bible could have forbidden a medical practice that hadn't been invented or possibly even imagined at the time.

"And lo God saith to his shepherds, partake ye not of the Cardiopulmonary resuscitation for I know not what it is"

Sounds flippant but I have a serious point. Even those who take the bible literally surely cannot believe that it can forbid something no-one had heard of.

I think the kids are better off without her personally. Let's hope the cycle of ignorance ends there.

A

16. Make Richard Dawkins a Knight

Comment #84122 by AntonAAK on November 1, 2007 at 8:05 am

On the subject of honours, I just came across this document on the Bank of England website.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/about/banknote_names.pdf

The professor is on a list of those suggested by the public for inclusion on a banknote. Sitting in our wallets alongside Darwin, Shakespeare and Newton would be pretty cool. Some of the later names in the list do tend to water it down a little though.

17. Review of Richard Dawkins' new book 'The Fascism Delusion'

Comment #69055 by AntonAAK on September 9, 2007 at 3:54 pm

J J Ramsey

I'll ask the same question here as I did on the Valve: which brand of fascism is supposed to be analogous to Reform Judaism? Which brand is analogous to, say, the Episcopalian Church? Or Buddhism? Or Jainism?

Er.. I think you might have missed the point just a tad.

18. The importance of doubt

Comment #66516 by AntonAAK on August 30, 2007 at 7:33 am

Richard Morgan

Imagine this sort of discussion a few centuries ago, ok?

There is a symbolic, poetic, metaphorical sense in which the sun really does revolve around the earth. And this is very meaningful and comforting to millions of people.

But Galilawkins nourishes a disturbing contempt for geocentrists.

He asserts: "I do everything in my power to warn people against geocentricism itself, not just against so-called 'extremist' geocentricism."

This is a very good point, extremely well put.

I'll certainly be quoting it in future discussions with those who cling to the belief that ancient views and traditions have their own inherent value.

Please don't consider this 'hero-worship' though. ;-)

19. Charles Brooker's screen burn

Comment #62979 by AntonAAK on August 12, 2007 at 6:04 pm

darwin2:

If you are fortunate when you die and find yourself fully conscious in the after death state, you will learn that the correct objective answer is that human self awareness continues after death and God exists.

Fortunate indeed. Except that according to most religious doctrines which I have read the majority of people will, if they wake after death, awake to an eternity of torture. Their crimes could range from murder, rape and theft to loving someone of their own sex, switching on a light on Saturday or dying prior to baptism.

This will have happened to the vast majority of people who have ever lived and is going on right now. Your God is torturing people as we speak.

Sleep well.

20. Messiah

Comment #53036 by AntonAAK on June 29, 2007 at 3:53 am

Derren Brown is a highly accomplished stage illusionist and his job is to deceive us. He does this very effectively and it genuinely surprises me when people, as many have here, complain that they are being deceived. What do you expect? The often false claims that he is using psychological manipulation and the false explanations (such as at the end of the Something Wicked show) are all still part of the trick.

Lots of people also seem to be missing the point of the Messiah show. His point is not 'Look how clever I am for performing this astounding and impossible feat' but 'Look how naive these so-called experts are for not even considering the possibility that they might be being duped'. He causes us to consider how often they might have been duped in the past by charlatans with similar skills.

The easier these cons were to perform the more effectively his point is proven.

I really hope that the information about the UFO lady's medical history was very easy to come by. I wouldn't be surprised if some of it was on her website somewhere. The fact that she only takes alternative medicines for instance is almost certainly common knowledge and her surprise at his 'revelation' of this fact all the more saddening for this very reason.

People like this are just desperate for something to believe, as this programme admirably demonstrates.

21. Tome truths

Comment #49798 by AntonAAK on June 13, 2007 at 1:37 pm

Invoking the image of the Wizard Of Oz, he writes as if the movie is almost over and Dorothy's happy ending is just around the corner; cue the music and roll the credits...

Considering the millennia for which we've been living under the yoke of irrational superstition and all of its associated lunacy, even if it takes a couple of centuries more to rid ourselves of it, we can still consider ourselves in the final reel of the movie.

Perhaps the early 21st Century will be looked back on as the beginning of the end for religion.

Great article.

22. Take a leaf out of their books/Books of the Year 2006/Guardian UK

Comment #12178 by AntonAAK on December 11, 2006 at 4:52 am

robzrob - You weren't enraged at all when reading the God Delusion?

I was livid when reading the story of David Mills' treatment by his local red-neck police department when he tried to peacefully demonstrate against the 'faith healer' visiting his town. The fact that he was threatened with violence by the very people entrusted with the job of protecting him because he was 'trying to interfere with God's work' certainly enraged me as did many other tales of injustice.

You can quite happily agree with every word in TGD and still find much that enrages.

23. The God Delusion in Private Eye

Comment #11762 by AntonAAK on December 7, 2006 at 6:22 am

How about starting a campaign to leave copies of it in hotel bedrooms a la Gideon?