1. Bush Bureaucrats at Dept. of Health and Human Services Redefine Contraception as Abortion

Comment #213050 by Chris Davis on July 18, 2008 at 4:16 am

Auy!

There's over six bilion people in Restofworldland, and - what? - 300 million Americans. And at least half are sympathetic.

If Obama doesn't get in, I say we invade.

CD

2. Researchers Discover Remnant of an Ancient 'RNA World'

Comment #213048 by Chris Davis on July 18, 2008 at 4:11 am

Oh, that's wonderful! Looks as though we're creeping up on abiogenesis. The fossils are still there after all

CD

3. 'Condoms won't change HIV rates'

Comment #212125 by Chris Davis on July 16, 2008 at 4:22 pm

Riiiight... so the virus gets through the barrier by quantum tunnelling, presumably.

CD

4. Taking a Cue From Ants on Evolution of Humans

Comment #210717 by Chris Davis on July 15, 2008 at 2:36 am

Hmm. Just found
http://richarddawkins.net/article,2121,The-Group-Delusion,Richard-Dawkins

CD

5. Taking a Cue From Ants on Evolution of Humans

Comment #210715 by Chris Davis on July 15, 2008 at 2:31 am

Anyone have a link to the 'controversy' and argument with The Prof?

CD

6. What Happens When a School Board of Religious Zealots Will 'Lie for Jesus'?

Comment #197456 by Chris Davis on June 22, 2008 at 5:13 am

I reckon that, in protest, the REAL Dover (up the A20 from Folkestone) should rename itself Freedomville.

That'll show 'em.

CD

7. Should Strident British Atheist Richard Dawkins Dictate Education Policy to US States? Barbara Forrest Apparently Thinks So

Comment #197208 by Chris Davis on June 21, 2008 at 11:10 am

Gosh, etc. - the DI borrowing points of political rhetoric from Robert Mugabe!

Truly, being an arse has no national boundaries.

CD

8. Ben Stein 1, Yoko Ono 0 in 'Expelled' copyright spat

Comment #188224 by Chris Davis on June 3, 2008 at 11:43 am

It's trivial, but still a revolting development.

I feel like setting up a webRing, consisting of a hundred or so separate pages, each showing 2 separate, sequential minutes of this silly film under 'fair use'...

CD

9. Car dealership advert tells atheists to 'shut up'

Comment #185577 by Chris Davis on May 28, 2008 at 5:43 am

I have no argument with the opinions stated here, but - guys, hang on a minute here.

This is an old advertising ploy, and this whole furore is proof of how well it works.

The formula is simple:
o Pick a contentious issue in the public conscious, especially one in which the conservative point-of-view is in the majority.
o Write an ad that adopts that point-of view - ideally in a shock-jock fashion that paints the opposition as feeble, bleeding-heart idiots who have no leg to stand on.
o Work your product or service into the message somehow, however loosely.
o Sit back and watch the free publicity pour in.

This pokey little used-car dealership is now the talk of the Internet. Christian everywhere are feeling smug at seeing a message that they largely agree with - even if they'd never express it in those terms. Kieffe & Sons is probably the best-known Ford dealership in the world right now.

The best response to this sort of thing is to mutter 'twats', and turn the page. Rising up in righteous anger just increases the coverage of the advert (as it already has); and fighting back can give the ad's supporters ammunition for further real battles. You can't cool a cold war by pumping energy into it.

CD

10. Soldier Sues Army, Saying His Atheism Led to Threats

Comment #169956 by Chris Davis on April 27, 2008 at 5:51 am

It's been said that the military is always much concerned with honour, pomp and circumstance, to distract attention from the fact that their actual job is savage, bloody barbarism.

For centuries they've modelled their notions of honour on religious facades, and the idea that their deity approves of their actions.

Not surprising, then, that coming face to face with someone who considers their religious edifice a dangerous lie causes then to shit themselves.

CD

11. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #166526 by Chris Davis on April 23, 2008 at 9:36 am

Ironic that the noble lord, who clearly knows nothing whatsoever about atheism, should trot out the old rubbish about RD et al not knowing enough about theology...

Pascal? Good grief!

CD

12. Make Richard Dawkins a Knight

Comment #80826 by Chris Davis on October 23, 2007 at 6:20 am

@ decius

I say, you're not... exaggerating... are you? Not to mention making a vice of necessity.

The dubbing of someone as a knight is a silly magic ritual - and like all rituals it's basically cargo-cultism. As part of the silly ritual, the recipient is required to kneel before the monarch. So what? Surely atheists, rejecting as we do this sort of magic, have no need to be upset about such meaningless crap? We know it's crap; the theists know we know.

If - by typically deranged logic - a few loony theists try to take comfort from the fact of the kneeling, it'll be cold comfort indeed. And they have nothing to show for it, as the ceremony is private.

What will be televised is Richard's handsome features, looking splendid in a tuxedo, smiling and showing off his big gong outside Buck House. And the fact that he'll be Sir Richard thereafter - something that the clots from Liberty 'University' will find just a bit harder to ignore than his PhD, as they did during the Q&A they attended in droves.

A knighthood is an honour with considerable history. Many eminent atheists have already received it. Richard's is frankly overdue at this point, and making a mountain out of the dotty magic spell-casting that accompanies the actual knighting is putting the emphasis in all the wrong places.

Christmas is not a religious event, and a K is not a religious decoration.

CD

13. Make Richard Dawkins a Knight

Comment #80791 by Chris Davis on October 23, 2007 at 3:59 am

Is not the important point being sidelined here? The key feature of awarding a K to Dr. D would be the message it would send about the British establishment's support for him and his position.

Brenda the Q's involvement is entirely symbolic - hell, the award itself is symbolic. But it's as a symbol that such an event will have its impact, in the same way that it did when Rushdie received it.

After all this time, and given all that Dr. Dawkins has done for the world, it's his lack of a knighthood that's starting to look anomalous.

CD

14. The Blairs' Witch Project

Comment #45067 by Chris Davis on May 26, 2007 at 5:00 am

Just a plug for the most excellent Dr. Goldacre's words, site and book. Please read, visit, and buy.

Ben is one of the only voices of sanity to be published regularly in a mainstream national newspaper, fighting the good fight against the avalanche of pseudo-medical and -scientific nonsense that is the public's only source of information on most complex matters of reality.

To deal with all of this bilge would need hundreds of column-inches per day, but he achieves an awful lot for minimal reward.

All hail, and thanks.

CD

15. Prayer can improve physical health

Comment #43872 by Chris Davis on May 23, 2007 at 3:10 am

I'm convinced I read an article recently - possibly here - wherein a study had shown that being prayed for had a small negative effect on recovery, especially if the patient was aware of it.

The suspected reason was that when they were told that they were being prayed for, they shat themselves, assuming that they must be sicker than they had thought.

CD

16. Scientists Draw Link Between Morality And Brain's Wiring

Comment #43299 by Chris Davis on May 21, 2007 at 4:38 am

@BillySands: Agreed. It seems inevitable to me that much, if not all, morality is innate, genetic and heritable - and common to all social animals.

Without a fundamental instinctive drive to treat others according to a form of Golden Rule, I don't see how any society could form. Chimps, meerkats and other social animals display such behaviour.

CD

17. Christopher Hitchens Is a Treasure

Comment #43287 by Chris Davis on May 21, 2007 at 4:14 am

Hmm - nice goalposts, Michael. What's their top speed?

CD

18. Let us pray for the soul of Richard Dawkins

Comment #40273 by Chris Davis on May 14, 2007 at 4:15 am

GAWD I hate that woman. She's one of the best examples I know of how overrated Christian piety is.

CD

19. The Damned

Comment #37269 by Chris Davis on May 4, 2007 at 12:12 am

@Aquambulus hirsutus

I'm sorry you're dropping that. As I understand it (and correct me if I'm incorrect) Kaffir is what the Asians in early South Africa called the indigenous black population, because they were (Islamic) unbelievers.

This derogatory term was then taken over by Whitey as a pithy nasty term for the black people they derided for different reasons. Says a lot about just how confused the race-related hatred became over there.

Which means that as well as an ironic term for your status vis a vis Islam, you'd also be cocking a snook at racism. I'd keep it. (ex)SA types of any albedo would, I'm sure, get the sarcasm.

CD

20. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #36450 by Chris Davis on May 1, 2007 at 7:09 am

Excellent! The book should be good stuff.

Though Dr. Dawkins is of course the One True AntiGod, I look forward to reading Hitchens on this subject: he always manages to combine intemperance and anger with such pinpoint-precision arguments that no-one, however offended and hostile, can fail to miss them.

I don't see the fuss about his ethanol absorption: his arguments were perfectly coherent. I'm sure getting somewhat tiddly is good preparation for going on the Daily Show to sell a serious subject in a manic comedy environment and a couple of minutes to do it in.

CD

21. Atheism's Big Night In Little Rock

Comment #35968 by Chris Davis on April 29, 2007 at 3:38 pm

MelM wrote:

...what the young man described wasn't belief, but hope.

I think this sort of statement, pointing people to reality, can be effective ... In the example given, the man may never have heard--explicitly stated--that what one believes or feels or hopes, isn't true just because of the belief or feeling or hope.

You have an interesting point. I've been spending some time recently in a certain pit of online gormlessness where a gallant band of atheists are fighting to save the minds of some of the thickest 'born-again' Christians I've ever encountered.

One of their recurring complaints really does go along the lines of 'why would you want to be an atheist when we Christians get to go and meet our deceased friends in heaven when we die, and so on. They really do believe that one's belief system should be chosen entirely on the basis of its benefits package. The degree to which it reflects reality is simply not a concern to them.

And they're not interested in hear about logical flaws in their chosen beliefs, either. Gross Biblical self-contradiction is simply answered with 'all things are possible with Jesus'. Pascal's Wager comes up several times a day. Evolution is the work of Satan, and is believed to encompass 'monkeys changing into men' - nonsense because there are still monkeys around; abiogenesis - 'pond-slime changing into men'; and cosmogony - 'where did all that matter for the Big Bang come from?'.

Certainly there's no sign that presenting people in such a forum with succinct facts has any obvious effects. Perhaps, if it were possible to make them really think about it, some consciousness could be raised, but as it is their minds are wrapped up so tightly in their warm and fluffy fantasy that only Jesus hisself could extract them from it.

CD

22. Dinesh D'Souza says I don't exist: an atheist at Virginia Tech

Comment #33695 by Chris Davis on April 21, 2007 at 6:57 am

Where are the opium dealers when tragedies like VT happen?

Even though they know that they could give enormous comfort to the victims of such horrors, they stay away.

If they could forget their selfish money-grubbing for an instant, what would it really cost for a dealer to go around the grieving crowds, giving free shots of smack to those who are particularly affected? Not much, I imagine, especially when measured against the enormous comfort they would provide.

But they're never there. Money means too much for them. They probably don't even give discounts.

CD

23. Religious bias colors doctors' views: survey

Comment #31254 by Chris Davis on April 11, 2007 at 6:07 pm

Interesting. I had my vasectomy in Scotland, with a similar backstory (didn't want kids etc.). In my case, though, all the medics were almost enthusiastic, and nary a question was asked.

It's possible that they took one look at me and decided that the last thing the world needed was more copies of my genes around...

My expensive medical insurance declined to pay, on the grounds that the procedure was elective. Strangely, they cover the costs of pregnancy. Presumably having sprogs is one of those 'acts of god', or something.

CD

24. The Coulter Hoax: How Ann Coulter Exposed the Intelligent Design Movement

Comment #30767 by Chris Davis on April 9, 2007 at 6:05 pm

Nice! Humour's an excellent way to respond to Coulter - to counter the powerful urge to bite her throat out.

CD

25. Answers To the Atheists

Comment #30448 by Chris Davis on April 8, 2007 at 4:33 am

There seems to be some confusion over the matter of Dawkins and Harris giving stick to 'moderate' religionists instead of playing it safe and aiming their scorn purely at the fundamentalists and extremists. Lumpen Christians are rather peeved to be told that they're just as bad as their lunatic fringe, but I think the criticism is entirely deserved.

In the first place, even ignoring the question of Biblical inerrancy, why should 'moderates' feel able to cherry-pick the bits of scripture that they agree with, and ignore the others? On what basis can they arbitrarily decide that even the Ten Commandments may be whittled down here and there to avoid clashes with 21st century sensibilities? If various articles that a modern outlook says are a bit off may be dispensed with, why call oneself Christian at all? Is it all up for grabs? If honouring thy parents is discretionary, might murder be OK if fashions change?

In this regard, fundamentalists are merely being true to the text. If their God exists at all, and the Bible is His supposed words, it's hardly up to ordinary mortals to decide which of the tenets to agree with, and which not.

In the second place, even the most lax Christian must still accept the existence of God, Jesus and the basic redemption scenario laid out in the Bible. In supporting and advocating this fantasy world, moderates provide the enablers for fundamentalist belief. By the time someone notices that little Davy Koresh is perhaps taking it all a little too seriously, the damage is probably done.

There's also a sense in which the passage from moderate to extremist is flower-strewn by the more conventionally devout. Initially, unusual levels of religiosity are encouraged and rewarded. The encouragement continues all the way up to the point where piety suddenly becomes classed as fanaticism. How is even the fanatic himself supposed to make sense of all this? He probably doesn't need to - at the terminal stages of this delusion, the Bible need be the only trusted source of information, and it has nothing but encouragement and succour for the fanatic.

For encouraging and providing the stage and context for fundamentalism; for having no ammunition but arbitrary good taste to place against it; for support either active or passive until the last moment, moderate believers deserve as much criticism as the fundamentalists they engender.

CD

26. Answers To the Atheists

Comment #30350 by Chris Davis on April 7, 2007 at 7:09 pm

the idea that religion is primarily destructive lies at the heart of the neo-atheist argument

No, it doesn't! And I beg my colleagues here present not to get dragged into this silly argument about whether religion is, on balance, a force for good or bad.

What lies at the heart of the neo-atheist argument is that there is no god.

CD

27. Scientist Finds the Beginnings of Morality in Primate Behavior

Comment #30071 by Chris Davis on April 6, 2007 at 6:13 pm

@ peterdf

I found your comment as interesting as this fascinating article. It's amazed me for some time how resistant otherwise sensible people are to the idea of humans having instincts at all. And those who will accept that they do still tend to cling to the notion of an overarching 'free will' that makes our every move pre-rationalised and subject to our marvellous intellect.

I'm with Pinker on the idea that consciousness is an illusion - a post-facto rationalisation of actions that are in reality a combination of reflex, habit and instinct. Only on rare occasions do we apply intellect to our decisions at all, and when we do our choices are entirely constrained. Although we tell ourselves we can in theory make our choices entirely arbitrarily, in fact we can only ever choose the option that is optimal for our current requirements. Even if that requirement includes 'do something surprising', we simply choose the option that maximises 'surprisingness'.

CD

28. Creationism debate continues to evolve

Comment #29821 by Chris Davis on April 5, 2007 at 2:35 am

johntfiorito - thanks a bunch for the pointer to the new Miller Experiment at
Scientific American

This is something I've needed for a while.

Josh, any chance of putting the article in the Science category? It's important ammunition.

CD

29. Snake Oil and Holy Water

Comment #29699 by Chris Davis on April 4, 2007 at 8:11 am

A little reminder I use:



CD

30. The Selfish Green

Comment #29685 by Chris Davis on April 4, 2007 at 4:52 am

I was a little saddened that no-one on the panel sees that a solution to this problem - caused at least in part by technology - might itself come from technology. Seems to me it's the ace up the sleeve of humanity: something we can do rather well, as opposed to the self-denial path that many appear to be advocating, and which we're very bad at.

(And there's more than a bit of self-flagellation in it: the public is mass-buying into the idea that, having created the problem with our greed, we must suffer abstemiousness in all things to rectify it. This strays toward the magical thinking found in Lenten or Ramadan denial rituals.)

But there are technological solutions, albeit speculative in some case, to these issues - just as there are for global hunger. As an example: the only way put forward so far to deal with CO2 buildup has been to reduce the supply side - massively reducing our current CO2 injection by eschewing all carbon-producing technology. (The self-punishing aspect of this can be seen in the glee with which the public have begun to attack air travel, despite its relatively tiny footprint.)

But what, instead, of carbon sequestration - the process of extracting CO2 from the air and burying it in deep ocean trenches, subterranean salt domes, or porous rock formation? This idea has been on the cards for decades, but only recently noticed by the public thanks to Richard Branson's (possibly Quixotic) challenge.

At present, systems for implementing sequestration are energy-hungry, which only underlines the vital importance of cheap, clean energy as a prerequisite for tackling these things. Nevertheless, sequestration is not tied to geography: CO2 capture can be carried out near sources of essentially free geothermal energy, perhaps capturing the large carbon injection produced by volcanic activity. Solid CO2 can be transported (at first; and then piped) to suitable sequestering point above deep trenches.

The volumes involved would have to be enormous, and require huge investment in manpower and hardware. The Carbon Credit scheme, and trading thereof, provides the best financial incentive for private companies to invest in starting such systems up. The eventual - but probably inevitable - arrival of fusion power should allow construction of CO2 capture systems to take place anywhere on the planet. In time, faster/better/cheaper methods for CO2 capture may arise with lower energy requirements, perhaps allowing individual towns, villages and even ordinary consumers to earn money from capturing CO2.

Away from the furious public eco-debates, some groups are already getting on with it: Japan announced plans to bury 200 million tons of CO2 annually by 2020. Another obvious player is the oil industry - already operating giant raw-material handling systems around the world. BP is working on a $1-billion plant near Los Angeles to convert petroleum coke, a by-product of oil refining, into hydrogen, and sequester about four million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

This may all be wildly optimistic, but consider it at least an illustration of a technological approach to climate and other ecological problems that stands, in my view, a better chance of general take-up than trying to talk people into giving up their luxuries.

CD

31. Richard Dawkins at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival

Comment #29484 by Chris Davis on April 3, 2007 at 4:37 am

Right - that's my signed copy of 'The God Delusion' versus your Bible, similarly inscribed.

See you in a century.

CD

32. Richard Dawkins at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival

Comment #28824 by Chris Davis on March 31, 2007 at 5:03 am

Robert O'Brien wrote:

Greatest minds in science?

You doubt it? Wanna take a bet that in a hundred years Richard Dawkins' name will have the prominence of Darwin, while McGrath - if he's remembered at all - will be at best an also-ran among lumpenapologists for superstition?

CD

33. Stephen Hawking Says Universe Created from Nothing

Comment #28560 by Chris Davis on March 29, 2007 at 7:26 pm

Regardless of Penrose's excellent work on various subjects, I'm afraid he's still bound for Purgatory for suggesting that AI will never succeed. And adducing quantum effects in microtubules to explain why neurons are magic and thus impossible to duplicate. Fie, etc.

CD

34. U.S. Mint goof creates 'Godless dollars'

Comment #24905 by Chris Davis on March 9, 2007 at 5:46 am

Interesting to compare 'E Pluribus Unum' with other mottoes: 'Arbeit macht Frei' at the gates of Dachau, and 'Ex Unitate Vires' on apartheid-era South African coinage.

CD

35. Why Children Love Their Security Blankets

Comment #24904 by Chris Davis on March 9, 2007 at 5:38 am

Hmm. Damn.

Does this mean I should throw away my meteorite? It's just a bit of nickel iron.

CD

36. Was there ever dog that praised his fleas?

Comment #24382 by Chris Davis on March 6, 2007 at 9:48 am

What puzzles me is how on earth Robertson managed to get his scribblings published. Anyone reading his stuff on freechurch.org will be struck by how stultifying it is. I can't imagine even True Believers(tm) being much motivated to spend good money on a whole bookful.

Robertson himself, it appears, thinks it's pure gold, and seems near-desperate to see it in print. Veteran readers of these pages will recall how peeved he was when Josh declined to post the second and subsequent of his 'Dawkins Delusion' essays, having put up the first one as another example of the folly of god-botherers. He complained here, on freecrutch, and directly to Josh about this loss of a preaching platform, citing as evidence of its value the large number of comments the essay had generated. In fact, of course, the commentary was largely the result of the author's own appearance in the thread, happily defending the indefensible and tutting when anyone said 'fuck' in exasperation.

It appears that since then he has finally found an outlet for his stuff, but one has to wonder how. What publisher would bet money on sales of this thing?

It's a cause for concern: most proselytisers would be happy with the opportunity to hold forth to a captive audience once a week. Robertson wants more - but how much? Will an occasional book based on a feeble rebuttal of someone else's hard work be enough? When I try to ponder how far this might go, images of a Ted Haggard rally dance, unbidden, before my eyes...

37. Hunting chimps may change view of human evolution

Comment #22945 by Chris Davis on February 24, 2007 at 7:59 pm

NormanDoering wrote:

It's not just chimps that use language. Remember the Gorilla Koko.

After having been a fan for many years, I've utterly lost faith in Koko.

The first blow came about a month after I'd finally signed up to receive the email newsletter from the Koko Foundation. I started receiving gambling spam addressed to the specific mailbox I'd created for the newsletter, which only they had ever seen. I get it to this day, but like other such it's deleted on receipt. At the time I figured it could have been an address-book harvester virus, or an employee making a buck selling their mailing list. Now I'm not sure it isn't standard practice.

The real killer was when, after I'd extolled Koko's wonderful abilities to a sceptical woman on another forum, she went looking for evidence herself. She uncovered a transcript of an open webcast by Koko and Dr. Penny Patterson, her companion. To call it disappointing would be a massive understatement: it was pathetic.

Koko came across as an idiot, with neither interest in nor comprehension of what was going on. Her communication - what there was of it - consisted of semi-random babble with little or no relation to the questions posed or the context, though Patterson tied herself in desperate knots trying to suggest deep meaning and cleverness behind every utterance.

The transcript is here. Draw your own conclusions. I'm unable to escape the suspicion that the Koko Foundation is largely a setup to coax donations out of the public together with a nice little earner selling their growing mailing list to spammers. I'd love to be wrong, however.

CD

38. Presentation on Atheism

Comment #22714 by Chris Davis on February 21, 2007 at 8:33 am

Ha! Well done, Spaceman Spiff! I was just about to ask what was wrong with Peppered Moths, but you got there first. Thanks for the references.

CD

39. Do stop behaving as if you are God, Professor Dawkins

Comment #20904 by Chris Davis on February 7, 2007 at 2:07 am

Oh, to have a penny for every proselytising god-botherer who prefaces his speech by announcing that he 'used to be an atheist' - but now, of course, the scales have fallen from his eyes.

Dig deeper and you discover that in fact he was simply so ignorant he had no stance at all on the issue. His 'enlightenment' will have consisted entirely of finally noticing the god argument, and swallowing its simplistic answers whole.

McGrath is certainly one of these, and is in every way a Joiner: he was an 'atheist' when it was cool to be, and a theist for similar reasons. No doubt he can count himself lucky that his social circle never tried heroin.

CD

40. Former exec in Irvine says he was fired over religion

Comment #19140 by Chris Davis on January 25, 2007 at 6:24 am

Hmm. While I feel indignant about this bloke being fired for insufficient religious mania, I'm conscious of the fact that I'd be just as unhappy as his employer if I discovered a serious god-botherer working for me.

As a matter of interest, how would one go about keeping the devout out of one's business without falling foul of the law? Could one require as part of the Conditions of Employment some activity that a godder wouldn't be able to handle? Compulsory membership of the company darts team, say, using a board with a picture of JC on it? An offensive company motto?

CD

41. Randi and 800 Other Amazing Skeptics

Comment #19110 by Chris Davis on January 25, 2007 at 2:48 am

Many years ago in, I think, Omni magazine, there was wonderful example of one of Geller's blunders, caught on camera. He'd actually photographed himself pulling a fast one.

Some university types were putting him through his paces. One exercise was 'psychic photographs', in which Geller pointed a lens-capped camera (supplied by the researchers) at his head and pulled the trigger. Geller shot off a few, but announced that the vibes weren't right and he'd try again later.

Various other experiments were tried, including at one stage a stunt which involved Geller being locked in a room by himself...with the camera, unnoticed by the researchers. Well, Randi says scientists are the easiest to fool, because they just can't grasp that their subject will use simple dirty tricks.

Later when the group was together, Geller grabbed the camera again and banged off the rest of the reel, announcing that he felt strongly that he'd gotten at least one good shot. And when they developed the film, there was indeed an image on one frame.

What Geller hadn't realised was that the camera had a deep fish-eye lens fitted. Even the smallest chink twixt lens and cap would give a good image. The picture showed an annular image of a room, with Geller's face close up, his fingers holding the lens cap a short distance off the lens.

The researchers duplicated the effect with an ordinary lens, and the result was weird swirls of light strangely similar to 'psychic' photos. Busted. I've not seen the image since, alas.

CD

42. Randi and 800 Other Amazing Skeptics

Comment #19108 by Chris Davis on January 25, 2007 at 2:24 am

Hell. Hitchens, who regards evolution as an ingenious explanation which unfortunately doesn't convince his Catholicism. He deserves considerable praise for outing that wretched bitch Teresa, but he's a rather selective sceptic.

And South Park, though one of my favourite shows, characterised atheism as causing people to shit through their mouths. Though Stone & Parker have given several religions a good kicking, Christianity is usually treated with considerable delicacy.

CD

43. Do You Believe in Magic?

Comment #18880 by Chris Davis on January 23, 2007 at 12:09 pm

It's hard to avoid the hypothesis that early magical thinking is the root of religion. The article hints that there must be some benefit to this adaptation, but that sounds to me like argumentum ad antiquitatem. Just because it's ubiquitous doesn't make it good. It could be a mental appendix.

There's also a belief that disillusioning kids about such rubbish - from Santa on down - will somehow damage or deprive them. Will it? As a kid I was entirely aware that I was neither cowboy nor Indian, cop nor robber, but it didn't stop me having fun shooting my little chums with my finger.

Have any of the logical positivists here assembled ever tried to raise a sprog without this crap? To let them know that magical thinking=make-believe right from the start?

CD

44. Britons unconvinced on evolution

Comment #18813 by Chris Davis on January 23, 2007 at 4:05 am

This is a year-old poll, and has been rather superseded by a more recent one with less horrifying figures. Should be somewhere hereabouts.

When these figures came out it shocked the hell out of many here. I immediately began drawing up plans to fly a hang-glider into St Pauls. The newer figures were more reassuring. I think the big difference in the approach of the new poll lay in not presupposing that the respondents had a religious attitude.

If asked what religion they are, many Brits will say that they're CofE. If asked whether they have a religion, most Brits say they don't.

When asked about cosmogony, biogenesis etc., I think the answers are often a mess. Many Brits don't have a firm clue either way, but don't want to be among 'don't knows' in such an important matter. So they'll clutch at whatever straws are offered. Most have heard - thanks to Discovery Institute propaganda - that there's a 'controversy' over evolution, so they might not grasp at that one too enthusiastically anymore. The '[something] did it' argument sounds simple and reassuring, and doesn't specifically mention de Lawd, so perhaps they choose that.

The education system here clearly has a major task ahead. Even simply literacy seems a hard goal to reach.

CD

45. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18554 by Chris Davis on January 21, 2007 at 5:08 pm

@iamb_spartacus,

Forum topic now set up in the Philosophy section at
http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=90050#90050

Apologies for the delay.

CD

46. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18360 by Chris Davis on January 20, 2007 at 3:31 am

Are your feelings "true"? If you said you were angry with me, and I asked you to prove it, how would you proceed?

Ooh, I am a bit naughty. I confess that I hoped you might adduce emotions as an example of a non-scientific True thing. I don't buy it, and neither, I've been pleased to note in recent times, does our Dr. Richard (PBUH).

Because emotional states are not entirely mental ones. And even if they were I fancy an EEG could pick them up. As it is, emotions can be measured by a host of somatic effects alone. In anger's case that would include hypertension, adrenergic effects, ACTH, and the rest of the fight/flight, etc.

Richard specifically mentioned less hard-science but no less conclusive forensics that can confirm the truth of someone saying 'I love you'. Countless visible, nonverbal clues that we are specifically evolved to read come to one's aid. We're good at detecting falsehood because we operate on trust much of the time. Extending that, we're good at reading and projecting emotions because we're social animals and no man is an island (except Fred Mauritius, of course).

Emotions themselves are Scientific (in the comic-book sense I defined previously). They're hard-wired survival behaviours that nature gives us, essentially from birth, to allow us to respond optimally to situations without having to reason them out. The downside is that they're inflexible, and many are no longer valid in the novel environment we've built. Hence RD's exhortation to disobey these and other genetic imperatives in favour of reasoned responses.

But that's enough of my personal hobby for now.

Spart, if you're finding this exchange as enjoyable as I am, we really should take it to the forum, where we can ponder at length and even - my favourite - exchange diagrams. Other persons of goodwill can join in on topic, and we don't have to hunt through an old, cooling thread to find the bits.

Would you like me to set this up?

CD

47. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18278 by Chris Davis on January 19, 2007 at 9:17 am

iamb_spartacus,

On what grounds can we define people as good or bad besides their actions?

Bit utilitarian, what? Weinstein's final phrase was, you will recall, that 'to get good people to do evil things' requires religion. Meaning that people who are otherwise good - even extremely good adherents to universal moral principles - may be induced to do evil things by religion. Two points: a) Obviously, in doing evil things, they ipso fact cease to be good, and b) in their own minds they're still doing good, because they're faithfully following the dictates of their religion, perhaps sacrificing a great deal in the process.

The issue in all this is the disparity between religious morality and the more fundamental instinctive morality we all have. The former is often a superset of the latter, and may include items necessary for the propagation of the religion that run counter to instinctive morality.

The classic example being the 9/11 hijackers: these were certainly 'good' people according to their lights, but their faith (alone) told them that flying a plane into a building was a noble act.

Saying things like "any religion has a violent tendency" or "religion leads good people to do evil" as though this were more than cicumstantially demonstrable does not do the rationalist view any favors.

I'd like to prepend a 'may, unpredictably' to both the verbs in your quotes. The point is that religion, being a non-rational mental construct, can encompass pretty much any conceivable element. In many case they include a concept of an evil incarnate, which a follower is duty bound to fight and kill. As no such thing really exists, it has no defining physical referents, so the adherent is free to point to real things and people as a substitute manifestation.

Supposedly civilised US Christians in high positions call for the death of homosexuals. Several cases have recently been revealed in which women in Sharia countries face death by stoning for being pregnant and unmarried. And there's those hijackers again...

Religions are dangerous to the same extent that drunk or mad people are dangerous: their motivations and actions are logically unpredictable. That's scary.

You are welcome to your own ethics, but we are a nation of laws. How do you square this principle with the constitution, especially the 1st, 5th, and 14th amendments?

Wrong country, I'm afraid, cor blimey 'ow's yer father. Notwithstanding which: can you not imagine an individual or group so deranged by a loony belief system that their very existence is dangerous to life? Ignoring the propaganda that frequently seeks to make such people out of those who simply have a differing ideology, the reality is not all that inconceivable. If facilities for deprogramming them are not available, killing them may be the only option.

I'd like to come at the science question - especially the 'science doesn't have all the answers' question - from another angle. For me, capital-s-Science is nothing less than the search for (capital-T) Truth. The only truth, furthermore, that I consider worth having: subject to adversarial scrutiny, tests of repeatability and so on. Within that framework, if it's true, it's scientific; and if it's not scientific, it's not true. Dogmatic though that sounds even to me, I can't - sitting here - think of anything that is true but doesn't at least come within the compass of science.

'Hydrogen has an electron' is true. 'God is love' is bollocks, frankly.

CD

48. Discussion of The God Delusion

Comment #18269 by Chris Davis on January 19, 2007 at 8:07 am

@ScienceBreath

If you admit engineers into this sentence then scientists should be in there too. For example, a lot of physicists and chemists work on bomb design, often performing fundamental research as they do so.

I don't disagree. This sort of thing was at the core of my post: if we blame the average god-botherer for their part in extremism - rightly, I think - then no-one in any aspect of the sciences can duck responsibility for the nasty things that come out of science.

I'm not happy with this, but it sort-of follows, I think.

Fixing the science side of this equation should include, I believe, taking public funding for science out of the hands of the military (something I recall Clinton tried, but which was presumably reversed by the new hawks in power). More tricky is what to do about medicine, where drug discovery is so hugely expensive that only private capitalism can fund it. If the billions so spent actually result in a useful treatment, it's hardly surprising that those capitalists will try to maximise their profits - with all the problems of cover-up and damage that may result. I don't really know what can be done about this downside.

To fix religion, of course, you just have to hang all the priests.

CD

49. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18116 by Chris Davis on January 18, 2007 at 12:02 pm

@iamb_spartacus

Your points are very interesting. I seem to be becoming less of a Harris fan the more I see of him. Can I press you on a few items in your posting?

o It seems to me that accusing Islam of having a unique tendency toward 'terrorism' - nasty word - is to be both partisan and short-sighted - any religion has such a tendency, as best summed up in the line about good people doing evil things: a weltanschauung based on supernatural fantasy will do that to ya, almost inevitably.

o I can envisage a belief system so horrible that killing its adherents would be not just an ethical act, but perhaps the only response.

o Do you have a detailed view on the idea that 'humans require narrative structures to maintain sanity both as individuals and social groups'? I assume this is arguing for the Noble Lie, on the basis that without their opium, the masses will go nuts. This may turn out to be true, though I suspect that given enough bread and circuses they might settle down eventually. Whatever the case, I really can't square it with my own scrawny atheist's morality to support lying to the public, no matter how comforting, no matter what the alternatives.

It's not, after all, a neutral matter: without religion perhaps the public will kill themselves; but with it they tend to kill others. If those who can't handle the truth are moved to thin themselves out a little I can't say I'll mourn overmuch.

CD

50. Discussion of The God Delusion

Comment #18033 by Chris Davis on January 18, 2007 at 3:09 am

can anyone think of instances in which "science has caused destruction"?

Well, I'll play Devil's Advocate on that one for a moment:

The godders, and society in general, credit science with responsibility for the H-bomb, Thalidomide, 'Frankenstein food' and of course weapons, weapons, weapons.

As a science junkie myself I'd say nonsense - science just uncovers the knowledge. Blame - if you must blame at all - the military and engineers who implement pure scientific knowledge in ways we find repugnant, or make mistakes in their implementation that lead to death and disfigurement; or produce stuff that, though innocent, scares people who don't understand it.

But it seems to me that if we validly attack 'moderate' religionists for providing the framework for extremists, we also have to accept the indirect blame for the ramifications of science.

'Moderate religion' is harmless crap, and pure science is a wholly laudable search for truth. The problem arises in the ramifications of both of these, which is where people start dying.

Just a thought.

Ultimately, what these book reviewers seemed to sidestep was, once again, the point that religion stands or falls by the existence or otherwise of a deity. And it's clear there isn't one. How, then, can it be right in any way to continue to propagate this untruth?

Greer argues for the 'Noble Lie' that keeps societies together. It's a point, but I don't know if it's the point. Are we really still at the stage where society - deprived of their heavenly comfort blanket - will fall to bits? We might be.

My own feeling is to give 'em the Truth and be damned, but that's because I don't much care what happens to humans. If universal atheism really would lead to social sundering, it's something to consider, much as I hate the idea.

CD