Comments by artificialhabitat

Comment #211825 by artificialhabitat on July 16, 2008 at 10:23 am

3 lines in: "Richard Dawkins"
5 lines in: "strident"

Any point reading the rest?

2. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #166278 by artificialhabitat on April 23, 2008 at 4:43 am

He doesn't seem to directly address the point in his bit, but seriously, Winton's going to argue that religion is NOT a threat to science and rationality?

I don't understand.

Winston works in fertility treatments and embryology. His scientific discipline is directly suffering sustained attack by religion right now.

You'd think he'd have noticed that.

3. Richard Dawkins: 'Growth in creationist beliefs a problem for schools'

Comment #156254 by artificialhabitat on April 7, 2008 at 7:41 am

Good to see some attention being drawn to this problem in the UK. I think it's very tempting to see creationism as an American disease and ignore the growth of such views in this country.

I regularly encounter creationists, or at least individuals with creationist leanings, at my university. Admittedly my sampling is biased (being an active member of a student atheist society tends to bring you into contact with such individuals) but we disregard their existence at our peril.

Complacency can be a very dangerous thing.

reductio ad hitlerum

Thankyou for that little gem. I shall now be on the lookout for opportunities to use it.

4. When blasphemy bit the dust

Comment #140585 by artificialhabitat on March 8, 2008 at 12:16 am

Yep, good news.

But the debate was a train-wreck.

The NSS have a transcript up, if you can stomach it. I'll have some commentary up on my blog, if it'll let me post it, which it keeps refusing to do.

Basically there was a whole lot of whining about how everyone will now start being really mean to Christians.

And then a whole load of really stupid nonsense about how this is part of some awful drive towards secularism. Imagine the untold horrors of living in a secular state! I can't help but think that these people don't actually understand what secularism is.

Somebody asked how the bishop's voted - they were split - some of them voted to get rid of it, or at least they sounded like they would during their speeches, which frequently verged on the insane.

Not too impressed with the above article either.. it gets the gist across but the details are a bit off. RD was mentioned twice, I think, hardly 'repeatedly' (though he's apparently a 'professor of philosophical studies'). And one of those times was Lord Elton claiming that 'The Dawkins Delusion' was a better book than 'The God Delusion'. Says it all, really.

5. Ken Ham in Leicester April 2008

Comment #114853 by artificialhabitat on January 23, 2008 at 3:55 am

If an interested student society in Leicester(e.g. bio. soc.) invited every university secular society, biology society, etc. in the UK to come along, you could rustle up quite a crowd: I've seen busloads of students travel across the country for much less. Ask a major pharma/biotech company to sponsor the "counter-event". I've seen bizarrely trivial student events sponsored by banks and breweries, why not the "War on Ignorance"?

I was thinking along these lines. I would certainly be inclined to support such an endeavour. I can't speak for others yet, but a contingent of Southampton based atheists might be up for it.

6. Gay Jesus play blasted by bishop

Comment #114062 by artificialhabitat on January 21, 2008 at 9:45 am

"unhistorical and untrue"

"It's historical nonsense"

"It's just completely fanciful and self-obsessive,"

I find myself constantly amazed at the extent to which these people are so completely blind to the irony of some of the things they say.

Cognitive dissonance is a wonderful thing

7. Vatican slams California firm's cloning experiments

Comment #114059 by artificialhabitat on January 21, 2008 at 9:39 am

Oh, who listens to the Vatican any more?

Ah, yes, of course..... how silly of me

8. Dinesh D'Souza: Winner of the 2007 Bad Faith Award

Comment #112103 by artificialhabitat on January 16, 2008 at 10:30 am

The religious tribe is made up of people who have an animating sense of purpose

Tribes? He's talking about tribes?

Says it all really.

D'Souza is a prick. But I can't see how he beat some of the others. True, listening to him made me want to stab myself in the neck, but some of the others contibute to the suffering and death of countless people via their contraception/AIDS BS.

9. Clegg 'does not believe in God'

Comment #100779 by artificialhabitat on December 19, 2007 at 10:20 am

In fairness, he doesn't have sole choice in how is children are raised - or would you prefer to unravel women's liberation?

Also, I want people to grow out of religion, not to try to ban it.

Where in the above comments did anyone suggest banning religion or repealing women's rights?

We're talking about the children here. They may not get the chance to 'grow out of religion' if they are raised Catholic.

True - he doesn't have sole right to decide his children's upbringing. But neither does his wife.

10. Clegg 'does not believe in God'

Comment #100778 by artificialhabitat on December 19, 2007 at 10:16 am

his wife is Catholic and that his children are being brought up Catholic

There goes any hope that the Lib Dems might actually put up at least some token opposition to taxpayer funded faith schools

11. Interview with Richard Dawkins: On Christmas

Comment #100748 by artificialhabitat on December 19, 2007 at 9:16 am

Congratulations (on this and other threads) on contributing to what is possibly the most pointless argument I have ever encountered.

Personally, I can't motivate myself to give a shit about whether or not RD likes carols.

The wider debates about religion should categorically NOT be reduced to discussions of the personal opinions of individuals like RD, this simply feeds into the presumption that atheism is another authoritarian movement that's all about the views of the leaders.

Get a grip.

12. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #99647 by artificialhabitat on December 17, 2007 at 8:45 am

chauvinj:

New title for the artile: When a Scientist Becomes God

Put's me in mind of a PZ quote, which if I recall was in a post about an older article (which took that kind of tack) about Venter and his research:

"Playing God" is where you do absolutely nothing, take credit for other entities' work, and don't even exist — scientists don't aspire to such a useless status