1. As the world becomes smaller, the need to understand each other's faith grows

Comment #192808 by agn on June 14, 2008 at 2:07 am

Sheer drivel.

Faith is to eradicate deaths from malaria???

I thought science was a better option..

2. Teacher tortures, kills boy

Comment #186841 by agn on May 31, 2008 at 11:53 am

What is insane to begin with is a school system that monomaniacally "educates" poor boys with utterly worthless skills like memorization of the Quran.

This perversion of the very idea of school is growing as a malignant cancer throughout the entire world.

It is this system that is sick and evil to its core, not just a representative member of it like the teacher in question.

3. Does science make belief in God obsolete?

Comment #170049 by agn on April 27, 2008 at 10:09 am

The strangest contortions are made in order to save religion's actuality:

Sapolsky, for example, thinks that religion makes good ecstasy while science does not.


He could instead have said that people should have more sex.

4. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #149894 by agn on March 26, 2008 at 10:18 am

Happy birthday, Professor Dawkins!
May the next 67 years or so be as fulfilling and well spent as the previous ones.

5. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #149893 by agn on March 26, 2008 at 10:18 am

Happy birthday, Professor Dawkins!
May the next 67 years or so be as fulfilling and well spent as the previous ones.

6. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #149892 by agn on March 26, 2008 at 10:18 am

Happy birthday, Professor Dawkins!
May the next 67 years or so be as fulfilling and well spent as the previous ones.

7. A God blog

Comment #137018 by agn on March 2, 2008 at 6:30 am

Good article, but:
"It makes me wonder how people can argue that Islam is somehow a barbaric religion and Christianity a civilised one based on their texts"

I do not think this lady has even read the Quran.

The Quran is a paranoia-inducing text that has nothing of the (fairly minuscule) redemptive passages of the Bible, and is intensely preoccupied with the sadistic punishments in the afterlife.

People think Christianity is (or was) obsessed with Hell, but it comes nowhere close to the obsession with Hell in the Quran. Every single page is filled with "and they'll be cast into fire", "they are to be flayed over and over again" (skins resewn inbetween) and so on.

The hatred is palpable and dominant in the Quran, it is just an under-current in the Bible (not that that makes the Bible and iuts messages morally uplifting in the slightest).

8. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #136014 by agn on February 29, 2008 at 12:19 pm

"All despots thus far appear to have been men. I don't know if that means women are immune to despotic tendencies, but if they are, that indicates a simple way to eliminate the problem or at least make it far less probable: banish men from politics. The few women who have risen to positions of leadership certainly haven't made a bigger mess of things than men thus far, so this seems like a very low-cost strategy. "


Hmm..Elizabeth Bathory and Bloody Mary, for example?

Madame Ching wasn't very nice, either.

9. Murder plot against Danish cartoonist

Comment #125974 by agn on February 12, 2008 at 10:43 am

Get the difference between violation and retaliation.
These bastards do not deserve to have their bodies unpunished.

In particular because there are thousands of others like them that need to be stopped and, not the least, be identified.
These people will only balk at one thing:
Become too terrified to engage in criminal acts.
They do not have any form of internal morality, and restraints on their behaviour must therefore be imposed upon them.

10. Murder plot against Danish cartoonist

Comment #125962 by agn on February 12, 2008 at 10:30 am

Torture the bastards and make them reveal their networks, what family members were in on it, what imams they know of who has spoken in favour of terror, the names of mosque attendants under such speeches.

Enough is enough.

11. Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'

Comment #123556 by agn on February 7, 2008 at 10:46 am

"Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.
"

We already know that, archbishop.
We even have a name for such people: Criminals.

12. Blasphemy

Comment #122578 by agn on February 5, 2008 at 1:52 pm

"Stepping up, in Muslim countries, could mean stepping up to the gallows to be hung by the neck until dead or being done to death by a do-gooder.
"

Indeed. Who are these horrible people willing to murder peaceful protesters.
Not..Muslims, perchance?

13. Female Muslim medics 'disobey hygiene rules'

Comment #121440 by agn on February 3, 2008 at 12:04 pm

"How about a compromise. Let them do what they want with sanitation, but they can only work on other Muslims. That will kill two birds with one stone. Hopefully.
"

Why?
What has a tiny 5-year old boy done to deserve to be treated by doctor wallowing in his own sh*t and bacteria, just because the boy was unfortunate enough to be born to Muslim parents?

14. Female Muslim medics 'disobey hygiene rules'

Comment #121422 by agn on February 3, 2008 at 11:33 am

vertigo25:

So, according to you, this story is FALSE?

Or is it nationalist and racist to say that Muslim medical students should follow the same rules of hygiene as every one else?

15. Female Muslim medics 'disobey hygiene rules'

Comment #121416 by agn on February 3, 2008 at 11:26 am

The moment they even uttered an objected a reluctance to perform a medically required action on basis of their "faith", they should be be thrown out of medical studies, with a report to all education institutions sent warning of the complete unsuitability of the person in the health services.

Religionists CAN be allowed to practice within health services, as long as their delusions do not interfere in their work. If it does, they are to be barred from practicing any form of medicine.

(Similar restrictions should, of course, hold for police officers, judges, military personell etc.)

16. U.S.: 'Demonic' militants sent women to bomb markets in Iraq

Comment #121366 by agn on February 3, 2008 at 9:53 am

Don't blame all of us Norwegians for the fault of the Bergen-dwellers.

Yes, they are vile, but they are protected by their mountains, so we have real difficulties getting in there and set things right.

Sorry..

17. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #121253 by agn on February 3, 2008 at 6:09 am

Thank you, Tack!

Read closely, it doesn't amount to much:

It merely says that the Senate overstepped its bounds in saying anything about a court decision (the "independence" of the court was violated)

This does not in any way represent the proper moral condemnation of the death sentence as such, nor can it be said to represent a withdrawal of support for the death sentence.

It is mere tactics in response to the international protests.

18. U.S.: 'Demonic' militants sent women to bomb markets in Iraq

Comment #120616 by agn on February 2, 2008 at 6:05 am

"My question is can it also not be argued that this action is very unIslamic in the same spirit?"

Yawn.

Ask yourself:
Who will win the debate?
The one who confines himself to peaceful "re-interpretations" of the Quran, or the Islamist willing to murder that interpreter?

Or more precisely:
Who will be left alive?

19. U.S.: 'Demonic' militants sent women to bomb markets in Iraq

Comment #120612 by agn on February 2, 2008 at 5:59 am

Why should we blame the Muslims this time?

I am convinced that this time, it was dastardly Shintoists who were behind the crime.

Why are all so eager to lay the blame on the poor, oppressed Muslims?

20. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #120606 by agn on February 2, 2008 at 5:48 am

Simply put:

A boy is not competent at answering whether he wishes to retain his foreskin or not until he has made good, repeated use of it, along with usage of the rest of his penis.

21. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #120595 by agn on February 2, 2008 at 5:11 am

"The Afghan senate has now withdrawn its support of the death penalty in this case and people in Kabul are demonstrating on behalf of the accused. Things seem to be moving in the right direction.
"

These are relieving tidings, indeed!
Hopefully, Mr. Pervez will soon be free, all charges against him dismissed, along with the issuing of a formal reprimand to the judges who condemned him in the first place. Proceeedings against them to throw them out of position on grounds of unsuitability should also be initiated.

Can you provide a link referring to these new developments?

22. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #120566 by agn on February 2, 2008 at 2:44 am

"(By the way, am I alone in thinking it quite funny that agn indirectly and apparently unknowingly compared his or herself to a Nazi war criminal when accusing the site moderators of the "Nuremberg fallacy"? That is the natural inference of that remark.)"

Eeh??

1. I never said the Nuremberg principle* was a fallacy. It is not.

(*That a henchman is not morally absolved because he acted under orders)

2. The REVERSE statement, however, that I chose to call the "reverse Nuremberg fallacy" is, indeed a fallacy:

The fallacy lies in assuming that only one person can have full moral responsibility for an action:

Even though the henchman, according to the Nuremberg principle, remains guilty of his action, that does NOT absolve his superiors of being guilty of the same crime the henchman also is guilty of (in contrast to the "r.N.f")

3. What this means is that every single member of the Afghan Senate, along with the religious judges are (or will in all likelihood become) PERSONALLY guilty of the cold, deliberate murder of Mr. Pervez.
They are murderers of the worst kind, self-righteous ones using others as their tools to implement their wicked ideas.

4. Furthermore, they are SELF-CONVICTED murderers.
In contrast to the vast majority of crimes, where we do not have direct, objective observations of the criminal act itself (but must sift through piles of evidence and witness reports), in this case, they have boldly announced their own crime to the world, and any lengthy judicial proceeeding is unnecessary to establish their personal guilt.

5. Insofar as one agrees with in principle that the death penalty is, at times, morally justified, these reprehensible crimes of judges and politicians certainly qualify for that.
And hence, to kill them is not indiscriminate "fascist" mass murder, but morally just acts of retaliation.

23. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119140 by agn on January 31, 2008 at 10:43 am

No, I don't. I press "submit" once, then wait, and those 3 darned messages have appeared. Yuck&puke, it makes me so angry all the time..

24. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119139 by agn on January 31, 2008 at 10:43 am

No, I don't. I press "submit" once, then wait, and those 3 darned messages have appeared. Yuck&puke, it makes me so angry all the time..

25. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119138 by agn on January 31, 2008 at 10:43 am

No, I don't. I press "submit" once, then wait, and those 3 darned messages have appeared. Yuck&puke, it makes me so angry all the time..

26. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119132 by agn on January 31, 2008 at 10:39 am

Because I sit on a computer that has signed it's own death warrant. I hate it! :-(

27. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119131 by agn on January 31, 2008 at 10:39 am

Because I sit on a computer that has signed it's own death warrant. I hate it! :-(

28. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119130 by agn on January 31, 2008 at 10:39 am

Because I sit on a computer that has signed it's own death warrant. I hate it! :-(

29. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119120 by agn on January 31, 2008 at 10:33 am

I register that the moderators on this forum have fallen prey to the "reverse Nuremberg" fallacy:

In the Nuremberg trials, the principle was upheld that the henchmen retained full moral responsibility for his actions even though he was ordered by others to perform them.

In the "reverse Nuremberg" fallacy, an unfortunately common error of thought, this is re-interpreted as "because the henchman retains moral responsibility, THEREFORE, the leader is absolved of that moral responsibility".

The fact of the matter is that the Senate members and judges voting for this man's execution remain murderers of him, in the fullest legal sense, if the sentence is carried out, by some henchman.

By voting for this innocent man's death, they have just signed their own death warrants.

30. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119094 by agn on January 31, 2008 at 10:12 am

'If you kill the fundamentalists, you will get 1000 more fundamentalists'.


Dhimmi talk and expressive of the "morality" of slaves.
Frightened to get hurt?

If you DO hit hard, you will scare off others.
Why do you think brutal dictatorships and slave states like the Roman Empire are so successful states?

Because its contemporary critics (for example the slaves, common men etc) have been terrorized into obedience.


The naive statement "that it only will get worse" does not take into account well-documented psychology.

Of course, desultory, inconsistent practices frightens no one, only enrages.
Again, by reading history, it was not the systematically vilest regimes that were toppled, but the UN-systematically vile ones (those that retained some shreds of decency, for example).

31. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119075 by agn on January 31, 2008 at 9:54 am

"So the issue then is, should outsiders force secularism or freedom of speech etc. on a people who do not want it?

"

Certainly.
They are to be regarded as morally incompetent, not fit to manage their own affairs, and hence, are to be forced into an educational process.

Furthermore, these Senate members and judges are all deep moral violators.
Being a violator means that you break your part of the moral bargain, and hence, that various of the obligations others had towards you have been annulled by your violation.

It is immoral to say we have precisely the same set of obligations towards violators as towards non-violators. (It is immoral, since we then tacitly acknowledge that the violator has a higher moral worth than the non-violator, since he is entitled to engage in acts forbidden for others to engage in while still having the right to be treated in the same manner as them. )



If the only way to stop cold, deliberate murderers from committing murders is to kill them (for example because it is too costly to put them in jail (why should we be obliged to pay for their continued existence?)), then that is the morally just cause of action.

32. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #118772 by agn on January 31, 2008 at 12:51 am

Execute the criminal perverts of the Afghan Senate and the religious judges.

Every single one them.

If leaders of Muslim countries are to remain criminal and vile, they are to be killed outright, and we have every moral justification to cleanse this planet of such vermin.

33. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116969 by agn on January 27, 2008 at 11:31 pm

"My point is that Mango provided two studies that make at least some claim that there are health benefits to the procedure."

1. These health benefits are higly controversial, and marginal at best.

2. People, who (mistakenly, in my view) circumcise their child out of HEALTH considerations are clearly in a different moral class than those doing it as a cultural/religious act.
The former may be moral people, the latter are immoral people.


"Secondly, that although the circumcision procedure on a baby undoubtedly hurts -- so do vaccinations -- we do not consider those to be child abuse."

Wherever has anybody said that just because some act might be painful, then it must be immoral??
Certainly not me.

Nor is the use of force necessarily wrong, but it requires a defense.

The proper view is that insofar an act of force is to be morally legitimate, then the strength of its defense must be co-varying with the expected pain inflicted by that act.

This does a priori not mean it is never allowable to inflict excruciating pain on somebody else through an act of force, but that you have to have a damn strong defense for committing that act.

Showing obeisance to some sky-daddy does not constitute a strong defence.

34. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116775 by agn on January 27, 2008 at 11:24 am

Meaning what, exactly?

What was the point about your two last troll comments?

35. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116763 by agn on January 27, 2008 at 10:59 am

Crown-idiot's reply:
"That's right Mango and you should be ashamed if you have your baby vaccinated as well. Those needles hurt! Children can/do not consent to be inoculated - it is clearly child abuse. "



What foolishness and buffoonery.

Having a vaccine is a MEDICAL procedure intended to safe-guard a person's health.

Go crap somewhere else.

36. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116750 by agn on January 27, 2008 at 10:36 am

Mango:

Do you agree that if someone forcibly gives another a haircut he doesn't want, then that is morally WRONG, even though the damage is reparable, and no other pain is inflicted than the one resulting from the victim's resistance to the haircut?

Do you think parents should have complete license as to how their child's haircut should be, and that the child's consent is immaterial?

37. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116478 by agn on January 26, 2008 at 3:15 pm

"Doesn't make circumcision equivalent to marital rape either. Pick your battles that's all.
"

I have unlimited capacity for belligerence.

38. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116468 by agn on January 26, 2008 at 3:05 pm

" I don't consider this a horrible mutilation. I don't think I'd be signing up for it at twelve; But it is not equivalent to FGM anymore than a male's contribution to creating a child is equivalent to a female's. "

Neither is marital rape equivalent to molesting and murdering a 5-year old.

That doesn't make marital rape okayish.

39. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116443 by agn on January 26, 2008 at 1:50 pm

Suppose a sect in Hammerfest, Norway, formed worshipping the Sun (it being gone for about 3 months a year, quite understandable), and wanted to show their allegiance as "Children of the Fire" by branding themselves and their children with a wavy fire symbol, say on the forehead or shoulder.

The pain would be intense, but short-lived, and the procedure would produce no significant loss of functionality.


Still, it would be a public outcry over the branding procedure and that it would be deeply immoral to inflict that type of injury on a defenceless infant.

These are the grotesque types of scenarios circumcision rituals should be compared with.

40. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116423 by agn on January 26, 2008 at 1:06 pm

From Mango:
"The two procedures share the name "circumcision" but are in many salient respects different, and reasonable people acknowledge this when they have their male child circumcised yet speak out vociferously against female circumcision."

They are being inconsistent in their attitudes.
That is hardly a novel feature, particularly among religionists.

In particular, appealing to the inconsistency in parents' attitudes is a rather weak argument in the favour of male circumcision.

41. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116373 by agn on January 26, 2008 at 10:51 am

Mango's examples of what is generally called "corrective procedures" is, indeed, interesting, but fails short of being valid analogies.

Similar examples would include:
Some infants are born with tails or webbed fingers.
These "anomalies" are routinely removed.
Similarly, on rare occasions, infants are born with "ambiguous" genitals, like hermaphrodites, but there is also known examples of boys born with two penes.

Again, in modern societies, such "abnormalities" are sought corrected.

The question is:
Why would these examples fall in a morally distinct class than the example of removing the foreskin from a baby?


The answer is that kids are not nice to each other, and certainly not towards those who can be considered "freaks".
If any of these tiny, corrective procedures were NOT done, these rare individuals would still be very rare, and expectably suffer under the vicious taunts of others. It is not moral not to regard this as a morally relevant issue; in particular, we shouldn't go about assuming people do not mistreat others on basis of their physical looks.

The removal of foreskin example, however, is totally different:
As soon as an immediate ban on the removal of foreskins was in place, ALL boys would look the same, in complete contrast to what would happen if we decided not to make corrective procedures with respect to rare, physical anomalies as the ones mentioned.



On socio-medical ethical grounds, then, whereas corrective procedures CAN be defended with respect to rare anomalies, those grounds do not hold with respect to the practice of circumcision, whether male or female.

42. Ore. Court: Boy Has Say in Circumcision

Comment #116341 by agn on January 26, 2008 at 9:10 am

The father should be prosecuted for maliciously intending to engage in child abuse.
Insofar as the boy "agrees" to circumcision, he is to be regarded incompetent at deciding what is best for him, and the victim of indoctrination and brainwashing.

43. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111671 by agn on January 15, 2008 at 11:56 am

On the purely private level, it can be argued for that what is rational is that strategy that produces the most "happiness".

Happiness is an emotion, and have many sources and shapes.

Insofar as emotions are malleable and cultivable, then it would be rational to cultivate such interests and emotional make-up such that those strategies sought to maximize the amount of happiness resulting are solid, predictably effective strategies.

It by no means follows that strategies related to material things buyable with money are the ones that will maximize happiness, and hence, it is not necessarily rational to seek to maximize your pecuniary power.

And thus, Shermer's "argument" falls apart as the aynrandian nonsense it is.

44. Why people believe weird things about money

Comment #111235 by agn on January 14, 2008 at 5:33 am

Ayrandian nonsense about what constitutes "rational" valuations and "irrational" valuations.

45. Blind Faiths

Comment #109921 by agn on January 10, 2008 at 4:09 am

"I'm saying that mediaeval Islam is the equivalent of modern Christianity — and vice versa."

Utter nonsense.
There were LOTS of massacres of Jews and Christians in medieval Islam.
Are there lots of massacres of Muslims in modern Christianity?

Furthermore, the dhimmi status of Jews and Christians was a strongly discriminatory policy, in which Christians and Jews were subject to many legal constraints, for example the inadmissibility of their evidence against any Muslim in a court of law.

Can Muslims testify against a Christian in a modern court of law in a Christian country?

46. Blind Faiths

Comment #109623 by agn on January 9, 2008 at 9:32 am

"Ring a bell or two, perhaps?"

You mean people tend to migrate to places where they think their chances of a better life are highest"

Meaning that the Crusader States had a superior culture than the surrounding Islamic countries, as seen relative from the perspective of the ordinary Muslim.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have bothered migrating in the first place.

47. Blind Faiths

Comment #109620 by agn on January 9, 2008 at 9:29 am

I assume there were lots of "defensive connotations" with the Muslim expansion over the Near East, Northern Africa and Spain as well..

48. Blind Faiths

Comment #109491 by agn on January 9, 2008 at 6:10 am

Christian "heartland"??
In the period from the 7th century and onwards to the time of the crusades, Muslims overran about 2/3 of what had previously been Christian countries.

49. Blind Faiths

Comment #109458 by agn on January 9, 2008 at 5:13 am

As for the Crusades:

The Crusader States, founded by Christians practiced equality before the law.

Muslims emigrated to them, because they found better economic opportunities there.

Ring a bell or two, perhaps?

50. Blind Faiths

Comment #109457 by agn on January 9, 2008 at 5:13 am

As for the Crusades:

The Crusader States, founded by Christians practiced equality before the law.

Muslims emigrated to them, because they found better economic opportunities there.

Ring a bell or two, perhaps?