1. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144513 by Spin-oza on March 16, 2008 at 9:12 am

FROM Jemy M posted earlier and worth repeating:

"Why did the bible survive for 2000 years? It was introduced 393, the birth of Jesus was decided 531. Throughout 500 years pagans were slain and tortured in the most gruesome ways. It took an extra 700 years until the society had evolved into a state in which you did not risk the death penalty for doubting and another 2-300 years before you were guaranteed your freedom even if you started to question the authority of church. We are now living here after more than a thousand years of indoctrination and the threat of death to the ones who would not support it. Only during the 1900, as soon as people started to use their legal right to question the bible, it's number of followers started to fall like a rock and it will continue to fall until it's either gone or it's again illegal to criticize it."

I commented a few hours ago... but apparently it has evaporated into cyberspace and it does not appear... OR was met with (ugly) censorship.

I had made the point that Dr. Dawkins was lobbed a "softball" by the ignoramus that ranted about "no transitional forms" and (passsively) let that stooge bluster and control the airwaves. Sad, since this is Dr. Dawkin's firm area of expertise... and he only and barely audibly, as an afterthought, mention TIKTAALIK, mumbling it was a fish to amphibian transitional form when pressed by Alan Comes.

SHEESH... I would have RD would have seized this opportunity by the proverbial horns and silenced the buffoon with a exhuasting and detailed list of elegant transitionals, including the human-family-shrub, and would have simultaneously educated and enlightend those listening.

Finally, BOBZAI questioned whether it was "patronizing" or demeaning to ascribe relgious beliefs to "childhood indoctrination". I think the evidence for this is unassailable. Additionally, it is our duty as reason-based to point out the UNreasonableness of the social implications of the faith-based, believing in that which is not only UNsupported by reason and the Nature of the Universe revealed by science, but contradicts them both while standing reason on its head. IT is the "900 lb Gorilla" standing in the room of our 21st century (stalled) society. By pointing to the origins of such delusional thinking, it puts the "ball" of reason and reality in their "court"... how the religious respond is beyond our control. However, as we know, most atheists were indoctrinated into one faith-dogma or another, with all the trappings and institutionalized rituals... and at some point, reason overcame the COGNITIVE DISSONANCE we had been harboring and we embraced the Natural light.

AS FOR childhood indoctrination, RGI put it pretty well...

Robert Green Ingersoll: "Why I am an Agnostic"; 1896.

"If we had been born in Constantinople, the most of us would have said: "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet." If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana."

CHEERS!

2. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144378 by Spin-oza on March 15, 2008 at 9:17 pm

JUST a FOOTNOTE to my previous "critique" of our beloved Dr. Dawkins...

One of the callers mentioned a "soul" and although I think Richard made a reasonable case on a the adolescent notion of afterlife that the religious among us are staking their wished-for DEMIGOD musings... I thought fell rather flatly on science having utterly dismissed similar soul-based delusions.

Like intercessory prayer, there is not a shred of evidence supporting of a supernatural soul SUPERvening by some unknown means, on our physical brains... some ethereal, supernatural, uncaused "free-willing" agent. Neuroscience has slain this dragon of ignorance... persisting, like the notion of "the gods" being responsible for natural disasters.

On the one hand he did speak of the complexity of the evolved (human) mind and the "emergence" of consciousness in an evolutionary sense... but dropped the ball when he (wrongly) implied that "no one understands consciousness". In fact, we understand quite it quite a bit... and the otherwise missing god of creation can no longer take refuge in the erstwhile "knowledge gaps" of the neurochemical basis of our physical brains, as an amorphous, immaterial, immortal soul.

Again, RD did reasonably well confronting our mortality, which of course makeS the faith-based sqirm. HOWEVER, none have said it better than the great Athenian philosopher EPICURUS:

"DEATH IS NOTHING TO US, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not."

CHEERS!

3. Richard Dawkins on The Alan Colmes Show

Comment #144372 by Spin-oza on March 15, 2008 at 7:53 pm

A FEW comments on Dr. Dawkins fielding questions from the obviously untutored, rude and irrational callers:

First of all, he is FAR TOO SUBTLE ... and will never rattle any of them (or more importantly the listeners who may have doubt and are strandling the fence between the faith of their childhood and reason) out of their stuporous complacency. This is a format in which I far prefer the pugnacious clarity of Christopher Hitchens.

WHEN the woman who ranted about being offended and she prays weekly with highly educated doctors, lawyers (er... she's jewish of course... not pentacostal!)... Dawkins really let her off the hook. HE COULD have been calm, assertive and highly objective by merely pointing out, for example that elite scientists almost uniformly do NOT believe in a personal god who intervenes capriciously in the Natural Universe. Further, he should have pointed out there is not a single shred of evidence that any prayers to any god, christian or otherwise, have ever been answered and tons of evidence that they have never been!

Also when I hear that "educated people believe in god" foolishness, I point to the fact that humans have evolved especially well to deal with COGNITIVE DISSONANCE... and hence go to great lengths to defend the (bogus) beliefs that they hold dearly (in the face of clearly conflicting factual data) and were indoctrinated with since early childhood.

I also wish he was more emphatic on the myth of an HISTORICAL jesus, aka god-man roaming our planet 2000 years ago conveniently at the time when persecuted jewish desert tribes were desparate for a messiah. RD would be wise to give the example of an unimpeachable source on this matter, ALBERT SCWEITZER, whose decade long QUEST he judged as pointless. He could have used the EVIDENCE from the JESUS SEMINARS that, at most, the bible could represent a mere 18% of what an historical figure MAY have uttered... and the fact that scholars are even abandoning that assumption in yet a 5th historical quest which may, in light of modern scholarship, put the historical jesus to bed once and for all. I think its called the JESUS PROJECT and will take 3 years.

4. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #136299 by Spin-oza on February 29, 2008 at 8:18 pm

"Dr. Dawkins seemed to mess things up when the host mentioned that so many people believing that the world is only 6000 years old is a flaw of the educational system. It is NOT a flaw of the education system. It is a result of religious indoctrination... "

Well 'Strummundrang'... both you & Dr. Dawkins are correct. Having lived in the Southern U.S. (aka Bible-Belt) for most of my adult life and having had direct observations of the (lame) educational system during the primary grades, religion and what passes for "science" education are regularly and shamelessly conflated... leaving the poor children duped. Often, the faith-based, 'christian' science teachers assert god as brute fact to cover any and all difficult concepts that inevitably emerge in science to soothe and comfort the church-going youngsters. Remember, in the good 'ol boy South, they learn as much math, science and evolution as they do Russian or Czech. However, if you want to talk guns, bass fishin' or Nascar, they are fairly 'well-schooled'.

I thought R.D. did rather well given the format and the rather crude assertions of many of the callers. Even though Richard must have heard the "atheism made them do it" ruse a zillion times regarding Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot, I think he should have done a much, much better job in slaying that non-sequitur than the 'mustache' analogy, which only plays well with those who already know the absurdity of such a vacuous argument. Similarly, regarding the harms of religion, Christopher Hitchens would have sunk his teeth into that bone (of contention) and gnawed like a Pit Bull... while Dawkins simply repeated "the crusades, the Inquisitions and 911".

Anyway... I am confident R.D.'s talk at the Student Union will be far less disjointed and cogent... and thus, more eloquoent and persuasive.

Cheers.

5. New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory: Evolution Not Random

Comment #117684 by Spin-oza on January 29, 2008 at 11:28 am

BIZARRO... studying vulvar development among Nematodes... sheesh!

But seriously... or more accurately, philosophically, as an utter Determinist, it is a nice result to have the uniform direction of genetic variation during evolution so neatly confirmed.

Randomness has no place to hide in our causal Cosmos... but then again, neither does a soul-based, free-willing, ethereal moral agent, eh?

6. Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up

Comment #117670 by Spin-oza on January 29, 2008 at 10:51 am

If anyone is interested, there is a very good interview of Poulos by D.J. Grothe on Point of Inquiry... which I assume many are familiar who post on this site:

http://www.pointofinquiry.org/

I found him enjoyable and entertaining.


I wonder why physicist Victor Stenger's book is not receiving much attention on this site? Anyone have any opinions on Stenger's scientific dismal of the "FAILED HYPOTHESIS" (aka god) and the lack of press?

7. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #117599 by Spin-oza on January 29, 2008 at 7:58 am

Watched the entire "debate"... but was somewhat dissapointed in Harris's apparent lethargy and letting the blow-hard Rabbi "pontificate" his bogus, personal musings. Also, the proposed subject, "does god exist" was not really addressed in any meaningful dialogue.

There was a breathtaking disconnect between the Rabbi's ultra personal "knowledge" regarding an "invisibile creator" as his basis for "belief" and the jewish faith with all of it's inculcated rituals, observances, traditions, and tortured rationalizations & minutia based on the Talmud and Torah. Harris never picked this proverbial "hanging fruit", but merely referenced accepted "propositions", inherent in all religions.

Harris was also lame on pinning this blow-hard Rabbi down on exactly the nature of the god-in-his-mind... and whether he communicates with him via prayer. Whenever this is done, the absurdity of such private wishful thinking is exposed... and requires little further comment.

Harris did rightly brush aside the bogus "atheism made them do it" ruse when the Rabbi kept hammering that societies are much better off with MORE religions, and cited the usual suspects of Stalin, Hitler, Pot & Mau. However, he weakly made the case, based on the very erudite research of Gregory S. Paul, that on every measure of societal health, secular ones are far superior to overtly religious ones. Indeed, a strong case should have been made that as religious influence increases, societal problems worsen. Harris also did a rather poor job of educating the audience on the overwhelming religious nature of the Germans during WWII and the catholocism and aryan chritianity endemic within the Nazi inner circle.

Harris again failed when the Rabbi alleged categorically that individuals are far better off with more (v. less) religion. Is Harris unaware of the myriad statistics of personal and societal failure in the Bible-Belt versus more secular area of the U.S. If one desires to excell in lack of education, incarceration, addiction, divorce, obesity, gonorrhea... etc., by all means, get more religion and southern-fried culture!

However, my greatest dissappointment with Harris is that he did not take on directly the absurdity of a "freewilling soul" supervening somehow on our physical brains... and the related subject of supernatural evil. This for me was inexcusable. Harris merely reference the "mind-body" problem in a sheepish manner. From the scientific perspective he claims to represent, he should be all-over such childish, indefensible notions. What a missed opportunity to expose not only soul-based fiction, but an imagined omnibenevolent god in a world rife with "evil". The god of the bible only gets a "free pass" on the fact that a lot of "shit happens" because 1. humans supposedly have unfettered (contra-causal) "free will" and improbably "choose to do bad" 2. there conveniently is another, lesser god that is omni-evil, the "devil". The whole cartoonish charade of dueling supernatural entities for souls of frail humans could have been laid bare.

Sorry for the length of the post... Cheers!

8. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #111782 by Spin-oza on January 15, 2008 at 6:16 pm

SIX REASONS... how silly!

I would merely suggest that it is the sum total of our experience in the Natural world... combined with the light of reason that makes it imminently clear that NO supernatural entity described in ANY religion exists.

I would say the proverbial "hand of god" to be so exquisitely light, as to not have left a trace.

However, the real nub of the issue is the bogus notion of supernatural evil: unbounded malciousness with some utterly perverse, self-serving, destructive agenda. A bizarro and cartoonish notion to say the least, but it is one of the major engines driving the insanity of religion and their god-constructs and god-men "saviors". Christianity (which precarious rests of a jesus character with absolutely NO basis in history... ask the unimpeachable Albert Shweitzer) utterly collapses if supernatural evil is slain... and slain it has been.

Simply stated, there is no contra-causal free will (FW). In all our aspects, we are fully caused, causal-agents... and neurobioloby has left no room for an ethereal, "free-willing" soul to hide in our erstwhile physical brains. We cannot in any way be the "cause of ourselves"... nor can we be "ultimately" responsible for the very persons we have turned out to be... as if we could been otherwise or someone else.

Similarly, making god the prime mover or First Cause only adds an unknown and unnecessary layer to the connundrum of the Singularity... and is a big fat target for Occams' razor. Even if there were such an unimaginably complex entity beyond the Natural world, it would be 1.unknowable and 2. have absolutely no relationship to the god/jesus musings of bronze-age jewish desert tribes, eh?

9. 'Letter to a Christian Nation' now available in paperback

Comment #111742 by Spin-oza on January 15, 2008 at 4:26 pm

BLUEBIRD... yupper skippy... totally predictable and Harris data adds to the proverbial mountain o' neuro-biological evidence that our physical brains totally instantiate our "minds"... which, BTW, makes none of it any less astonishing... only grounds consciousness in reality of the brute fact that we are amazing products of Nature... a part of, not (as the faith-based would have us believe) a part from, Nature.

I am reminded of the so-called "god gene" and the "god machine" which electro-magnetically stimulates the temporal-lobe preferencial resulting in many cases, in "profound religious experiece"... much like LSD, mescaline, psilocibin, and other hallucinogens.

BTW "BlueBird" your avatar is quite fetching...

10. Bible Belter

Comment #111739 by Spin-oza on January 15, 2008 at 4:11 pm

Having recently escaped the odious "bible belt" with it's pervasive pop-jesus-culture invading every niche of "southern livin'"... I am both pleased and surprised that the good Mr. Dawkins holds out as much hope for pulling back the curtain on the bible-inculcated Wizard of Oz.

The vast majority, at least in the less urban settings, are uniformly delusional and effortlessly use bible-speak throughout the day. Even the so-called science teachers in grade schools (my wife was a substitute teacher and overheard more than I wish to recount here) routinely invoked bible-sky-god to explain natural phenomena.

I enjoy Hitchens and he brings a rapier wit to counter the predictably stupifying arguments of the apologists... and although I was already quite familiar with most his lines of reasoning as regarding the corrosiveness of religion... the following was such a simple one, yet I had yet to add it to my thought vocabulary.

"A pair of chapters explores "The Tawdriness of the Miraculous" and the widespread fallacy that we derive our morals from religious rules such as the Ten Commandments. As Hitchens witheringly puts it, does anybody seriously think that, before Moses delivered the tablet inscription "Thou shalt not kill", his people had thought it a good idea to do so?"

LOL! The closest I have come to using this is when I am "discussing" the Constitutional right of privacy and abortion with self-righteous "pro-lifers"... as if the rest of us who support personal autonomy, bodily integrity and freedom from the heavy hand of The State were "pro-death".

Anyway, I really think that the "bible-belters" (who really do believe in "whompin'up" on their kids) merely find Hitchen's work a curiosity... something their authoritarian preachers will sort out for them... spoon-feeding "appropriate" talking points, then dismissing the "heresy".

Their churches are their social-clubs... the hubs of the towns... and they would no more give up their jesus-based identities than turn in their kinfolk to "the law".

11. Why Christopher Hitchens is not Great

Comment #111695 by Spin-oza on January 15, 2008 at 1:07 pm

Speaking of "breasts"... one of my favorite querries to the faith-based, who are now couching creationism in the new clothes of ID is "Tell me, since man was designed by the perfect creator god in your bible... exactly why do men have teats & about 1:700 get breast cancer?"

From there... while they are fumbling for any sort of response... it is but a short hop to all other vestigial structures (e.g."wisdom teeth", appendix, body hair with erector pilli, etc) and embryological (ontogeny) traces of our evolutionary past (e.g. tails/coccyx... pharyngeal clefts, etc)

Cheers.

12. Why Christopher Hitchens is not Great

Comment #111690 by Spin-oza on January 15, 2008 at 12:57 pm

"The single form of research many object to is embryonic stem cells in which the LIFE OF A CHILD is taken for no more of a reason than to experiment upon it."

Sorry... I meant to comment on this single quote from Mr. McCullough's sophistical piece, which speaks volumes. First off, he earlier baldly asserts that the "the majority of christians" support "the overwhelming majority of stem cell research". What drug is he taking? Is he blind to the fact that every and all roadblocks to stem-cell research have come from the skeptical-of-science crowd, aka evangelical christians?

The reason the faith-based are opposed to EMBRYONIC stem-cell research, which indeed is the most promising if left unfettered, is found in the absurd quote above: they conflate a non-sentient embryo with "the life of a child".

This breath-takingly false analogy is also at the heart of the abortion debate, where evangelicals wish to continue to oppress women: keeping them slaves to their reproductive biology and trumping their personal autonomy, right to privacy and bodily integrity, at the altar of the almighty embryo-fetus.

No Mr. McCullouugh, embryos are NOT "micro-children", embued with all the rights of The State. In fact, they embody NO aspects of "personhood"... none. They have way more in common with other mammalian embryos... but I do not hear you strongly arguing for animal rights, eh? I would bet many, many dollars you would be unable to distinguish a human embryo from that of a pig's!

I guess your god and his uber-self jesus just had a lapse of sorts when they were handing down "the word" since they failed to make it divinely clear that abortion was a "no-no". Hmmm... not a word about it. Further, in the "intelligent design" of the human animal, embryo-fetuses are wasted at about a 20% clip in the very basic, profound act of human reproduction. More "killing of the innocents"... by the "hand of god"?

Sheesh!

13. Why Christopher Hitchens is not Great

Comment #111672 by Spin-oza on January 15, 2008 at 12:12 pm

Mr. McCullogh's critique of Hitchens is beyond lame and pithy... and wholly lacking in substance. While Hitchens has his foibles... and was mistaken in his vocal support of the Iraq Invasion, he is "spot on" in his analysis of why it is patently obvious that the "god" construct of monotheistic delusions is odious and indeed... a "root of all evil".

On balance, the authority of the varied religions... especially the roman cathlolic church, has been destructive and divisive. The long march of human misery throughout history, much due to the "christian" church and it's cadre of lemming-believers in lockstep, is a tragic cautionary tale to any freethinker. Merely reflect for a moment on the rivers of bloodshed and bigotry... the genocide... the terror... from all the pogroms, inquisitions... the virtual extermination of the Cathars under pope "innocent" ... the heretic-branding tortures and burnings-at-the-stake, etc. held under the aegis and approval of the "holy church". The notorious "concordat" with the nazis is evidence enough of the rank hypocrisy and utter impotence of "christ's vicar" on earth. Missionaries have committed more acts against humanity than many other groups, blithely engaged in winning "souls for christ" while eviscerating their native cultures and beliefs. I won't even bother with the pedophilic priesthood and the blatant, pandering hypocrites of televangelical pop-christianity infecting the U.S. and their ubiquitious, glitzy mega-churches, like a proverbial plague.

Hitches has it right... and since the evangelicals in this country are no longer content with merely having quirky "personal beliefs" regarding a supernatural creator, holy-ghost and god-man who briefly roamed planet earth about 2000 years ago, and wish to co-opt our political life, public education and corrupt science, we can no longer be silent.

Cheers!