1. Q&A with Richard Dawkins after lecture at UC Berkeley

Comment #233930 by Pathfinder on August 20, 2008 at 3:28 pm

Whilst I would agree isnthatclear's posts are an affirmation of incompetence pushed to the level of dogma I still have problems with her/his comments being moved to the "alternate" (ie, imbeciles) thread. Play fair, atheists doomed to hellfire!

2. Richard Dawkins replies to Libby Purves

Comment #233920 by Pathfinder on August 20, 2008 at 3:04 pm

Thank you for the response to my (very) sporadic posts. I am still, however, a little disappointed this "clear-thinking oasis" practises censorship. Mr Robertson's posts are not the only example, are they? And if they are so objectionable, why not allow them to stand? I would have thought that unless they are racist/sexist they would have been approved by the moderator. Yes, Clearthinker is provocative. So what? Is he insulting, malicious, malevolent? ( I seem to recall I was accused once of penning "malevolent rubbish"); this being the case, I think you should allow his comments to stand. After all, the more objectionable his statements, the more it will adversely reflect on HIM, isn't that so? Or would be, in a rational world. Sometimes I fear Dawkinsnet is as irrational as radicalmuslimnet or www.bombeyerakkisintostoneage,net.

As a self-styled "sceptical Christian" (ie, a believer intensely dubious of all organised religion), your posts, isntthatclear, are revelatory, but probably not in the way you intend. It is a long while since I have seen such a depth of ignorance of science, literature, grammar and simple common sense.

3. Richard Dawkins replies to Libby Purves

Comment #231056 by Pathfinder on August 15, 2008 at 4:50 pm

I'm a bit confused: why have Clearthinker's earlier comments been censored? Are they really that offensive and provocative? I can understand why atheists find Mr Robertson annoying, but surely if his arguments are not those of a total moron (and they are not) they are deserving of some respect?

Anyway, interesting series. I often find Dawkins is better at knocking down than proselytising, but that's just me. Isnthatclear: are you barely literate, or what? It is acutely painful to watch Christians tie themselves in knots over evolution, an obvious fact. It seems to boil down to any tiny, perceived gap: "irreducible complexity", "punctutated equilibrium" - the last-ditch effort of tenth-rate minds.

Somehow, Prince-of-the-Winds, I can't see Professor Dawkins taking up your inane challenge.
Evolution "refuted in all spheres"? Really? Francis Collins, I suppose. Hmmmm.... I would have expected, by now, to have heard of quite a few Nobel prizewinners having published accredited, peer-reviewed papers on these "refutations". Do tell.

4. Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Comment #191298 by Pathfinder on June 10, 2008 at 2:14 pm

Logical proofs... Bible... probability... must exist... incontrovertble mathematical constants....God must exist. Yomin Postelnik contends God must exist because of statistics. Maybe he/she is right.( I think it's "he".) I hear a lot of pseudo-scientific proof from fellow Christians, but I never SEE any. Why?

There's the 747 argument, the fact that all constants are so fine-tuned to make the possibility of random, accidental, chance, springing-into-existence of Life incredibly, impossibly remote, yet we're here, amongst living things, and I see precious little evidence of God apart from my own convictions and visceral response to inexplicable phenomena. Why is that? Free will? Maybe. But i have to say I find the dogmatism of the God-avowers as tiresome as the God-deniers, perhaps even more so.

Yes, I'd like God proved in the lab. " Barely scratches the truth of the Bible... Torah... " Who are we supposed to believe? Should I become a Hasidic Jew, a Muslim, a Bahaiist? Are they all right? When these pseudo-scientific articles plump for ONE over all, then I might take them seriously. Otherwise, no.

5. Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art

Comment #191285 by Pathfinder on June 10, 2008 at 1:53 pm

Who is this Ravenhill? What are his credentials? What does he know of western or eastern art? In painting, by the time we get to the Impressionists (thanks to the invention of the photograph) in western art the emphasis was on fleeting impressions, anything the new-fangled technology wouldn't or couldn't do. Japanese wood-block printing, with its intense stylization, offered another view of the world. In music Wagner's destruction of the old tonal hierarchy also played a part. The history of the arts, as of the sciences, is so much more complex than this coffee-table imbecility. In fact, it could be argued, persuasively, that the advance in art in the 20th century had just as much, if not more, to do with the "Death of God", pace Nietzsche and the advance in technology, than with anything else. The writer of this egregious rubbish badly needs a lesson in art history.

6. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #191272 by Pathfinder on June 10, 2008 at 1:35 pm

txpiper: obviously a fan of ID. As a fellow Christian, could you kindly tell me what FORM your God is likely to take? Will He/She/It be a tripartite God, will God's representitive on Earth be the conduit for us poor mortals, or do we find our own way to the Godhead? Please enlighten us.

Once you have clarified this complicted matter, just out of interest, would you also enlighten us to where the likes of Behe have been misunderstood, their words distorted, twisted and rendered irrelevant by the evil atheists? Just to set me on the right path, don't you know... Before my user name changes from 'Pathfinder' to 'Lucifer'. Non serviam... in the interests of clear thinking and against deliberate obfuscation of science, rationality and human decency.

Basalt coloumns on Giant's Causeway evidence of God! Say no more, before I start inscribing five-star pentacles on the side of my house!

7. Trailer for Religulous

Comment #191254 by Pathfinder on June 10, 2008 at 1:14 pm

Only God or the Devil can rule the world, the latter with considerably more success.

8. Trailer for Religulous

Comment #191247 by Pathfinder on June 10, 2008 at 1:07 pm

Volguus Zildrohar: does your name mean anything?

I'm a Christian (although a pretty disillusioned one) and personally I find Hitchens hard to take, especially on Iraq. Mind you, whilst admiring Bill Maher's comedy, what does it say about his taste, that he slept with an arch-conservative bottle-blonde hag, with all the charm of Sid Vicious on heroin, and the sex appeal of a roadkill?

9. Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art

Comment #191232 by Pathfinder on June 10, 2008 at 12:39 pm

Idiotic, banal article, full of simplistic nonsense.

Hasn't Dawkins said he is a "cultural Christian"? As a Christian increasingly irritated, annoyed and just pissed off with the intransigence of some of my fellow believers, I just wish people would be better informed before jumping to conclusions. No one, not even the most die-hard atheist, would deny the rich scientific and cultural benefits given by the Church to progress in all intellectual fields, as well as the obverse. (Religious persecution, cruelty, ignorance and desire to keep the people stupid.) In any case, looking at the argument GREAT ART is only possible IF YOU ARE DEVOUT - it is full of exceptions, from Michelangelo throwing planks of wood at the Pope, to Beethoven and Wagner, who were more pantheists than theists.

Apologies to any last week about getting back the following day. Work has made this impossible. I'll be lucky if I get to contibute to this fascinating website once a week. Sorry again about the miscalculation.

10. The Expelled Evolutionist

Comment #189176 by Pathfinder on June 5, 2008 at 4:19 pm

Steve Zara:regarding your "return" - couldn't have put it better myself!

You seem to think I have some kind of divinely-inspired (Christian pathology, in your view) plan to deliberately confound and frustrate you. Please do me the favor of reading a little more closely and to avoid putting words into my mouth. I do NOT make any claims about reality that has gone on "uncorroborated... in my own mind". My approach to God could best be described as TENTATIVE, as my last post (March/April?) must have made abundantly clear! Had you not, of course, been so fervidly, rabidly enthusiastic about rooting out a supposed theist you might conceivably have noticed that.

My God is, unconditionally, indubitably, a "God of the gaps". That means I am proceeding from a position of RELATIVE unknowability. Personally, I distrust your adamatine certainty there IS NO GOD. Just as I distrust those on "my side" who insist THERE IS A GOD.

I was brought up an Episcopalian and I still adhere to the spirit, if not always the letter, of that creed. The question as to whether had I been a Delaney or O'Connell in Boston and brought up a Catholic, or a Faisal Darweesh from Afula,
Palestine, brought up a Muslim, etc, still remains. I've no doubt I would stay within those respective faiths, had I been born into them. Why not Allah, why not Marduk, why not Moroni, you ask?

The reason is... actually I think I'll be a bit sadistic and let you hang there! Manana.

11. The Expelled Evolutionist

Comment #189167 by Pathfinder on June 5, 2008 at 3:36 pm

Ricey and Corylus: Thanks for your response. A couple of corrections, however. Ricey: did you not read what I wrote? Of course the existence of God cannot be proved! I am aware this is insufficient evidence from a scientific standpoint: no falsifiability, no control experiments, no peer-reviewed papers, no (or not much) competing hypotheses apart from the blindingly obvious... And could I hit on the head that old canard about being a Christian, et ergo,
being an ID/Creationist? I despise the ID movement,being, in my view, both mendacious and ill-informed. Whilst I might respect someone like Francis Collins for equivocating on the matter of probability and fine-tuning, I cannot but despise the Behes of this world!

Ricey, you say evidence. I have been on this website before and had my evidence trashed. OK: it was "witness" and what you'd call "hearsay" testimony. From your point of view I'd guess "inadmissible". I understand the "rules of the game", so to speak. What I am really interested in, is dialogue. Unlike Steve Zara, I do not believe a religious and a scientific view of the world are mutually exclusive. I do not say, either, that they are interchangeable, like Rosencrantz and Gildernstern. I'm just... aw, it's up to you if you want to engage. I'm to bed.

12. Storm erupts over 'virginity' divorce

Comment #189163 by Pathfinder on June 5, 2008 at 3:19 pm

Al-Rawandi: Thanks for the insight. I'll be sure to Google the name.

Just on point of interest I have quite a lot of Albanian friends, all of whom you could describe as "secular" in that they drink, do not observe Ramadan or the Eid (one, amazingly, is a vegetarian!) and live much as we do. This, of course, may have had a lot to do with emerging from the shadow of Enver Hoxta, who more or less cut the country off from the rest of the world for several decades. The Berisha 'Pyramid Scam' just facilitated matters.

Turkey is another matter entirely. I find the country deeply schizophrenic, caught between an ossified nationalistic Attaturk-worship and a growing Islamism, especially, as I said, the further towards the Syrian/ Iranian etc lands you go.

13. The Expelled Evolutionist

Comment #189157 by Pathfinder on June 5, 2008 at 3:02 pm

I'm confused: I've got one person (Steve Zara) saying there is no overlap with science (with which I BROADLY agree) and another saying I am in favour or concur with the idea of an interventionist God. Can i have some consistency here?

Let's deal with Steve Zara first. He says with sublime confidence God "cannot stand on its own terms", LET ALONE against science. Whose terms are we talking about? Who decides? Empirical, weighed-up evidence? Has God been conclusively disproved? No. Neither, in Popperian terms, has He/She/It been falsified. I think, in view of your Guru Dawkins saying the existence of God being "highly improbable" (not "impossible", note), you should not rush to judgement. Isn't this what scientists are supposed to do? But then atheists are REALLY frustrated Christians, just as they used to say existentialism was curdled romanticism.

What's the betting on Steve Zara and Robotowhatisname being lapsed Christians? I can smell it from here! Careful, guys/gals: Old Nich has your names on a ledger!

14. The Expelled Evolutionist

Comment #189151 by Pathfinder on June 5, 2008 at 2:42 pm

Robotoholic, Thanks for your point., although I am at a loss to know what it is, save the usual moronic, visceral "religion is crap". Aside from your penetrating insight, have you anything constructive to offer?

Let me guess: anyone who is not a bona-fide atheist (all agnostics, doubters, Christians, Muslims etc) is a pitiful imbecile. OK. Appreciate your broad-mindedness.

15. Storm erupts over 'virginity' divorce

Comment #189149 by Pathfinder on June 5, 2008 at 2:34 pm

Al-Rawandi: Could you elaborate a little? I'm reading that you add Bosnia and Albania to the list. Excuse me if I've jumped the gun. And what of those Albanians, say, in Montenegro, Kosovo,
Greece, FYROM, etc? I have to say most of those I know in the Balkans are, in religious terms, the most "liberal" I know - no headscarves for the women, etc, the men hardly ever going to the mosque, never mind praying five times a day. Is that what you meant?

Is your name anything to do with an apostate? You'll burn in the other world, friend.

16. The Expelled Evolutionist

Comment #189144 by Pathfinder on June 5, 2008 at 2:22 pm

Quite frankly, as a Christian I am appalled at the hubris and arrogance of a number of my fellow "Christians". Science is science, religion is religion. If teachers have the right to teach what they believe is "right", without evidence, just based on instinct and conviction ( "the best lack all conviction, the worst are full of passionate intensity" - WB Yeats ) then by the same logic it is perfectly acceptable to aver women, ethnic minorities, homosexuals and people who work on the Sabbath (see Exodus) should be punished and even killed. It's this inconsistency which really gets me.

Personal conviction has no place in a science classroom. In history, maybe, you can argue Napoleon had the whole welfare of Europe in mind when he sought to conquer it and impose his Code.
In science, you can only insert God into the gaps, and even then, WHOSE God?

17. Storm erupts over 'virginity' divorce

Comment #189132 by Pathfinder on June 5, 2008 at 2:01 pm

Going back to the original article, I have to say I find Amar Lafsar's comments a trifle disingenuous. Since when, in any Islamic country (except perhaps Turkey) has virginity for women been negotiable? I have travelled widely in Islamic countries, and have yet to find one in which it is acceptable for any woman to admit to not being one. If there are exceptions, I'd love to know!

Turkey is, admittedly, a special case. Generally, the further east you go, the more "Islamic" the country becomes. that pretty well goes for honour
killings, too.

18. Fleabytes

Comment #148460 by Pathfinder on March 23, 2008 at 6:21 am

Final Post (II)

No doubt you'll call this "god of the gaps" - find what science can't answer, INSERT GOD HERE. No. Ny view is science doesn't know the answer YET. You seem to think it knows it NOW, and forever. I find this disturbing, as you clearly do not follow your own tentative methodology, certainly not in my hepatitis example. You approached it in... almost a RELIGIOUS way. You plumped for the wildest hypotheses simply because you couldn't bear for it to be what I said it was. Blissfully ignoring or oblivious to the fact that, even if your disease WAS the true one, how to explain the "cure"? So frantic were you to disprove my hypothsis you completely LOST SIGHT OF THE FACT THAT a "non-scientific" cure was STILL effected on a dangerous illness. (Unless, of course, there was no disease in the first place!)

Epeeist: said I'd get back to you. Re. pilgrims killed... Take your pick: redemtion through suffering, shortage in the ranks of God's seraphs, the devil's work (terrestrial battle between God and the Devil), see CS Lewis' "The Problem of Pain', GM Hopkins' poem 'The Wreck of the Deutschland', etc. Your grandparents: well, seeing as personal testimony is not worth the cyberspace it is floating in (Steve Zara), I can't really comment, now can I?

19. Fleabytes

Comment #148456 by Pathfinder on March 23, 2008 at 6:09 am

Final Post (I)

Spoof? Not really. My business partner supplied the earlier posts: his scattergun use of the aposstrophe was very useful, although I did help with some of the wilder misspellings. As nominal Episcopalians we would call ourselves "sceptics", distrusting of almost all organized religion. Early on we wished to "ratchet up" our scale of belief, then take it down to our present level. The wager was: on my side - Atheists are as dogmatic and intolerant as the worst Christian fundamenralists we know; on his, not the case. I am 500 euros the richer. Thank YOU

The irony was, the more concessions I made, the more reasonable my tone, the LESS reasonable the tone on your side. Early on, the insults flew: idiot...moron...fucktard. Deservedly. I found it astounding that, in the last exchanges, when I'd only said a miracle "cure" MIGHT not have a rational explanation, the hysterical denunciations increased threefold. All your rational propositions failed. Finally, " You're lying". Desperate situation, desperate remedy.

20. Fleabytes

Comment #147983 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 5:52 pm

" What facts? What evidence? "

.." Twenty year-old testimonial... "

" all I see are words in a post "

You know, in the interests of courtesy, you might have told me a while ago you weren't going to believe a word I said.

WOFT. Not just gonna throttle back but reverse over the pier.

21. Fleabytes

Comment #147967 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 4:58 pm

Scot

(Caledonian) of Celtic extraction

1.80

No history of seizures, mental illnesses, etc, esp. alcoholism

Recap evidence? How about READ what's posted.

The scientific method, as espoused by some on RD net: take the least possible hypothesis, elevate it to the level of a religion, cravenly genuflect before the altar of "objectivity" and "empirical truth". ignore all the facts, all the evidence, repeat all your failed hypotheses, even though they've been shot down 20 times and, Voila! The truth! Then : stagger through a sea of corpses.

Life on an ocean wave....

22. Fleabytes

Comment #147951 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 4:30 pm

Dr Benway, I don't know about my IQ, though at the last time it was measured (I was 18) it was 120. Average, then. I really don't know whether you are lying for Atheism, being provocative or are as thick as a concete pillar in an undergound car-park. How does one, I might ask, acquire such willful obtuseness? Is it part of your medical studies? Do you have rows of headstones to decorate the garden abutting your practice? DO tell.

TELL me how my diagnosis of hepatitis is not correct, in spite of all the evidence I have given. Will you keep on this pathetic charade, and say it is lung cancer, or hypothermia, or sickle-cell anaemia. Thalassemia! Ha! Greek word, prevalent FOR THE MOST PART in MEDITERRANEAN COUNTRIES, yeah, in Greece - funnily enough, though not only. A northern (Scot) westerner with THALASSEMIA! BRILLIANT! Aside from the fact we all(volunteer workers) had medicals to... you know... Kind of WEED OUT that kind of thing before going out... Ah, Aids... Hep CDEFGHIJK...Z.
All VERY WELL KNOWN BEFORE 1986!

Love the image of all these workers pouring Pepsi into styrofoam cups to - delude me, and themselves. Gallstones! In so many people, so young! No... what about gout? Lumbago? Doctor?

Imbecile!

23. 12 Year Old Girl Prodigy Paints Pictures of God

Comment #147936 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 4:08 pm

Zorro: I would love to believe this girl has been vouchsafed a vision of the afterlife. At first, given her amazing talent, I was inclined to think this was the case. On further reflection, however, I have had to revise my opinion. Phenomenal technical ability, yes - perhaps unique in art history. But then why, accepting that, does she paint such unmitigated kitsch? It's like the technical skill has been grafted onto the sensibility of an utter moron.

Several things she could do to silence the nay-sayers: paint in front of an audience. If Van Meegeren, the forger of Vermeer, could do it in front of a court, then why can't she? We all know children are less self-conscious than adults, see any child actor from Shirley Temple to Macualay Culkin.

Phenomenal ability; crud end-result. Very disturbing.

24. Fleabytes

Comment #147929 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 3:48 pm

Steve Zara: Please do not misunderstand. "Hideous" was not a reference to your appearance, but to the disquieting fact of your seeming to be everywhere. If your avatar is anything to go by, you're not bad-looking but, I'm afraid, NOWHERE near as good-looking as my good self, but let's not stray from the realms of the phenomenological into the empyrean.

You say, " lack of evidence ". I say, it's pretty much overwhelming; however, I'd dearly love to know where the evidence I've supplied is markedly lacking. Do you know any Aid workers, or OF any such people, say, working for MSFrontieres or VSO from Wad-El-Sharif, Salabona (nr Port Sudan), Khartoum, Kassala. Asmara and so on? Can I say again I'm not evidencing miracles because I'm trying to see it from your side - know thine enemy and all that? WHAT HAPPENED with that "cure"? That's all I'm asking. Give me a, " Oh, simple. virus of the %^$#@*&&@ plasmodium " and I'll throw up mine hands.

25. Fleabytes

Comment #147916 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 3:10 pm

Steve Zara: You sit there like Bloefeldt in his Eames chair with his white cat and blithely talk about the onus on those evidencing "magic" for their beliefs! Given your ubiquity on RD net, I feel every time I turn around I'm faced with some hideous Charles Gray clone!

Didn't I concede God was out of the equation? Didn't I say I was conducting this inquiry in order to see if it was possible there was a non-rational explanation APART FROM the triune God? If I wasn't clear then my apologies. It could be Allah, Khrishna, Moroni, Baal, Manitou - just give me a RATIONAL explanation apart from a stream of hypothetical negatives. What do YOU think? At least if you say I'm a bullshitter (GFM)
you're being honest. That gets my respect. But you have, of course, to back it up.

26. Fleabytes

Comment #147899 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 2:31 pm

Steve Zara: he was made better by taking him off the cocktail of poison he'd been put on previously. CVD is even worse than Alzheimer's, in that it is progressive, degenerative and irreversible. My father still has problems remembering the RECENT past, but his ability to read, write, speak on the phone (all impossible 4-6 months ago) has come back.

Look, I'm in favor of conventional medicine. I believe homeopathy, acupuncture etc. is mostly NONSENSE. But I am at a loss to explain how, when conventional medicine fails ( I am not adducing my father's example here) those who have turned to "holistic" therapies have been cured. As in my Ethiopia/Sudan example. How? God? Possibly not. I HAVEN'T A CLUE. But I think it's somewhat hubristic to think you have, too. Is it TOO much to demand - OK, REQUEST - a little evidence from your side? Onus on me? Well, I've done the best I can! Is that so unfair?

As I've said, if so I await the 'coup de grace' from Clodhopper...

27. Fleabytes

Comment #147888 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 2:05 pm

GOD FORGIVE ME but if you complain arguing with a God-botherer makes you feel like you're arguing with Phelps or his ilk then how d'ya think I feel?

I give you evidence, in detail, AND I'M NOT EVEN TRYING TO POINT FOR GOD!!! I'm trying to say there MAY BE a non-rational explanation!!!

Sorry, this is going us nowhere. My father was diagnosed with cerebro-vascular disease, having seen, in the last FOUR YEARS, about the same number of specialists, consultants, experts. All WRONG. The medications they put him on could well have killed him: almost did, in fact. It was obvious, to myself and others in my family, that what he'd suffered, insofar as we could tell, was a series of mini-strokes. Now, thank God, he's much better, after that CATASTROPHIC MISDIAGNOSIS.
All I want to say is : science, which has given us so much, isn't the be-all and end-all. How about a little humility, a little scepticism? You've seen it from me - how I've moderated my language and my approach, even apologised to Clearthinker, who I still say has ROUTED the lot of you, though he'd probably say, quite rightly, I should've said he fell by the wayside.

I ADMIT I was OTT. My fate now lies in the hands of Clodhopper: only his/hers.

28. Fleabytes

Comment #147874 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 1:36 pm

Bonzai has accused me of lying. OK, take it on the chin and all that, dashed unsporting , what? Still, I'm waiting for some genius to tell me what, in the Sudanese desert, in people who aren't rabid dipsomaniacs and don't, unwittingly, CONSTANTLY overdose on their anti-malarial tablets, don't plunge in (in defiance of just about every self-help manual for E/C/Africa ) to every irrigation ditch available, to contract a disease that, mysterious as it is, turns you YELLOW, makes you nauseous, and feverish, and gives you a severe sensation of tenderness in the upper abdomen? And of course the Pepsi_urine color
and other things, and ignoring what are REMARKABLY SIMILAR SYMPTOMS in about.. ooh, I don't know... say, 1 in four cases. Who are liars. Like demented Pathfinder. QED. P is either a spoof, or a moron (most likely) or deluded (next). Another liar for JC. OK: I'm all!

Evidence for the Atheists seems irrelevant. For the God-botherers, it is paramount. Show us! Tell us! Point the way to the lab! (Never mind if its Ultima Thule or in Antarctica during a howling blizzard!) Get that syringe out! Get that electron microscope out! Or we'll never, ever. give you the slightest credence! It's only real if I can see it! It's only real if there can be a control experiment and it can be peer-reviewed, out in the Baiyuda desert! Liar! Fool! Twat!

Doctors misdiagnosed my parents: specialists, consultants, experts with inflated salaries that would make El Fayed blanch. God help me if I were in the care of SOME of those on RD net. But then I deserve it anyway, don't I?

29. Fleabytes

Comment #147862 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 12:56 pm

MModel: have you followed my earlier posts?

The UK/US tends NOT to be like East Africa, circa 1985-86. You, Dark, Billy, Strangelove et. al convince me that what I saw, witnessed, observed was not attributable to divine intervention. OK. Fine. Give me an ALTERNATIVE hypothesis that is just as plausible, that's all I'm asking! How long do I have to wait? Onus on me... extraordinary claims etc, etc.. I'VE DONE THAT!!!
PERIMENO. I'M WAITING. J'ATTEND(S)?

30. Fleabytes

Comment #147855 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 12:39 pm

Mesomodel: certainly. The problem is, the disease I'm talking about tends not to be that prevalent in the West. Sure, when I came back I heard about people with dysentery (in Leeds!); I recall a woman on that BBC programme that it was akin to the sensation of "giving birth". It was really weird to come back from some of the poorest regions of the world, to hear this. Your sceptisism does you credit, but only SO FAR. Anyway, until CLODHOPPER appears to kick me into touch, I'll be hanging around to try to "disprove" the Atheist agenda. But then, and only then.

31. Fleabytes

Comment #147840 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 12:07 pm

Mosomodel : Dios mio! you're asking a lot! What have i got to do to convince you MIRACLES HAPPEN? Whether Christian, Muslim, Jain or whatever? I work on this by a process of elimination and you MUST, by now, have realised how much I despise religious charlatans! 99.9% are fakes. But surely, SURELY, science cannot answer everything? Give me some leeway, please. Doctors make appalling errors: I can evidence my own relatives here. Do they not rule out competing hypotheses, reduce everything to the simplest explanation once all has been reviewed?

All I'm saying is I saw this cure work with my own eyes. Maybe it was NOT the hep and something else: at any rate, it effected a complete cure. I've already conceded it MIGHT NOT be our Lord. How about a little charity and humility and give-and-take here? That's all I'm asking. Why should I, a Christian, use a MUSLIM cure as proof of our Lord and Saviour? Please don't answer, " Because you're f****** demented! "

32. Fleabytes

Comment #147831 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 11:47 am

Clodhopper: WHERE ARE YOU? Release me from this miasma of perversion and bad faith and yank that chain!

Ms Kirby: talking about resurrection in regard to me constitutes a kind of blasphemy. I hope you realize that. But seriously, what publisher is going to commission a refutation of a refutation? Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd hazard she/he would regard you with a degree of scepticism. I would.

33. Fleabytes

Comment #147824 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 11:28 am

Billy: ...."twat"....

I say old chap, steady on! No need for that, is there? I mean, the choking nonsense of your last post notwithstanding, it must be galling to have every single one of your propositions (yellow fever, bilharzia, etc) comprehensively shot down. I'm still waiting. What's the latest... on yeah, fanzidar or maloprim combined with alcohol! Dummy, you think all these aid workers were reeling around, pissed out of their skulls all the time? Ever been to Asmara, Addis, Kassala, Dongola? No. of workers contracting the hep: approx 1 in four. God, they faked it brilliantly! Amazing! Truly stunning! You go, say, to Khartoum, and the first thing you ask is what disease is doing the rounds, and you try to take precautions. BTW, there was no cure for bilharzia in 1986!

Blood tests! Peer reviewed papers! Out in the sticks! I don't know what kind of dragon-infested world you live in, but the irony is Sagan's "Demon Haunted World" - yeah, I read it and liked it - is just as applicable to you as to any Rapture fundamentalist.

See Clearthinker has really got you lot on the ropes with that grotesque lie about Einstein being an Atheist.

Aren't I mad enough for you, Dr Lecter? How's that G Major Aria coming along? Sticky work that, all the fingering on the harpsichord.

34. Fleabytes

Comment #147797 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 9:23 am

Clodhopper: when're you gonna yank that chain? I'll bob quietly out to sea, promise.

Love the Atheist approach to "evidence". Not hepatitis... can't be... just ISN'T...no...no....no. Er...Why not? WELL, IT JUST ISN'T CONVENIENT!

Clearthinker: I was totally wrong about you. Sorry.Admirable work. OK: recommendation from me the kiss of death but keep it up, anway.

Dr Shipman... I mean Goebbels...oh, darn it! Mengele...BENWAY. No more trolling, promise!

35. Fleabytes

Comment #147777 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 8:28 am

Billy: Thanks (at last) for actually troubling to read my earlier post.

Yellow fever: I, and several others, were innoculated - totally unnecessarily, as it turned out. Yellow fever is usually found where there are FORESTS. Absolutely NO aid worker contracted it in the areas where we were working. The hepatitis infected most of the workers, and was diagnosed when they RETURNED home.

Diseases like schistosomiasis: no one I knew got it then, as no one would be stupid enough to swim in slow-moving or stagnant water, as it was then incurable

Do your research. You won't find any cases of yellow fever in the Baiyuda desert, no matter how close you get to the Nile!

36. Fleabytes

Comment #147706 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 6:26 am

Billy: no eggs in urine or faeces. Don't you think he would have mentioned it. Everybody there had a copy of a book called 'Where There Is No Doctor', a book recommended by physicians at CDC in US and (I think) the Institute for Tropical Diseases in London, UK. We read this book, with a kind of morbid fascination, from cover to cover.

Yellow fever! In the DESERT! Come on!

Epeeist, will get back to you on that terrible story concerning your relatives.

What IS the natural explanation, then?

Dr: I'm trying to look at this from YOUR perspective, ruling out competing hypotheses, starting with the unlikeliest.

Work calls. Not hepatitis, eh? Now I see the truth of that old adage THE PERSON MOST LIKELY TO KILL YOU IS YOUR DOCTOR.

37. Fleabytes

Comment #147685 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 6:03 am

Billy: What do you think? Of course not!

So tell me: what gives you jaundice, loss of appetite, fever, tenderness in the upper abdomen, nausea, urine that is black, and ISN'T hepatitis in an area where it is rife, and just after that person's "insurance" from gamma-globulin had run out? Come on: yellow fever? Bilharzia? What? Or was Alistair (and others) somehow FAKING?

Talk about digging holes! Yours (collectively) is the size of the Mariana Trench.

38. EXPELLED!

Comment #147681 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 5:53 am

Funniest thing I've read all week.

Really, when cleaning out a rifle it is not advisable to a) have it loaded and b) resting under your chin.

Might have had some sympathy for the makers of this film. Not now.

39. Fleabytes

Comment #147671 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 5:30 am

Reverend, reverend, I admire your spadework.

As this was '86 I think we can rule out 'C'.

As this was the Sudan/Ethiopia border I think we have to dispense with any idea of seeing a qualified, western-educated MD. (Kind of why these workers/teachers relied on local "expertise" in the first place. does that seem logical to you?)

As Alistair was 24 and didn't drink that much apart from the odd mug of Tej or Merissa I think we can rule out cirrhosis, too.

Locals maintained Allah "turned the blood" through the branding. Everybody I worked with suffered the same set of diseases - you tend to in that part of the world. I got malaria and dysentery twice, and had giardiasis about 30% of the time. Most got "the hep" AFTER SIX MONTHS. Some coincidence!

Still, I'm waiting for your diagnosis, doctor.

40. Fleabytes

Comment #147634 by Pathfinder on March 21, 2008 at 3:21 am

Dr Benway:

Make a list... make a list.. rule out competing hypotheses. Actually it's YOUR list I want. Oh, and did I mention the witch doctor was a Muslim? So I really AM ruling out God here, even before you! My inquiry is more along the lines of, " There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt about... " So, cough up, please. You're a doctor! Placebo, right?

As for whether it really was hepatitis A: well, people in East Africa tended to get it after 6 months when their gamma-globulin injections "shelf-life" expired. Then: jaundice, nausea, loss of appetite, snsitivity in the upper abdomen. Could've been: malaria, dysentery, giardiasis, typhoid, cholera, meningitis. I think I'd go for hepatitis, wouldn't you, here?

41. Fleabytes

Comment #147476 by Pathfinder on March 20, 2008 at 2:43 pm

Dr Benway: agree completely. I have to admit there are far too many religious charlatans in the world.

Rev: fine. You're mostly right. But don't go breaking out that jerboam of bubbly just yet, eh old chap? Let's rule out God, then. I'm quite prepared, in the interests of inquiry, to cede the fact that there IS a medical explanation for curing hepatitis A by branding. BTW, another Aid worker tried the same local cure, it worked, but then he stupidly went out drinking. So, OK Cure 2 failed, you'd have to say. I don't mean this sarcastically: if you can give me a good medical explanation I'm prepared to admit I'm deluded. Wouldn't be the first time.

No concessions over Akiane, though. Yes, her art is schlock. But you significantly failed to mention ANY 13 or pre-13 yr old TECHNICALLY better. Only other one I can think of is Alexandra Nechita - not so technically brilliant, but I like her art a lot better.

42. Fleabytes

Comment #147455 by Pathfinder on March 20, 2008 at 1:24 pm

Clodhopper:

"Pathfinder: how many times do we have to flush before you go away? "

You've asked me this twice.

The turd time should suffice.

43. Fleabytes

Comment #147445 by Pathfinder on March 20, 2008 at 12:32 pm

Reverend: You seem to have a very reductive mind. I wonder if you DO think there are limits to science at all.

With regard to exorcisms: well, I've seen one performed, in Romania, by the Romanian Orthodox. Could have been fakery, of course. I have seen withchdoctors at work in East Africa. One in particular impressed me, as I was able to observe the effects OVER TIME, and on a westerner. It involved a "cure" for hepatitis A, when said person's six-month insurance from gamma-globulin ran out. The witchdoctor effected a "cure" by branding the guy on the arms. Later, no jaundice, no piss the color of Pepsi - a complete cure. He could even drink alcohol! Placebo effect? Maybe, but wouldn't it be wiser GENERALLY to suspend judgement before you dismiss anything faintly smacking of the supernatural?

As for Akiane: you say you know about art. You don't. You are you are to art criticism what Gilles de Rais was to babysitting. Art prodigies are comparatively rare, far less common than, say music prodigies like Saint-Saens or Mozart. Look at Durer's silverpoint self-portrait, done when he was 13, and tell me Akiane is "nothing special". Even Picasso, largely touted as a prodigy (if you buy his self-promotion about being able to draw like Raphael when he was 10) had not reached anywhere NEAR her level at 13. It would take at least a year before 'First Communion' and 'Aunt Pepa' showed anything extraordinary. In any case, I'm talking about TECHNICAL COMPETENCE here. Don't confuse that with I-don't-like-the-subject-matter of her art

44. Fleabytes

Comment #147197 by Pathfinder on March 20, 2008 at 3:04 am

Finally, I suppose I should thank you for the welter of insults. Most useful for our church's newsletter, ALL having been documented. I mean, so as the faithful can REALLY get an idea what its like to venture in to this nest of vipers.

I now know the 'Atheist Faithful' is not the oxymoron you would have it.

Perhaps I should write a BOOK. Yes, a Flea book!

Praise be!

45. Fleabytes

Comment #147196 by Pathfinder on March 20, 2008 at 2:57 am

Well, it has all been most enlightening - Atheist tolerance. Idiot... off his meds...one brick short of a full load... stupid... moron... Is this what passes for dialogue here? This gives the lie that there is anything other than a congregation here. Most of you seem to have pitched tent on this website, too - do you live ENTIRELY online?

Proof of God's existence:

Jesus speaks to me. When business was a bit rocky a while back I prayed, and he ANSWERED! Clients galore!

The Miracle of Fatima - witnessed by millions.

New Orleans Flood: divine disapproval of that Degenerate woman.

Ever heard of a child prodigy, a 13-year-old artist called Akiane? Visit YouTube. God speaks through her.

Lourdes. Need I say more?

I could go on to cite hundreds of examples, from people being cured of TERMINAL CANCER through prayer - these are well documented - to the lame walking again, at some of our charismatic churches. Think they're all fake? Think again.

Even Professor Dawkins admits he cannot disprove God, although I agree the onus is on the faithful to prove it.

Exorcisms. I have witnessed one. Deeply, deeply scary, but so REAL! The Antichrist exists, folks.

I note many of you are former Christians. Perhaps that explains your hysteria when challenged. We all know what they say about converts, don't we?

46. Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90

Comment #146990 by Pathfinder on March 19, 2008 at 4:11 pm

Whilst there's no doubt about ACC's achievement I always felt there was the whiff of sulfur about some of his public utterances. Space exploration is hubris, pure and simple and we will pay for it one day, especially as there are so many problems here on earth that need solving.

Thought someone else might mention the 1998 rumor's of pedophilia. Yes, unproven, but... no smoke without fire? Well, only his Creator can know...

I think pedophile's should have their faces put on milk cartons, like missing children. Then publicly executed by burning at the stake. As in medieval times, with the logs nearest the vermin screaming in pain damp and mossy, to prolong the agony.

The Medieval Church was RIGHT ABOUT SO MUCH!

Praise be!

47. Fleabytes

Comment #146841 by Pathfinder on March 19, 2008 at 1:32 pm

I am NOT the same Pathfinder you think I am, I have no affiliations with any church-led website whatsoever, although I will admit to having help with these posts of late, courtesy of my business partner.

Max: the funeral business is not all full of unscrupulous reprobates wanting to make a fast buck. I'd like to think I and my partner are the exceptions in that case, thank you! Furthermore, I have read Mitford's satire and consider it sheer drooling idiocy, and gloriously unfunny as well. As for Waugh's 'The Loved One', well frankly THAT border's on the libellous.

Annabanana: I did not wish to impute you were not capable of moral actions without the sanction of a deity. I am sure you are a moral person (probably far more than me!) as are the majority of people at RD net. My point was those here are not "most people". We humans act on emotion, not reason, and reason is way, way insufficient at dealing with the devil in us and the darkness of the human heart. You can talk as much as you like about reciprocal altruism in baboons, starfish and ring-tailed lemurs but this type of moral eqivocation defeats your very point. I want that job and am prepared to trample on X to get it, I want Y's wife so I'm prepared to lead her down the sulfurous path to sin, I want to win that election so I'm prepared to make promises to a gullible electorate I know I cannot possibly keep.
FOR MOST PEOPLE GOD is necessary to put the brakes on such behavior. Who else ya gonna call?
"Reciprocal altruism"? "reason"? "secular humanism"? Ha!

48. Fleabytes

Comment #146600 by Pathfinder on March 19, 2008 at 8:06 am

Apologies for the Shipman dig. Mea Culpa. The devil was at work with me then. The only thing is, if I were not a Christian I would be far, far worse.

Still, being "a brick short of a full load " wasn't a tad offensive? And a patient "off his meds ". I FULLY AGREE my remark was reprehensible. But let's have a level-playing field, ladies and gentlemen. Atheist fair play being what it is...

Gotta go to work.

Al, I work in the funeral business. And please, no
jokes about that, OK?

49. God's cure for gays lost in sin

Comment #146590 by Pathfinder on March 19, 2008 at 7:59 am

Homosexuality - PRACTISING homosexuality, is a sin, as you no doubt know from your Leviticus. As a Christian I take a love-the-sinner-hate the sin view and have no problem with gays, any more than I do with lepers. For whatever reason under the Divine Protocol, Satan has targeted them and their salvation lies in turning to God for help. Homosexuality is abnormal, it rules out procreation, and you can say what you like about other species exhibiting same-sex sexual proclivities but animals do not have CELESTIAL HELP, or awareness of the divine.

Besides, homosexuality can be cured, I don't mean the crude Aversion Therapy treatments of the 50s:
I mean a commitment to our Lord and His Commandments. Look at the ranks of the famous who have remained happily married, in spite of their dastardly inclinations: Sir Michael Redgrave, Leonard Bernstein, Thomas Mann, Maynard Keynes. I
could go on.

50. Fleabytes

Comment #146566 by Pathfinder on March 19, 2008 at 7:43 am

Sorry I've been away a while: work.

I think it is really just so much idle conjecture whether I am "Brian" or "Quetz" or some atheist playing a screwed-up, twisted game. I could never be an Atheist: I have a sound MORAL COMPASS, unlike you. With Atheism, all and everything is permitted. Which is not to say you are evil, probably I'm worse. I have to fight a daily battle with temptation. Do you even bother?

I have to take issue with some behaviour here, though, and in that I feel the egregious "Clearthinker" may have a point. On one thread I was told to "piss off" (GFM - profanity) and others have hurled Anglo-Saxon and tauro-scatological epithets in my direction. OK, par for the course, you might say, but it does the Atheist Cause no favors, does it? Furthermore, I was objectified (He/She/It) by Annabanana! Finally, dear Dr Benway speculated I was either an atheist spoofing or -far,far worse - someone with a bipolar disorder " off his meds ". I hope you are not an MD, Dr Benway. There IS a doctor you remind me of, though. Dr Harold Shipman.

All this talk of secular humanism and the rosy Atheist NEW DAWN of science and reason is all very well but it completely fails to address the issue of "Quis custodiet, ipso custodies? " Who, without God, His legislators on Earth, to hold this vile, devil-infested human species to account? TELL ME THAT! For so far, your attempts have been risible in the extreme.

That spell-check good enough for ya?