1. No atheist burials in Co Donegal

Comment #239241 by Raiko on August 29, 2008 at 9:51 am

"Therefore unless one is willing to compromise one's beliefs by agreeing to a religious service, it is impossible to be buried," he said.

"Therefore unless one is willing to compromise one's beliefs by agreeing to an Islamic service, it is impossible to be buried," he said.

2. Museum in censorship row over Darwin sign

Comment #239047 by Raiko on August 29, 2008 at 12:40 am

Is it telling, or not, that we're not told what the offensive wording supposedly is/was?

3. Atheism could be science's contribution to religion

Comment #238372 by Raiko on August 28, 2008 at 3:51 am

Diacanu -

coincidentally, Mitchell Gilks was the first person I really had any conversation with on here. He told me he liked my avatar picture, if I remember correctly. I either missed or wasn't told (or don't remember) he used the same picture in an icon, too, before I joined here.

Strange - I thought "same avatar pic = same person" is the kind of logic only creationists capable of? ;)



Angels On a Pin Head:

NOMA only works when religion doesn't make any scientific claims. I have yet to run into any religion that doesn't.

4. Atheism could be science's contribution to religion

Comment #238305 by Raiko on August 28, 2008 at 12:42 am

I would give neither of the letters any NOMA-label at all. Anything that involves speaking out for or against the Templeton Foundation can't possibly be in the "NOMA"-field.

5. Plan to exhume cardinal is 'homophobic'

Comment #237206 by Raiko on August 26, 2008 at 7:52 am

Suggestion: Make a living homosexual a saint. THAT would set a positive sign and maybe actually get something useful rolling... after much sneering and struggle and hating, that is.

6. Priest Antonio Rungi wants beauty contest - for nuns

Comment #236700 by Raiko on August 25, 2008 at 5:31 am

#26 - I am amused that at muslima.com you can very easily search for all sorts of homosexual relationships. That seems a bit contradictive for the site - EDIT: though I see now it is for 'friendship', too.

7. Priest Antonio Rungi wants beauty contest - for nuns

Comment #236635 by Raiko on August 25, 2008 at 12:40 am

That priest must be desperate. I think the sentiment comment #1 would make a great motto for the pageant.

8. Why Dawkins is right and his critics are wrong

Comment #235399 by Raiko on August 23, 2008 at 1:29 am

What programme were these people watching? I saw none of this.

Sounds familiar. Just think of the two versions of The God Delusion. It completely escapes these people that their screams of "THIS IS OFFENSIVE" only proves the point that religious people demand special recognition and treatment that nobody would expect on any other topic.

9. Supernatural science: Why we want to believe

Comment #234687 by Raiko on August 21, 2008 at 11:03 pm

A subsequent test on the supposed Bigfoot found nothing but the DNA of humans and an opossum, a small, cat-like creature.

10. US school district sued over homophobic 'witch hunt'

Comment #234684 by Raiko on August 21, 2008 at 10:54 pm

#72 As a German, I agree.

11. Central Texas Man's Death Sentence Upheld Despite Bible In Jury Room

Comment #234587 by Raiko on August 21, 2008 at 4:34 pm

jshuey, thanks for the clarification. I had no idea.

12. US school district sued over homophobic 'witch hunt'

Comment #234447 by Raiko on August 21, 2008 at 11:21 am

Wahoo, successfully submitted!

I found this particularly ironic:

David Davis is a fine man and good principal, and we are a gentle, peaceful, Christian, family-oriented community," said Bill Griffin

I couldn't help noticing the irony in the name of the High School. Ponce was a British word in the 40s for two things, a male homosexual and what is now referred to as a pimp.

13. Central Texas Man's Death Sentence Upheld Despite Bible In Jury Room

Comment #234328 by Raiko on August 21, 2008 at 7:33 am

I've seen this several times now, and I am naive by nature:

Death penalty is more expensive than a life in prison?!

Can someone elaborate this to me (I'm not very familiar with death penalty at all)? A teacher in the USA once told me death penalty is acceptable for her because that way convicted criminals won't live off her tax money when being fed and guarded in prison. Granted, she was a bit whacky, but I always put this on the "pro" side of the argument for death penalty (which is pretty empty on my sheet, anyway). Now I hear otherwise, and I want to know about this.

14. New Ribosomal Research Offers Fresh Evidence, Understanding of Evolution

Comment #233606 by Raiko on August 20, 2008 at 5:12 am

Why does everything in the biological sciences have to be justified in terms of medicine? Most annoying...

15. Losing my religion

Comment #233574 by Raiko on August 20, 2008 at 4:02 am

I read Darwin all the time and find it feeds my faith. Richard Dawkins makes me want to pray, the same as Homer Simpson makes me want to exercise - for fear that I, too, will end up like him, a whining pub bore with the prose style of an internet conspiracy theorist.

16. Knights Templar 'Heirs' Sue Pope For Billions

Comment #233572 by Raiko on August 20, 2008 at 3:58 am

If the church paid off all the people they've ripped off over the centuries, the sum would be inestimatable.

17. Last Night's TV: The Genius of Charles Darwin, Channel 4

Comment #233570 by Raiko on August 20, 2008 at 3:55 am

A good deal of people would be MUCH less composed than Richard Dawkins, giving the amount of nonsense spouted by creationists. It's kind of amusing how descriptions of Richard's behavior towards religious lunatics vary from "I can't believe how composed he is/can stay calm/etc" to "He's horribly blunt/rude/offending/etc...".

18. Sincerity no substitute for evidence

Comment #233470 by Raiko on August 20, 2008 at 1:10 am

I'd show this article to my wife, but it would start the "you're so close-minded" argument again.

19. Catholic leaders block contraceptive advice for 30,000 Scots girls

Comment #232700 by Raiko on August 18, 2008 at 1:58 pm

Why do the twats of the Catholic Church have any say in this?

But it's nothing new that they're not so fond of women, is it? Might as well get rid of a few. I think not getting the shot and teaching kids about it, completely, and urge them to get the shot themselves, would have been more effective than this idiot compromise.

It is just another way for religion to exclude itself from the 21st century.

20. After Bibles seized, U.S. group won't leave Chinese airport

Comment #232692 by Raiko on August 18, 2008 at 1:48 pm

a) If you're worried about freedom of speech and human rights in China, religious freedom is not the first on the list!

b) They broke the country's law and are now feeling unfairly treated and protesting? Yeah. Religion is definitely involved here

21. Do subatomic particles have free will?

Comment #232402 by Raiko on August 18, 2008 at 3:55 am

Makes me think of something I read (probably here) on how our decisions are recognizeable in firing patterns in the brain 6 or 7 seconds before we claim to be aware of it. The conclusion of the article at that point was that such findings threaten our free will. Supposedly the writers of that paper had tried to get around this 'problem' by giving us the 'free will' to object and interfere with our brains' decisions in the last moment.

At that time I was puzzled by why anyone would insist that a free will meant you had to be conscious of your decisions. I wasn't aware that people appear to think that free will is independent of genetics, experience, development, etc.. Or in other words, I didn't realize that people seem to think that free will is not a function of the brain.

Now I want to ask them, if not a function of the brain, (conscious or not) what do you think free will could possibly be?!

Back to the subatomic particles - I might not know enough on the subject, but a skeptical voice in me gets louder when hearing such things as Koch's all-the-way-determinism. Do we really, honestly know so much of our world to make such grand conclusions - from a subatomaric world to the macroscopic scale?

22. A flea we missed?

Comment #231235 by Raiko on August 16, 2008 at 3:36 am

*scratch scratch scratch* Stupid fleas.

That's what you get for having a good book - I mean, good blood!

23. Poll: Should the motto 'In God We Trust' be removed from U.S. currency?

Comment #230628 by Raiko on August 15, 2008 at 1:40 am

What about the reason "No, we really don't."?

24. Optimism in Evolution

Comment #229751 by Raiko on August 14, 2008 at 2:30 am

The travisty here is that these species have not been selected by nature but rather by us. They are then introduced into an environment that is not evolving as they are and still requires their previous traits that had been selected for naturaly.

25. We need to stop being such cowards about Islam

Comment #229714 by Raiko on August 14, 2008 at 1:03 am

How did Christianity lose its ability to terrorise people with phantasms of sin and Hell? How did it stop spreading shame about natural urges - pre-marital sex, masturbation or homosexuality?

26. The God Delusion

Comment #229709 by Raiko on August 14, 2008 at 12:57 am

if you squint a little, from a metre or so away, the words "the" and "delusion" start to blur, and you are left with three words that spell out the greatest blasphemy of all: "Richard Dawkins: God".

27. Optimism in Evolution

Comment #229240 by Raiko on August 13, 2008 at 9:03 am

It's sad that the question seems to be "whether" to teach evolution, when in reality it should be "how much".

Honestly, evolution should absolutely be a reoccurring theme in classrooms. It's not about when to teach evolution, it's about when to teach what aspect of evolution. For example, a fifth grader might not yet understand the complicated works of genetics, but they're very well capable of seeing other, easier evidence for evolution (like descend with modification) - that is, of course only if they're not religiously indoctrinated.

And when the time for genetics comes, why not consciously pick up evolution again? It's so central to biology and to genetics, it flows right in! I remember the time set by curriculum for evolution in my school was no earlier than 13th grade (yes, we have 13 grades here... yet). And we all understood evolution by then already, anyway (it was inevitable that it appeared before simply because you can't avoid it when properly learning about biology - but it's sort of 'unconscious'). The only subjects I remember that, by curriculum, kept reoccurring were SexEd (three times) and the Holocaust (four times [I'm German]).

It's so natural to put most, if not all, of biology education into the framework of evolution. Yet, we always hear about evolution being taught at a certain time, to a certain age group of students, for a few hours, at some point in the curriculum.

Evolution is everywhere in nature, why is it not everywhere in biology class?

28. Saudi Arabia Bans Dog Walking in Capital

Comment #228539 by Raiko on August 12, 2008 at 7:27 am

Poor doggies, too. Dogs like being out, meeting one another and sniffing around. So, unless the owner has time and the means to get out of the city to walk his/her dog daily, it's sure going to make them unhappy. Even worse when the dog gets confiscated,given that it's likely emotionally attached to its owner.

That's just asides from the blatant lunacy of banning the walking of dogs to stop people from potentially flirting with each other, because it doesn't go with your holy book. Tell you what, it doesn't fit my holy book that men walk around without make up. Go metrosexual. Now.

29. An atheist plays God's advocate

Comment #228450 by Raiko on August 12, 2008 at 4:06 am

Sargeist -

canterburyatheists.blogspot.com ?

Just kidding. :)

30. An atheist plays God's advocate

Comment #228054 by Raiko on August 11, 2008 at 12:19 pm

Bonzai -

so wait - Richard Morgan is the poster who made those music offerings and then ran off saying he didn't like the way people expressed themselves here, mistaking 'here' for the entire atheist community?

To be honest, I don't remember the exact context of his grand conversion to Jesus, I only remember missing the chance to tell him that if he was searching for a different kind of ambience, maybe he should have looked for a place where atheists are not primarily discussing religious bigotry and pseudoscience.

In that case, Richard Morgan, I find you even more amusing.

31. An atheist plays God's advocate

Comment #228045 by Raiko on August 11, 2008 at 11:30 am

Steve Zara (seems I am kind of late replying):

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant to say you can't be blunt about the facts, not about saying "I'm right". Telling people you're right doesn't help anyone, if you can't tell them why you're right. But your arguments, even in a democracy, are something you should be allowed to be blunt about - and that includes bluntly saying "and the consequence is this" (like: there's no God involved here). But maybe we simply disagree here, despite the small confusion.

Richard Morgan, your comment serves what point exactly? Thanks for the honor, though, of deciding to mine only my quote. :)

32. An atheist plays God's advocate

Comment #227864 by Raiko on August 11, 2008 at 12:44 am

ddjango

In our society we have the weird conviction that even when you are right, you're not allowed to be blunt about it. I think that might be a major part of the problem. Dawkins doesn't want to be right, by all objective and rational understanding, he most likely is.

33. Richard Dawkins, the naive professor

Comment #227863 by Raiko on August 11, 2008 at 12:37 am

251. Jesus was a zombie

Well said, indeed. One would like to claim that those who rile up are not the ones that claim their God is scientific, but we know better than that.

In the program, Richard - when mentioning religion - was mostly making statements on the impact of Darwin's theory on himself, on Darwin's own beliefs, or on the beliefs of Darwin's time. I do not see why he should have withheld that. Rather, this is a program about Charles Darwin not plain evolution, and his change from a clergy-man-creationist-to-be to a scientist developing a theory from evidence that contradicts the dominant religion of his time can't possibly be explained without mentioning God and religion!

One could argue about the comment Richard made when interviewing the HIV-resistent woman, whether it was necessary or not, but that's about it (and it's quite minor).

It's questionable whether Libby Purves even understood the point of the program.

34. Charles Darwin investigated whether blondes have more fun

Comment #227862 by Raiko on August 11, 2008 at 12:27 am

What a nice hobby, little Charles.

I think this is the clue sentence (along with the fact that he apparently did very thorough research on the subject):

Darwin made notes on the letters but eventually concluded that the evidence was not good enough to prove the theory,[...]

35. Richard Dawkins, the naive professor

Comment #227526 by Raiko on August 10, 2008 at 6:32 am

ZT's comment made me think of something:

Why would you not mention rival hypotheses ("God-did-it!") when making a program on a specific theory? I would like Libby Purves to answer this question. To be fair, Richard should maybe mention Lamarck, but the difference with that is that unlike the God-did-it-hypothesis, nobody still believes the parts of Lamarck's theory that were wrong.

36. An atheist plays God's advocate

Comment #227516 by Raiko on August 10, 2008 at 5:35 am

You know, people, I don't know what it IS about Richard. If you think about it - he's outspoken, he makes direct statements and he has reasons for the things he does. Objectively he does everything correctly and I could barely agree more with his views.

But honestly, when I first saw anything of him - I don't remember where - my first impression was "I don't like this guy." And I can't help but feel that the students in the classroom might have felt the same (I've seen the first part by now). I can't pinpoint what it is that calls up so much aversion at first glance. Maybe you really have to dig deeper (as you should with all issues), to appreciate his statements. Or maybe it's such a simple thing as "needs more smiles"?

I never had that impression with PZ Myers, and no, I can't pinpoint why. Anyway, it's personal experience, so it may not count for much. I only have one friend who got the exact same impression, too. And no negative control.

37. Father, son and holy toast

Comment #226985 by Raiko on August 9, 2008 at 6:07 am

Meh.
If someone wants to EAT THE FACE OF JESUS for breakfast, that's up to them.

38. Bill Maher hates your (fill in the blank) religion

Comment #226984 by Raiko on August 9, 2008 at 6:03 am

I would have cheered for Maher for making this movie, if he had gotten his interviews this way to mock Expelled. But he seems to have had other motivations, so I can only disagree with his approach.

39. Richard Dawkins, the naive professor

Comment #226377 by Raiko on August 8, 2008 at 3:02 am

So, if Richard Dawkins had once mentioned (unless he has - I could not see the program) that evolution is incompatible with the distinct belief systems in God, as opposed to thinking there's "something undefined out there that is a God, even though I can't tell you a thing about it", Libby's article wouldn't only be pointless and wrong, it would be completely pointless and wrong.

40. Growing Up in the Universe: Now available on DVD with subtitles in English, Spanish, French and Polish!

Comment #226370 by Raiko on August 8, 2008 at 2:48 am

What about German??!!! *cries*

Aufwachsen im Universum

Okay. I realize everyone on here whose language is not on there will be a bit sad.

Honestly, I'd volunteer. I've been simultaneously translating stuff for my family (English-to-German) and for my girlfriend (German-to-English) way too much, anyway.

41. Is our universe fine-tuned for life?

Comment #225533 by Raiko on August 7, 2008 at 12:56 am

squinky,

I'm sorry if I was being unclear. I didn't necessarily mean THIS universe with THESE constants, but another one of the multiverses with different constants. I intended to stay on the subject of multiverses, not about life possibilities in this universe. I guess I made my comment to quickly to clear that up.

However, I still disagree with you and you seem a bit stuck on the idea that I was talking about life as we know it (even though you don't explicitely mention it like that). My post would have been completely pointless hot air in that case - of course life as we know it requires carbon and water! Else it wouldn't be life as we know it.

In any case, I would never claim something is absolutely impossible, just because I can't imagine how it would work. What a bad scientist I would be, if that was the case.

Why not silicon you ask?

42. Call to teach biblical creation as science

Comment #225226 by Raiko on August 6, 2008 at 10:54 am

I wished refuting these idiots in the most truthful, succint and direct way would actually work:

The scientific theory of evolution is proven fact that withstood all scrutiny since is has been discovered and articulated, based on evidence. Creationism is neither a theory, nor fact, nor science, nor proven, nor based on evidence, and least of all withstanding any scrutiny.



But yeah.

I wished.

43. Is our universe fine-tuned for life?

Comment #224877 by Raiko on August 6, 2008 at 12:53 am

I'm happy someone did the calculations for peer review. I was always puzzled by the fact that so many people seemed to take it for granted, that there's only one possible way of life (water-dependent and carbon-based).

44. Do they really think the earth is flat?

Comment #224575 by Raiko on August 5, 2008 at 6:52 am

Now creationists are something entirely different.

45. Do they really think the earth is flat?

Comment #224426 by Raiko on August 5, 2008 at 12:44 am

Okay, I want to meat the guy who made up "global earth theory", then and started this whole conspiracy. I mean, given the intelligence required to explain our observations via a completely made-up theory that even mathematically works and that we can rely on for meterology, cosmology and airplane traffic requires an IQ that would by far exceed Einstein's! *g*

46. Behe's Empty Box

Comment #223822 by Raiko on August 3, 2008 at 1:19 pm

Sorry about earlier - I confused the names.

benedigeidfran, thanks for explaining where this came from and what it said.

It seems stevencarrowrk has fled the scene, anyway. I think plyons put it very succinctly. If stevencarrwork ever comes back, the best is to refer him to plyons, then. It's still beyond me what Behe has to do with anything.

47. Evangelically Serious Science

Comment #223666 by Raiko on August 3, 2008 at 5:05 am

This is sooo much torture for all of us who happen to live in the wrong country to see this! Ah, sweet pain!

48. Richard Dawkins branded 'secularist bigot' by veteran philosopher

Comment #223323 by Raiko on August 2, 2008 at 2:57 am

..."scandalously" selected particular quotes from Einstein to back up his claims that God does not exist

49. Vicar supports Life of Brian ban

Comment #222832 by Raiko on August 1, 2008 at 1:24 am

Making fun of Jesus Christ, whom I love more than my wife, in a film is going to offend me."

50. Workers' Religious Freedom vs. Patients' Rights

Comment #222829 by Raiko on August 1, 2008 at 1:22 am

If you can't do the job that's required of you, work somewhere else.