1. The Secular Conscience

Comment #147403 by jeepyjay on March 20, 2008 at 9:46 am

So let's say the I want to study the Baha'i concept of God and Progressive Revelation. What field should I study? Why can't I go somewhere and study this notion of god? Somewhere where others gather to study the notion of god and its influence on society.

2. Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90

Comment #146485 by jeepyjay on March 19, 2008 at 6:09 am

The NY Times obituary mentions his admiration for the fantasy writer Lord Dunsany. In one of Clarke's biographical pieces he mentions visiting Dunsany at his home in Kent. He found him playing three-dimensional chess with the "fairy chess" expert T. R. Dawson. Dunsany signed one of his books using a quill pen! A strange link between future and past.

3. Two More Fleas

Comment #142442 by jeepyjay on March 12, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Just published, there is also a "benevolent flea" (what would that be zoologically?) namely The Dog Allusion by the cartoonist Martin Rowson.

http://www.foyles.co.uk/display.asp?K=9780099521334&aub=martin rowson&m=10&dc=12

'As with dogs, so with gods - by and large, you should blame the owners.'

4. Physicist Neil Turok: Big Bang Wasn't the Beginning

Comment #132292 by jeepyjay on February 24, 2008 at 3:00 pm

Turok theorizes that neither time nor the universe has a beginning or end.

It's a strange idea, though Turok would say it's no stranger than the standard explanation of the Big Bang: a singular point that defies our laws of physics, where all equations go to infinity and "all the properties we normally use to describe the universe and its contents just fail.

///

You have no beginning of time. It's always been there.

5. Smaller Version of the Solar System Is Discovered

Comment #128107 by jeepyjay on February 16, 2008 at 7:44 am

OGLE and MicroFUN what great and appropriate Acronyms!

6. Why Darwin matters

Comment #124139 by jeepyjay on February 8, 2008 at 12:48 pm

Yes, Nice. But I do wish he hadn't said:

And of course there was Social Darwinism, culminating in the obscenity of Hitlerism.

7. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #117340 by jeepyjay on January 28, 2008 at 3:19 pm

Cartomancer: Gaaah! Angels on the head of a pin! Again with the Enlightenment misrepresentations of Medieval thought! (slides into silent but fuming apoplectic rage)...

8. Banks are helping sharia make a back-door entrance

Comment #117033 by jeepyjay on January 28, 2008 at 6:03 am

This is not just in Canada. Islamic banking in the UK was aproved by the FSA in 2004:

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/About/Media/notes/bn016.shtml

There are already three branches of The Islamic Bank in Leicester alone:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4264939.stm

And ordinary banks like Lloyds TSB are offering sharia-compatible accounts.

"All generalisations are wrong"
Especially generalisations about generalisations!

9. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #117026 by jeepyjay on January 28, 2008 at 5:30 am

For many mathematicians, particularly those addicted, like Cantor, to speculations in the "paradise" (as Hilbert called it) of transfinite numbers, Mathematics is itself a Religion. It leads them to waste their life on such absurdities as the Banach-Tarski paradox:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox

This is just fantasy mathematics. In my view a high proportion of currently published papers in mathematics, dealing with things like Hilbert Spaces, are as pointless as medieval theologians discussing how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

10. Ken Ham in Leicester April 2008

Comment #115525 by jeepyjay on January 24, 2008 at 9:36 am

I would urge members of this forum who live in or near Leicester, and would like to see some sort of response, to join Leicester Secular Society and make their views known. The consensus of current members I have so far canvassed is to ignore Ham and co and not give them publicity.

If they were meeting at Leicester University we would intervene again to object to anti-science meetings on the campus, but since they are in an obscure venue it may be best to ignore them, unless they start ramping up publicity themselves. Then we could respond.

11. Ken Ham in Leicester April 2008

Comment #115113 by jeepyjay on January 23, 2008 at 3:27 pm

Comment #114898 by Steve Zara

I would write to local schools and local newspapers, so that they realise that these are not just religious talks - they are part of a strategy to undermine science and science teaching. A scathing article in a local newspaper, embarassing the organisers of the talks, may be effective. People should learn that hosting such talks is to make them subject to justified ridicule.

12. Ken Ham in Leicester April 2008

Comment #114842 by jeepyjay on January 23, 2008 at 3:00 am

I'm a bit disturbed that most commenters on this thread, apart from Roger Stanyard, seem to underestimate Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis as some sort of joke. He is a total menace.

Comment #114834 by Ilesere:
Jeepyjay - are you intending on picketing this event? If so then I'm close enough to Leicester that I'll join you, and bring my camera so we can provide our own report of events.

13. Ken Ham in Leicester April 2008

Comment #114599 by jeepyjay on January 22, 2008 at 12:55 pm

We at Leicester Secular Society have picketed Ken Ham's meetings that were held at Leicester University Student's Union building a few years ago. He has a very large following in the evangelical churches of Leicester.

On the last occasion he actually came to speak to me before going in to the building, and we exchanged a few words of argument. His publicity people even took some photos, and of course presented a skewed version of our conversation on their website for publicity purposes. I had a poster depicting Ken Ham as a "Prophet of Ignorance".

If you go into the meetings it is practically impossible to get a word of criticism in because it is all stage-managed. If someone of the stature of Richard Dawkins or P.Z.Myers were to turn up, then some exchange might be possible. Though of course they would turn it all to their own ends.

14. George Scales, War Hero and Generous Friend of RDFRS

Comment #111415 by jeepyjay on January 14, 2008 at 2:32 pm

Before this gets out of hand. According to this obituary in the Guardian George died in 2007.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2170543,00.html

Unless there are two George Scales with very similar life stories.

15. The Moral Instinct

Comment #110779 by jeepyjay on January 12, 2008 at 1:31 pm

Pinker asks: "Which of the following people would you say is the most admirable: Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman Borlaug?"

Well from the point of view of reducing the human overpopulation of the planet the answer must be Mother Teresa!

16. Blind Faiths

Comment #108675 by jeepyjay on January 7, 2008 at 12:11 pm

In response to Comment #108604 by al-rawandi, who says: "There are numerous causes in suicide terror. Many people here believe it is simply religion. All religions actively discourage suicide in their texts. So blaming religion is simply wishful thinking."

No it's not wishful thinking. The 9/11 terrorists had a state (they were Saudi Arabians), it was not oppressive to them, they were not victims of imperialism, they were not nationalists, their people were not suffering, they were not poor, they were well educated, they were not in despair.

Much the same can be said of the 7/7 bombers in London. They were comfortably off young men.

Only religion is left in your list.

17. Blind Faiths

Comment #108576 by jeepyjay on January 7, 2008 at 9:15 am

I'm not sure that AHA's use of the term "Romanticism" is quite the right one here. Perhaps it should be something like "Sentimentalism".

People like Mozart, Beethoven, Shelley and, Wordsworth were Romantics, but they were also Individualists and part of the Enlightenment.

I'm with Lee Harris as regards the fanaticism inherent in Islam. I call it the "Hum of the Ummah".

18. Mother Nature is Not Our Friend

Comment #106703 by jeepyjay on January 3, 2008 at 9:31 am

There are so many points in this article where I find myself disagreeing with Sam Harris.

His first and prime error of logic is that he doesn't define "Nature" and in fact uses the term in two senses, inclusive and exclusive of humans. I take the view that humans are part of nature.

In his first paragraph he talks about "the wisdom of nature" and about "real boundaries between the natural and the artificial", but the artificial, that which is made by humans, is itself part of nature.

He cites destructive events like asteroid strikes as being acts of nature, which they are, but so would be attempts by humans to deflect them.

He says that we are tempted to think that "we, as homo sapiens, have arrived at some well-defined position in the natural order"; surely we have, this is a perfectly respectable conclusion.

He says that "There was, for instance, no first member of the human species", well that can only mean that he is using a definition of "human species" that is very indefinite. It is perfectly reasonable to draw a line somewhere and say lets call people from this stage on "humans" and those before "prehumans" and to specify what the essential characteristics of humans are, in case there should be a change in future.

He says "Life is a continuous flux". This is very old and outdated philosophy. My understanding is that life is discontinuous. Genetic changes take place by digital mutations. Nowhere is it continuous.

He says "Nothing in the natural order demands that our descendants resemble us in any particular way." In that case, by definition, they will not be "humans" - we could perhaps call them "transhumans".

He asks: "Will this be a good thing?" The answer to that is obvious, for humans it will not be a good thing. For transhumans it will be a good thing.

He asks "What is the alternative to us taking charge of our biological destiny." against which he counterposes: "Might we be better off just leaving things to the wisdom of Nature?" This is a false dichotomy. We can choose to deefend our humanity against being changed to something non-human. It is just a question of deciding what we consider to be truly human features, or the best human features, that we want to preserve.

His classifying himself as "disabled" because he cannot reason mathematics like Einstein, compose music like Bach, or play golf like Woods, is just perversion of language (I presume for humorous effect).

He says: "Considering humanity as a whole, there is nothing about natural selection that suggests our optimal design. We are probably not even optimized for the Paleolithic, much less for life in the 21st century. And yet, we are now acquiring the tools that will enable us to attempt our own optimization." This assumes mistakenly that there is such a thing as "optimal" for being adapted to all environments. Our optimality resides in being "adaptable" to many different environments by employing such things as space suits, diving suits, fur coats, bikinis, etc.

He claims "Many people think this project" [I think he means genetic modification of humans] "is fraught with risk. But is it riskier than doing nothing? There may be current threats to civilization that we cannot even perceive, much less resolve, at our current level of intelligence. Could any rational strategy be more dangerous than following the whims of Nature?" Here once again he divorces us humans from nature. We are a force of nature ourselves. We are a force of nature that is in many respects out of control. We ned to gain greater self-control, for instance in population growth.

He concludes: "Mother Nature is not now, nor has she ever been, looking out for us." But we are part of nature, and we are capable of looking out for us. We should be looking out for us humans in as rational and scientific and careful a way as possible. We should also be looking out for the rest of nature, of which we are a part, and on which we depend, since we are the only part of nature capable of so doing.

19. Changing my Mind

Comment #106639 by jeepyjay on January 3, 2008 at 8:10 am

34 #106273 by eXcommunicate

Belief is not a simple atheist-theist axis. There is a second axis that runs perpendicular and that is the agnostic-gnostic axis. Together they are what I call the "Belief Compass." It's very similar to the (internet) famous "Political Compass."

A graphic of the "Belief Compass" I whipped up:
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/1082/atheisttheistagnosticgnyh5.jpg

20. 'Christian God is not to blame'

Comment #103531 by jeepyjay on December 26, 2007 at 6:33 am

On the aliases issue. I often use just my initials GPJ as my signing-in name since it is short. Then I joined a forum that didn't allow three-letter names so I spelt it out as jeepyjay and that has stuck. In fact I now prefer it to my rather odd given name George Jelliss, which I also find difficult to pronounce.

There is a long history of people who prefer to be known by names of their own choice. George Eliot, Lewis Carroll, George Orwell, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Stalin ... oops.

21. Do our leaders believe in God?

Comment #102352 by jeepyjay on December 22, 2007 at 1:01 pm

Parris writes: "Churchill believed in Providence, but would not have got on with God at all."

But "Providence" is just God's (or the Universe's) plan for you isn't it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Providence

So belief in Providence is belief in some sort of God. Not Atheism.

I think Churchill believed in himself, and his ancestry. He one said something like: "we are all worms, but I do believe I am a glow-worm".

Hitler also believed in "Providence".

There is a faint line between believing the Universe has a plan for you and egomania.

22. Sorry to disappoint, but it's nonsense to suggest we want to ban Christmas

Comment #101987 by jeepyjay on December 21, 2007 at 10:50 am

I've had no problems with any other links. Only that one. A panel comes up something to do with Quicktime and won't go away or close.

23. Sorry to disappoint, but it's nonsense to suggest we want to ban Christmas

Comment #101949 by jeepyjay on December 21, 2007 at 8:52 am

That "burning the clocks" link froze my computer!
Please remove it or correct it.

24. Dawkins: I'm a cultural Christian

Comment #100018 by jeepyjay on December 18, 2007 at 4:41 am

I'm certainly not a "cultural christian", though the education system in this country (UK) tried its damnedest to turn me into one.

If anything I'm a "cultural rationalist". What counts as of cultural importance to me includes very little, if anything, that can be ascribed to christianity. The traditions I revere go back to the ancient Greeks and the Renaissance.

Christopher Hitchens along with many others (such as the late Alistair Cook) praises the language of the King James Bible. Well I admit it has some good turns of phrase here and there, but for the most part it is incomprehensible tosh. Mind you, the same goes for most of the modern translations. Nonsense in any form of language is still nonsense.

Perhaps the New Atheists shouuld start promoting song-writers to provide new words to old carols, or better still, new words to new tunes, that sing the praises of rationality and science.

25. God rest you merry atheist

Comment #100008 by jeepyjay on December 18, 2007 at 4:03 am

Am I the only one around here of the "Bah Humbug" school of atheism?

You can hardly turn on the radio, or enter any supermarket without being accosted with "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" or some other carol from the middle of November or even earlier, non-stop to Newton Day and beyond.

I try to avoid it all as far as I can, but it's not getting any easier each year. If there are any kind atheist organisations organising christmas retreats, guaranteed free of carols, and all other forms of crass sentimentality, and a good supply of humbugs, I'd happily sign in.

26. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #99051 by jeepyjay on December 15, 2007 at 11:11 am

Calling 25th December "Newton Day" is something I've been doing for years, so I'm pleased to see Professor Dawkins picking up on it.

I've long thought that Newton's somewhat difficult (could one say messianic?) personality must have been affected by the circumstances of his birth. Besides being born on Christmas day (by the Julian calendar then in use), there were other factors. The English Civil War had started in August. His father had died before he was born, so in effect he had no father.

No doubt these parallels encouraged his lifelong interest in biblical chronology and prophecies.

27. The empty myths peddled by evangelists of unbelief

Comment #97061 by jeepyjay on December 11, 2007 at 10:56 am

One searches in vain in the company of militant unbelievers for signs of the creative doubt that has energised many religious thinkers. While theologians have interrogated their beliefs for millennia, secular humanists have yet to question their simple creed. Evangelical atheism is the mirror image of the faith it attacks - without that faith's redeeming doubts.

These and other familiar evils can never be finally overcome. Continually reappearing under different labels, they have to be fought in every generation.

28. Taking Science on Faith

Comment #90563 by jeepyjay on November 25, 2007 at 2:21 pm

Duff, you're obviously not aware that Davies has already won the Templeton Prize, in 1995. But he may indeed be after another!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Templeton_Prize#Prize_winners

Sorry he is not Australian, as I said, but he was out there for some time I believe.

29. Taking Science on Faith

Comment #90560 by jeepyjay on November 25, 2007 at 2:13 pm

I agree with No 23. Comment #90465 by Tea Q that Davies is clearly equating science and religion, but I doubt if it is because he is not very good with writing English (even if he is Australian). Far more likely is that he is trying to put up the backs of the new atheists to earn points from his Templeton colleagues.

On the other hand I do think there is mileage in the idea that laws of the universe might have evolved in some way, though I find his suggestion that life in some way influenced the laws rather baffling, seeing that life hasn't been around all that long (or is he implying that it has but not on earth - the panspermia hypothesis - he hasn't made this clear). The most likely way that laws could have evolved is in Smolin's idea of an evolving series of universes (if it is still a viable theory).

Other Templeton writers argue, for theological reasons, that we can understand the universe because it was created to be understandable. But I prefer the explanation that we can understand it (to the degree that we do) because we have evolved within it.

Finally I would question whether the universe is really so rationally designed and mathematically precise as some mathematical physicists like to think. Looking at many photos from the Hubble telescope shows much more chaos than regularity. Perhaps such laws as exist are all only of a statistical nature, deriving from an underlying total chaos.

30. Can we at least demand 'Secular Communion'?

Comment #88846 by jeepyjay on November 19, 2007 at 4:13 am

As I mentioned on the other thread on this subject, late last night, I have now published my own point by point rebuttal of Norman's article:

http://secsoc.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html

titled: "With New Humanist on our side ..."

On the Leicester Secularist blog.

As a BHA member (though seriously considering whether to renew my subscription) I can confirm that there are a number of members (though only a few are openly active) who take Norman's stance of underestimating the dangers of religion. This is probably because they have a lot of friends in the CofE clergy who seem pretty harmless, and that they are educated in the humanities and are ignorant of science. That's the impression I get anyway.

There are some humanists who even want to convert humanism into a sort of religion, much as the old Comtean positivist church sought to do in the 1900s. But this is an extreme wing who I think should really be in the "Sea of Faith". The question for me is whether to continue to argue our case from within the organisation, or to leave. My inclination is the former.

31. Holy communion

Comment #88718 by jeepyjay on November 18, 2007 at 4:47 pm

I have now published my own full response to Richard Norman's New Humanist article:

http://secsoc.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html

On the Leicester Secularist blog.

32. Holy communion

Comment #88182 by jeepyjay on November 15, 2007 at 4:54 am

You can now vote on the issue of the cartoon at the New Humanist blog, and add your comments:

http://blog.newhumanist.org.uk/

At present the ratio is about 1 to 2 for it being offensive.

33. Holy communion

Comment #88049 by jeepyjay on November 14, 2007 at 10:48 am

By the way. Is there any significance in the red trousers they are all wearing? Everything else seems to have symbolic meaning!

34. Holy communion

Comment #87490 by jeepyjay on November 12, 2007 at 9:07 am

Cartomancer wrote: "Atheists are NOT a persecuted minority in England. We never really have been. We don't lack for basic human rights. Atheism is not something English people have ever been ashamed to display. It has never been illegal to be a practising atheist."

In 1842 the founder of Secularism, G. J. Holyoake, was imprisoned for blasphemy.

http://www.leicestersecularsociety.org.uk/holyoake.htm

There is still a blasphemy law on the statute books, though it is now little used. It is because of the campaigns of such people as Holyoake that we are freer now to express atheistic views than was ever possible in the past. But there is still a bias against atheism in education and in public life. You only have to look at the government's recent "Faith in the System" publication

http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/newsarticleview.asp?article=2391

to see how it could easily get far worse.

35. Holy communion

Comment #87275 by jeepyjay on November 11, 2007 at 4:11 pm

For those debating whether the cartoon depicts a gay Dawkins here is another Rowson cartoon for comparison, depicting a gay Cameron (the current conservative leader for our US friends)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/martinrowson/0,,1889163,00.html

The cartoon Dawkins has the same rosy cheeks, but not the Wildean collar. Sandal-wearing was introduced to the UK by Edward Carpenter who was an early socialist and homosexual campaigner.

Personally I find most of Rowson's cartoons offensive (and most of Steve Bell's and Gerald Scarfe's) but that's probably because I'm an old fogey.

36. Same Flea, Different Name?

Comment #86163 by jeepyjay on November 8, 2007 at 1:21 pm

Cartomancer, I enjoyed your Gilbert and Sullivan parody (even if no one else seems to have noticed it). Great stuff!

I have to report another "flea". Last night I went to a lecture by the Bishop of London with the title "Climate Change and The God Delusion". My report is here:

http://secsoc.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html

In fact it was nothing about Richard Dawkins' book. The Bishop thinks that Humanists have the delusion that we are little gods ourselves.

37. The Turning of an Atheist

Comment #85375 by jeepyjay on November 5, 2007 at 3:38 pm

In response to comment 85050 by astroprof. I don't think Fred Hoyle ever lost his marbles. He was just a bloody-minded Yorkshireman who liked to think differently just for the joy of stirring people up. Anyway, his panspermia ideas were even considered by Francis Crick, so they are not that outlandish. Also Hoyle was unjustifiably passed over for the Nobel Prize for his work on astrophysics, and could well have been justifiably disgruntled.

38. The truth in religion

Comment #84182 by jeepyjay on November 1, 2007 at 11:39 am

I've long been hoping that one of these religious apologists, who claim that there is no conflict between faith and reason, would give a definition of faith to justify this view. He does at least offer one:

[blockquote]Faith is a commitment to a form of motivated belief, differing only from scientific reason in the nature of the subject of that belief and the kind of motivations appropriate to it.[/blockquote]

But unfortunately It's rather to convoluted for me to follow. Can anyone translate it?

Later on this comment made me choke on my tea:

[blockquote]Religion does not have access to absolute proof of its beliefs but, on careful analysis, nor does science.[/blockquote]

Scientific proofs are a damn sight more absolute than anything I've seen from religion! This is one of the main troubles with religious believers. They want "absolute" knowledge. Just 99.999999 percent wont do for them! Yet they are still not prepared give up their favourite beliefs even if there is only 0.0000001 percent evidence it just might be true.

39. The God Delusion and Alister E McGrath

Comment #82778 by jeepyjay on October 27, 2007 at 2:39 pm

I thought I should draw everyone's attention to this announcement on the Sea of Faith site:

23-25 June 2008 — Beyond Paley: Renewing the vision for natural theology. An international conference sponsored by the British Society for Philosophy of Religion (BSPR) at the Museum of Natural History, Oxford. Details will be available later this year or by emailing Alister.McGrath@hmc.ox.ac.uk.

See: http://www.sofn.org.uk/pages/whatson.html

Is McGrath now joining the creationists?

40. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!

Comment #82009 by jeepyjay on October 25, 2007 at 2:25 pm

The dictators may have been atheists, but they certainly weren't humanists!

Many, if not most, of the victims of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were themselves atheists, and often communists too. The reason they were sent to the gulags or the killing fields was because they stood in the way of the dictators as dissidents or educated bourgeois or supported the wrong flavour of communism.

41. Science owes its origins to Christianity or Religion

Comment #81977 by jeepyjay on October 25, 2007 at 1:20 pm

Simplifying (more than) slightly! Science began in the Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations, and reached an advanced state with the Greeks, as for example in the work of Aristotle on logic, Euclid on geometry, Archimedes on mechanics.

Then there was a setback for 1000 years, known as the Dark Ages, during which the Christian religion took over the Roman world, and then Islam spread.

It was only with the gradual rediscovery, over the next 500 years, of the ancient Greek achievements, that a new questioning mind-set and willingness to test and experiment evolved that led to the scientific revolution.

Far from Christianity creating science or stimulating its development, religion was a force for ignorance for 1500 years, and it was the renewal of thought that led to the Reformation in the church that then permitted the new thought to evolve further.

42. Report on Hindu god Ram withdrawn

Comment #81323 by jeepyjay on October 24, 2007 at 3:35 pm

In my first post in this thread I mentioned the Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland. There is now a campaign by creationists to get their leaflets displayed in the tourist office, claiming the Causeway was formed in Noah's Flood!

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/letters/article3064754.ece

There was a similar campaign in the US over the Grand Canyon a couple of years back.

43. Report on Hindu god Ram withdrawn

Comment #80278 by jeepyjay on October 21, 2007 at 5:13 am

A few years ago I did a survey of early works of literary fantasy, and I included the Jewish, Hindu, Japanese, Icelandic, etc. sagas and legends (though it needs updating):

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gpjnow/fan1.htm

This is the way all these stories should now be viewed, as part of world literature. The idea that they depict the true state of the world, or a true history of real events is childish.

44. Anthropologist finds cultural emphasis on group over individual might hinder democracy

Comment #79639 by jeepyjay on October 18, 2007 at 2:20 am

keith; your speculations about me are wide of the mark, and you seem to have missed the fact that my comments were tongue-in-cheek.

I don't find the study at all impressive, it is just an anthropologist trying to justify his pay check.

Quote: "Members of the elite also talk about the group as paramount in the social fabric," he says. "They say political change is inevitable but must occur slowly because the real Tongan way cannot be uprooted, which is a contradiction. Tradition is at odds with the concept of democracy."

But democracy is not just individualism, it is rule of the people by the people, and implicit in this is that the people concerned already see themselves as a coherent group.

It's just the same in Britain, where there may be more regional and class factionalism, because of the larger land area and population, but where the people tend to come together when under threat from outside.

45. Report on Hindu god Ram withdrawn

Comment #78972 by jeepyjay on October 15, 2007 at 3:06 pm

Whether this is a natural formation or partially man-made, it is certainly remarkable geology so surely it should be important for it to be treated with some respect and not unduly damaged by engineering works.

The fact that there is a traditional story associated with it is hardly surprising. One has only to think of the Giant's causeway between Ireland and Scotland, supposedly built by Finn McCool. Any proposal to engineer that would arouse heated protest.

Stories and Legends associated with natural formations abound, throughout Britain let alone all over the world. These stories are part of world literature and enrich our life.

46. Anthropologist finds cultural emphasis on group over individual might hinder democracy

Comment #78486 by jeepyjay on October 13, 2007 at 7:50 am

Doesn't really seem much different from the situation in the United Kingdom!

The Monarchy has been around as long, and everything centres on the capital, London.

Everyone votes for the party that supports the group (class) to which they belong and no-one thinks for themselves. (As Gilbert and Sullivan pointed out long ago in Iolanthe.)

47. Atheists arise: Dawkins spreads the A-word among America's unbelievers

Comment #74933 by jeepyjay on October 1, 2007 at 6:53 am

The quote: "I would like to see people encouraged to rejoice in the world in which they find themselves, the universe in which they have been born, to take full advantage of the tiny slice of eternity they have been granted" inadvertently slips into theology-speak.

"Granted" but who by? God, Nature, Lady Luck?

The term "eternity" also has a theological pedigree. Scientifically I suppose it means "the lifetime of the universe", though it may be questionable whether the universe has a finite existence.

Also many people are born into circumstances that are not that joyful.

Sorry if I sound a spoil-sport, but I like to be logical.

48. The Mix Tape of the Gods

Comment #67965 by jeepyjay on September 5, 2007 at 12:14 pm

Sorry Tyler but your ignorance about radio waves is not excusable, even if you're just out of infant school. Unless you've been in hibernation since 1877.

49. Church and State: Divided we stand

Comment #63693 by jeepyjay on August 15, 2007 at 12:38 pm

Contrary to AWACS77 I don't like Dershowitz's "Commendments".

They seem to me to be a plea to religious believers to be dishonest hypocrites.

My Commendment would be: Be honest with the electorate. If you believe God is on your side say so, so that we can judge how barmy you are. And do not confuse morality with religion.

There is no "proper role" for religion in public life. Respect diversity by all means, but not diversity of opinion if that means treating lies as equal to truth.

50. A Designer Universe?

Comment #61617 by jeepyjay on August 6, 2007 at 2:45 am

In response to my queries about whether the universe can be infinite, dancingthemantaray coments:

"Imagine you comprehended only 2 dimensions (well, 3 including time) and were actually running on the surface of a giant sphere, you could never ever reach the end of it, and wouldn't know why. This is kind of how the universe is infinite for us...does that make any sense (not sure I've explained it well)."

There you are confusing "endless" with "infinite". A circle or sphere is finite; it curls back on itself. As I understand it the seed from which the universe grew was some sort of hypersphere (four-dimensional space-time).