1. B.C. health official says mumps outbreak began with unimmunized religious group

Comment #237965 by sb84 on August 27, 2008 at 1:13 pm

It's not just that they spread disease, I heard they eat babies too. Everybody panic!

2. Holiday in Hellmouth

Comment #189974 by sb84 on June 8, 2008 at 2:12 am

clearthinker: I think it makes us (c) human. We, after all, don't claim to be all-good and all-powerful.

Teratornis: I just accidentally flagged your message as offensive... No offense! (They should ask for a confirmation, or maybe I should just be more cautious... Once again, sorry.)

3. A word for nonbelievers

Comment #189675 by sb84 on June 7, 2008 at 12:48 am

@dr joneZ: I think you've heard of it. I do not believe in any god and I do not believe that religious faith benefits the world.

When reading this article, I had a very strong feeling that this particular free thinker was advocating a religious approach to atheism: joining groups, holding hands, keeping the faith strong. That troubles me. Atheism doesn't need any of that, and it only helps people who claim "atheism is just another religion". No, it's not, although some people are trying hard...

Of course I can't judge the intent of this particular man based on one article (that may be full of misquotations).

Edit: I totally agree with JuxtaMonkey by the way.

4. A word for nonbelievers

Comment #189668 by sb84 on June 6, 2008 at 11:56 pm

What's next? Study groups for The Selfish Gene? I thought atheism was all about making up your own mind. I think this interpretation of atheism is, at its core, religious.

"What we want to do is give people questioning their beliefs a place to go for more information and to meet like-minded people."

Right, because free thought really depends on meeting like-minded people. This is the kind of religion I mean.

ps. I say this as a non-religious atheist.

5. What Genes Remember

Comment #184655 by sb84 on May 25, 2008 at 10:50 pm

Yet another REVOLUTION! Perhaps DARWIN WAS WRONG after all!

...or maybe we should actually first try to explain the data within the framework of all the well-documented theories we already have, before we start pushing for a paradigm shift.

Scooternyc: re the "diseased" and "distored perspectives" that hinder "healthy evolution": surely this is sarcasm?

6. Mail-boat record 'proves Darwin stole his original ideas from a Welsh scientist'

Comment #184649 by sb84 on May 25, 2008 at 10:37 pm

Didn't Darwin and Wallace acknowledge each other's contributions to the theory? I thought Darwin even objected to the term "Darwinism", because the idea should be attributed to Wallace as well. That doesn't quite fit in with the idea "Darwin stole the idea for his own glory". But then again, maybe it's different after 15 years of research...

7. Does Time Run Backward in Other Universes?

Comment #184247 by sb84 on May 24, 2008 at 5:59 am

Mitchell, I think the scientists who work on this are actually trying to find ways to make it falsifiable. That's one big difference with theology. It may turn out not to be falsifiable, but at least they can work on it for a while.

I think one of the main points here is simply that if your theories allow for something that doesn't occur in the presently observable universe, you have to account for that. Either there is a reason why it doesn't happen (like a "law of entropy"), or there is no such reason and you have to deal with the possibility that somewhere else things work differently.

And if you say "yes, there is a law of entropy" then you owe it to yourself to try and explain it. Otherwise (at least in the eyes of many) you are just describing and not explaining.

[edit] To clarify: not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with "just" describing; maybe that is all we can really do. But if you believe that the job of science is to "explain", then I think you have to go all the way.

8. God and Science Collide in Nation's Capital

Comment #182390 by sb84 on May 19, 2008 at 11:23 pm

Quote: I think science is all there is. There are NOT other ways of knowing. In fact, I'll believe in other ways of knowning once it's shown to me that they exist -and I will subject them to the scientific method :))

Right. Now, I'm not a particular fan of the philosophy of science, epistemology etc., but this is just a bit too easy. Is this sarcasm?

As for the other comments, I agree that people often get the concepts of "a god" and "this particular God" confused. This, by the way, goes for both sides of the argument. Of course "a god" could exist, given the right definition of "a god". That's just a tautology. The question is, is there any merit in belief in any entity that imposes no other boundaries on your concept of the universe than just its existence?

I say no. So do most religious people. So let's debate the existence of the correlated phenomena whose existence is claimed by many religious people - healing by prayer, the creation of the universe, etc. The "existence of god" is just an empty statement. There, I could substitute "tao" for "god" and we still wouldn't be any wiser, or even more ignorant, for that matter.