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Comment #178766 by epeeist on May 12, 2008 at 2:33 am
Comment #178765 by scooternyc
And so early to be so sarcastic - I'm impressed and amused!It might be early for you, but I have done half a morning's work here.
2. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?
Comment #178763 by epeeist on May 12, 2008 at 2:27 am
Comment #178760 by scooternyc
Their morals are so subjectiveNo they are not.
3. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?
Comment #178759 by epeeist on May 12, 2008 at 2:23 am
Comment #178754 by Quine
It is short, but dense with thought.I think I must be reading it in Winnie the Pooh mode - "I am a bear of very little brain and long words bother me".
4. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?
Comment #178745 by epeeist on May 12, 2008 at 1:49 am
Comment #178742 by Quine
Well, it seems to have gotten much more difficult for the faithful to float the usual theological circularity around here.At MPhil's suggestion I am attempting to read "On What There Is". I am finding it tough going. I really wish that theists had more than one book in their library.
5. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?
Comment #178735 by epeeist on May 12, 2008 at 1:31 am
Comment #178731 by Artful_Dodger
Not any more than your presupposing the non-existence of God makes your argument circular.If an entity X is postulated to exist, and no substantive evidence capable of withstanding intense critical scrutiny is present to support the postulated existence of entity X, then the default position is to regard entity X as not existing until said supporting evidence materialises.
6. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?
Comment #178727 by epeeist on May 12, 2008 at 1:02 am
Comment #178717 by Artful_Dodger
Epeeist, there is nothing metaphorical about the fall, except (possibly) the images, the word pictures, that were used to describe it. The tree and the fruit and the talking serpent may not be literal, but the all too real narratives that they are intended to illustrate: of defiance against God,To take Rian's comment further. Not only are you presupposing a god (which makes your argument circular), but a particular god. Why is the story of the creation and the fall (including Ningizzida the talking serpent, lord of the tree of life lifted straight from the Epic of Gilgamesh) any more true than that of Hiranyagarbha the golden embryo or the meeting of ice and fire in Ginnungagap. Note that neither of these two mythologies has a fall. In fact the idea of a fall is an exception in mythology.
7. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?
Comment #178716 by epeeist on May 12, 2008 at 12:49 am
Comment #178713 by Artful_Dodger
The one that is relevant to this thread is the very existence of the faculty of reason, which is not reducible to natural causes.You have proof for this assertion?
8. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?
Comment #178709 by epeeist on May 12, 2008 at 12:30 am
Comment #178704 by riandouglas
I did note that, but isn't the term "god" a generic term and not a proper name?
Yahweh, Zeus, Thor are all gods, right?
9. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?
Comment #178706 by epeeist on May 12, 2008 at 12:25 am
Comment #178702 by Artful_Dodger
Epeeist, read the rest of my post. Of course there is a range of literary devices in any text.
10. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?
Comment #178700 by epeeist on May 12, 2008 at 12:08 am
Comment #178695 by riandouglas
No he isn't, he is presupposing his "God" (note the capital G) and at the same time implicitly denying the existence of other gods. How about literal and metaphorical in the Rig Veda?Artful_Dodger: Let's first establish the willingness to take seriously the possibility of God speaking through "words".Ah, you're simply presupposing a god. It's better than going all the way to Yahweh & Jesus, but it still needs justification.
11. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?
Comment #178686 by epeeist on May 11, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Comment #178521 by Artful_Dodger
I have answered the literal v metaphor question.No you didn't. You gave one particular instance.
12. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?
Comment #178476 by epeeist on May 11, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Comment #178464 by Artful_Dodger
You really are a tosser aren't you? The only reason you raise this is to cause quarrel dialogue."I'm a passionate Darwinian in the academic sense (...), yet I am a passionate Anti-Darwinian when it comes to human social and political affairs."
I really can't get over the fact that nobody on this site is willing to challenge Dawkins on the glaring inconsistncy here.
13. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'
Comment #178456 by epeeist on May 11, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Comment #178451 by Nairb
You mean like this:
The first important step is to Perceive muslim behaviour in society AS IT IS.
The above article is factual but not representative.
14. Richard Dawkins interviewed by John Humphrys on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor
Comment #178349 by epeeist on May 11, 2008 at 9:39 am
Comment #178310 by Stuart Paul Wood
"Thought" for the day" - 5 minutes given over to some platitudinous religious wanker of one description or another.The only one I have ever had time for on this has been Lionel Blue.
15. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby
Comment #178318 by epeeist on May 11, 2008 at 7:30 am
Comment #178247 by Paula Kirby
Just in case anyone's interested in a completely DIFFERENT take on this event, this is the review posted on www.christianstogether.net:I don't think I am going to thank you for that Paula, I could lose less brain cells by downing a bottle of Uzbekistanian vodka.
http://www.christianstogether.net/Publisher/Article.aspx?id=112791
16. Atheists are nice people who will roast in hell, says Cardinal
Comment #178293 by epeeist on May 11, 2008 at 5:26 am
Comment #178211 by huzonfurst
Well it certainly is what Atum was all about - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atum
Speaking of wanking, isn't that precisely what religion is?
17. Atheists are nice people who will roast in hell, says Cardinal
Comment #178292 by epeeist on May 11, 2008 at 5:23 am
Comment #178084 by fides_et_ratio
Serious question Diacanu. What is reason?You know, 30s of looking would have got you to http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/practical-reason/
18. British Airways takes beef off the menu to avoid offending Hindus
Comment #178069 by epeeist on May 10, 2008 at 11:56 am
Comment #178055 by Nova
Look at the bottom of the page - the Evening Standard is part of the Mail group. A paper so thoroughly nasty that irate_atheist won't even take a copy for his cat to crap on.
This newspaper is right-wing and is just plain lying when they say that it was to avoid offending Hindus
19. Richard Dawkins interviewed by John Humphrys on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor
Comment #178038 by epeeist on May 10, 2008 at 10:28 am
Comment #177937 by fides_et_ratio
Why was the Cardinal's lecture given such prominent billing on a national news programme AT ALL?Clearly an admission that the Cardinal's response to Richard Dawkins et al should not be given a public forum.
20. Richard Dawkins interviewed by John Humphrys on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor
Comment #178036 by epeeist on May 10, 2008 at 10:22 am
Comment #177743 by Apathy personified
Your assertion that the Cardinal represents millions, probably true, but i bet the views of RD are far more popular.You have changed fides words slight.
21. Richard Dawkins interviewed by John Humphrys on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor
Comment #178034 by epeeist on May 10, 2008 at 10:15 am
Comment #177708 by fides_et_ratio
What about 'The Root of All Evil' or even the countless invitations to discuss the subject on TV, the wireless, and in the print?What about "Thought for the Day", "In the Light of the Spirit", the "Heaven and Earth Show", "Songs of Praise", "Sunday", "Sunday Worship" to name just a few off the BBC. All of these are regular programmes for the religious.
Comment #177392 by epeeist on May 9, 2008 at 2:38 am
I had some musings on this on another thread. This effectively confirms my thoughts.
The thing that troubles me is that as the (relatively) reasonable people in the CofE and Catholic church disappear then all we will be left with are the real nutters, the bible literalists, creationists, follows of Wright, Hagee and the Phelps family. And that is only the Christians!
Comment #176901 by epeeist on May 8, 2008 at 9:53 am
I deny Bunnahabhain, I deny Lagavulin, I deny Bruichladdich, I deny Ardbeg.
Well I deny them to most visitors, I keep this kind of spirit to myself.
24. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks
Comment #176899 by epeeist on May 8, 2008 at 9:45 am
You know there is one thing that I am sure clearmind can explain.
Given the central thesis of Ben Stein's wonderful movie - if evolutionists evolved into Nazis, why do we still have evolutionists?
25. Home-schooling special: Preach your children well
Comment #176897 by epeeist on May 8, 2008 at 9:27 am
There was a recent report showing that children who had gone to pre-school had a reduced risk of leukemia (http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=29990286-3bef-4773-97e8-3d65f7f9cf77&k=74971).
Given that home schooled children presumably mix with fewer children then this presumably means they are in the higher risk group. Assuming that prayer doesn't manage to keep it away.
26. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks
Comment #176871 by epeeist on May 8, 2008 at 7:58 am
Comment #176855 by ligfietser
The problem is, in Europe, fear of muslims IS de facto used as a disguise for racism, and Wilders is a poster child of this.It is used by the extreme right to stir up racism and there are racists who do not distinguish between religion and race.
27. Lying for Jesus?
Comment #176753 by epeeist on May 8, 2008 at 12:46 am
Comment #176685 by Goldy
Untrue, the proper description was made by Shayne Dark, i.e. lintelligent design.
No, gravity is just a theory. we are stuck to teh ground by air pressure and microscopic velcro.
28. Lying for Jesus?
Comment #176752 by epeeist on May 8, 2008 at 12:40 am
Comment #176640 by MPhil
Facts are non-temporal.I have a slight, I think, semantic problem with this.
29. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?
Comment #176430 by epeeist on May 7, 2008 at 10:07 am
Comment #176421 by Podaar
Lets see if I'm learning...Dembski was the mathematician who tried to calculate the odds of human complexity by calculating backwards? His basic mistake was the assumption that life as we know it is a 'desired' end result?It was that pesky flagellum that he got wrong - http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Desperately.cfm
30. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?
Comment #176417 by epeeist on May 7, 2008 at 9:35 am
Comment #176370 by Podaar
Uuuuh, I think you mean million. Yes?Hey, cut him some slack. He wasn't off by as many orders of magnitude as Dembski.
31. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?
Comment #176309 by epeeist on May 7, 2008 at 6:56 am
Comment #176308 by seeker_of_truth
It might just possibly because people preferred to live near water rather than in places where there aren't any?Do you think there was a global flood as described in the bible?Sometime in ancient history I believe there was a widespread flood, possibly global, and not localized as we know floods to occur today. It becomes difficult to deny the possibility when you consider such flood stories exist in almost every ancient culture of the world.
If so, when?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html
32. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?
Comment #175960 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 9:34 am
Comment #175952 by irate_atheist
I note that Seeker has gone, for now. Perhaps he is trying to count his toes before learning such trivialities as logarithms and differential calculus.It is a pity that putting mathematics on the site is so difficult. All it would have taken is the showing of the first order rate equation and its solution for the limits of detection.
33. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?
Comment #175936 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 8:57 am
Comment #175930 by seeker_of_truth
Oh, we reached a conclusion on you ages ago. You are a lying little creotard. Just giving you the benefit of the doubt and illustrating to others who read the posts on this site that there is no difference between your time wasting and that of wooter.
I would have thought by the lack-of, by this point at least, it would have caused a thinking man to have already reached a conclusion on this.
34. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?
Comment #175924 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 8:44 am
Comment #175922 by seeker_of_truth
You guys are sure making a big deal about something still in the imagination phase.Well, Al is busy elsewhere, so I will call it.
35. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?
Comment #175919 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 8:39 am
Comment #175915 by seeker_of_truth
We aren't responsible for your education. That is ultimately your responsibility. Of course, if you want to delegate it to your mom in your home school then that will be fine.
http://radiocarbon.library.arizona.edu/volume43/number2A/azu_radiocarbon_v43_n2a_157_161_v.pdf
I didn't see where my question was answered in this link. Could you please 'dumb it down' for me in your own words? Thanks.
36. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?
Comment #175912 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 8:29 am
Comment #175898 by seeker_of_truth
May I presume since no one has disputed this or offered an alternative explanation of why C-14 is invalid beyond 50k years that my above, stated discourse is agreed upon?No you may not. Stop evading the issue, where is the paper on a 4000 year old dinosaur.
If an entity X is postulated to exist, and there exists in turn no substantive evidence supporting the existence of entity X, then the default position is to regard entity x as non-existent until said substantive evidence materialises.
37. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?
Comment #175871 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 7:20 am
Comment #175866 by seeker_of_truth
I don't believe you have given us the reference to this putative 4000 year old dinosaur.
Now imagine you find dino-bone fossils in a geological column that we assume, yes assume, is 70 million years old - yet these bones test at 4,000 years average under C-14 with no known contamination of any kind. Do we go with the assumption [based on evolutionary theory] or the more scientifically verifiable process of C-14 dating?
Comment #175856 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 6:53 am
Comment #175833 by Cartomancer
America's first strictly academic daemonologist eh? Pfft. We've had academic daemonologists in Europe since... well, since the Middle Ages to be exact.And if you are going to go for a definitive volume rather than a crappy work of fiction then why not go for one written by a king - http://www.amazon.com/Demonology-King-James-I/dp/1585096660
39. Research Volunteers Needed
Comment #175814 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 5:23 am
Comment #175809 by MPhil
If Bill Gates had never used a computer, hadn't done what did - hundreds of millions of dollars less would have gone to charities...He does a lot of charitable work true, but don't take it at face value.
40. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks
Comment #175804 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 4:45 am
Comment #175803 by Fanusi Khiyal
Just to drive the point home, Muazzam Begg will be talking about how terrible Gitmo was in Cambridge, to slobbering audiences.Good of you to anticipate the appearance and reaction of the whole audience.
41. Record-setting Laser May Aid Searches for Earthlike Planets
Comment #175799 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 4:05 am
Comment #175797 by rod-the-farmer
Can someone suggest a link that would explain how this works ? Is this another one of those interference things ? Maybe with a diagram ?Here you go - http://www.rp-photonics.com/frequency_combs.html
42. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust
Comment #175778 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 2:38 am
Would it be useful to arrange a Mensur match between MPhil and Bonzai?
43. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust
Comment #175764 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 2:13 am
Comment #175758 by _riverrun_
Couldn't agree more. That was precisely my point. Lost it seems. I assume that my statement that "Sam Harris is wrong on every count. The time of the attacks, the rational, and the noble intent are nothing but vacuous assertions from mainstream reportage," is equally without function.I suspect that most of your audience disappeared before they got to that paragraph.
44. Life after Jehovah's Witnesses: website offers help to followers who lose their faith
Comment #175756 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 1:46 am
Comment #175753 by sphardy
Ye gods and little fishes, one of the posters is from Horsforth in Leeds, not too far away from where I was brought up.
http://exjw-reunited.co.uk/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=77
45. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust
Comment #175755 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 1:27 am
Comment #175749 by keith
I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and even less enthusiasm to make the effort to find out.Agreed, pretentiousness masquerading as intellectualism. But of course it is your problem if you don't understand it.
46. The emerging moral psychology
Comment #175733 by epeeist on May 6, 2008 at 12:18 am
Comment #175731 by Spinoza
Please keep the conversation here. I, and I suspect a number of others, find it interesting. And if it isn't rational and clear thinking then I don't know what is.
(perhaps we should/could continue this on some sort of Messenger or Facebook chat?... I would be interested in engaging your scepticism about quasi and Cornell realism...)
47. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks
Comment #175412 by epeeist on May 5, 2008 at 11:17 am
Comment #175410 by babrock
Sam gets a rather large amount of critisism for racism, for taking positions just like what he is taking here.There seems be a standard practice by certain Muslims of equivocating between religion and race. Certainly in the UK this may be something to do with the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_and_Religious_Hatred_Act_2006). While prosecutions have been brought for racial hatred I am not aware of any for religious hatred.
48. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks
Comment #175393 by epeeist on May 5, 2008 at 10:40 am
Comment #175369 by al-rawandi
Although, put enough 56 IQ's together and you have another problem.As the fat yellow man said - "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers".
49. Research Volunteers Needed
Comment #175325 by epeeist on May 5, 2008 at 8:40 am
Comment #175324 by StephenP
If you're using IE, then you need to enable these in the "tools" menu.Rather than do this, just install Firefox from www.mozilla.org. Then install Adblock Plus, Adblock Filterset G and the British English dictionary from the downloads site.
50. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust
Comment #175322 by epeeist on May 5, 2008 at 8:33 am
Comment #175304 by al-rawandi
Well compared to Anna, I am all over the map. I am pretty left on some issues and I don't consider myself right at all."Right wing" - two words to characterise someone's whole political viewpoint seems to be a good example of black and white thinking.