1. Taking a Cue From Ants on Evolution of Humans

Comment #210842 by jdbartlett on July 15, 2008 at 6:28 am

It doesn't seem entirely nonsense to me, but it it's confusing to think of evolution acting on groups until you look at it from a very high altitude. Of course natural selection applies only to individuals, but when individuals form groups and all in that group have the trait being selected against, it can also be said to operate on the group.

2. Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection

Comment #204942 by jdbartlett on July 6, 2008 at 8:46 am

mordacious1, that's awesome. I fell in love with black symphonic metal as a teenager, and still bring out the old favorites now and then when I need to concentrate.

This is a cool thread. I guess my general music tastes are pretty eclectic, but very little jazz (a few Miles Davis tracks, a bit of Chet Baker, and some more general big band stuff), almost no country (unless John Fahey counts) and only recently started appreciating classical. I listen to a lot of indie pop, bands like Belle & Sebastian, Architecture In Helsinki, CocoRosie, The Magnetic Fields, Of Montreal.

Also, more Beach Boys than Beatles.

3. Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection

Comment #204919 by jdbartlett on July 6, 2008 at 7:27 am

Roland_F:

Horus was crucified in-between 2 thugs and resurrected after 3 days as were several other ancient demi-gods and gods of course usually born from a virgin.

I've seen this and other Horus-Jesus connections written elsewhere, but never with any reference to Egyptian source documents, or even to historians who may have read or translated those documents. Have you seen these claims repeated in any reliable source?

That aside, this presents only a minor problem for Christians, who feel that Jesus' death and resurrection were all prophesied in the Old Testament. It appears 3 days is the only detail this tablet adds. It will probably be accepted as evidence that other non-extant Bible books were written under inspiration, if the tablet itself is not accepted as divine in origin.

4. As the world becomes smaller, the need to understand each other's faith grows

Comment #193112 by jdbartlett on June 14, 2008 at 3:56 pm

To those who ask why we should bother learning about religion:

Tucked up safely in the western world, people sometimes forget there are religions other than Christianity. We are "cultural Christians"--raised in a culture influenced by Christianity even though we do not accept its tenets. However, we need to know about some of those tenets to understand Western history and the humanities; what Bach was thinking when he composed a piece of music, or how slave owners could stand the sight of themselves in the mirror. Over the course of Western history, the Bible has been reinterpreted to suit political agendas, to the point that the relevant beliefs of modern "devout" Christians would probably be unrecognizable to a 17th century slave trader: slavery has become something evil to most Christians.

Elsewhere in the world, other religions exist and subscribe to other Holy Books. A unique culture and history has developed around each. Subsequently, these other cultures have different priorities to us, and very different attitudes toward the structure of government, toward the structure of families, toward dress and grooming... toward practically every facet of living.

Why should you learn about their religion? Because globalization is happening faster than religion is dying (if it is dying as Moriarty says) and subsequently, you will have to deal with non-Christian non-atheists whether or not you care what they believe, and you don't stand a chance of understanding their worldview unless you're willing to learn about it. A failure to understand foreign culture can only lead to a breakdown in diplomacy, to friction between groups with different opinions, and possibly even to war.

The joint pressures of globalization and democracy make us all diplomats. Currently, Americans have the opportunity to decide their nation's leading administration for the next four years; their next president. Which of the two most likely candidates shows a better appreciation for foreign policy? Do the American people know enough about foreign culture to decide who is more qualified to represent the interests of their country in diplomatic talks? Mr Blair and Mr Bush both learned what a dangerous mistake it is to assume every culture craves for democracy; that assumption was one of the key reasons for the dreadful failure of the Iraq war. Unless we teach our children that such differences exist, history will keep making that mistake again and again, and people will keep ignoring the interdependence of nations that demands stable foreign policy when the time comes to elect a new leader.

5. As the world becomes smaller, the need to understand each other's faith grows

Comment #192911 by jdbartlett on June 14, 2008 at 7:59 am

Steady on there! Sometimes, this forum gets flooded with some disturbingly aggressive groupthink.

Yes, we all have an axe to grind against religion and Mr Tony Blair; thanks for pointing that out, I'm sure I would've forgotten otherwise! Absolutely, religion is a dangerous crock. Yes, religion has been used to support xenophobia, racism, slavery, abuse of women, abuse of children, and every imaginable form of oppression and repression. But we cannot wage some "holy war" on religion or stomp it out by preaching atheism! It will not happen that way; the human brain is simply too poorly wired for any amount of education to eradicate superstitious belief itself, or even remove its political relevance. Mr Blair is suggesting another angle: combat religion's exclusionist demands; learn about other belief systems so we're better equipped for the diplomacy globalism demands.

This isn't about respecting religion or putting it on a pedestal. This is about respecting other people, something we are all capable of doing, whether we're atheist, Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, etc. Education---in this case education about others' religion and culture---is the only way we can curb religiously-fueled bigotry and hatred. That is what Mr Blair says he is trying to accomplish. I don't know that he's the best spokesman for it, but it's a noble goal.

Steve Zara mentioned Obama's call for secular government. This is the video, and it's a very moving speech:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jg8lCLumByw

Obama doesn't reject or belittle the beliefs of his predominantly Christian audience (of course not, he self-identifies as Christian.) Instead, he uses Bible stories to frame his point that we need secular support for government policies. Imagine if our leaders and diplomats were so well versed in others' culture and religion that they could use applicable religious allegory to help deliver a message, as Obama does in this video. That's a goal worth supporting.

Drop the groupthink and accept it: in the 21st century the world is becoming ever more interdependent. That means we have to get along with people of all religions. Religious memes will continue to spread. If we can find a way to encourage the spread of relatively benign mutations of those memes, we will be able to progress.

Yes, science provided a vaccine for Malaria. That doesn't mean religion can't help spread it.

6. 'In Our Time': Trofim Lysenko

Comment #190728 by jdbartlett on June 9, 2008 at 1:02 pm

I found some more information on the Swedish families:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2633,n,n

I don't have time to read it through at the moment, but maybe this article will help anyone else similarly "stumbled".

7. New Way To Think About Earth's First Cells

Comment #190722 by jdbartlett on June 9, 2008 at 12:53 pm

And it still doesn't have a soul!

8. 'In Our Time': Trofim Lysenko

Comment #190709 by jdbartlett on June 9, 2008 at 12:32 pm

I found this really fascinating:

At the end of the Second World War, there was a great famine in Holland and many pregnant women and their babies were poorly nourished, and when they grew up, they were small. That seems obvious, not very exciting. But their grandchildren were small, too. And we now know that wasn't just because of difference in size of the mothers; it has to do with the DNA. Some extraordinary results have come out of Sweden in the last few weeks, where they have very good records of good and bad agricultural years going back to 1800. It turns out, if you look at grandfathers, children, and grandsons--tens of thousands of people--grandfathers who grew up at times of famine had sons no different from anybody else, but their grandsons and not their granddaughters are very good at dealing with shortage of food. So somehow the DNA has been marked by this environmental experience; to ready itself almost for the expectation that food will be short in the next generation but one. Now that's... bizarre, it sounds Lysenkoist, but the evidence is overwhelming.

I haven't heard of anything like this before and it kinda weirded me out. As mordacious1 pointed out, its' very different from the evolutionary mechanisms we've observed thus far. Would anyone with more experience care to speculate? Perhaps this is something that affects "higher level" organisms? Just an idea.