1. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93731 by Roedy on December 4, 2007 at 3:48 am

As a gay man, I feel so sorry for straight people, the way they tear themselves to pieces when they discover their partner has had some extra sex.

I think most gay men look at it this way. If partner gets it on with some cutie, they are doing something I would like to do myself. Why would I want to deny my beloved that pleasure?

I developed this attitude after a magnificently hung porn star I had admired in an advertisment "miraculously" showed up on my doorstep seeking lodging. It was just too absurd to deny my partner or myself the pleasure of his embraces during the time he lived with us.

On the other hand, there is the matter of a broken promise. Straight people get roped into promising absolute fidelity, when neither of them really wanted it.

Watching daytime TV, I get the impression the problem is more public humiliation. The jilted partner, who is invariably many pounds overweight, feels rejected by the straying partner, who invariably is still sexually scrumptious. The infidelity brings to the fore their own self-rejection, much like hot water brings pus to the surface.

2. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93718 by Roedy on December 4, 2007 at 1:53 am

Did anyone understand what D'Souza was getting at with that weird rant about OJ and the parallel universes and his lack of accountability for crime?

I could not follow any of his free will arguments. It seems to me, whether there as a god up in the clouds doing nothing to interfere in my life, has no effect one way on the other on my free will.

Free will may well be an illusion, like the free will of characters in a movie constrained to behave the same way every time the DVD is played.

But it does not matter. The onerous thing is being forced to do something you don't want to do. I don't mind being constrained to do the optimal thing or the thing I wanted to do anyway. I am far more concerned with bullies than some metaphysical lack of ability to choose what I did not want to choose.

3. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93714 by Roedy on December 4, 2007 at 1:42 am

Where D'Souza scores is pointing out atheists can be just as nutty as religionists. They will kill too in the name of stomping out religion, as Stalin and Mao did. D'Souza failed to mention Christopher Hitchens, one of the four horsemen of atheism, who wants to kill off all the world's 1.6 billion Muslims in preemptive self defense. Atheism does not innoculate you against paranoia or other forms of monomania.

There is a fundamental dishonesty in discussing the behaviour of atheists vs Christians in this context because whether the tenets of atheism are true have nothing at all to do with whether holding such beliefs makes you behave better or worse. There is an implication if atheists behave worse, it is ok to lie and claim atheism is false, or vice versa.

"What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church... a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them."
~ Martin Luther

4. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93473 by Roedy on December 3, 2007 at 7:50 am

This was a terrible debate. Both men wandered all over the map. They talked about everything except the resolution.

It was like watching two boxers dancing around the ring, avoiding engagement.

For example, the most spirited feces slinging was about who is more wicked Christians or atheists, which is utterly irrelevant to the question.

I wish I could have gone a round with that twit, D'Souza. I can't believe he is a respected authority.

5. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93463 by Roedy on December 3, 2007 at 7:32 am

D'Souza tries the old sales pitch of Pascal's wager, even though has nothing to do with the probability of whether god (and the correct god) actually exists. Even Pascal seems to admit the possibility is remote. It is holy blackmail for conning rubes into "donating" to the church. However, Pascal was wrong thinking there was no penalty in believing in god when no god existed. Bedford's Wager explores that.
http://mindprod.com/religion/god.html#BEDFORDSWAGER

6. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93456 by Roedy on December 3, 2007 at 7:15 am

I burst out laughing when D'Souza presumed the precise value of the expansion rate of the universe was chosen by God for the benefit of humans -- a newbie species on one of a trillion worlds, who did not even show up for billions of years and who will likely soon go extinct.

He quotes Stephen Hawking to support this astounding ego trip. Yet Hawking, himself, said he thinks it will turn out that math constrains the constant to be the way it is.

If D'Souza were a rooster, he would take credit for the sun rising. As it is, he seem to think the sun rises and sets in his glorious armpit, because humans are the apple and purpose of the universe.

He is like a child watching TV, presuming the tiny musicians inside the TV are performing purely for his personal entertainment.

7. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93442 by Roedy on December 3, 2007 at 6:54 am

Dinesh D'Souza is infuriating. He is so dishonest. His basic technique is to twist the words of his opponent and then attack the straw man he has created.

For example, the section on the ten commandments. He pretends the issue is whether the commandments are plausible rules of conduct, which was never the issue. The issue is did God hand Moses tablets. There is no evidence for that. Without that divine blessing, the ten commandments are on the same footing as Emily Post, Dear Abby or Oprah.

When debaters use that tactic, I presume they know perfectly well they are wrong, but for some perverse reason, insist on arguing in favour of falsehood.

"Let us pray it is not so, or if it is, that it will not become widely known."
~ Wife of the Bishop of Exeter on hearing of Darwin's theory of the common descent of humans and apes.

8. 'They Tried To Teach My Baby Science'

Comment #26494 by Roedy on March 19, 2007 at 6:18 pm

The Onion is known for clever spoofs. They often catch people since they tend to spoof the already nutty.

9. Does God answer prayer? ASU research says 'yes'

Comment #26086 by Roedy on March 16, 2007 at 4:00 pm

There is obviously a placebo effect, which is not to be sniffed at. But it won't work if the prayed over person does not know what is happening. The article does not clarify if the studies were testing praying as placebo.

10. When They Came for the Homosexuals...

Comment #25792 by Roedy on March 15, 2007 at 6:34 am

Any one old enough to remember the opposition to racial integration or the early gay equality push will recall back then murder and beatings were the order of the day. Today's opposition is quite genteel in comparison.

Many people today are extremely embarrassed by their former bigoted behaviour. Let us hope today's bigots too will eventually apologise.

11. A 'Sad First' in the History of the Congress

Comment #25777 by Roedy on March 15, 2007 at 5:26 am

"Congressman Pete Stark (D-California) became the first member of Congress to deny the existence of God. 'When the Secular Coalition asked me to complete a survey on my religious beliefs, I indicated I am a Unitarian who does not believe in a supreme being.'"

This is so reminiscent of Hans Christian Anderson's parable, The Emperor's New Clothes.

http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheEmperorsNewClothes_e.html

Everyone pretended the King's clothes existed simply because everyone else did and because the creators of the myth of the clothes also spread the myth that only the virtuous could see them. However, once one little boy refused to play along, the rest followed and hooted in derision at the invisible clothes (i.e. God).

Anderson was an unrepentent Christian propagandist to children, so I suspect he was not consciously aware of the deep meaning of his own parable.

12. When the ain'ts go marching in

Comment #25212 by Roedy on March 11, 2007 at 1:16 am

Closer to our own kind, chimpanzees do not believe in God, but look what happens there when two rival gangs meet.

They mostly just hoot and rush. There is nowhere near the carnage of a belligerant human encounter.

When groups of bobobos or dolphins meet, it is excuse for a sex party. We may be the most dominant species on earth, but we are not the most intelligent in terms of assuring our long term survival.

13. How my eyes were opened to the barbarity of Islam

Comment #24920 by Roedy on March 9, 2007 at 9:23 am

"The best man is the one who treats his wife best."
~ Mohammed

For his time, Mohammed was a feminist. Yet since Islam was frozen in time, it is now of course preposterously patriarchal.

14. Public Acceptance of Evolution

Comment #24918 by Roedy on March 9, 2007 at 9:12 am

I wonder why the USA would be so backward, second only to Turkey. Its population came from Europe. The USA for many years was considered the acme of scientific achievement. It is not as though it is a nation of lonely goatherders. Its people have excellent access to mass media and other communications.

These backward fundamentalist Christian religions have been gaining a foothold rather than dying out as in the rest of the world.

What makes the USA different? One thing is the wealth gap which is much larger than in other countries. Perhaps it has been the decline in the quality of education caused by many factors.

15. Science, Faith, and Evolution

Comment #24907 by Roedy on March 9, 2007 at 6:20 am

The "crown jewel" is a pathetic boast, like a microbe that has never been more that 1 mm from its birthplace declaring itself the crown jewel of the universe. How the heck could we know without even getting off our planet to see what is out there? The vanity is mind boggling.

It shows up in other ways, e.g. imagining the universal god looks like a human, that the earth is centre of the universe, that god even gives a fig about what humans do. It like imagining you fretting over the ethical behaviour of moulds on your windowsill, or torturing the earthworms in your garden for being hermaphroditic.

Humans imagine their god as petty as their are.

"It is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image."
~ Ludwig Feuerbach

16. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24502 by Roedy on March 7, 2007 at 12:09 am

"For instance, almost everyone who claims to be an atheist still makes lots of "ought" statements"

The author makes this sound like a terrible thing.
These atheist ought statements are based on:

1. what will ensure human survival.

2. what will make our lives pleasant.

They are *not* based on irrelevancies such as what bronze age shamans imagined might appease their gods or con their flocks.

17. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24501 by Roedy on March 7, 2007 at 12:05 am

"Still, Steve believes – correctly in my view – that, in general, the differences between religious believers are less important than the differences between believers and nonbelievers, and that this distinction is and ought to be relevant to political life."

As as atheist, I am not about to kill you because of your delusions. I can't guarantee people with religious delusions will treat you that kindly.

Bush is considering nuclear war because of his religious delusions. After a mistake that big, I'd think everyone would say "Never Again! No more of these faith based decision makers!".

18. Long live satire

Comment #24453 by Roedy on March 6, 2007 at 6:13 pm

No one is so precious they should be exempt from
being offended or lampooned.

On the other paw, calling for murder or other such mayhem toward any group should not be protected.

The middle ground is the right to tell lies about people. In Canada is it illegal, but the prosecution depends on two factors that make it reasonable:

1. that the statement is untrue.

2. that the stater knew it was untrue.

19. Houses of the Holy

Comment #24223 by Roedy on March 5, 2007 at 11:27 am

"But if I release my tithe and they misuse it, they have to face God."

Lambs to the slaughter. God never punishes any of these crooks. Surely that is obvious by now. How brain damaged is this woman to continue KNOWINGLY wasting her tithe.

20. Merkel wants EU to be vocal about Christian roots

Comment #23990 by Roedy on March 4, 2007 at 3:12 am

The EU is talking about admitting Turkey, a country with a Muslim tradition. Why create artificial impediments to union with irrelevant stuff about Christianity in the EU constitution?

Christianity is one of the main divisive historical forces in Europe. Catholics and Protestestants have been killing each other since Luther.

21. Books on Atheism Are Raising Hackles in Unlikely Places

Comment #23988 by Roedy on March 4, 2007 at 2:49 am

"Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds," Mr. Eagleton wrote, "and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology."

Given that theologists never study birds, I would think someone who had studied them would know a lot more about their origin and evolution that a theologian.

22. Lewis Wolpert and William Lane Craig on Religion

Comment #23987 by Roedy on March 4, 2007 at 2:45 am

The religious debater said that we cannot trust reality since we might actually be living in vats in an environment simulated by a mad scientist.

Yes, you can trust, because for example, Newton's law is valid both in the ordinary reality view, and by the computations of the mad scientist's computer. You can trust any theories that accurately predict. They don't depend on knowing everything about the environment.

Mathematicians would say the real world and the vat are isomorphous.

As soon as you let God into it, you are throwing up your hands at any attempt at prediction since God has free will to do whatever the heck he pleases.

“I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things; by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose — which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me.”
~ Richard Feynman