1. 'Tis the Season To Be Incredulous

Comment #303369 by hcholm on December 18, 2008 at 3:22 pm

Could I also have the Scandinavian "nisse" or "tomte" back from Coca-Cola and the Christians, please. These guys don't work at Walmart.

2. 'Tis the Season To Be Incredulous

Comment #303346 by hcholm on December 18, 2008 at 3:01 pm

Take the Yuletide back from the Christians, I say!

3. 'Tis the Season To Be Incredulous

Comment #303316 by hcholm on December 18, 2008 at 2:39 pm

I don't mind celebrating Christmas at all. Most of the traditions are non-Christian anyway. Here in Norway, even the name, "jul" (=yule), is pagan. The word "kristmesse" never caught on. Many of those non-Christian traditions were originally religious, mainly Roman or Norse, probably from several other religions too. But they have been emptied of their original religious content, to the degree that even most Christians don't recognise it and use them as part of their "own" religious tradition. In the same way, I'm able to look at Christian traditions as a purely cultural, de-christianed, secular heritage.

The only thing I don't do, is worshipping any of the numerous gods of the religions that have been associated with these traditions, such as Yahweh, Jupiter, Jesus, Thor or Odin (=Woden/Wotan).

4. Do subatomic particles have free will?

Comment #232396 by hcholm on August 18, 2008 at 3:16 am

So there's randomness, and there's determinism. That should mean our behaviour can be both random and deterministic, at the same time. I can understand that some people (want to) interpret this as "free will", but why can't it be just a combination of random and deterministic? That combination seems to me like a very good basic explanation of behaviour in what we call "life".

And by the way, what should "free will" mean? What is "free will" supposed to be free from? Physics? Logic? Biology? How is "free will" supposed to work? Is it random, deterministic, both, or something else? In the latter case, what is it then? If it's not something else, why call it "free will" at all? And how is it this magic thing supposed to interact with the physical, neurological processes in our brain?

"Free will" is a purely philosophical and religious concept with no substance, and does not fit in with reality in any way.

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

Comment #116979 by hcholm on January 28, 2008 at 12:29 am

Comment #116445 by Steve Zara

All generalizations are wrong

That depends a lot on your definition of "wrong". Without generalisations, you'd have big trouble getting through the day. Most of the things we do in our everyday life is based on assumptions based on generalisations. If that was not the case, you couldn't even drink a glass of water without first analysing it to find out if it contained something harmful. Generalisations can definitely be right.

Even in many scientific contexts, you need generalisations. How could you write a history book without making generalisations? How could social life even be possible without generalisations about other people?

6. CBC News: Sunday - Richard Dawkins

Comment #100356 by hcholm on December 18, 2007 at 2:16 pm

Comment #100330 by Diacanu

And as Hitchens loves to point out, their perpetual state of exhalting the leader is pretty much the christian ideal of Heaven.

Even closer: These ideologies usually promise some kind of heaven on Earth, like the worker's paradise. Yet another strong parallel. Hitler promised the Thousand Year Reich, which should ring a bell to anyone familiar with Revelation and common End Times prophecies.

7. CBC News: Sunday - Richard Dawkins

Comment #100328 by hcholm on December 18, 2007 at 1:54 pm

I think the best way to answer those dreaded Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot questions is by equating the regimes they represented to religions. The parallels are many, but above all, they are all ideologies built on dogmas and authority, not evidence and free thinking. Religion is just a subset of dogmatic ideologies, with fascist and communist ideologies being other, but very similar, subsets.

The problem is the use of the word "atheist", which does not include the lack of belief in secular dogmas. We could need another word, "adogmatic", to also include the lack of belief in all totalitarian, dogmatic ideologies. Most modern atheists are probably adogmatic as well, and their views will have nothing to with say Stalin's, which where atheist, but highly dogmatic. Comparing atheism to secular totalitarian ideologies is like comparing atheist criticism of Christianity to Islam, just because there's a common enemy. Like criticising Christianity doesn't make you a muslim, atheism doesn't make you a totalitarian communist.

Interestingly enough, religious people seldom use North Korea as an example of how bad societies become without religion. I believe the reason for this is that North Korea so clearly illustrates the obvious parallels between religion and other totalitarian ideas, much clearer than with Hitler and Stalin. In practice, the Kim Il Sung cult turned into a religion, complete with a god-like leader figure, lies, miracles and severe oppression of dissidents and free thinking — all the usual stuff.

8. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #99953 by hcholm on December 18, 2007 at 12:44 am

Could this perhaps be called something like "metaevolution" or "second degree evolution"? Humans have evolved as organisms, and now develop other organisms. Now what if we can develop organisms that are more clever than us, and those organisms in turn develop even cleverer organisms, and so on?

In computer science, there is a similar scenario called the "singularity", a point in time when computers become more advanced than human brains, which means those computers will be capable of designing even more advanced computers, at an accelerating pace. From this article, it looks like it can be just as relevant to predict a biological singularity, or maybe even a hybrid computational-biological singularity. God knows where that will end. But does he have a salvation plan for those new life forms?

9. Highway to hysteria

Comment #94300 by hcholm on December 5, 2007 at 7:56 am

Comment #93917 by Northern Bright

OMG, imagine if they were right: can you imagine what an eternity in heaven would be like, surrounded by people like this? Just doesn't bear thinking about, does it?

Heaven must be hell.

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

Comment #90764 by hcholm on November 26, 2007 at 9:52 am

A picture can say more than a thousand words:

11. Why Science Will Triumph Only When Theory Becomes Law

Comment #88150 by hcholm on November 15, 2007 at 1:34 am

There's Mendel's laws (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_inheritance) and the "laws of physics", so for me, the "laws of evolution" seems OK. At least in the plural form, I'm not sure what the single "law of evolution" would be.

12. Norway flourishes as secular nation

Comment #76343 by hcholm on October 5, 2007 at 3:09 pm

There are a few of paradoxes worth mentioning, in addition to the Christian Democrat prime minister mentioned above:

- The Norwegian constitution of 1814 was modeled after the secular French and US constitutions, but §2 states that "the Evangelic-Lutheran religion remains the official state religion. Those inhabitants who confess to it, are obliged to raise their children in the same [religion]."

- Primary schools are obliged by law to "help give the students a christian and moral upbringing". (It is not stated anywhere what that could possibly mean.) A similar rule applies to public kindergartens.

- At least half the members of the government have to members of the state church.

- Norway is a monarchy, and the monarch is also head of the state church. The king or queen is not granted freedom of religion!

You'll find similar paradoxes in other Nordic countries. In my opinion, Norway offers more paradoxes than most countries, but the Nordic countries share some interesting features (with some exceptions):

- cool climate
- rich welfare states (in the case of Norway, even before the oil bonanza)
- peaceful, non-agressive foreign policies
- monarchies
- ... but strong democracies
- state religions, protestant
- ... but highly secular and atheist in general

Some of these characteristics apply to other protestant countries in North West Europe as well, especially the Netherlands. The Nordic countries diverge a lot in some areas, especially the practical implementation of their foreign policies, but I belive there are strong correlations to be found, despite various differences and the mentioned paradoxes.

It is an interesting theory that the widespread atheism in fact could be a result of having a state religion. In principle, I'm strongly against both monarchy and state religion, but perhaps monarchy and state religion are the safest ways of channeling and controlling certain irrational and potentionally dangerous genetically inherited dispositions in humans? At least it could look like it when you compare certain countries.

13. Cartoons from Evolution: a journal of nature 1927-1938

Comment #67320 by hcholm on September 3, 2007 at 3:53 am

I didn't get this one: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/cain/projects/ejn/ejn_comics/images/comic-ejn_n21.jpg

Is there something hidden in the picture, or what?

14. Could these books be part of the problem?

Comment #60960 by hcholm on August 3, 2007 at 7:18 am

How could you miss this one:



( http://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Dummies-Richard-J-Wagner/dp/0764544829/ref=pd_sim_b_2_img/105-5113720-3737252 )

15. Come Out!

Comment #59414 by hcholm on July 29, 2007 at 2:07 am

Not too happy about this one. Atheism isn't just another ideology with symbols and uniforms. Atheism is about non-dogmatism and freedom, but with symbols like this one, it becomes too easy for critics to say that atheism is "just another religion". The same goes for the "Brights movement", which fortunately looks like it has flopped. The lack of organisation and uniformity may be one of the weakest points of atheism, but at the same time, it's one of the strongest. Please leave it like that.

It's like the famous Monty Python quote: "We're all individuals". In this case, I'm not.

16. Tome truths

Comment #49290 by hcholm on June 11, 2007 at 12:06 pm

Ah, excellent!

17. A Look at Regent University

Comment #47537 by hcholm on June 4, 2007 at 11:00 pm

What's "Sharia" called in Christianity? We need a word or an expression for that. "Christian Sharia"?

18. Pursue pleasure: it's the natural way to do good in the world

Comment #26304 by hcholm on March 18, 2007 at 3:22 pm

This was a joy to read, and I couldn't agree more.

The old Greeks were definitely on the right track. Take Epicurus (341 BCE – 270 BCE) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus): "He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and bad, that death is the end of existence and not to be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space." Easy, isn't it?

On the other side, what's really depressing, are the 2300 years of philosophical wavering in a dead end street called "religion". Where would we be by now if we had continued where Epicurus and his likes left off, instead of this futile and painful search for happiness in random myths, dogmas and superstitions? Makes me almost sick to think about.

19. Senator calls for answer on creation of universe

Comment #23999 by hcholm on March 4, 2007 at 4:40 am

Have a look at the article revisions in Conservapedia, that can be great fun! To see the revisions, click the "history" tab. To start at the beginning, either 1) click on the article date and the on the tiny "(diff)" link, or 2) select the two first articles and then the "Compare selected versions" button. Then you can see further edits by clicking "next diff".

Some articles, like the Jesus and Atheism articles have comments that can be hilarious (both intended an unintended). Starting points:

http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Jesus&diff=next&oldid=1645
http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Atheism&diff=13836&oldid=13739

These were edited out:

"Since atheists have no God and therefore no grounds for a system of morality, they live their lives according to the rule that "anything goes". In recent years, this has led to a large rise in drug use, pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancy, pedophilia and bestiality, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together and mass hysteria."

"Jesus had sex with Mary Magdalene and they had kids. Also, he was a bit gay."

"Jesus is one of the three Gods of the Christian faith, the others are The Father and the Holy Spirit, but Jesus is the most popular. Catholics have many more gods, called saints, but most real Christians believe that Catholics are evil and will burn in hell."

"Historical context indicates that as a 'rabbi' in judea, Jesus would have been married. An explaination for his lack of a wife may be that he was one of the most well-known homosexuals in history. He has been referred to as the first gay-rights activist in history, and had twelve men to fufill all of his sexual needs."

But how do I create an account on Conservapedia?

20. Blashpemy Challenge Interview

Comment #20191 by hcholm on January 31, 2007 at 11:46 pm

This challenge thing is kind of refreshing. I prefer more intellectual arguments myself, but why should atheist argumentation be restricted to abstract philosophical lines of thought that probably have little or no effect on the less educated? Consider mainstream Christian propaganda, which is as tacky and unintellectual as you can get. Disrespectfulness? The Christian dogmas say all non-believers will receive eternal damnation — what kind of respect is that? What's "respect for religions", anyway? It surely can't be saying "in the end of the day, your religion/view of life is as good and probable as mine". No particular need to be Christian, then.

American Christians need this just as much as they need Dawkins and Harris. A large dose of both. Such a challenge might not be as interesting in some other countries, like my native Norway, where very few people would care. (Cartoons of a certain prophet are a different story.) It could be worth a try, though.

Atheists are often met with sharp criticism and a demand that they should to be able to give a thorough explanation of any thinkable reason not to believe. That is another kind of discrimination atheists must fight. Atheist have as much right to be non-intellectual as Christians have! Christians can crawl of the floor speaking in tongues and condemn others to Hell, while atheists must be able to argue like Dawkins, which isn't good either, because then you show you're unspiritual and over-intellectual, and have your heart closed to any Semitic demigods who might want to wash your brain.