1. What Happens When a School Board of Religious Zealots Will 'Lie for Jesus'?

Comment #197303 by BT Murtagh on June 21, 2008 at 4:10 pm

Internal inconsistency- that same someone supposedly had infinite magical powers and didn't have to die at all, therefore did not need anyone to stand up for him.

Unstated mitigation of emotional appeal- the 'death' only lasted for one weekend.

I could probably come up with some more, but even a small dose of theology can give me the pip, and I'm hoping to get in some godless revelry tonight.

2. Lawsuit filed over 'I Believe' plates in S.C.

Comment #197297 by BT Murtagh on June 21, 2008 at 3:47 pm

Oh, and to answer mmurray at #33:

In SC you can have a specialty design, or a personalized "Nothing Could Be Finer" plate, but you can't have a personalized specialty plate.

So, sadly, we won't be able to combine "I Believe" with "Darwin" or whatever. :(

3. Lawsuit filed over 'I Believe' plates in S.C.

Comment #197292 by BT Murtagh on June 21, 2008 at 3:38 pm

I also live in South Carolina, and among the options already available are plates with the slogan "In God We Trust" - which does not appear to be a privately sponsored plate, and costs the same as a regular plate, so the First Amendment issue has already been ignored in this state for some time.

The Secular Humanists Of The Low Country sponsored a plate with the slogan "In Reason We Trust" which you can get if you are a member and willing to pay an additional $30 every two years above and beyond the normal fees. The SCDMV also notes, "As a non-profit organization, The Secular Humanists Of The Low Country do not receive any portion of the funds generated from the license plate sales."

Yeppers, it a purely level playin' field down hyar...

4. Godless

Comment #193150 by BT Murtagh on June 14, 2008 at 8:45 pm

Fact sheet from the US Mint:

In God We Trust

From Treasury Department records it appears that the first suggestion that God be recognized on U.S. coinage can be traced to a letter addressed to the Secretary of Treasury from a minister in 1861. An Act of Congress, approved on April 11, 1864, authorized the coinage of two-cent coins upon which the motto first appeared.

The motto was omitted from the new gold coins issued in 1907, causing a storm of public criticism. As a result, legislation passed in May 1908 made "In God We Trust" mandatory on all coins on which it had previously appeared.

Legislation approved July 11, 1955, made the appearance of "In God We Trust" mandatory on all coins and paper currency of the United States. By Act of July 30, 1956, "In God We Trust" became the national motto of the United States.

Several years ago, the appearance of "In God We Trust" on our money was challenged in the federal courts. The challenge was rejected by the lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of the United States declined to review the case.

5. Saving Us from Darwin

Comment #192329 by BT Murtagh on June 12, 2008 at 7:25 pm

Wow, terrific article. Will we be seeing the second article referred to, soon, I hope?

6. The Challenge of the New Creationism

Comment #188280 by BT Murtagh on June 3, 2008 at 5:21 pm

#56 Ascaphus, is it cool that this is really a caricature of me? Only, you know, interesting?

It is my real name...

7. The Challenge of the New Creationism

Comment #187855 by BT Murtagh on June 2, 2008 at 9:35 pm

If you look in the lower right-hand corner of the viewing window there is a point-downward triangle. Click on it, and a set of options will appear. One of those options is "Save As QuickTime Movie" - do that, then open the file to watch it in the viewer of your choice (I also recommend VLC). No sputters.

EDIT: Hmmm, having said that the downloaded file doesn't seem to open in VLC - that's a first for me, VLC usually handles anything I throw at it, and I've used it to play QuickTime files before. The downloaded file does play just fine in my standalone QuickTime viewer, though.

8. Police: Girl Dies After Parents Pray for Healing Instead of Seeking Medical Help

Comment #150394 by BT Murtagh on March 26, 2008 at 8:32 pm

Damn, I just paid $175 for repairs to my pickup truck's ignition system that didn't even fix the problem. Who knew I could have just prayed them away? Does God cover ancient Fords?

On a more serious note, the stupid tire wear story shows the sharp end of the idiocy here; it isn't just that these idiots believe that Gawd can fix all their problems, but they also believe that he will do so if and only if they refuse to fix the problem themselves through ordinary secular means.

People with only normal levels of religidiocy would pray for a cure but in the meantime inject the insulin. That's relatively harmless... except that that's probably the level the police chief is at, and it seems to be warping his judgment to the point where a needlessly dead sibling is "no reason to remove" the remaining children.

9. In Britain, creationist theory is evolving

Comment #145219 by BT Murtagh on March 17, 2008 at 11:28 am

"People are looking for spirituality," White said in an interview at his office in Leicester, 90 miles north of London. "I think they are fed up with not finding true happiness. They find having a bigger car doesn't make them happy. They get drunk and the next morning they have a hangover. They take drugs but the drugs wear off. But what they find with Christianity is lasting."

10. What Religion's Blind Stranglehold on America Is Doing to Our Democracy

Comment #114330 by BT Murtagh on January 22, 2008 at 1:04 am

Oh for crying out loud...

American Heritage Dictionary
de·moc·ra·cy
n. pl. de·moc·ra·cies

1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
2. A political or social unit that has such a government.

11. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107972 by BT Murtagh on January 5, 2008 at 5:46 pm

If you accept the Bible's chronology the Flood happened between 2500 and 2300 BC.

The Egyptians, a civilization which features prominently in the Bible and were certainly local enough that a flood which covered Mount Ararat would have covered them even if it weren't truly a worldwide flood, have continuous written records stretching back to 2925 BC.

Those records include extensively detailed tax rolls, listing things like harvest amounts, populations of villages, trade agreements with neighboring states and so on. What they don't include is a description of the year the entire kingdom was under water. They contain no mention of any flooding even remotely of that magnitude, only of normal, localized floods along the Nile.

The Sumerians and the proto-Elamites, similarly, have written records covering the entire period. Those of the Sumerians are similarly detailed concerning harvests and so forth, and again make no mention of any such deluge affecting them. We can't read those of the proto-Elamites, sadly, but they can be dated and they also show no indication of any universal calamity in the timeframe of the supposed flood.

Since there is no physical evidence whatsoever of such a remarkable flooding, and at least two major local civilizations failed to record it, the simplest explanation is that it never occurred.

Incidentally, the records of the Egyptians also make no note of the series of plagues which the God of the Hebrews supposedly visited upon them in the following book of the Bible - not even the deaths of the firstborn, which would have affected any number of inheritances, including that of the Pharoah's throne. Similarly, in the New Testament the Slaughter of the Innocents left no traces in the records of King Herod's tax collectors, ad went unrecorded by any of the neighboring literate states, not even the notably bureaucratic Romans.

This to say the least should cast doubt upon the historical reliability of the ancient Hebrew scribes.

12. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107827 by BT Murtagh on January 5, 2008 at 12:49 pm

krisking, it's to do with the methods of science and skepticism. To qualify as a scientific hypothesis, there must be a way of showing that the claim is false. If the claim has been designed in such a way that it can't be falsified, then the truth of it can't be tested.

An example of the difference: the God of Deism created the Universe and set it running, but takes no further action within it, ever, under any circumstances. That kind of God is not falsifiable - you can't show that it doesn't exist - but is by definition pretty irrelevant to daily lives.

Theists overwhelmingly believe in an interventionist God who can be persuaded to alter the normal course of natural events - anything from preventing or reversing illness to granting victory to a particular sports team. In order to make this type of God non-falsifiable it is necessary to allow that it might choose to allow your team to lose or your child to die in pain.

Atheists don't believe in either type of God, but that hypothesis is indeed falsifiable; all that is necessary is a supernatural intervention which cannot be explained as anything else. One example would suffice, if it were both clearly otherwise impossible and sufficiently well-documented.

The utter lack of such interventions is not proof that the interventionist God doesn't exist - "Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence" - but given the sheer number of prayers pleading for them it is obviously a strong contraindication.

Scientists and other skeptics tend to place a high value on the objective truth. Where theists are often very emotionally atached to non-falsifiable claims, skeptics tend to consider them intellectual wankeries not worth straining over.

I wrote a blog entry about this a while back:

http://quarkscrew.blogspot.com/2007/07/two-gods-irrelevant-and-false.html

Sorry about the ugly link presentation but I can never get proper linking to work on this site.

13. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #107576 by BT Murtagh on January 4, 2008 at 7:07 pm

I don't know why some posters doubt the existence of a teapot orbiting the Sun. There are loads of them - I can see one right now, in my kitchen, which I positively assure you is orbiting the Sun.

14. Blair converts to Catholicism

Comment #102772 by BT Murtagh on December 23, 2007 at 3:47 pm

Radesq, I did not say that religion was 'the' reason for the Iraq war, or even that religious motivations were primary.

I simply noted that both leaders have openly stated that their decision to go into war was partly predicated on their belief that their god approved of the notion.

I suspect that both men were sincere in their statements, though, and that had they been less certain of the support of their invisible friend the Iraq war would have been less likely to occur.

I do agree that there were more mundane motivations, but I would posit that the cost-benefit assessments were skewed by those two men's belief that they had divine support.

15. Survey finds most Americans believe Jesus born of virgin

Comment #102720 by BT Murtagh on December 23, 2007 at 1:12 pm

I just blogged about this:

A new Barna group survey on how literally American take their Bible stories just came out.

To combine with the last Barna survey, amongst Christians:

75% believe a virgin got pregnant.
75% believe a dead guy rose from the grave.
69% believe water transformed into wine.
68% believe 5 loaves and 2 fish fed 5000 people.
65% believe a man overnighted with lions, uneaten.
64% believe water covered every mountain on Earth.
64% believe a sea opened to allow foot passage.
63% believe a boy killed a man using a slingshot.
60% believed a man walked on water.
60% believe the universe was created in 6 days.
56% believe in smooth-talking snakes.
49% believe strength can relate to hairstyle.

Two of these are easy enough even for a rationalist to believe; David used an unexpected weapon and was maybe a bit lucky, and maybe Daniel just didn't smell good to the lions.

A couple more could be considered 'stretchers' with a grain of truth; granting preternatural strength in the first place, it's possible to assign a psychological explanation to Samson's couture concerns, and a lot of people could be satisfied with a little food and a lot of goodwill on a one-time basis.

With a great deal of magnanimity, probably best obtained with the aid of large doses of ethanol, and a suitable disregard for the fine details of the stories, similarly obtained, one can allow for a couple more; talking snakes, while they don't appear to exist now, aren't actually incompatible with the physical laws of the Universe, and the antiquity of the Universe could be fudged a bit - rounding, you know.

That leaves seven stories which contain elements any normal rational person would consider flat-out violations of the natural laws of the Universe.

The odd thing is that the level of belief seems to have very little to do with the plausibility of the story. The Ultimate Catering Triumph of feeding five thousand people with one platter of fish sandwiches is considered less likely than pregnant virgins, ambulatory corpses, and an alcoholic's wet dream. It's considered more likely that a man could split an ocean with his mind, than that a boy could split a man's skull with a well-aimed rock.

I suppose we should be grateful that these people do consider that last story, about the superiority of ranged weapons, as being more likely than the one about guys perambulating the surface of large liquid volumes, but I still have to question their ability to assess relative probabilities.

Bear in mind that these are the folks who consider evolution by natural selection unlikely and difficult to believe.

16. Blair converts to Catholicism

Comment #102674 by BT Murtagh on December 23, 2007 at 11:47 am

Blair had to downplay his religiosity to get elected, while Bush hyped his up for the same reason. Still and all, by their own report both relied heavily on the advice of their invisible friend in deciding to start a war of choice.

17. 'Christian God is not to blame'

Comment #102665 by BT Murtagh on December 23, 2007 at 11:34 am

I'm not sure how he justifies in his mind that Hitler hated Christians, but at least he didn't claim Hitler was an atheist. It's very little in the way of progress, but I suppose it's a crumb.

JemyM, to be fair it was the Canaanite woman who compared herself and her daughter to dogs wanting crumbs from the table. Jesus obviously liked the sentiment, though, since at that point he relented from being only there for the house of Israel. (Matthew 15:21-28 for those following along at home.) Funny, though, I just don't think the Archbishop sees himself and his flock in quite those terms...

18. Huckabee Stands by Christmas Campaign Ad

Comment #102642 by BT Murtagh on December 23, 2007 at 10:53 am

I despise that hick and the ignorant constituency he's sucking up to as much as the next guy, but I can't agree with the notion that he's somehow not allowed to express his religious dementia in a political ad.

The American Constitution and related jurisprudence express quite clearly two relevant things; that religion is to be kept out of government, and that anyone can legally say anything they want about any religion.

A campaign ad is not a law or any other kind of government document; Huckabee's free to say what he likes in it, and speaking for myself I'm happier when candidates give me clear notice of their fuckwittery.

19. Do the laws of God trump those of man?

Comment #99394 by BT Murtagh on December 16, 2007 at 2:41 pm

Mr. Buruma offered a defence: "Does living in a free society also imply that people should be able to choose the way they look, or speak, or worship, even if we don't like it, as long as they don't harm others? A free-spirited citizen does not tolerate different customs or cultures because he thinks they are wonderful, but because he believes in freedom."

20. The joining of church and state

Comment #89154 by BT Murtagh on November 19, 2007 at 9:33 pm

Amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

21. Onward Science Soldiers

Comment #88134 by BT Murtagh on November 14, 2007 at 9:43 pm

I couldn't find any polls where historians specifically rated GW Bush the worst President. In a quick search I did find an informal poll of historians where the vast majority of them rated him a 'failure':
http://hnn.us/articles/5019.html
Historians vs George W. Bush

At least some historians, as well as much of the general public, are of that opinion:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/profile/story/9961300/the_worst_president_in_history
The Worst President in History?

Among the general public, he's got the title as of now:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/06/poll_gw_bush_wo.html
Poll: G.W. Bush 'worst' president since WWII; Reagan 'best'
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2007/02/20/
D'Oh! Bush Way Worse Than Nixon

Of course you can't tell about the long term views by what people think at the time. (I doubt Reagan's going to keep that title!) I personally doubt that he's going to be looked back upon with great favor by history though.

Sorry about the bare links, but I can't get normal formatting to work from comments.

22. When Congress Interferes With Science, Who You Gonna Call? (Hint: It's not Ghostbusters)

Comment #86031 by BT Murtagh on November 7, 2007 at 11:32 pm

annabanana quoth:

She must not have met Jim DeMint.

23. Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

Comment #86029 by BT Murtagh on November 7, 2007 at 11:25 pm

Most NOVA programs end up available on the web site (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/) not too long after airing. If all else fails you can buy a DVD or VHS of the program from the same site.

24. Go Ahead, Rationalize. Monkeys Do It, Too

Comment #86020 by BT Murtagh on November 7, 2007 at 9:18 pm

Bonzai pointed out:

In order for someone to abandon his religion, something has to happen to erode his faith at the "gut" level.

25. Response to Dinesh D'Souza op-ed

Comment #85472 by BT Murtagh on November 6, 2007 at 1:34 am

I thought Kelly did a fine job. She wrote clearly and engagingly in her own voice. I look forward to seeing the rest of the articles as they appear.

26. You big, fat pile of bacteria

Comment #85107 by BT Murtagh on November 5, 2007 at 2:02 am

mandrellian quoth:

Our species survived the sodding Black Plague & cholera & smallpox without sterlisiing the living crap out of our homes but I guess people have forgotten that.

27. The truth in religion

Comment #84349 by BT Murtagh on November 1, 2007 at 9:24 pm

Is there a single so-called 'argument' here that could not be equally well applied to the beliefs of Hindus, Moslems, Odin-followers, Voudounists, or any of the bajillions of other religions extant or extinct?

It's all pretty feeble but it's the irritating little sweep of the cape from "some 'higher power' must exist" (an iffy enough proposition in itself to "Christianity is therefore true" that really irks me.

28. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #83971 by BT Murtagh on October 31, 2007 at 11:53 pm

This is the money quote for me:

In principle, one should be able to judge the alleged truths of Christianity based on the biblical narratives alone, for all later theological reflection is grounded in the assumption that these narratives are an accurate reflection of world history and ultimate reality.

29. Downward, Christian soldier

Comment #80995 by BT Murtagh on October 23, 2007 at 9:37 pm

Grayling's long sentences are a style which few writers could pull off well (which no doubt is why English teachers keep pushing brevity as a primary virtue in sentences), but that is largely because most writers don't start off a sentence with any clear idea of how it will end, while with Grayling's prose each sentence, however prolix, contains a single albeit often complex and nuanced idea.

I like that.

30. Fiction or prediction?

Comment #78151 by BT Murtagh on October 12, 2007 at 2:24 am

Ultraviolet G quoth:

However, he is right that people (in mainland Europe as well as Britain) did kill cats, believing them to be witches familiars and therefore responsible for the plague. This certainly made matters worse.

31. The Problem with Atheism

Comment #75844 by BT Murtagh on October 3, 2007 at 8:45 pm

Yes, it's tempting to just say we don't need a word at all, but when I'm distinguishing myself from the faith-heads it's handier to say "I'm an atheist" than "I'm not a theist" and it means the same thing. Stuck as I am in discursive thinking most of the time, I'm not about to give up such a useful discursive tool as an identifying word.

That said, semantics matter. What's a good word, taking into account both the literal and emotional content of the contenders?

I like rationalist best, simply because I think it's the best descriptor of my worldview; I strive to be one who applies reason to all my dealings with the Universe.

However, I'm also more than willing to cop to atheist - it's also descriptive, just a bit more limited and, yes, a tad negative in orientation. Nontheist is the same, even if for some reason people feel it isn't. Secularist doesn't really mean the same thing at all, though people think it does (it's actually another word for disestablishmentarian, I believe). S[k|c]eptic is also good, but also has a negative connotation and I'm never sure how to spell it. Naturalist is fine, but doesn't seem active and is confused with people in ecologically oriented sciences. Humanist is good, but has a bit of woo-liness attached and besides it's species-ist. Bright, though I've given it a wear about town, still feels a bit pretentious to me (I could get away with it if I were as attractive as Northern Bright, perhaps, but not as is).

Nuts. I'll use any and all of them as the occasion warrants - I am large, I contain multitudes.

32. A New Debate

Comment #75837 by BT Murtagh on October 3, 2007 at 7:54 pm

I don't see any possibility whatsoever that human activity could eliminate all life from Earth.

All human life, yes... drastically simplified ecologies, yes... maybe even knock it down to nothing much higher than lichen, well, it's a stretch but if we really worked at it, yes.

But all life? C'mon, that's just alarmist.

33. Atheists arise: Dawkins spreads the A-word among America's unbelievers

Comment #75200 by BT Murtagh on October 2, 2007 at 3:03 am

On the one hand Nick Good insists that Professor Dawkins's words must be taken precisely at face value:

Richard - is not arguing that he thinks America is excessively bias towards the state of Israel, not at all, otherwise he'd have said so to the Guardian hack (I'm assuming Richard is fairly quoted, always a danger), he's far too erudite to be that clumsy. No, we must take him at his word

Oh notice the 'not me guv ...honest' ..."as far as many people can see" cop out

34. There Go The Dinosaurs

Comment #73686 by BT Murtagh on September 25, 2007 at 8:47 pm

That's right, Jesus DIED for you, for THREE WHOLE DAYS! He gave up his ENTIRE WEEKEND for your sins!

35. Out of Thin Air

Comment #73030 by BT Murtagh on September 23, 2007 at 9:42 pm

Well I'm not on my home machine, so I'm viewing the site on Internet Exploder with no Flash.

Under those circumstances, the site is, to use a phrase a fundie would understand, "as ugly as home-made sin."

36. Pentagon Sued Over Mandatory Christianity

Comment #72678 by BT Murtagh on September 22, 2007 at 8:46 am

As a veteran, I cannot disagree more with those who are saying he should have just played along under those circumstances. I actually cannot imagine a better circumstance to stand up for his rights.

Consider. They were not in any kind of situation where speaking out put anyone in danger, nor was any important military function being disrupted. The only "problem" it caused was to hurt the feelings of the people who were illegally and obnoxiously trampling on this soldier's feelings, and his Constitutional rights. Meekly swallowing the pressure to conform would only exacerbate the problem, by perpetuating a climate in which soldiers are afraid to speak out against it. The problem was entirely created by the evangelicals, not by the soldier who stood up against their bullying.

Don't give me any tosh about "hurting unit morale" either; what do you suppose were the effects of this kind of behavior on that soldier's morale, or on other atheists in the unit, or Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists, or any other non-evangelical Christians whose specific beliefs didn't quite fit the agenda? Enforcing religious conformity is neither a necessary or an appropriate way to attempt to meld a U.S. military unit.

IF there is any arena outside the education of children where secularism is most important to maintain, the military is that arena. To quote myself from an earlier essay (http://tinyurl.com/2o8u3r) on this subject,

If impartiality of religion is not vigorously enforced as a principle of military life, eventually you will end up with a self-enforcing culture; only Christians will be able to effectively work in the unit, because the existing members won't trust or bond with a non-Christian.

There's a reason why Iraqi police and military units aren't typically mixed Shia and Sunni; the analogous issue fails of becoming a problem for US forces by a much smaller margin than you might imagine. Take it from one who's been there.

37. The Dawkins debate

Comment #70814 by BT Murtagh on September 17, 2007 at 1:55 am

I almost got in trouble with my ex when while picking up my son I wore my t-shirt saying:

"SIX IMPOSSIBLE THINGS to believe before breakfast: 1) Santa Claus 2) Easter Bunny 3) Tooth Fairy 4) Invisible Pink Unicorn 5) Flying Spaghetti Monster 6) God."

38. 'Jane Doe' Testifies as Trial of Polygamist Leader Begins

Comment #70797 by BT Murtagh on September 16, 2007 at 11:50 pm

I couldn't agree more with Russell. As Bill Maher put it, "Marriage should be defined by consenting adults, not by government."

The fact that some polygamists have creepy religious beliefs and/or abuse underage girls and/or commit or skirt incest and/or don't provide properly for their faimilies is entirely beside the point.

All of those things are also true of some monogamists, but there's no talk of banning monogamy. There are also polygamists who don't have those issues.

If there are a greater proportion of polygamists who have that particular set of issues (which is almost certainly true, btw) then it is more than likely because only the pressure of religious beliefs is likely to be strong enough to overcome the prevailing culturally-enforced norm of monogamy, which is such a strong norm mostly because the stronger religions push it so.

(These are opinions I've long held, but coincidentally I spent this weekend watching the entire second season of Big Love, and I must agree with other commenters that it's a very good show indeed, and looks at polygamy very realistically. Some of the characters are quite normal suburbanites, others are compound weirdos, and overall the consequences of living such a lifestyle are very compellingly dramatized.)

39. RELIGULOUS: A Conversation with Bill Maher and Larry Charles

Comment #70049 by BT Murtagh on September 13, 2007 at 11:08 pm

Bill Maher himself was open about his agnosticism before the most recent books (bear in mind that Dawkins and Hitchens opposed religion in print long before 'The God Delusion' or 'god is not Great'). So was Penn Jillette about his atheism.

40. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #69814 by BT Murtagh on September 12, 2007 at 11:08 pm

I have yet to read a new article by Sam Harris that doesn't contain at least one gem of phrasing that I'm compelled to add to my sig file. This time I think my favorite is this:

Surely we can grow in altruism, and refine our ethical intuitions, and even explore the furthest reaches of human happiness, without lying to ourselves about the nature of the universe.

41. The Mix Tape of the Gods

Comment #68055 by BT Murtagh on September 5, 2007 at 10:24 pm

I have a little "dog tag" with a reproduction of the locating information on the disk - it shows the location of the Sun in relation to nearby pulsars, a diagram of the Solar System's major planets indicating the third, and a Mercator projection of the Earth's major land masses indicating North America (roughly in South Carolina).

This bound to be useful in case I have to hitch a ride home with different aliens than the ones who abduct me.

More seriously, I recently found a second-hand copy of "Whispers of Earth" which is about the choosing of what to put on the record. I was severely disappointed to find that the recording itself is not available for purchase or download due to asinine copyright issues.

There is a playlist, and based on that I'm guessing the message the aliens send back will be "Send more Chuck Berry."

42. The God Delusion One-Year Countdown

Comment #68049 by BT Murtagh on September 5, 2007 at 8:55 pm

September 21st? That would make a nice accidental birthday present for me! :)

I think I'll buy a copy for my local library.

43. Scientists should unite against threat from religion

Comment #65103 by BT Murtagh on August 22, 2007 at 11:00 pm

Ha! Corylus, I have a label on my monitor saying "No posting after Happy Hour!" I'm glad I'm not the only one who has to take that kind of precaution.

Bizarro Dawkins quoth:

It's called "reasoning". It is when a human assimilates experiences into meaningful conclusions and beliefs. Granted, science is indeed restricted to the confines of nature and the physical laws, but it is my conviction that a truly comprehensive and accurate understanding of science ultimately leads one to the conclusion that the physical world is a contingent entity, and could not exist without the force of will of a higher power.

44. CNN Request for 'I-Reports' on religion

Comment #65076 by BT Murtagh on August 22, 2007 at 8:50 pm

I sent this:

I live by faith in what is manifest, rather than by invisible, unprovable and improbable tales from the infancy of our civilization.

This universe is magnificent in its scale in time and space, and marvellous in the hard-won complexity of the life in this infinitesimal corner of it. It seems to me sad and absurd that so many people feel they must cling to the simple myths of times long past.

Our lives are brief, but a frantic denial of their inevitable end is as childish as insisting that we are the entire point of the universe. I am reveling in my time, sharing the excitement of discovery with the other brief sparks I encounter, loving the wonderful accident that put me here. I need no faith in another life, my cup overflows in this one.

If others need these ancient, well-worn, classical hand-tooled lies to comfort them, then they are welcome to them. I won't pretend to respect them for it, and I certainly do not respect the silly fables themselves. If the religious try to impose their arbitrary beliefs on society through politics, I shall naturally oppose them, especially when their ideas detrimentally impact the lives of me and mine, or indeed anyone who suffers.

I don't believe religion is truly under attack; it is simply no longer receiving the unwarranted deference it has grown accustomed to. I consider that a very good thing which will in the end benefit us all, excepting perhaps those who derive a living or a spurious authority from the promulgation of ancient lies and mistakes.

My faith is strong, since it is rooted in the provable, not in old myths.

45. God's Still Dead

Comment #64829 by BT Murtagh on August 22, 2007 at 2:22 am

Perhaps a fuller quote will make it clearer:

"You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world." ~Fight Club movie, screenplay by Jim Uhls, from the novel by Chuck Palahniuk

46. The Bible's literary sins

Comment #63323 by BT Murtagh on August 13, 2007 at 10:39 pm

Yes, toward the end of my larval Christian phase, I did actually read the damn thing cover to cover. All of it, even the begats and the instructions on preparing animal sacrifices.

It was like chemotherapy for the mind, I'm telling you. I'm sure I lost a lot of healthy brain tissue, and definitely some hair, but that's one cancer that isn't coming back.

47. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62694 by BT Murtagh on August 10, 2007 at 10:11 pm

All right, Friend Giskard, I accept the implied rebuke; I withdraw the accusation of bigotry.

Arguing with creationists put me in a mood and I let it spill over; no excuse, I know.

I still don't agree with your assessment, mind, but I spilled it over into a personal attack. I should not have done that, and I apologise to you for it.

48. Why Richard Dawkins is right on alternative medicine - but not when it comes to religion

Comment #62688 by BT Murtagh on August 10, 2007 at 9:50 pm

This concept--sometimes called "The Golden Rule" - does not require the approval of religion. The point, however, is that it is the polar opposite of the concerns of the modern fads stigmatised by Professor Dawkins: they are all to do with how we should look after ourselves, not our neighbours. This self-centredness is what makes its followers and practitioners so unbelievably boring.

49. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62677 by BT Murtagh on August 10, 2007 at 8:47 pm

If it doesn't impress you much, perhaps that says more about you than about the task. As I said, it's not trivial; try it. The author's listing clearly isn't meant to be inclusive but rather exemplary; off the top of my head I recall that electrical batteries were invented at the time, though nothing much ever came of them, and I believe the engineering of the pointed arch, which proved popular among medieval cathedral builders when it was imported back to the west.

I suspect you're simply bigoted and will under no circumstances admit that the Muslim world ever had anything going for it, whatever the historical evidence to the contrary. Having had my fill already this week of blinkered thinking in talking to (or at) creationists, I'll leave you to it.

50. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62674 by BT Murtagh on August 10, 2007 at 8:09 pm

Difficult enough that the Europeans couldn't manage it, apparently. I'd have to agree that the algebra, optics and circulation of the blood mentioned were more impressive, but naming stars does involve mapping and cataloging them. It's not a trivial task; if you disagree, try duplicating the effort using your own names and star maps. If you get past a couple of hundred you'll be doing well.