451. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168362 by Bonzai on April 25, 2008 at 4:53 am

Does "straw" constitute a main staple of your diet?

Are you spewing horse shit on a regular base? Just wondering.

452. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168354 by Bonzai on April 25, 2008 at 4:38 am

Most of man's "easy believism" ideas do sound good to those serving "self" and thinking they can define truth, that is until one reaches the end of the road and has to face the ultimate truth.

Yes, we already know that you believe in a slave driving God and we are all worthless and our position is to be on our kneels, thank you very much.

What ultimate "truth"? Yet more threat, Give me a break.

EDIT While it is not a character failing in being scientifically ignorant, your moral view is absolutely toxic.Your understanding of "love" is downright perverted, You are a poster boy of how religious indoctrination can create permanent damage to the character; it does not only foster ignorance, it is immoral.

453. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168338 by Bonzai on April 25, 2008 at 3:48 am

No, instead you just burn for all eternity in his Hell. Sorry, but re-incarnation sounds downright pleasant in comparison to your god's 'justice.'

Reincarnation is actually a cool idea, I don't believe it, but it is a nice fiction at least. On the other hand, what kind of a sick mind would come up with the Abrahamic God and his so called "justice".

454. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168321 by Bonzai on April 25, 2008 at 2:30 am

I believe Dave is telling the truth about his job.

Being a physics "prof" in a "local college" is not necessarily a real professor. I taught part time in a local college before and was officially a professor, though my job was basically teaching remedial classes and diploma students. Most "professors" there don't even have a master, let alone Ph.D. Many of these guys are just text book teachers.

I remember one time a students was calling after me "professor, I have a question.." I just kept walking and only realized later that she was calling out for me. I told her I have never had people calling me "professor" before and suggested she (and all students) should just call me by first name.

455. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168230 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 7:16 pm

He died as payment for your sins so that you could avoid judgment just in case you decided to put your faith and trust in Him

I am like Kafka's K. Why do I need anyone to pay for my "sin" while I am not even sure what I am accused of and by whom?

And how is the death of the innocent supposed to pay for the sin of others? That is a bizarre concept.

He did this even knowing that some would still reject Him.

Oh, spare us the melodrama. Since it is "God" who is the judge, the prosecutor and the executioner he could have dropped the charade and simply convict us without due process or "forgive" us without the S and M fantasy involving him and himself. I use "forgive" in quotations because really we don't owe God a damn thing, we are innocent.

To say that you would burn in hell for not believing is just as stupid as saying you will turn into a cockroach in your next life. Why would a God who supposedly created the universe worry about whether we believe him or not? Doesn't he have better things to do?

Only a very bored loser of an egomaniac god would think that believing in and obeying him are the ultimate standard of goodness.

456. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168204 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 6:22 pm

MaxD

Well there are monotheists and monomaniacs. I don't know which is worse. :) .

457. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168202 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 6:17 pm

Angels on a pin head

She will take for granted an abundance of good food all year round, something that we in wealthy countries get thanks to modern farming and shipping, and to which we owe much of our health. She will be protected from the harsh environment by modern buildings that provide winter heating and summer air-conditioning.
...


We can expect her to see amazing things from around the world, either in person, thanks to modern transportation,...

Well you made a big mistake for writing that.

I predict Teratonis will show up and write a book length sermon on peak oil.

458. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168192 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 5:41 pm

MaxD,

That is beautiful. But are you sure that is for kids?

And this

if my life were a movie
I would light a cigarette
and the smoke would curl around my face
everything I do would be interesting
I'd play the good guy
in every scene
but I always feel I have to
take a stand
and there's always someone on hand
to hate me for standing there
I always feel I have to open my mouth
and every time I do
I offend someone
somewhere

I don't know if it is political correct to convey the impression to children that smoking is cool these days. :)

459. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168190 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 5:34 pm

Do you expose your child to the Bible or just atheism?

Be honest

Why the Bible? Why not Greek mythologies, which are much better than the story of some fearful people and their vengeful, neurotic god. Why not the Bhagavad Gita? Why not the Quran?

I always get a laugh out of this when I hear people talking about the Bible as if it is something special among uncountable numbers of tribal Gods and superstitions.

How arrogant.

I grow up in a culture where Christianity is not the cultural default, to me the whole thing is just as silly and made up as a number of local superstitions. Perhaps because of this early exposure to many religions, I realized at a very young age that they are all stories. You see a pattern when there are so many examples to look at and compare. Once you realize that, no religious claim would impress you anymore.

There is nothing universal or special about the Yahweh and Jesus cult but for the fact that Western imperialism took it under its wings. It is just another cultural quirk,

460. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168081 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 1:56 pm

I'm having a hard time keeping track between Remnant and TheTruthID. Perhaps they are related.

So let the vote begins. Who do you think is the bigger troll, TTD or Remboy?

Have some music and sexy dancing please...

461. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #168064 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 1:46 pm

Aquaria

I buy Classio Alfredo source with sun dry tomato, add a lot of ground garlic and olive oil to enrich the texture and lots of Parmesan cheese when serve. Yummy.

I am very slim so calorie is no problem for me :)

462. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167999 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 1:12 pm

AI,

Stupidity does seem to have certain evolutionary advantage as stupid religious types do tend to breed like cockroaches. The stupid shall inherit the world, don't say Jesus haven't told you long before Darwin.

463. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167983 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 1:07 pm

gr8hands,

I don't know, I still think Alfred is a lot more gay than Robin, The kid is just a wanabe, Mr.Butler is the friggin old queen.

464. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167976 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 1:04 pm

Orphaned as a youngster and look what he made of himself, that's who we should be teaching kids to be like

Ahh..Bruce Wayne also had a rich father who left him a shit load of money and a BUTLER who is a gay "nurturing uncle" type. C'mon, a BUTLER??!! Now that is comedy.

465. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167968 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 12:57 pm

What I find truly revolting and infuriating is that while scientists are working hard for years and years just to get small progress semi-literate ignoranuses like Remnant would confidently claim they knows all there is to know by just reading one book, by people just as ignorant and stupid as they are.

If you mention big bang, he would say, "ah, you see, the universe has a beginning, therefore we are right all along."

Well the universe either has a beginning or it doesn't (leaving aside the delicate question of what that actually means), you flip a coin and there is 50% chance that you may get the right answer,

But physics is more than just telling you general statements like " the universe has a beginning", it has to produce detail explanations, mechanisms and accurate quantitative fit with data as well as theoretical fit with other sciences. That's why science is hard, and answers don't come by easily.

Ignoranuses like Remnant are not only ignorant, they insult the intelligence of hard working, honest people with their unjustified arrogance and complacency, If you need any evidence that religion can do great harm to knowledge seeking just take a look at Remnant's ugly mug. We would still be living in caves and trembling in fear when confronted with thunder and lightning if his ilks had prevailed in human history, And yes, fear is a virtue to these clowns too.

466. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167834 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 11:16 am

gr8hand,

I was making a general comment towards you and Steve just because it came up. There are internet know it alls, I don't mean to imply either you or steve fits that description.

I work in mathematical physics, I know how difficult these things are even if you just want to have the mathematical literacy to read a real paper in cosmology or string theory in a properly peer reviewed journal.

Admittedly cosmology is not my main interest, but I do know enough to tell that sometimes what you see on forums are actually quite speculative and have no real substance despite the big words and the semi- suggestive images,

Since you have read "A LOT OF papers",--which is quite a feat even for professional physicists not specialized in the area,-- I assume you must at least have a Ph.D. in physics, so I would defer to your authority,

467. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167820 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 11:05 am

Steve and gr8hand

If someone wants to take a position on controversial physical topics he should learn the math, work through the text books and then read the papers. There is no short cut to it.

I am weary of people claiming strong positions just because they have gone to some websites and read a few pop science books presented in a vaguely suggestive and often highly partisian manner.

If that is good enough to have an informed opinion, a journalist would be able to win the Nobel prize in physics.

I am not saying people without such training should not have any opinion, but I don't think their confidence is their opinions are warranted,

EDIT: I tend to shut up when cosmology comes up because I don't think my knowledge can do this vast topic justice, even though I do have some half baked opinions and ideas.

468. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167807 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 10:46 am

Dark and Al (dark ale?!)

Why would you be surprised that Remnant is a coward?

The whole time Remnant is trying to convince us that it is a moral virtue to grovel and beg for forgiveness of a tyrant God who arbitrarily declares black as white, wrong as right and abuse as "love". In this cowardly belief system human pride, ingenuity and dignity are systematically denounced as "sin" that need to be expunged.

His whole brand of Christianity is organized and systematic cowardice backed by the vilest threat, It is the religion of the slave.

What do you expect from a willing slave if not cowardice?

469. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167801 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 10:40 am

Remnant,

You make three related but different claims.

1) God exists.

2) It is the God of the Bible.

3) We should obey and grovel before the God in 2).


I would grant you that 1) is not that unreasonable, even though it is a completely useless hypothesis to explain anything. But it is not necessarily in direct contradiction with evidence if you keep the idea sufficiently vague and useless.

For 2) You have not a shred of evidence that your God is anything more than a figment of the imagination of a very brutish, ignorant and fearful people.

For 3) If it is true that the God of 2) is real, then by your own descriptions he has to be the biggest arsehole in the universe. There is no reason to worship him other than fear, the same reason why many Russians obeyed Stalin.

If virtue, honour and human dignity mean anything we would have to rebel against him.

470. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167779 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 10:24 am

If a father expresses his "love" towards his children like Remnant's "God", there is a good case for the government to step in and lock up his sorry arse and throw away the key for child abuse.

471. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167770 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 10:10 am

MaxD.

I have to say I agree with the torturing kids with supernatural nonsense is wicked, if not out right evil. I spent some time laboring, and losing sleep as young kid over first my friend's roasting possiblities and then I lost lots of sleep over my own roasting in hell chances.

That part is pure obscenity. But even without graphic descriptions of hell to children,the whole idea that we are worthless and must grovel for "salvation" is psychologically damaging enough. It fosters self loathing and guilt at a young age.

472. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167745 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 9:53 am

Remnant

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

Truly the celebration of the brain dead zombie.

If the brain is an invention of Satan, that's enough to make him the good guy. What has "God" done that really makes him worthy of praise anyway, let alone worship and obedience?

473. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167734 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 9:41 am

Steve

That should be their choice. What I think is evil (yes, irate) is telling them that words written in the bible about the world and the universe are true in contrast to our scientific understanding.

What is more evil than telling children the words written on the Bible is true scientifically is to tell them they are worthless because Adam had "sinned" and feeding them the perverted idea of "love" in the Bible. This is child abuse.

Whatever you think about evolution probably wouldn't inhibit your daily functions, but to subscribe to the morality of the Bible, as expressed by Remnant here, would make you a horrible person and total prick for sure.

474. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167706 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 9:21 am

Where is kardashovel when we need him?

With k at least you can have a real conversation and it was not altogether unenjoyable. Yes, he has some strange ideas and sometimes obviously lost his temper, but he is obviously intelligent and can be very witty, Now we are stuck with the idiot bible thumper Remnant who doesn't even know how to use block quotes.

If there is a hell, it would be having to debate an army of Remnants for eternally, a befitting punishment for atheists. Let's troll him again.

475. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #167665 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 8:48 am

Steve,

Let me refer again to an example of certain bird species in which, if families are large enough, some siblings don't mate, but assist with the raising of others. This does not mean that those particular sibilings that don't mate have a "non mating" gene. It means that the species as a whole has genes that can switch off mating in certain individuals in certain circumstances.

Well correct me if I am wrong, I vaguely remember reading somewhere that in some species when the population becomes too big there will be higher incidents of sterility to slow down procreation. Even if that is true I find it would be very misleading to label sterility a "selected trait".

You are talking about a one time strategy to cope with over population and homosexuality or sterility are just incidental.

Homosexuality and sterility don't occur only in populations that are too big, It seems more likely that nature makes use of what is there to reduce population as the need arises, rather than that homosexuality (and sterility) is "selected" to serve a primary purpose of population control.

Yes, the ability to switch on and off the mating instinct is inherited, but it is also very non specific in terms of its relationship with sexual orientation.

If you go by that kind of broad and loose association, why not just say that there are higher incidents of homosexual acts in unisex environments such as prisons, therefore homosexuality is a selected trait? Obviously there has to be biological "switches" that would accommodate this kind of "replacement" as a coping strategy when there is a shortage of mates of opposite sex.

The "nurturing uncle" theory is a classical fallacy of confusing association with causation. Even if it is true that in some species the homosexual members take on a babysitting role, it doesn't prove that the need of baby sitters is the reason why homosexuality persists. It would be like saying you see the unemployed reading a lot of newspapers, and conclude that people become unemployed because there is a need to increase newspaper readership, which in turn serves the higher, overarching goal of raising literacy.

At least for the human population, there is absolutely no evidence that homosexuals are better nurturers of the young.

. What is inherited is not homosexuality, but the ability to have your sexuality changed, and that is likely to be present in everyone. It may not even be the genes of individual who is gay who decides the sexuality - it could be a hormonal trigger in the womb from the mother. It could be that in families of a certain size, or if population densities are over a certain size, mothers have an increased tendency to have gay children. This is suggested by the finding that in families with many children, the younger ones are more likely to be gay.

Then we do agree afterall, but then this is not what you said originality, if I understood you correctly. I wouldn't go from this to make the claim the homosexuality is a *selected trait*,

P.S, I make the distinction between being gay and being homosexual, I think the former is a culturally constructed identity with all/some of the implications that go with the label while the latter is just a behavioural trait, Thus a "gay zebra" would make no sense to me.

476. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #167633 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 8:19 am

Cartomancer

I am not saying that homosexuality doesn't have any biological component, it would be silly to rule out biology altogether,--even though I still think it is irrelevant to the political issue of gay equality.

All I am saying is that there is no evidence for the much more specific assertion that it has to be a selected trait which in some round about way serves the overarching purpose of enhancing the propagation of genes (of close kins), I find this contrived, ad hoc and it has all the signs of attempting to force data to fit the pan selectionist dogma.

To say that you can create the condition to make a homosexual animal basically proves that it involves much more than just genes. Hormonal stimulation for example, is a part of the "environment". It is possible that something else is actually being selected, homosexuality is just a possible by-product which may or may not materialize. I just don't see any evidence that homosexuality itself is a selected trait, and steve's arguments certainly are not convincing,

477. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #167383 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 1:22 am

Comment #167369 by alovrin

But you just kept on parading your small member in public and everyone left. So now there's just you with your fly undone and your member, not getting the attention it craved, is now shrivelling.

This is called an analogy, you should ask your penis what that means.

Very Freudian. :-)

I know this guy who is absolutely in love with his big dick, he would talk about it all day, to whoever willing to listen and he is a virgin, fearing that his perfect, beautiful penis would be worn out or damaged if he actually uses it. So, one day he decided to go to the doctor and have his dick surgically removed, to be mounted like a trophy and hanged on his wall so he can admire it. There is a big sign hanging by it, it says, "look only, no touching!".

I am sorry, I am probably high from drinking coffee all night. :)

478. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167376 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 1:14 am

Philip1978 Post3599

What kind of logic is that?

Women are property. If you break something you own it.

479. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #167372 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 1:11 am

Just trolled TrueID. Let's have a vote. Who is worse, TrueID or Remnant?

480. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #167362 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 12:48 am

Mphil,

No,haven't heard of the musical you mentioned. Is it recent? What is it about?

481. Russell T Davies: Return of the (tea) Time Lord

Comment #167361 by Bonzai on April 24, 2008 at 12:41 am

Steve

We are dealing here with something that directly affects reproductive potential.

So is impotence a selected trait? What would be the adaptive advantage of having a limp dick? I can't even begin to fathom.To say that a trait has a biological basis is not the same as it being a selective trait. You are making a much more specific claim.

It also occurs in a consistent and significant proportion of the population. If something like that isn't to a significant degree influenced by DNA, I would be astonished.

As I said above, having a genetic factor is not the same as being a selected trait.

Homosexuals are not sterile. A preference for same sex intimacy doesn't preclude mating with members of the opposite sex. It doesn't follow that homosexuals are unable to or unwilling to have offsprings. I think you are mistaking cultural attitude as biology.

While homosexuality may have a biological factor, the gay identity is a rather recent cultural construct. I am annoyed whenever I read so and so (fill in the blanks for your favourite historical personality) was gay. The concept didn't exist then.

(An interesting but perhaps irrelevant aside: Michael Angelo was alleged to be gay, while in fact his had such a miserable personality and disgusting personal hygiene that he was unable to find partner of either sex.He never bathed even though he went to bath houses to find male models. He lived a long and unhappy life and died a virgin. His reproductive failure apparently had little to do with him being homosexual,--if he was indeed a homosexual. A preference for drawing or sculpting naked men doesn't necessarily indicate homosexual preference, there are possible artistic reasons for that. I do quite a bit of sketching so I do understand some of the artistic issues.)

As I said before, homosexuals do leave offspring, if homosexuality is a selected trait there should be a higher incidence of homosexuality among children of homosexuals, there is no evidence for that. You can speculate that the responsible gene may be recessive, this is a possible way to explain the absence of evidence but it doesn't provide positive evidence to support your claim.

482. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167018 by Bonzai on April 23, 2008 at 2:42 pm

Troll

You gotta to love that "science of the gaps" mentality. We'll discover it someday, just abandon your faith in the mean time kids.

There may be questions that science can never answer. But how does it prove that God is the answer, or even an answer? If we are indeed unable to answer certain question, then it is an unknown, by giving a name to the unknown and call it "God" is not an answer. You may as well call it "X".

Science doesn't have all the answers, may never have, exactly because it adheres to very high standard in accepting answers so they are hard to come by. If scientists are like you then all questions would have easy answers, only they are likely to be all wrong.

Having answers is no big deal as anyone can make up a whole bunch of them. Having the right answers is very hard. If you don't know, at least admit your ignorance, rather than trying to pretend that you have easy answers from mythologies, it is false certainty.

What you really might want to worry about is what you might discover when it is too late.

"Too late" for what? More threat from your "loving" God,--actually threats from you claiming to be speaking for the "infinite mind" of God. How preposterous and arrogant.

483. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166955 by Bonzai on April 23, 2008 at 2:05 pm

MPhil,

Good job. I know nothing about Latin but your translation sounds even more authoritative and cryptic than Brian's from what I vaguely remember.

484. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166944 by Bonzai on April 23, 2008 at 1:58 pm

Max D

This tendency in the theistic argument, the one where they assume any hole, or gap in current knowledge immediately, post haste, implies their pet theory is deeply annoying. Remnant's kind of theist is particularly prone to this type of flawed reasoning.

I prefer my more concise formulation:

" I don't know, therefore God exists!"

Brian English has translated it into Latin so that it can be engraved on Churches and Cathedrals, though I forget what it is.

485. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166936 by Bonzai on April 23, 2008 at 1:54 pm

SSE

That avatar really does look like poop!



Sorry for being so childish :(

You beat me to it. I too was wondering why steve mysteriously turned into a pile of dog crap. :)

I thought only I have a childish mind for watching too much South Park.

486. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166754 by Bonzai on April 23, 2008 at 12:10 pm

Troll

Thank you for confirming the premise of the movie Expelled.

So you are saying those who get "expelled" are exactly people like you who are intellectually dishonest, who offer nothing of substance in debates, who refuse to answer any straight forward question and refuse to back up their extravagant assertions with evidence and arguments.

Well such people should be expelled.

Ben Stein is correct. Censorship of opposing thought is your only hope

Don't flatter yourself. There is no "thought" coming out from your posts, period.

487. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166719 by Bonzai on April 23, 2008 at 11:50 am

Remnant

God does not want robots. He gave us free will. We have the choice to accept His plan of salvation or reject it.

Salvation from what? His own damnations and vindictiveness. This is not a choice he offered but a threat.

This is like a robber pointing a gun at you and says you have the "free" choice to hold on your wallet or give it to him. It is a travesty to call that "free choice"

True love requires a free choice.

This is the kind of "love" of a stalker or a possessive boy friend who should be slapped with a restraining order.The God of the bible is tyrannical, forever jealous and distrustful.He always demands obedience and throws horrible temper tantrums when he is crossed, he demands and expects "faith" from us yet never has any in us, as shown by his compulsive need to constantly find ways to test us for loyalty and "love".

What the Bible depicts is a typical abusive relationship.

If you think that represents "love" you obviously don't know what love is. You make me want to puke.

The ironic thing is that without God, there is no free will. With a creator God, your slime plus time theory of evolution leaves you captive to chemical responses that have "evolved". You are a slave to chemical reactions. You have no free will to make any choices. You become a robot.

Bald assertion without any supporting argument or evidence. What is "free will" by the way?

488. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166690 by Bonzai on April 23, 2008 at 11:34 am

Let's troll him. I already flagged him.

489. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166674 by Bonzai on April 23, 2008 at 11:26 am

Remnant

Oh but you are? contradiction

Did I say I speak for God? You do!

Learn to read.

Me :

How do you know God prefers lackeys such as yourself rather than people with intellectual integrity?

Remnant:

logical fallacy argument from authority

What authority? I asked a question. Please at least learn the meanings of big words like "argument from authority" before you use them so you won't make a laughing stock of yourself. Oh, but wait, you already made a fool of yourself so I suppose it can't be worse.

Me:

You keep quoting the Bible, how do you know it is not a test just to see how gullible some people can be? Are you taking away God's prerogative to lie to limited beings such as yourself for his infinite purpose incomprehensible to finite humans? What is lying to an infinite God?

Remnant

Is that the lie you choose to believe?

What "lie"? Do you not spam us with cut and paste bible quotes?

Again, did I say I believe in anything? I am asking you to justify your belief that God didn't lie to you. By saying that you know he didn't you are claiming as a finite human you know God's alleged infinite mind and his intentions.

Me:

An infinite being is not qualified to judge us because he can't walk in our shoes.

Remanant

Is that your ruling as a finite being?

Why don't you give an honest response instead of repeating the same question like a bot? By what "infinite" logic do you figure that a millionaire would be able to put himself in the shoe of the homeless?

Th rest of your post is irrational speculation.

That is rich. Coming from someone who thinks an old book of fantastic stories has anything to say about the real world without any supporting evidence and actually with a lot of contradicting evidence.

But then you probably don't even know what it means by "speculating" even when you are doing that wholesale.

Logic is not a strong point of yours is it?

Are you saying this as a self parody? I was about to suggest you to read some logic, but having thought about it a bit, it is too demanding, You should learn how to read first.

490. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166481 by Bonzai on April 23, 2008 at 9:11 am

Remnant

You are using your finite understanding of God and His plan to judge God. Sorry but man's finite understanding is not capable of "judging" God

Then you are not qualified to make comments on God's preferences and way either.

How do you know God prefers lackeys such as yourself rather than people with intellectual integrity?

You keep quoting the Bible, how do you know it is not a test just to see how gullible some people can be? Are you taking away God's prerogative to lie to limited beings such as yourself for his infinite purpose incomprehensible to finite humans? What is lying to an infinite God?

An infinite being is not qualifiedto judge us because he can't walk in our shoes.

An omnipotent being would not know what it is like to be limited, and this is his limitation. He can play make believe to pretend to be limited, but that is not the same thing, and it is an insult to us, just like it would be an insult to the homeless for a millionaire to sleep a night in the street and then claim to know the experience of being homeless.

Of course all these presume God exists for argument's sake. You have not given us any evidence or good reason that he does.

491. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166416 by Bonzai on April 23, 2008 at 8:29 am

Steve,

Do you always respond to posts by just reading the first sentence?

It seems like that was what you did to mine.

492. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166173 by Bonzai on April 23, 2008 at 12:16 am

I agree with Styrer that EVERYONE should have the right to speculate on scientific questions, it is a free country.

On the other hand,i It is not to say that all speculations should be taken seriously, some, such as "god did it" should be dismissed as out to lunch and laughed off the stage, whether it is from a high school drop out or a Ph.D.(such as Behe)

I agree with Steve that in order to be taken seriously, a certain minimal requirement of knowledge and expertise should be met, though this should be judged based on the quality of the arguments put forth, rather than formal credentials. Galois was a high school drop out and Ramanuijan was illiterate.

What I find annoying is not so much technically unqualified people offering their opinions and speculations, but the absolute confidence some such people have on their ill informed opinions.

I am thinking in particular of some religious types who are so sure that they have the answers to scientific questions because it is written in the Bible (or actually answergenisis.com) even though they have zero knowledge about science. If everyone can become an expert by going on the internet, no one would need to spend all the time and money going to school. I think that is what Steve had in mind. IMO hat is justified "elitism".
I think Styrer would agree too.

I also agree with Feynman that a high degree of mathematical competency is necessary,--though of course not sufficient,-- to really understand physics. Mathematics to physics is more than just a convenient language. Physical theories are mathematical in nature,--which is not the case with say, biology. You can get an impression by reading a lot of pop science books, following the journalist's approach, but words are only suggestive and without the mathematics, you are only getting a very superficial and even distorted picture. Some of the most profound difficulties faced by proposed physical theories are mathematical in nature.

Yes, you are of course entitled to an opinion based on what you read, but bear in mind that your knowledge base is not very solid if you know only word descriptions without the advanced math.

493. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166165 by Bonzai on April 22, 2008 at 11:05 pm

Quine

On the subject of a logic text: the math/philosophy divide can make a difference in how it comes across to you. As it happened, I ended up taking the beginning logic classes from both the math and philosophy departments at my college and got double credits for learning the same thing. However, the departments did not talk to each other, there, and it was not presented the same way.

Well it is not that so surprising that mathematicians and philosophers don't talk to each other based on our exchange here. :)

When I was in first year I took two third year logic courses in philosophy to get easy humanities credits. The text book we used was KM. The book was heavy and expensive but really had little substance. It was easy but boring.

The approach of the philosopher was to work within the formal system, The whole year was spent on transcriptions and doing formal derivations, which was trivial for math majors and was completely pointless.

The logic course offered by the math department covered all the essential points of the philosophy courses in the first week, skipping all the irrelevant details and get to interesting and challenging stuffs like Godel's theorem, Tarski theorem, model theory, forcing and computability (these are not even mentioned in KM's horrendous book)

Unlike the philosophers who forced themselves to work within the system of formal logic, the mathematicians took a meta view and asked questions about the system and investigated its properties using mathematics.

The best book in mathematical logic IMO is Yuri Manin's "A course in mathematical logic" published by Springer. It covers many interesting topics that are usually not found in logic text books such as quantum logic and the Kochen Specker theorem in quantum mechanics. However, the book is meant to be a mathematics text book at the graduate level and is not a easy read for those without the necessary mathematical background.

IMO a much better undergraduate level formal logic text book than KM by a philosopher is a popular text book written by Mendelshon, though I forget the title now.

494. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165944 by Bonzai on April 22, 2008 at 4:00 pm

I heard that you have already done that. I know the aborted babies that the godless have murdered have been pretty terrorized.

Well how do you know they are "terrorized"? Have you been aborted?

I eat aborted "babies" for breakfast, I can assure you that they don't feel a thing.

495. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165853 by Bonzai on April 22, 2008 at 1:14 pm

Steve,

Sorry to burst your bubble, flying pigs have been seen, in hurricanes.

Maybe God is Karda himself in the future, caught in some kind of spacetime anomaly and spinning around time like the flying pig. Whenever he was swept by our time he would scream to the Karda of our time, warning him not to fuck with time machines made from old washing machine parts.The voice is real.

496. If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?

Comment #165841 by Bonzai on April 22, 2008 at 1:02 pm

The silliness about this secular "church" exercise is that ritualistic ceremonies, for what they are worth, only "work" if you believe that there is a point to them, say, God told you to do that. With that belief silly movements and rituals take on a higher significance as a gateway to some higher power bigger than humanity.

If you take the "higher power" out of the picture but still insist on going through the motion, all it is left is just the painfully stupid and contrived gestures. It is like bad acting.

Just as someone said earlier, if I want a Pope, there is always the real thing,

497. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165783 by Bonzai on April 22, 2008 at 10:06 am

Karda's argument boils down to "there is a chance that scenario A may be feasible", therefore it must happen for sure, therefore God exists and have done a, b, c for certain and therefore his faith is vindicated.

Once the structure of his argument is laid bare, I see no point in arguing over his peculiar understanding of physics. There is no way you can persuade him that he is wrong.

498. If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?

Comment #165778 by Bonzai on April 22, 2008 at 9:54 am

Well my connection is slow in the last couple of days anyway, possibly due to router malfunction or the ISP fucking around with our bandwidth. Got a flashing notice on screen the other day saying that thanks to lack of competition our ISP has reset the terms of contract by decree and "unlimited access" doesn't really mean that anymore and we have exceeded our quotas.

So I have mistakenly assumed that things are slow only at my end.

499. Mecca should become core to measure time zones: scholars

Comment #165774 by Bonzai on April 22, 2008 at 9:45 am

Not to steal Irate's thunder. I have to say "fucktard".

What the hell is a "Islamic scholar" anyway? I thought that their "scholarship" consists of figuring out how many pebbles you should use to wipe your arse, how many leashes a woman should endure for not covering her face and how big the stones should be for stoning adulterers to death. Now it seems they also have an opinion on time zone and the polarity of clocks. That is new to me.

Why don't these idiots get a life.

There should be a wall built around Mecca and let them devolve back to apes or something. They are dragging the feet of humanity,

500. If God Is Dead, Who Gets His House?

Comment #165762 by Bonzai on April 22, 2008 at 8:56 am

Sharon

I mean, other hobbies might require a lot more energy, and being that laziness seems to be epidemic in our cultures, it could be a contributing factor.

Church: it's not just for the lazy of mind, but also for the lazy of body.

I am afraid that is somewhat superficial an observation.

People don't just go to Church to sit, listen to sermons and pray. To be fair Churches also organize activities and social events. I know some senior citizens who go to church organized hikes and exercise classes on a regular basis.

I think sometimes atheists do demonstrate a lack of understanding of how religion become a part of many people's lives. It is not just about making truth claims and "believing" in the supernatural.

Religion does fulfill a certain social role, what I differ from Epstein is that I don't think this role can only be met by something religion like, with all its rituals and trappings.