Comments by MelM

Comment #17972 by MelM on January 17, 2007 at 7:07 pm

It looks like the Ch 4 documentary of the Greenlane Mosque has been removed from YouTube today because:
This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Hardcash Productions Ltd. because its content was used without permission

Does anyone know of a legal link to this video?

552. Sam Harris at Idea City '05

Comment #17953 by MelM on January 17, 2007 at 5:04 pm

Re: further videos. There's a link to Sam's website videos just under the YouTube picture above.

553. Intelligent design is a science, not a faith

Comment #16972 by MelM on January 9, 2007 at 11:05 pm

Simmons #27.

Very good! But, please don't write a methodological guide to holy science! Let them fumble about.

554. Intelligent design is a science, not a faith

Comment #16971 by MelM on January 9, 2007 at 10:59 pm

Interestingly, there's no entry for "reason" in the index to TGD. I expected to find something there and I'am a bit puzzled by not seeing an entry.

How does Dawkins handle "the supernatural"?
Anyway, on my list of what to look for in the book, as I continue reading it, is how Dawkins defines and disposes of "the supernatural". My current working def. is that it's that part of reality populated by all of the things that don't and can't make any sense and thus require protection from reason--most particularly, "spirits." The finishing touch to the scam is the claim that these things are "knowable" only by faith. See how it all works out? Beautiful!

Scraping the supernatural to get rid of religion.
If this whole rotten procedure could be concisely articulated and outed, I think religion would take a serious hit--this approach seems much more robust than using only the "can't prove a negative" route that doesn't seem to accomplish much. The whole scam needs to be exposed in one integrated package. So, this is why I'm interested in how Dawkins sees reason.

Ethics?
The other critcal issue that must be dealt with is ethics. Some will go for "use what you've got now" but I think lots of folks will see that as completely subjective (which it is) and will want something better. From what I've seen so far, Dawkins is in trouble on this point. But, he's not attempting to supply (explicitly) an entire philosophy of reason, he's just trying to get the supernatural duality nonsense ended in metaphysics. If his work only serves to get atheists to stand up and be counted, he will have accomplished something really good!

Not fair I say!
Scientists work for years to experiment and build concepts but the holymen only have to tweak their fantasies so as to be undetectable by reason and thus safely in the supernatural. And, let's face it, non-existence gives one a great deal of latitude for assigning characterists and for building theory. Add to that the habit of not asking these guys to prove anything or even to put an idea into an intelligible form, and they've got it made--and get paid for it too!

555. Intelligent design is a science, not a faith

Comment #16955 by MelM on January 9, 2007 at 6:50 pm

ID is an argument for religion even if the word God is not mentioned.

Have I got this right?

ID concisely boils down to this:
"Since natural living things--to explain their design--require a designer, there must exist a non-natural undesigned designer."

A non-natural undesigned designer is needed to stop an infinite regress of natural or non-natural designers. Surely such a non-natural (supernatural?) designer would qualify as a god. So, that leaves us with a challege to figure out whether the designer is the Christian god or some other god: perhaps Zeus or some yet unknown god! (Wow, just think of the possibilities here!) The ID supporters, however, "know" by means of faith that their god is the only god. So, surprise, surprise, the designer is the one and only...God. QED

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Faith is a vice!

556. Reason, Unfettered by Faith

Comment #16944 by MelM on January 9, 2007 at 5:31 pm

The idea of referring to angeology as "rational" really grates! If "ultimately based on sense data" or some such qualification is left out of the concept of reason, it seems the concept becomes synonomous with "deduction" and we can't convey the meaning of science without having to add "based on sense" to be clear. Also, in ordinary affairs, we'd have to change "irrational" to "unscientific" and we'd have no concept to refer to reality based thinking. "Be rational Jack!", just wouldn't work.

Deduction from dogma or feelings is just junk; I can see no justification for elevating such a procedure to the stature of reason thus confusing the whole issue of rationality and allowing enemies of reason to get away with equivical arguments.

Since rejecting the "deduction only" concept of reason just because I don't like it would be irrational (or should I say "unscientific"?), I think this is a very very important issue for futher study on my part.

The Consise Oxford dictionary definition of reason is: "the intellectual faculty by which conclusions are drawn from premises".

So, since the proper definition of reason belongs to the science of epistemology, I've got some work ahead to figure this out. But, for now, I'm not going to give an inch to the purveyors of holy prattle by identifying their worthless rubish as "rational." Sorry, I just can't; no way!

P.S. The Dawkins quote from zoro is absolutely fabulous; I've never seen the facts stated so well! I just love it!!!

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Faith is a vice!

557. Questionable Mission

Comment #16658 by MelM on January 7, 2007 at 11:34 pm

Sorry, "liberal democrats" can delay things but only if they get voted into office. The politician species evolves to adapt to the environment and the evangelical movement is based solidly at the grass roots level. If it gets worse, so will the politicians. I think the only near term chance is for the majority to become fully aware of what the evangelical agenda is and vote to stop it--which they would do. Maybe the backlash has already started with the fall 2006 elections; I'm not sure. My guess--if you will--is that the 2005 defeat of Intelligent Design was a big big disaster for the evangelicals and it did get lots of MSM attention. And an anti-abortion bill in one of the states lost. Unless a bunch of the new "moderate" Dems vote with Bush on his federal judge appointments, the church/state wall will be able to hold the evangelicals back for 2 more years. But, they're like Triffids--always trying to get in. So far as religion is concerned, I'm not getting too excited about the 2006 result though because I think most of the vote was because people were sick to death of Bush's stay and pray policy in Iraq. When things only get worse, staying the course without making some changes is absurd. 100+ guys dead and 4 billion a month with no results left people sick and tired of "stay the course." So, without Bush's problem with Iraq, the election may have turned out very differently because people don't understand the magnitude of the evangelical problem. I hope that Dawkins being in the U.S. will throw some water on the evangelical fire and cool it down a bit: maybe it will, maybe it won't.

558. Questionable Mission

Comment #16651 by MelM on January 7, 2007 at 10:25 pm

scooternyc,

I did a Yahoo and Google search and can't find a "Patrick Henry University". All I see is a "Patrick Henry College".

Bad enough! I know that there are plenty of other Christian colleges around the country but I don't know how many or what the graduates do.

I did some bookmarking of evangelical sites about a year ago. I have known for years that the U.S. had a serious problem but I didn't know just how powerful it was untill I saw the huge number of institutes, mega-churchs, foundations, schools, colleges, and political organizations in my list. And I have no idea how many more there are. Even doing further research looks like a superhuman task. I didn't do any more, so this Christian Embassy nonsense took me by surprise. I want to see if I can connect this bunch up with the Dominionist, Kennedy. See the "Theocracy Watch" site. From this site, I tracked down a writer by the name of Sara Diamond (I think that was the name) and another guy that look like major researchers in the field. What this country could really use though is a book that could hit the NYT best seller list and would expose this movement. As I said before, I don't think most Americans actually understand that the evangelicals are a cult that really wants to take control of this country. Maybe someone with research and writing skills will read this comment and go for it (soon).

559. Questionable Mission

Comment #16644 by MelM on January 7, 2007 at 8:47 pm

What should be done--particularly with the officer (and any like him) having the "faith, family, country" list of priorities?

Section 8: From Wikipedia:
The term Section 8 refers to a discharge from the United States military for reason of being mentally unfit for service

560. Questionable Mission

Comment #16640 by MelM on January 7, 2007 at 7:45 pm

The "Christian Embassy" video link I posted above is on a blog page that contains some interesting comments. Among these I found another video that'll give you nightmares. It's a UK Channel 4 documentary about "Patric Henry College" training evangelical students for government positions.
(They even teach creationism and Flood Geology.)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7630851222567912489

It's about 53min in length and you can skip the 1st 2min of the video. Ads are included but are fairly short.

Others may disagree but I'd like to say that the "Jesus Camp", "Christian Embassy", and this "God's Next Army" video do not represent mainstream America--at least not yet. This is a large cult that most Americans are only partly aware of. They certainly don't understand it's true goal of taking over the country. By and large, it's under the radar of the MSM. Most, for example, have never heard of the Dominionist movement. The problem is that it doesn't take a majority to take over a country. I think we're still a country of rather normal people and not religious freaks. Even so, I see the situation as extremely serious and I don't see how it's going to not get worse. If (when?) evangelical political victories continue and the guards along the wall between church and state (the Federal judges) become evangelicals, we're screwed but good.

561. Questionable Mission

Comment #16631 by MelM on January 7, 2007 at 5:11 pm

Here's the video link. Enjoy!

http://alternet.org/blogs/video/45438/

562. Questionable Mission

Comment #16627 by MelM on January 7, 2007 at 4:50 pm

JHC! S.O.B! #@&*!
I didn't know about this although it's been around since 1978!

Here's more on the "Christian Embassy." The author is an MSM religion/culture journalist that is pro-religion but still concerned about the Christian Embassy. There's a link to his background from the article link.

Anyway, there's enough in the article to make you sick:

It almost seems to endorse deliberate negligence of duty, Dan Cooper, an undersecretary of veterans' affairs, announces that his weekly prayer sessions are "more important than doing the job." Major General Jack Catton says that he sees his position as an adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a "wonderful opportunity" to evangelize men and women setting defense policy. "My first priority is my faith," he says. "I think it's a huge impact.... You have many men and women who are seeking God's counsel and wisdom as they advise the Chairman [of the Joint Chiefs] and the Secretary of Defense." Brigadier General Bob Caslen puts it in sensual terms: "We're the aroma of Jesus Christ.

Inside Christian Embassy
23 December 2006
An exclusive interview with the chief of staff of Christian Embassy, the behind-the-scenes ministry in the news for proselytizing in the Pentagon.
By Jeff Sharlet
http://www.therevealer.org/archives/main_story_002761.php

I'm going to look into this further and I hope other Americans on this blog will do the same. This is a damned outrage!

563. Sam Harris's Faith in Eastern Spirituality and Muslim Torture

Comment #16456 by MelM on January 6, 2007 at 4:15 pm

I was put-off from reading Harris's book some time ago because of a review bringing up some of these issues. He seems to have defended himself well on some of these issues but I don't want to comment further since I haven't read the book--although I'm now warmer on the idea than I had been.

I'll just pick out a point he made in his essay on Buddhism:

We need a discourse on ethics and spirituality that is every bit as unconstrained by dogma and cultural prejudice as the discourse of science is.

I'll take the liberty of assuming that he's calling for a rational philosophy. Such a philosophy would be the great anti-toxin for religion and sweep all of it into the history books where it belongs. It's absolutely necessary to replace the mentality of faith/dogma with one of reason/knowledge. But, this means that everything about the universe and human life be brought into the domain of reason: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetic--all the usual subfields within the science of philosophy. There's no excuse for turning anything over to religion. I find this to be a problem with some of the defenders of evolution. "Theistic Evolution" is being used to protect evolution in the Biology Dept. by redirecting theists to the Cosmology Dept. "Leave us alone, your problem is with them." There's certainly no more reason to let religion fill in the "gaps" in Cosmology than to let it fill in those of evolution. Also, there's no reason why Philosophers of Science should accept the claim that "God created natural law." The procedure of faith can't get one to knowledge; that's the real fundamental issue here. In my view, religion is just a weed that grows--and can only grow--where reason is absent. Those who say that nature gave people senses but they don't work and nature gave us a mind but it too doesn't work, shouldn't whine when religion goes hog-wild and threatens to destroy civilization.

564. Secular fundamentalists are the new totalitarians

Comment #16402 by MelM on January 6, 2007 at 2:08 pm

Note the tactic of creating a "strawman" monster then attacking the stawman. Be prepared for this; you will see it used over and over again. This guy has certainly pulled out all the stops though; he even managed to hint at genocide although the wording is such that he can back-peddle on that if need be. All-in-all, it's a really sleazy piece of work. Disgusting!

Why? Because religionists have accepted faith and rejected reason. This is a very important fact. It shows up in the mindless religious prattle they spew and in the response to those who disagree with it. I don't expect to see anything else from them.

I'm going to keep a copy of this just to make sure I've identified all of the irrationalist techniques being used and can answer them (when appropriate.)

I wouldn't be surprised to see this piece show up in the U.S. And, I thought we just exported this crap: guess I was wrong!

565. The New Atheists

Comment #16287 by MelM on January 5, 2007 at 10:21 pm

Don't let Cox get away with this:

...when religious people get too arrogant, when they begin...to speak as if they knew it all...

Since when does religion "know" anything?
He's counting dogma based on faith as "knowledge".
The cognitive method of faith produces only dogma which is subjective and individual in nature. Usually what one gets is the dogma indoctrinated during childhood which is just the usual religion for a given region of the world. So, it's faith that's subjective, relative, and non-absolute: all the things believers claim to be avoiding! In actual practice, faith does not--and can not-- converge to knowledge as reason and science can. The huge number of religions, sects, and cults now and in the past is a fact and no amount of slippery appeals to the "supernatural" can change it.

The arrogance of religious knowers indeed: that's just plain funny! Faith is a vice!

566. The New Atheists

Comment #16285 by MelM on January 5, 2007 at 9:41 pm

ROLLIN: Atheists are not popular in America. Studies and polls show that more than 50 percent of Americans hold a negative or highly negitive view of people who done't believe in God.

At first glance, "more than 50%" looks pretty good. With all the noise the evangelicals make, one would think the percentage is 95% or something. But, how much more than 50%? I don't know and I don't know what studies and polls she's talking about. Would be nice to have that information because this strikes me as an important statistic.

567. Atheists challenge the religious right

Comment #16140 by MelM on January 4, 2007 at 10:32 pm

Here's a link to Wafa Sultan's rip into an Islamist on al-Jazeera. She's an Arab-American Psychologist and, as she says, "doesn't believe in the supernatural". It's a MEMRI TV video and around 5min long.
One line goes something like: "Brother, you can believe in stones if you want to, just don't throw them at me." She doesn't appease and doesn't waver in her moral certainty. Frankly, a quite http://switch5.castup.net/frames/20041020_MemriTV_Popup/video_480x360.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null uplifting video.

568. I'm an atheist, BUT . . .

Comment #15093 by MelM on December 28, 2006 at 10:27 pm

"...but religion is one of the glories of human culture."

Translation: "Mindless prattle based on faith is one of the glories of human culture."

It would be funny if it wern't for the fact that these "glories of human culture" are trying to wreak natural science and blow up our cities.

It is "human culture" though. People sat around and made this stuff up. All the holy tales and holy books: they just made it all up! That's something to ponder!

Thanks for the post; I hadn't noticed this "I'm an atheist, BUT..." phenomenon and it looks like a big deal issue.

569. I love the commercialisation of Christmas

Comment #14263 by MelM on December 21, 2006 at 6:59 pm

"On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded."

Judging man by his size compared to solar systems and galaxies--an impossible standard? I guess if people were the size of galactic clusters, maybe they'd get a little respect from Russell. What a cheap shot-and absurd--way of belittling human life! He couldn't even bring himself to acknowledge that we walk and don't "crawl about." This is no way to win the battle with the menace to civilization which is religion!

Anyway, I just bought the book today; I want to see if "the worlds most prominent atheist" has an effective argument. And, I read somewhere that he called religion "nonsense." That did it, I had to have the book right now!

Here's another view of a secular Christmas but without Russell's "little" nonsense thrown in.
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.asp
Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial by Dr. Leonard Peikoff "It is time to take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration.
"