551. Secular Fundamentalists: There is no such thing...and the AAI conference doesn't make atheism a movement, either.

Comment #88349 by phasmagigas on November 16, 2007 at 5:46 am

I was sharing a tent with this fellow Matthew, who happened to be a budding homosexual. He was also a raging pyromaniac

haha, remids me of a line from 'dirty harry' although the chase involved an erection (i wont insert the real word!) and a zippo!!

552. Secular Fundamentalists: There is no such thing...and the AAI conference doesn't make atheism a movement, either.

Comment #88347 by phasmagigas on November 16, 2007 at 5:42 am

skyhook0

The "blind squirrels" will be every bit as unable to defend their position (though it happens to be correct) as any priest, because they don't have the intellectual chops.

so should a 14 year old boy not use condoms during sex with his girlfriend if he is unable to form a coherent argument with a priest as to why he should use them despite the priests opposition?? the boy is the blind squirrel in this case but im not sure we should hold that against him. i use this example as i suspect the average 14 year has a bit to learn re arguments, esp against priests.

553. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #88340 by phasmagigas on November 16, 2007 at 5:09 am

maybe atheists deep down do realize that atheism is rather problematic

if we are wrong we go to hell, oh dear, well at least I will KNOW i was wrong, i think i'll be at least be able to hold my head up unlike the opposite situation where if the theist is wrong then they wont be able to hold up their head as they wont be there to do it. the theist will never know they were wrong if they are, but i will, maybe i just enjoy dancing with pain.

Then, no matter how deeply we study the physical laws present in our experience of the physical universe, no matter how many measurements of the moon's orbit we make, no matter how exactly we measure the weight of the Statue of Liberty, no matter how many people we ask for their opinion, no matter how often we actually bang our heads against the cold metal of the Statue of Liberty – even if all humanity would start doing nothing but collecting objective data about the moon and the Statue of Liberty until all the libraries overflow with that information: it will all not amount to even weak evidence that the moon or the Statue of Liberty objectively exist, because in fact they don't under the assumption made. So unless one assumes that the physical universe objectively exists there can't be any evidence whatsoever for the objective existence of the moon or of the Statue of Liberty. I hope you can see that.

we can all see that but in a way that is rather like imagining winning the lottery, being independent for the rest of ones life surrounded by luxuries then reawaken to realise you just burnt yor arm on that damn burger cooking hotplate, flip burger, flip, flip, flip.....

im finding this theism/naturalism thing isnt getting me anywhere, im going to read up on something a little more 'earthy'....evolution!!

554. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #88186 by phasmagigas on November 15, 2007 at 6:01 am

repression of women and religious cleansing ("ethnic cleansing" is simply avoidance of what the underlying cause was).

'ethnic cleansing' is such a monstrous euphamism, why not plain old 'racial killings/murders' at least people (including children) will have a better idea of what they are hearing about. So in some cases it should really be labelled as religious killings. Interesting how religious is swapped for ethnic (and im sure there are cases of both types of 'cleansing') as if somehow ethnic killing is more acceptable than religious killing. the very word cleansing (which is what the cleansers might like to use) is thoroughly inappropriate.

555. The evolution of creationism

Comment #88012 by phasmagigas on November 14, 2007 at 6:16 am

im sure many of you watched 'judgement day' on th enova show last night, ie the dover trial events. ignoring the technicalities of the case its very illuminating that some of pro ID bunch burned art work and lied under oath (hell for them it seems) and then the judge and at least one of the parents opposed to ID in schools received death threats. A just what is it with that Phillip E. Johnson, that guy just gives me the creeps, ok so thats got nothing to do with his love of the wedge but he reminds me of the guy in poltergeist 2:

http://www.thefilmbasement.com/images/slb1.jpg

sometimes i do listen to my gut.

556. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #87894 by phasmagigas on November 13, 2007 at 2:22 pm

i just realised that this thread is supposed to be one of 'my argument is....'

557. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #87871 by phasmagigas on November 13, 2007 at 12:43 pm

As Lennox said in his debate with Dawkins, many of new atheism's criticisms of religion are correct.

im sure i speak for most atheists when i say we dont have a problem with god (if their was one) just the people who feel they know what it wants of us. the existence of a deity and the way people behave in accepting 'theirs' are two things entirely.

558. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #87869 by phasmagigas on November 13, 2007 at 12:35 pm

But some atheists might reason that the best explanation to fit their experience is that some extraterrestrial and far more advanced civilization is playing games with us. I try to think how I would react; I think (or at least wish) I would react in this latter way too.

for sure it could be a trick by an alien intelligence, actually now thats been brought up its that atheists who might consider it a trick before the religious fundamentalists.

Of course it could go on forever, the real creator god could have created his illusion of a deist god (but he stays hidden for the fun of it) just to have the atheists feel it was an alien trick just to confuse them a bit......BUT heres the big one, the big unambiguous appearence of a god (or alien trick) just ISNT going to happen is it? well lets just say i'd be very suprised if it did, and alien or god, im not sure which would leave me more intrigued.

You see for me thats the big problem with god, it allows one to posit anything atall, anything atall without eveidence, god made the rain fall, not fall, dog die, sun shine, butterfly hatch, light bulb blow, ship sink, lose leg, god could even deliberately not answer prayers just so that people pray even more, I can come up with as many goddidits as any believer. we could go back in time (lets assume its possible even if its not by our phenomenal experience!) and see evolution happen as predicted and see no god but one could say gods playing a trick so the faithful stay faithful, interestingly an evolutionist seeing creation with adam and ribwoman would be hard pressed to say hmm, maybe god is tricking me to and what he really did was guide evolution but hes playing 'creation' with me. with god seems anything is possible, things simply seem simpler without one.

559. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #87655 by phasmagigas on November 12, 2007 at 5:31 pm

'all metals melt at some temperature' cannot be falsified as all metals have been shown to have melting points yes?

560. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #87606 by phasmagigas on November 12, 2007 at 3:11 pm

im talking generally here but the god of the gaps thing, i notice that when something strange presents itself and god is inserted, in no way shape or form does the inserter posit anything other than saying 'so god is there', it must have been a bit like a boy of 1000 years ago looking at tadpoles in a pond, seeing them become frogs (lets assume he actually realised they were the same things) and wondering just how the hell thay became little frogs, his elder might well have inserted god (and understandably so, just what the hell else could he have said back then) but offered no explanation atall, funny (not) how that still happens today.

561. Bill Moyers interviews Jonathan Miller

Comment #87600 by phasmagigas on November 12, 2007 at 3:02 pm

Phasmagigas, you obviously like pomegranates while I dislike them. I keep trying but find their astringency defeating. My loss, your gain.

Michael, sure not everybody will like poor old pomegranetes, my disdain for the people on the radio was less about their criticism of the offending berry as such and more the general anti intellectual tone of the whole thing, i was wondering what a 5 year old might (not) learn from these people if he or she were listening.

562. In a consumer society, browsing for belief

Comment #87596 by phasmagigas on November 12, 2007 at 2:54 pm

americans seem less sceptical (or just less cynical) that people in the UK although the gap is closing, americans seem to go all gooey eyed at the mention of words like 'faith' 'love' 'believe' and 'joy', those words tied to religion/pop culture, greed and fitting in make my stomach turn.

563. Bill Moyers interviews Jonathan Miller

Comment #87445 by phasmagigas on November 12, 2007 at 6:39 am

i like millers notion of vulgar events that are seemingly trascendental over less obvious events, the sun rise vs the ripple marks.

This contrasts nicely with some mundane conversation i overheard on a local US radiostation (equivalent to 'the view' or 'oprah' or some other equally vapid anti intellectual drivel), the conversation somehow led to pomagranetes and one person was saying words to the effect of 'i have never 'got' that pomegranete 'thing', you know, all those seeds, all that fiddling' the others at the talk were all in agreement at the obvious inadequacies of the poor pomegranete.

Now it sems trivial that i even picked up on this but it said so much about those individuals, it told me they probably knew nothing about evolution or selective breeding even. That a prized food (middle eastern friends of mine take full delight in pomegranetes)could be so ridiculed as it didnt quite fit their bill of convenience i found almost offensive, it reeked of their self importance and parochiality and that they were also probably christian and so really should have questioned why god would have created such a fiddly food to begin with.

What struck me is that id eaten several pomegranetes recenly and in simply removing all the seeds into a bowl before consumption i noted their placement in the fruit, their bright colour, the fun of extraction! and then finally that fantastic bitter sweet mix of seed and red flesh. Quite simply put, i didnt relate to their utterly ignorant stance, and once again i bet they are believers.

mere musings of mine but hey, thats how i felt.

564. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #87439 by phasmagigas on November 12, 2007 at 6:11 am

Great. So this proves my point. There is no evidence that distinguishes idealistic theism from scientific naturalism. So in that case, I go for the simpler solution. The one without added 'God'.

steve99, remember though that the theistic universe isnt the same as the naturalistic one with god just 'added', its something totally different!!! sorry, i felt i need remind you of that before somebody else does :)

565. In a consumer society, browsing for belief

Comment #87220 by phasmagigas on November 11, 2007 at 2:01 pm

luckily some of us just dont feel the need for $500 handbags..........and if i want to hear loud music i'll go to a club/bar/gig where i know it will at least be something decent, did these people miss out their teens/20's??

566. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87217 by phasmagigas on November 11, 2007 at 1:51 pm

For myself, I am English, and life clearly looks very different from here. Whilst many, if not most, people in this country would probably say on a hospital form that they are Christian or rather C of E, very few would openly express the opinion that they are Christian in more than the vaguest of terms. In fact, for many it is merely a way of justifying getting married in a nice local church and being buried there too. I think (and I do not have any proper figures to hand) that church attendance is down to perhaps less than 4% of the population.

What is more, Christians in the UK (those who take it seriously) are appalled at what purports to be Christianity in the US and the (as it seems to us) hard-line right wing, unbending, unforgiving reactionary, dogmatic, ideas and views that are preached.

As for many televangelists in the US, they are seen no better than highly organised money-grabbing conmen.

Here atheism is pretty universal, on a practical basis, with some people acknowledging that maybe they believe in some sort of god. It's fairly wishy-washy, though.

a pretty good summary of christianity in the UK (im a brit), only islam in the UK can be compared to the evangelism of the USA.

If you (ie anybody) went into a pub in the UK and started talking to the guy at the bar and started bleating on about jesus christ as your saviour youd get a pretty cold reception, the guy at the bar would point you out to his friends as some weirdo christian nutter. Ive met several people in the USA who will quickly reveal their affection for jesus, its all very alien to me. one thing about churches in the UK is that at least they are very quiet if you want to do a bit of reading.

christianatiy in the UK is pretty much a nice respectable middle class thing, its more to do with keeping up appearances than god, interstingly the demographic for churches is poles apart from that of mosques, something makes them non equivalent.

567. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87210 by phasmagigas on November 11, 2007 at 1:43 pm

I suppose I am wondering how life looks from an atheistic point of view; whether an atheist suffers feelings of guilt which blight her life and hold back her ability to live life to the full; what resources she has when life goes badly wrong; and (moving away from the completely personal) whether an atheist has any solutions for a suffering world; and whether any of it matters anyway.

i find my atheism somewhat adaptive, when i drive im as careful as i can realistically be, i dont eat/drink/use phone in the car, these are things i can do here in the USA incredibly enough.

anyway it may be not cause and effect but lets assume that 8 of 10 US drivers are believers, when im wanting to turn left and some jerk/jerkess speeds round the corner with burger in one hand, cell phone in the other and elbow on the steering wheel i cant help but think 'daft christian', now why is that (aside from the fact that they are daft for driving like that and most likely christian)? its partly (and i may be totally wrong here) because i bet their confidence in their dangerous driving is partly or wholly (even if subconciously) aided by the belief that god is watching them or somehow helping them through the day, they therefore take more risks and because of this i find myself surrounded by dangerous driving.

If 50% of believers drive via elbow then too might 50% of atheists then i'll be talking crap but asides as im quite convinced that this is the only life I have im going to take reasonable precaution to keep mine and others safe.

568. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #87179 by phasmagigas on November 11, 2007 at 11:48 am

ah, thats what they are , i thought they were golfing clubs....must be my ontological reality thing going on :) i think the jumper made me think golf for some reason...sorry, haha.

569. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #87173 by phasmagigas on November 11, 2007 at 11:33 am

No, please no - don't let DG loose on cricket

eepeist, what do you care, looks to me you are a golfer :)

570. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #87167 by phasmagigas on November 11, 2007 at 11:24 am

Indeed I find it probable that modern atheism will play a positive role by helping bring religion's many flaws to the surface which will force religious people to deal with them and clean up their house as it were

im not sure that would happen

imagine a deist god unambiguously made its prescence known to the whole planet (sky turned green, amputees all healed simultaneosly and all your old battered toys in the closet were suddenly brand spanking new, better than anything on ebay) , it says 'the atheists are wrong, i am here and set the universe in motion, however the creationists are wrong too, I didnt even know if life would start i just set the constants and sat back for 15 billion of your years and watched things unfurl, im very happy with my experiment and I made some wonderful creatures but alas humans are not special, they do think more than most other creatures so i felt it was time to reveal all as arguments over me cause much misery'

anyway you get the idea. the atheists would most likey say 'incredible, tell us what we dont know' (thats what i'd say), the creationists would say 'nonsense, you are not our god, or this is a trick, we did not come from monkeys.......wheres our bibles'.

571. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #87159 by phasmagigas on November 11, 2007 at 11:12 am

Phasmagigas (post 470, or #79134):

DG
'the obvious but by now demonstrably false idea is that objective reality is just how it looks when we look around'.

me
'actually i can agree with the last sentence, if one was on LSD'
'

DG:
If you study some physics you'll see that the last sentence is factually true. For example if you look around you you'll see many colorful things; but even naturalists now agree that there are no actual colorful things in reality.

my sentence re LSD actually continued and demonstrated that I agreed that objective reality is not what we see, i used lsd to demonstrate that it can be even more obviously distorted from that of a 'straight' mind. I only respond here as it appears i was misunderstanding that what we see is a representation of objective reality, I understand of course that colours dont exist but the EM radiation that propogates from/out of objects does.

572. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87149 by phasmagigas on November 11, 2007 at 10:47 am

So, we live and we die

thats all that we can be absolutely sure of (important to keep Dr.Benways #3 upheld here) so most of us here place a VERY high regard for the 'we live' bit.

573. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87139 by phasmagigas on November 11, 2007 at 10:03 am

Atheists are real people with human emotions and come in all stripes. Just look at Hitchens. What brought you to the conclusion, after watching him, that atheists were somehow politer than others?

this is a very interesting situation.

the religious somehow think that if atheists arent nice then they are right and you do need god. Atheists dont make claims about being good, they simply dont accept a belief in god. It seems ironic that its atheists who seem to be under more pressure (im not sure where from but certainly from believers) to be good as if they have to somehow display their 'look, we can be good without god' mentality. Im not sure im explaining what i mean very well but im hoping ive put 'pen to parer' correctly here. on CH, he can be a boor as such and he would get called up for this by the religious but of course if CH is right and their is no god then he has every right and every expectation to be a boor, the religious should be rejoycing in the fcat hes a boor!! anyway im still not sure im conveying what im 'feeling' here but there it is.

574. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87137 by phasmagigas on November 11, 2007 at 9:50 am

I am surprised that the people in this forum seem more interested in picking hole in my puny arguments than in asserting their own view of truth.

thats an interesting point, im glad that was noticed, the religious tend to do the exact opposite: they fail to pick holes in arguments (well thats from my point of view of course) but more imortantly they excell in ASSERTING their own view of truth. I think its infinitey more preferable to have somebody picking holes in your puny arguments than asserting their view of truth.

575. Believing Scripture but Playing by Science's Rules

Comment #87133 by phasmagigas on November 11, 2007 at 9:32 am

a bit like a dog breeder who opposes evolution but is happy to use selective breeding to get the right dog to hopefully sell at a good price.

a bit like the biochemist who opposes evolution but works on antibiotics under the assumption that it happens hopefully to sell at a good price.

very strange, cognitive dissonance at an extreme. then again this isnt too different from what i see all the time. I live right next to a jehova church, sunday morning all the big SUV's arrive, everybody gets out in their finest clothes, no doubt theres some good money makers out there with technical jobs, then they spend the best hours of the week sat engaged in something telling them how to arrange their lives best, like a bunch of kids in nursery school, very strange, im not understanding, not one bit.

576. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #86828 by phasmagigas on November 10, 2007 at 8:41 am

Now you are really making things up as you go along. Nice try though, not bad for science fiction. Sounds kind of like the Island of Dr Moreau

as i always say, ask 10 creationists (seperately) 'why do humans and chimps share 98% of their DNA but a gorilla a bit less than that with either?' and you will get 10 different answers, possibly 10 very different and even contradicting answers, enough said.

That in itself doesnt disprove creation of course (nothing can disprove creation which is one good reason to assume its bollocks) but its says quite a lot anyway.

of course to be fair you could ask 10 accepters of evolution and get 10 different answers (well in detail of course you will) but only in the same fashion as asking 10 people 'how do you make an omlette', of course nobody will suggest that they turn their back, click their fingers, say omlette backwards and turn around to reveala fully fledged omlette (well, unless they are mad or a liar or having a yolk)

577. Georgia plans service to pray for rain

Comment #86596 by phasmagigas on November 9, 2007 at 5:03 pm

idiot. thats all i can say. the british have prayed for sun for 1000's (well 10's of years for sure that ive heard of first hand) of years and they still never get any.

578. Velociraptor and prehistoric co. breathed like birds: study

Comment #86446 by phasmagigas on November 9, 2007 at 8:43 am

unfortunately creationists will point out that given a saddle the velociraptor would have made an even better designed steed (than previously imagined) for the people living along side them, proof that goddidit!!

579. On Being Not Muslim Enough

Comment #86369 by phasmagigas on November 9, 2007 at 5:05 am

a couple of my closest friends come from a muslim background, they are not muslim and are essentially humanists. When i encounter their 'more' muslim family and friends members there is lots of politeness but i can sense a certain unease, its a case of 'ah, you are one of the western friends, ah, one of those, not one of us'. So despite our friendship for all the right reasons that is not enough for them, very sad.

580. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #86367 by phasmagigas on November 9, 2007 at 4:52 am

i welcome ADH on here, id rather read the discourse between ADH and others rather than between DG and others.

581. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #86366 by phasmagigas on November 9, 2007 at 4:37 am

its funny how there is that slippery slope between what we accept as normal and as crazy. warning kids about hell, hmm, if one does that to your own kids in an effort for them to be good is seen as one thing but if you take it further (and i cannot see why all hell believers dont do this) you stand on street corners with a placard. now i dont see any difference between one and the other in terms of aims (the warning)but the majority of people pass off the guy with the placard as a nutcase, and understandibly so. I could give more respect to the placard holder as at least hes willing to stand up there and make himself look foolish and take the scorn from believers and non believers alike.

Funny how middle of the road believers scorn others, eg christians who see literal creationists as nutters, to those moderates i say 'tell that to them'.

582. Mother dies after refusing blood

Comment #86144 by phasmagigas on November 8, 2007 at 8:58 am

heres an excerpt from the beebs atricle:

'But when giving birth to her twin girls by emergency Caesarean section - prematurely at 30 weeks - Ms Underhill began to understand the reality of her choice.'

yup, im glad the word 'reality' was used there, although i think the article should be more explicit and explain just which ontological reality they are talking about in case any of use get confused.

and heres a few words of wisdom from one of the JW:


"We are not anti-medicine. When it comes to medical choices we go through the same process as anyone else - but we take the Bible seriously."

He adds: "Many believe blood equals life and no blood equals death - it is not that simple. Abstaining from blood often cuts out the chance of other diseases and other health outcomes."

thanks for that mr JW.

583. Mother dies after refusing blood

Comment #86143 by phasmagigas on November 8, 2007 at 8:50 am

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071108/ap_on_re_us/southern_drought_prayer

a bit off topic so to speak but heres another bloody idiot. maybe we should all pray to STOP rain falling over the western british isles.

584. Jesus Camp: A scary movie that should frighten us all

Comment #86141 by phasmagigas on November 8, 2007 at 8:47 am

I also remember thinking how extremely bizarre it was that all these adults were pretending to speak another language, everyone knew it was pretend, and no one would admit it.

inadequate, unfulfilled, infantile, insecure individuals who will practice group delusion in order for them to feel included in the playground games. whatever the make up of their mind I can happily say I do not understand the mentality nor do i possess it, very strange behaviour indeed.

585. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #86084 by phasmagigas on November 8, 2007 at 5:09 am

I'm perfectly happy with natural selection as the means whereby God's intentions for each species were actualised, though I guess there could be other, alternative explanations.

No I don't believe chimps have souls. I believe God singled out homo sapiens as his image bearers.

this coincides (if im not mistaken) with the catholic churches official position on evolution, ie we evolved but we uniquely have a soul.

My main problem with this (and this is one of those cases where when you bring it up it shows the complete lack of understanding of the evolutionary process, faces start going blank here) is that at which point did god insert the soul exactly???? at which point did god separate mother from child and say, ok 'this child is what i will call human and give her a soul, her mother doesnt quite cut the mustard so she doest get one'.

All people understanding evolution and the continual link betweeen generations will see the very real problem with the catholic position, the average creationst will have no idea what you are talking about because as usual they have no idea what evolution actually is.

now lets assume that the catholic position is correct and that god did intervene about 100,000 years ago or so and start adding souls, well thats all fine but once again its pure assertion, not the slightest shred of evidence anmd once again makes one think 'why the hell would i even BEGIN to consider this as a valid notion' (i have to condiser all the other origin myths and variations too).

I get great satisfaction that my world view could be at any time totally falsified, it has yet to be so, I find the religious mind so arrogant as to walk around with unfalsifiable notions with pride!! I am the one who is ready to be shown to be wrong, my mind could one day be shown to be wrong in some type of after life, the religios mind can never experience being proven wrong: if there is an afterlife they experience that they were right, if there isnt, well they dont know eitherway!!

I'm happy to be proven wrong someday, i wonder just what type of insincere mind likes to know that it can never be shown to be wrong??

586. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #86081 by phasmagigas on November 8, 2007 at 4:56 am

i have to say that i really enjoyed Rd's delivery, i found myself laughing quite a lot.

Its interesting that listening to dawkins and scott there is lots of humour with genuine reasons to mix laughter with serious problems (sometimes one just has to laugh at creationists in particular), listening to the 'opposition' i notice their smiles and jokes will have a less sincere tone, reminding me of one of those permanent smiles upon a rather scary looking clown, just what is it with foaming creationists and their staring eyes and manic smiles???

587. The truth in religion

Comment #84470 by phasmagigas on November 2, 2007 at 5:46 am

"attempting to par away the meat bit by bit to attempt to get honestly to the rod"

what were you doing? trying to blow a fat guy?

i'll get my coat

i'll agree that donner meat is particularly fatty.

588. The truth in religion

Comment #84467 by phasmagigas on November 2, 2007 at 5:32 am

in the UK they are called donnar kebabs, in the USA they are called gyros.

When i think of science/religion i think of the rotating meat on a rod.

The truth (whatever it is) is the metal rod and it may well include god for all I know.

The meat however obfuscates and hides the rod. Religion coninually packs more meat upon the rod, the meat is various, often meaningless and often contradicting, eg there is no limbo but there was (really?), you cannot eat pork, you must kill apostates, bananas are the 'atheist nightmare' (what about pomegranates-a test of patience?)love your neighbour, kill those who work on sunday, dont drink alcohol, drink wine, remove foreskin, drip water on head, all fag enablers go to hell, confession makes you forgiven but all catholics still go to hell according to muslims, god guided evolution, god used special creation, and that doesnt include anything from the other 1000's of religions/cultures across the world, anyway you get the idea.

Note the meat doesnt have to be in the form of a scripture or dogma, it consists of all possible variants of religious based thought, a seperate chat with 10 creationists will pack at least 3 gyros worth of unfalsifiable and probably contradicting nonsense, ask another 10 just what is hell and what determines if you get there and you'll have another couple of gyros worth of meat packed on there.

I see science in attempting to par away the meat bit by bit to attempt to get honestly to the rod but the religious mind is persistent and just cannot fail to keep packing that rancid flesh.

589. What's the evolutionary advantage of offering your place to an old woman on a bus?

Comment #83158 by phasmagigas on October 29, 2007 at 5:35 am

by offering your seat you ultimately increase your selection of female partners, those that see the good act and then those that can know of the good act. The act 'feels' good for the same reason that orgasm and eating feels good the useful act and pleasure go hand in hand to reinforce the act. However......

I think the "attract a mate" and "please the townsfolk" explanations fail if you'd still do it when they aren't around.

a good point but you only give up a seat on a crowded bus anyway!! :) seriously though if you found an old lady hurt on a deserted country lane you would still help her (there are still people who can know of your deed) but id be suprised by any individual who didnt feel even better about it if there were suddenly people appearing and seeing the help first hand. indeed a good deed unseen might make one feel a bit cheated?????? anyway id be suprised if a young male who gave up his seat would prefer to have done it in front of a bus full of men rather than one full of young attractive women.

good deeds tend to lead to reciprocity but thats another story.

590. Evolution to be taught in SA schools

Comment #82871 by phasmagigas on October 28, 2007 at 4:57 am

Matters came to a head after snippets of a video, Tiny Humans: Finding Hobbits in Flores, was shown. The video traces the origin of tiny prehistoric humans somewhere on an Indonesian island. They are depicted as short and dark-skinned people. This offended some black teachers. They said that evolution was a racist theory. It "terribly undermines black people, everything bad gets a black colour. It means blacks were apes," they said.

this sums up quite well just how poorly educated (at least missing modern biology anyway) some people are and how poorly represented evolution is.

If only the person quoted realised that the flores folk were likely black for living in the tropics and that all humans are apes then there would be no problem.

the real tragedy here is that evolution is the framework that dispels racist myths from our culture. ironically it is white conservative christians who like to maintain them, their supposed superior place in the universe undermined when evolutionary evidence places all people equally diverged from our common ancestors.

Its a double edged sword, seems that evolution falsley applied for nefarious reasons can be used to suggest that black people are closer to apes than non blacks (and theres a false dichotomy if there ever was one:black/non-black))so its opposed and then on the other edge it can be opposed again if applied properly, as accepting it doest give racists their falsely implied priveleged position (in relation to what? God?)

seems that these people really do need to be taught evolution, what an incredible tool for seeing through bullshit. SA has a lot of catching up.

591. Arguments Against Evolution

Comment #81746 by phasmagigas on October 25, 2007 at 5:56 am

'in view of our special position in creation give me the reason why god has us share about 98% of our genome with chimpanzees but a bit less with gorillas, and a bit less still with orang utan'.

* note that each creationist you ask will give you a different answer *

592. Arguments From Design, First Cause, Something Rather Than Nothing, Fundamental Constants

Comment #81728 by phasmagigas on October 25, 2007 at 5:27 am

we are biased towards 'something' because we are and surrounded by the 'something', maybe we should ask the question 'why is there nothing' theres no reason to suppose that there should be something rather than nothing.

If there was nothing there would be no god, if there is something then you dont need a god.

593. Atheism is a religion and you're as bad as the fundamentalists

Comment #81441 by phasmagigas on October 24, 2007 at 6:09 pm

'so you are saying my nonsense is as bad as your nonsense'

594. That's not MY God or Religion you're criticising

Comment #81437 by phasmagigas on October 24, 2007 at 6:00 pm

'but there is only ONE god yes? then it must be yours'

595. You can't prove that you love someone, so don't expect proof of God

Comment #81430 by phasmagigas on October 24, 2007 at 5:55 pm

a slightly silly rebuttal but looks like we are getting a good selection of rebuttals for different people and on different occasions! I have already started picking my favourite bits, seems we need soundbites too.

if i hit your thumb with a hammer you will shout out in pain, I have proved (by most peoples standards) that your brain has experienced a sensation and by your logic you should also be able to show me evidence for god.

596. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #81300 by phasmagigas on October 24, 2007 at 2:53 pm

decius.

I believe that we need to debate further the knighthood issue. I would much appreciate if Richard could clarify his position, in order to settle the controversy which has ensued between those who take a dim view on the matter and the others

im not sure the RD knighhood needs to be in the debate section, i think RD suggested the debate section for the core issues, religion,evo etc, im not sure RD would even include his possible knighthood as of remote importance in comparison.

597. Atheism is a religion and you're as bad as the fundamentalists

Comment #81292 by phasmagigas on October 24, 2007 at 2:41 pm

ok a quick one and work in progress:

To suggest that when i say 'i dont accept there is a god' is a religion, then the definition of religion must be substantially broadened or changed entirely, I feel my words will have been give way to much significance.

'I dont accept there is a god' does not involve an exterior authority, dogma or ritual which if im not mistaken are common in the established religions.

If one has no dogma to adhere to then the accustaion of fundamentalism has no basis. 'i dont accept there is a god' is a personal stance not affiliated to any established dogma. If fundamentalism suggests that my stance cannot be changed then the accusation has no basis again, there are many events that i could witness that would make me change my mind, i have yet to see any of them.

598. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #81267 by phasmagigas on October 24, 2007 at 2:10 pm

putting heads together as such has got to be a good idea. this could be a very interesting thread/section.

once a debate point section has dozens of 'debate retorts' in then perhaps posters can start to use other posts to add/modify their own, eventually we many find a very strong debate point that has 'evolved' quite naturally from the input of maybe dozens of people, they will of course be continually modified to chase the othersides debate points, sounds a bit like the red queen here but hopefully alice will get ahead!!

599. War in Heaven: Hitchens Meets D'Souza on Home Turf

Comment #81150 by phasmagigas on October 24, 2007 at 9:18 am

i wonder if societies that survive today are the societies that just by chance slowly developed the 'right' morals.

If you were one of 10 individuls left on a desert island and you all secretly came to the conclusion that the only way to survive was to kill the others (without being noticed) then before long there would be one person left on the island and that society would vanish.

An equivalent group where the 10 decided that killing each other wasnt good would not befall that fate (assuming all else is favourable) and a society that practices 'no killing' would last longer, with time further group behaviour code selection would occur modifying and adding new elements, after all a huge intelligent society just HAS to have morals as it could never have developed without them but you would also predict that they didnt have to carried out to other huge societies hence why men murder childern in wartime. Right now I have a huge box of cockroachs that i use as livefood, they are getting a bit crowded at the moment and as some moult they do get eaten by others, however they still generally dont attack each other and so the colony continues, its kind of an 'already there' roach morality, so maybe roaches have their own god??



Of course a simple case of selection (think of the hundreds of similar little groups that would have broken away from our initial species members, as our speech and entire notion of self 'awakened' so came the chance for these moral experiments to be tried and tested!).

so our morals are kind of behavioural relics that worked in the past and are so engrained that they are unquestioned (although often broken-one wonders if a group of teenagers who beat a granny senseless, something that appears on the news in the UK quite often, realise that their act is wrong or have they become so dissociated from what the rest of the society feel is acceptable that that learned and NOT divinely given notion of morality just isnt present in their heads). anyway that makes sense to me.

I'm not sure why some people like to force the notion of divinely aquired morality, i just dont understand why that is necessary. where religion does teach morality then it is merely borrowed from that already there. Of course its BS, there were 1000's of pre christian cultures that had moral codes, surely similar to that of today.

600. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #80905 by phasmagigas on October 23, 2007 at 12:34 pm

I mean torturing children for fun would not be something our ancestors would with any probability find themselves doing one way or the other, so I can't see what kind of selection pressure could have applied in this case.

im sure that activities like this are suprisingly common across time where groups are at war, its probably happening right now.