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Comments by D'Arcy


51. Evolution's Critics Shift Tactics With Schools

Comment #175107 by D'Arcy on May 4, 2008 at 12:41 pm

Having read the article and all the comments up to 50, in general it must be a good thing if mainstream media in the US, in this case, Wall Street Journal, are highlighting the issue. No not evolution v ID. But the issue of attempts by Christians to get the various state and federal laws changed in their favour. To me, an outsider, it shows that there are at least some in the USA who have their finger on the pulse and are resisting creeping Christianity.

The cat crept into the crypt, crapped and crept out.

52. Pat Condell: Anthology DVD available now!

Comment #174790 by D'Arcy on May 3, 2008 at 2:12 pm

I hadn't realised how many contributors to this site were politically correct puritans. I've watched many of Condell's rants and on average he gets 7.5 out of 10. OK, humour is a serious business and different to all people. I happen to like Monty Python, and the Goons among many others. Humour is needed at the darkest times, as the grave digger scene in Hamlet shows.

Worse than being accused of being without belief in God, is being accused of being humourless.

53. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174536 by D'Arcy on May 2, 2008 at 3:51 pm

I get paid less than the next person (if he is a man) no matter what and I still manage to motivate myself to work hard. ;)


FWIW my attitude is do the best you can, and insist on the best wage in return.

In Russia there used to be a saying which was something like: "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work."

54. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174519 by D'Arcy on May 2, 2008 at 2:49 pm

I don't have time to define socialism.


Perhaps I can help. In my mind socialism is a society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution, by and, in the interests of the whole community.

Common ownership, of course means exactly that. We all "own" the atmosphere that we breathe without (so far) arguments about how many breaths a person is allowed as opposed to some other person. The atmosphere is currently not rationed.

Unlike most of the other resources on the Earth.

55. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174511 by D'Arcy on May 2, 2008 at 2:22 pm

I should have added that profit is apart from the driving force of capitalist production, the source of income for the owners, the capitalists. And if they can retain enough of profit to plough back into future production then it becomes capital, and the process continues.

56. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174509 by D'Arcy on May 2, 2008 at 2:15 pm

Al writes:

NO Cuba isn't (pure) socialist, but it is socialist.


Sorry Al, but you just don't get it. If your economic position means that you don't own enough capital, (land, factories, money, mines, railways etc.), to be able to live off the income they provide, then you are forced onto the labour market as a worker. Even most so-called self employed people are workers. Most of the people in Cuba and in the USA (and everywhere else) are workers. They are dependent upon working for someone else for their livelihoods. This is capitalism. The motivation for capitalism is profit. If Cuba couldn't sell its sugar, tobacco, tourism and whatever else at a profit, then those working in those industries would be out of a job right away. Whatever the terminology the regime uses, "Castro says this" or "Castro brother says that", the reality remains that profit is the underlying motivation for capitalist production. Human needs are an afterthought.

57. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174482 by D'Arcy on May 2, 2008 at 1:42 pm

One of the other "great minds" to have "proved" Marx's ideas wrong was of course John Maynard Keynes, who described "Capital" as an "erroneous, and obsolete text book". He didn't actually bother to argue the point though. Beneath his contempt.

58. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174470 by D'Arcy on May 2, 2008 at 1:23 pm

I do not have a problem with a desire to better peoples' lives, none whatsoever. I have a problem with dogmatic allegiance to failed ideologies.


I agree entirely with Al's comment. Most of us on this board can agree that dogma are thoughts accepted without question. It is something the religions of the world excel in, in fact the word dogma has become very much attached to religion and its beliefs.

That said, I know that Al is referring not to religion, but to the "failed ideology" of socialism. When the Berlin Wall came down, the popular conception was that socialism had failed and that Marx was an irrelevant historical trouble maker. After all, hadn't the great minds like Bernstein, Bohm-Bawerk, Berling, Popper and others proved him wrong in words, plus the collapse of the Soviet Empire in reality, meant the man really had nothing of interest to say.

Well even in his own lifetime, Marx is quoted as saying "if these people are Marxists, then I am not a Marxist", (Marx died in 1883). Al has responded to my specific posts about what Marx actually wrote with his own "free market" interpretation of the "failed ideology" and ignored such questions as to whether socialism actually exists in places like Cuba, and whether the workers there actually work for wages or not? In case there is any doubt, let me answer my own questions. No! Socialism does not exist in Cuba. Yes! The workers there work for wages. And, Al, perhaps you can explain all that "socialist" gold in Fort Knox.

59. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174091 by D'Arcy on May 1, 2008 at 3:31 pm

Well, I kind of have to believe on progress,


Yep! Me too.

60. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174073 by D'Arcy on May 1, 2008 at 2:40 pm

Al writes:

D'Arcy,





As I said. Your model is so obviously not viable as to preclude further discussion until you either show me why it would work to remove all personal incentive or you abandon the position.

I can't spend a day telling someone that Harry Potter isn't real.


Al, if humanity ever decides that capitalism is not the best of all possible worlds and the peak of human achievement, then it will not not be for me to provide motivation. Evolution has shown that homo sapiens is a very resourceful animal. Individually we are weak, but socially we are strong. No two humans are equal, that is a fact. All human societies, including those pre-capitalism, have managed, to some extent, to look after those less able: young, old, infirm. Otherwise we wouldn't be here.

The motivation for work in a classless society? Survival.

61. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174061 by D'Arcy on May 1, 2008 at 1:59 pm

Al writes:

To be honest, you are being ridiculous. Seriously.


Apart from being a "hypocrite" and "ridiculous", I do actually stand by what I have posted so far on this site.

"Never" is a word to be cautious of, especially as this is a site for rational discussion.

62. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174048 by D'Arcy on May 1, 2008 at 1:42 pm

Your class revolution remains laughable. A dictatorship of the proletariat. As long as you get paid in capitalist currency, you are a hypocrite.


No need to get personal Al. So Cuba represents socialism in your mind? So people in Cuba don't work for wages there and there is no privileged class?

63. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #174040 by D'Arcy on May 1, 2008 at 1:18 pm

D'Arcy,



State ownership of resources and capital. That is a pretty simple equation. Marx denying that he is for state control does not constitute evidence that his writings did not say this.


If state ownership is the hallmark of socialism then the US military must be one of the biggest "socialist" organisations in the world. And feel free to help yourself to all that "socialist" gold in Fort Knox. Bismark in Germany, whose government passed anti-socialist laws, must also be a "socialist" on account of all the nationalisation of various industries under his rule. I would like to know where Marx advocated nationalisation as the solution to the problems suffered by the working class.

Are you one of the "Well Communism has never really been tried"....


Yes.

If the classless society of socialism / communism is ever to be achieved, it cannot be imposed from above by a vanguard party, as Lenin claimed to have done. The achievement of the classless society must be the conscious work of the majority of the world's working class (most of us), actively seeking to take political action to bring it about.

All the so-called communist countries were and are thoroughly capitalist, and yes, include Cuba. The workers there work for wages on behalf of a privileged class who own the means of living and reap the benefits of the labour of others.

64. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #173196 by D'Arcy on April 30, 2008 at 1:51 pm

For anyone who thinks that Marxism = blind acceptance of what he/she is told by a "greater power" read what Marx wrote in the first German Preface to Capital:

With the exception of the section of value-form, therefore, this volume cannot stand accused on the score of difficulty. I pre-suppose, of course, a reader who is willing to learn something new and therefore to think for himself.



Someone who is willing to think for himself and learn something new sounds like the kind of contributor we need more of.

65. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #173153 by D'Arcy on April 30, 2008 at 12:51 pm

Al writes:

I am always touched by the Socialists who somehow think everyone from trashman to fisherman to store clerk could and should get a CEO salary.


Where does this idea come from? Certainly not Marx. In Value Price and Profit (sometimes called Wages Price and Profit), Marx states near the end when talking about the trade unions "Instead of the slogan 'A Fair Day's Pay for a Fair Day's Work', they should instead inscribe the slogan 'Abolition of the Wages System'." Those who think that Marx advocated equal wages for all, don't understand what he was getting at: the need for the majority part of the population (working class) to be emancipate themselves from the need to be subjegated to working for wages on behalf of the owning (capitalist) class. Whilst profit is the driving motivation of capitalist production, the satisfaction of human needs would be the driving force of socialist production.

Needless to say, Marx's ideas have not been brought to fruition by the world's working class yet.

Marx's ideas were attacked in his own lifetime and he gives a very good reason from the Preface to the first German edition of Capital:

In the domain of Political Economy, free scientific inquiry meets not merely the same enemies as in all other domains. The peculiar nature of the materials it deals with, summons as foes into the field of battle the most violent, mean and malignant passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest. The English Established Church, e.g., will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of its 39 articles than on 1/39 of its income. Now-a-days atheism is culpa levis [a relatively slight sin, c.f. mortal sin], as compared with criticism of existing property relations.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p1.htm

66. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #172169 by D'Arcy on April 29, 2008 at 9:42 am

But he offers that perhaps it's because Marxism itself acts something like a religion in its appeal to a higher power -- the Party, rather than God.


Is Dawkins referring to the Soviet Union, China and other supposedly "Marxist" regimes?

Since when did these countries base themselves upon the "absence of buying and selling", "the abolition of the wages system," "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need", "Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to gain", (Religion) "is the sigh of the oppressed. It is the opium of the people"? Never.

These countries were never based upon Marx's or socialist ideas at all. They were and are thoroughly capitalist in nature, if not in jargon. Marx would have been horrified, and probably one of the first against the wall.

67. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #171503 by D'Arcy on April 28, 2008 at 2:24 pm

Well, surprise, surprise! You have to be able to imagine things that aren't there to believe in gods!

Now if Big G were to show Himself in an unambiguous way, then there would be a very good reason to believe, but as this is highly unlikely to happen before the sun's conversion to a red giant star, atheists can continue to have a more focussed view of reality.

68. Does science make belief in God obsolete?

Comment #170123 by D'Arcy on April 27, 2008 at 12:17 pm

"Does science make belief in God obsolete?"

Yes indeedy!

No need for any such concept. The philosophers and theologians can argue about the nature of the supposed supernatural, but they're wasting their time, and mine, in a futile exercise.

Now how many angels danced upon the rich man's head as he rode the camel through the eye of the needle?

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

Comment #170077 by D'Arcy on April 27, 2008 at 10:44 am

24 hours without TTID? Has my prediction of the future proved true? Am I really the Prophet that has been awaited?

I've got to go and meet Zarquon, but watch this space!

70. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #169629 by D'Arcy on April 26, 2008 at 12:31 pm

I do tend to shake my head in wonderment, though, at the (apparent) lack of any media interest in things such as peak oil, food price increases, house price increases (in the UK) and the absurd levels of credit being doled out to people.


I hereby nominate clearmind as a "sub prime" Christian. Any seconders?

71. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #168922 by D'Arcy on April 25, 2008 at 1:04 pm

Oh mighty Mudmind, when will you condescend to talk in English, and express ideas clearly, so that we know what you are talking about?

I do not object if we have to wait an eternity for your response, but please keep it brief!

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

Comment #168861 by D'Arcy on April 25, 2008 at 12:10 pm

Too much time has been spent here dealing with the annoying messages of TTID. Not because he/she asks questions, but because of the obvious intent to snipe, whilst not expressing any counter view.

In a week or month's time TTID will be gone forever, having seen pastures new elsewhere. TTID is a heckler, not interested in the substance, but only in the effect he/she has on others.

If TTID has some real evidence of a 6004 year old Earth, I would be very very happy to read it. It just ain't gonna happen. Just more sniping.

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

Comment #166941 by D'Arcy on April 23, 2008 at 1:57 pm

TTID 658 above says:

Lipson, H.S., "A Physicist Looks at Evolution," Physics Bulletin, vol. 31 (May 1980), p. 138

"If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces and radiation, how has it come into being?... I think, however, that we must...admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation.


Whether the physicist Lipson actually argued for creation as an explanation for living matter, or not is immaterial. TTID seems to be arguing from authority, as if that settles anything. Even if Lipson is "one of your kind", he still might be right or wrong depending on what he/ she says.

Dawkins was frank in admitting , 28 years after Lipson's quoted statement, that scientists still don't know how life started on Earth. In fact there is a lively debate about what is the definition of life.

Knowing how the creationists "quote mine", and judging by the many .... and ... in the above Lipson quote, I suspect a bit of doctoring to suit creationist purposes, but then I could be wrong.

Even if a physicist believes that the only acceptable explanation for life is creation, this does not make the idea correct. Einstein got loads of things wrong, but is still the most famous scientist in the popular mind.

74. Judge orders La. school district to stop Bible giveaways

Comment #166772 by D'Arcy on April 23, 2008 at 12:24 pm

If I was a school kid in Louisiana, I would take the free Bible and bugger off. When I was a student, I was given a free modern version of the New Testament, which I still have.

If US school kids are scared of accepting free stuff which they may or may not disagree with, then it doesn't say much for their "freedom of speech".
I know the Christians can be, and are, bullying in their attitude, but school kids are also quite reslient in their own way.

75. Resentment Over Darwin Evolves Into a Documentary

Comment #166732 by D'Arcy on April 23, 2008 at 11:59 am

Personally, I don't give a toss how intelligent a person is. Creationists could all have IQs of 200 for all I care. The point is what people's ideas are. If the creationists are seriously arguing for ... er... er .... belief in the Bible and therefore a 6004 year old universe, which is scientific nonsense, then I have no respect for their views however high the IQ.

A wise man like the late pope, who spoke many languages, still spoke the same nonsense in all of them.

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

Comment #165906 by D'Arcy on April 22, 2008 at 3:03 pm

chewmanfoo (427 above) says:

I also believe that God has set about creation through the laws of physics, through natural selection, through DNA replication and mutation.


I know god is supposed to work in mysterious ways, but can you, as a human being, explain why your god (I am assuming the Christian variety) waited some 13.7 billion years before putting the crown of His creation onto the Earth? Maybe being omnipresent, your God has no sense of time?

77. Religion is 'the new social evil'

Comment #164680 by D'Arcy on April 20, 2008 at 2:02 pm

Pollsters asked 3,500 people what they considered to be the worst blights on modern society, updating a list drawn up by Rowntree, a Quaker, 104 years ago.

The responses may well have dismayed him. The researchers found that the "dominant opinion" was that religion was a "social evil".


Rowntree may have been dismayed, but I am not. Mind you this was only 3,500 people out of a population of some 60 million, and probably most of those in cities where the pace of life is generally not conducive to religious contemplation. All those recent Eastern Euoropean immigrants from Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria etc. (essentially peasant Christians), probably didn't speak enough good English to be interviewed.

Plenty of ignorance to be combatted yet!

78. The Child Preachers

Comment #164505 by D'Arcy on April 20, 2008 at 10:49 am

Well at least I did what I consider the right thing with my own offspring, who are now all over 18. There was no church going, apart from a couple of family funerals, no "valley of death", no grace, and they were sent to a non-denominational school, (no prayers there either).

If God came up in family conversation, the offspring were left in no doubt about my complete disbelief in God or anything else supernatural. I was occasionally told off by fair weather Christians that we were not giving our kids "the chance to make their minds up"! It seems to me that we were doing exactly that.

So far, the offspring seem to have their heads screwed on. One even bought me TGD as a Christmas present Dec 06, and another does visit this site from time to time. The third one bought me Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything", which was a great read, and from which I learnt more than all the religious bumpf I've ever read.

79. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #164066 by D'Arcy on April 19, 2008 at 1:25 pm

Remnant (2653 above) contradicts itself in two adjoining sentences:

I am a creationist friend. True science is the search for causes wherever that many lead.


Creationism can never lead to "true science" because the creationists already "know" the answers. "These are the conclusions upon which I shall base my facts" is their method.

They don't actually have anything useful or insightful to say about the real world.

So Remnant, when you wake up, please tell us what you think is the age of the Earth, age of the Sun, age of the universe. If the answer is "All made on the same day", I'm glad you're not my doctor. (Ihope!).

80. Flea of the week

Comment #164036 by D'Arcy on April 19, 2008 at 12:53 pm

Fleas, mosquitoes, midges, tsetse flies, lice, bed bugs, vampire bats and hosts of other critters suck blood and can spread diseases, e.g. malaria, sleeping sickness, west Nile fever. If I was a Dalek I would be saying "Eliminate, eliminate!"

Paula being in Inverness, probably only has to deal with the midges, although as they say, if you kill one a thousand turn up for the funeral.

In the case of these religious parasites, certainly the Abrahamic religions seem to have a fascination with blood. Muslims and Jews demand halal meat, i.e. killed by throat cutting. The Catholic Christians have the flesh and blood of Christ at mass. The protestants are too mean minded to have blood flow through their veins, they only have holy spirit. I believe the Gaelic meaning of "whisky" is "water of life", and it is at least one way to anaesthetise yourself against the midges.

What blood suckers await Paula in Hawaii?

81. Gods and earthlings

Comment #163972 by D'Arcy on April 19, 2008 at 11:43 am

What WOULD it take to convince me that a god exists?


How about next week's racing results for all races and positions, published in all of today's papers and broadcast in the media and written in the sky a week ahead. That would take some explaining, but then it ain't gonna happen, anymore than Lazarus will rise from the dead again.

82. Gods and earthlings

Comment #163501 by D'Arcy on April 18, 2008 at 12:27 pm

As usual, Richard has his finger on the pulse. IF life did not originate on Earth, there is a possibility that it originated elsewhere in the universe and has subsequently been brought to Earth by comets or even aliens "seeding" the cosmos. This is all Richard said. The theory of panspermia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia was given more scientific basis by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe: http://www.space.com/searchforlife/aliens_all_001027-1.html

As Richard said we don't know how life started, but we know a hell of a lot more about life than we did even 50 years ago.

If the creationists wrote a whodunnit, the conventional final chapter revealing who the villain was, would be the first chapter in their version. All subsequent chapters would be justifications of the opening one. Much like the Bible in fact!

83. Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed

Comment #163478 by D'Arcy on April 18, 2008 at 11:52 am

Clearly no-one made the stork! What a stupid idea! This is the entire point; the stork is not OF the physical World and hence isn't subject to its laws. Yes, of course, it must be IN the physical World to actually deliver babies, but its also very much OUTSIDE the physical World and in the physical World at the same time.


The great Stork is clearly irreducibly complex. If mankind sins He sends us messages through his winged underlings.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/aug/24/usa.edpilkington

84. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #162283 by D'Arcy on April 16, 2008 at 1:48 pm

John Frum! I'm lucky. I never had any gods in my life, although I did love my mum reading me the Greek myths as a kid, gory bits and all. I must admit that I learnt a lot of stuff about religion from this site, since I became aware of it about a year ago. If you had asked me about Pascal's Wager 2 years ago, I would have ventured a guess that it was on a horse running in the Derby. At least we know the Derby is a real event every year.

I will now have a drink to Darwin's Law of Evolution!

85. Evolution fray attracts top scientist

Comment #162260 by D'Arcy on April 16, 2008 at 1:02 pm

How depressing in the 21st century that we still have these ignoramuses in positions of power where they can influence education.

Well, they will have to take on not just Darwin's Law of evolution, (good point IanG), but also astronomy, geology, cosmology, physics, chemistry and mathematics (pi = 3), among all the other ...ologies, whose research points to a very old Earth and older Sun and older universe. I wonder how people like sponsor Ronda Storms can explain how light from our near neighbour galaxy Andromeda, approx 2.5 million light years away, can reach us now if the universe is only 6004 years old.

Teach the controversy, God speeded up the light so it could get to us now!

Oh for John Frum's sake, what nonsense.

Help me Ronda ,

Help, help me Ronda.

86. Victims: Pope Benedict Protects Accused Pedophile Bishops

Comment #161734 by D'Arcy on April 15, 2008 at 2:45 pm

Well bully for the Pope! If he can get all his cardinals, bishops, priests and whoeever else down the hirearchy, personnel to behave properly, the rest of us can then assume that all Catholic clergy are wankers!

87. Teacher Expelled Over Religion

Comment #161722 by D'Arcy on April 15, 2008 at 2:31 pm

I believe I made a similar comment on the above link (Double Bass Atheist 25):

Surely there are enough guns in Texas to shoot down this nonsense. Everything's bigger in Texas, including the lies.

6004 year old Earth (plus universe)? Now that is a LIE. But since when did Christians ever worry about lying? They don't even believe in their own commandments.

88. British schools are falling for the pseudoscience of Brain Gym. Why fill kids' heads with nonsense?

Comment #161472 by D'Arcy on April 15, 2008 at 10:29 am

I just wonder if we could perhaps persuade the remaining Pythons to make another film:

The Life Of Brain, Jim.

"What did educational kinesiology ever do for us?"

performing the "brain button" exercise increases the flow of "electromagnetic energy" and helps the brain send messages from the right hemisphere to the left. Brain Gym can also "connect the circuits of the brain", "clear blockages" and activate "emotional centering". Other Brain Gym material contains the startling claim that "all liquids [other than water] are processed in the body as food, and do not serve the body's water needs ... processed foods do not contain water."


There you go! You learn something every day!

89. Religious education as a part of literary culture

Comment #161439 by D'Arcy on April 15, 2008 at 9:46 am

Religion and faith are the essence of this life.


Sheer assertion and incorrect. They are certainly not the "essence" of my life.

All dying people are not dead indeed.


Is that because they're not dead yet? What about dead people? Are they not "dead indeed"? Pure religious waffle.

Denying, giving up or trying to refute it will not help because you just close your eyes and as if you say sun does not exist while the only thing is you have to is open your eyes.


Even in the middle of the night with my eyes closed I can gather evidence from people on the other side of the world that the sun is still shining for them. I know the sun exists, but as for the bearded wonder of the Christians, well, I have yet to see ANY evidence for Him.

Never mind clearmind, Jesus wants you for a sunbeam!

90. Religious education as a part of literary culture

Comment #160880 by D'Arcy on April 14, 2008 at 2:07 pm

Wolf in sheeps' clothing


Biblical origin eh? I could have sworn that came from Little Red Riding Hood.

91. Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art

Comment #160350 by D'Arcy on April 14, 2008 at 1:32 am

What the author seems to have missed out is that the great works of art, religion, music etc., inspired by religious belief, were actually created by HUMAN BEINGS. J. S. Bach was a man, but wrote the most sublime religious (and secular) music. Humanity first every time! Religion creates nothing except mystery, it plaigarises its contempoary society and then claims the culture as its own. Thieves in the night, these priests.

92. The Art of Creating Controversy Where None Existed

Comment #159929 by D'Arcy on April 13, 2008 at 12:20 pm

The effect described in the article of basically describing an agnostic point of view, ("We don't know enough yet"), could be described in one word:

SMOKESCREEN.

Could someone turn off the italics? I haven't the savvy.

93. Ancient serpent shows its leg

Comment #159560 by D'Arcy on April 12, 2008 at 2:00 pm

Perhaps in honour of ignorance this 2 legged snake should be named "Monty". No not the python, but the "full" variety. The bare nakedness of the creationists' lies is further exposed by this slithering Slytherin.

"Well what did the snakes ever do for us?"

"Apart from persuading humanity into original sin, and from then on biting us and generally making us scared, and helping provide evidence for the theory of evolution, ... not much really."

94. 'Expelled' ripped off Harvard's 'Inner Life of the Cell' animation

Comment #159153 by D'Arcy on April 11, 2008 at 1:59 pm

As I see it, a group of religious people has taken someone else's discovery and then claimed it as its own.

What's new about that? Nothing. The whole of religion is based on what goes on in the society from which the religion sprang. No religion has ever discovered anything useful to humanity, nor made any useful predictions about future lines of enquiry. Religion is forever doomed to be hanging onto the coattails of knowledge. Bring on the IDers, they actually want to discredit modern science, but only by dishonest means, because they can't succeed any other way. They won't succeed because knowledge is too important to society, but they can and do present obstacles that must be overcome.

They are hoping that their 6004 year old universe is to become the truth. As Lenin said: "A lie told often enough becomes the truth". The Discovery Institute and other IDers have learnt well from Lenin.

95. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby

Comment #158434 by D'Arcy on April 10, 2008 at 1:59 pm

I have watched the video, and read all the comments, so I will try not to repeat others.

Time well spent! My daughter came into the room at one point during my watching and said something like: "Oh is that Dawkins, he's quite good isn't he? No wonder you spend so much time there." My daughter is an adult.

Well done to Paula! And for Richard, I would say that it is always a pleasure to hear a scientist explain that, as far as the cosmos is concerned, "I" have no particular role to play, I'm just very lucky to be here at this moment. Bollocks to religion.

96. Pastor attacks scientist's talk

Comment #156469 by D'Arcy on April 7, 2008 at 3:41 pm

Re Wee Flea:

No, We love him with all our heart and wish to help him break the spell he is under. It's not too late, yet. We have to be strong and supportive even if we have to smash his delusions with severe ridicule.
A lifetime of conditioning and vested interests leads to one mother of a fat cold turkey. But we must never give up !
He has a brain, and intelligence dwells within. It's his evolution-granted privilige. He's been shown the Bright light, all he has to do is step over and embrace it.
There is reason. Humanity is love.


Oh! Davey boy, just give up the Ghost!

97. Richard Dawkins: 'Growth in creationist beliefs a problem for schools'

Comment #156464 by D'Arcy on April 7, 2008 at 3:34 pm

My outlook on the world is materialist. No spirits, gods or other supernatural junk needed!

If my outlook is wrong, I promise to come back in the afterlife and haunt each one of you individually.

98. Protests no concern for outspoken atheist

Comment #156440 by D'Arcy on April 7, 2008 at 2:51 pm

Mr. clearthinker Robertson (95 above ) says:

The Free Church of Scotland is not YEC. In fact we have been OEC from before Darwin!


So apparently the Free Church of Scotland believes in a 4.5 billion year old Earth, if "OEC" means old Earth creation. I'm glad to to hear that Mr. Robertson thinks that the church he represents, now believes that the currently available scientific evidence suggests an older Earth (and universe) than what the Bible said. If Mr Robertson disagrees with Bishop Ussher of Armagh's estimate of the age of the Earth, calculated by adding up the ages of the various characters that appear in the Bible. I believe Bishop Ussher's date for the beginning of the universe was October 4004 bc.

I wonder what knobs God was twiddling for the 13.7 billion years before He invented humanity. Mr. Robertson may like beautiful sunsets, as do I, but I recognise moonshine when I see it!

99. Pastor attacks scientist's talk

Comment #155769 by D'Arcy on April 5, 2008 at 4:56 pm

"Pastor attacks scientist's talk", a la Robertson, is because science has undermined pastors' viewpoint with every advance.

I mean, (thanks for the link to Robertson & You Tube), since when did a beautiful sunset provide any kind of proof or evidence of a creator?) There are scientific explanations for things like sunsets and love that fit with the observed reality far better than "Jesus is the Saviour". Even if science doesn't yet have an explanation for observation. e.g. dark matter and dark energy, it doesn't mean that therefore Big G is sitting on His throne, pulling the strings to create beautiful sunsets, whilst something like 2 billion people (of his creation) live on less than $2.00 a day, and 29,000 children a day, die of poverty related issues.
http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Poverty.asp

Hardly the kindly father, more the kind of God that turns the other cheek to ignore humanity.

100. Cult leader Pyotr Kuznetsov tries suicide after realising he was wrong about doomsday

Comment #155751 by D'Arcy on April 5, 2008 at 3:28 pm

Pyotr Kuznetsov, like so many would be religious leaders, made a bad mistake, in making a specific prediction. This particular prediction was about the date of the end of the world. Well old or new calendars, the guy was wrong.

From my anti-religion point of view, I will make a specific prediction about the end of the Earth. The Earth will end in about 5 billion years time, when our local yellow star, the sun, having "burnt" most of its fuel, turns into a red giant star whose atmosphere will reach at least to the Earth's orbit and further. Unless the pertubances in the solar system force the Earth into a more distant orbit, then the Earth will be swallowed up by the sun.

Hitting yourself with a log, or hiding in a cave will not prevent this process.

Humanity will almost certainly not be around to witness the process, but I could be wrong.

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