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Comments by Friend Giskard


51. Enough religion. Stop shoving it down my throat

Comment #70460 by Friend Giskard on September 15, 2007 at 2:58 pm

DerrickB (Comment #70411) quotes Stephen Fry.

"I know that lies will always fail and indecency and intolerance will always perish..."

I wish that were so! But lies, indecency, and intolerance can, and do, last for thousands of years. We doctors call this unpleasant phenomenon religion.

52. Bible Belter

Comment #68313 by Friend Giskard on September 6, 2007 at 7:25 pm

joshuaslocum,

I sympathize. I've said things myself on the internet so dumb that I've had to change my identity.

53. Bible Belter

Comment #68308 by Friend Giskard on September 6, 2007 at 7:06 pm

Hey, people. Keith (#68267) is being humorous. Duh!

And no, he's not new here.

54. Bible Belter

Comment #68246 by Friend Giskard on September 6, 2007 at 2:04 pm

Comment #68214 by Robert Maynard

I had assumed he was referring to Latin grammar.

I get it. I just wanted to show off my Latin proficiency.

(Cuius enim occasiones faciendi rarissimae sunt. Ignoscas.)

55. Honest Mistakes or Willful Mendacity

Comment #68201 by Friend Giskard on September 6, 2007 at 10:34 am

Willful Mendacity

Why the Latinate periphrasis? Just call him a liar. Since he demostrably is a liar, to do so should be quite lawyer-proof.

56. Bible Belter

Comment #68193 by Friend Giskard on September 6, 2007 at 10:21 am

or as it might be phrased in Latin form, no child's behind left

Actually, in Latin that would be:

Nullius pueri anus praetermissus

57. Bible Belter

Comment #68151 by Friend Giskard on September 6, 2007 at 8:55 am

Richard and Hitch have made a slight blunder. If I'm not mistaken, the injunction to kill apostates does not appear in the Koran but in the hadith.

58. Interview with BHA President Polly Toynbee

Comment #67963 by Friend Giskard on September 5, 2007 at 11:58 am

Bolton accused Toynbee of wanting to put a stop to religion having any influence on the way we run our society. She should have responded to this calumny by pointing out that the aim of secularists is to ensure only that religion does not have undue influence.

Religion should have no more political influence than other special interest groups such as political parties, trade unions etc.

It is exasperating to me how one will never hear a member of the British government endorsing this morally unassailable goal.

59. Bonobo Handshake: What Makes Our Chimp-like Cousins So Cooperative?

Comment #67943 by Friend Giskard on September 5, 2007 at 9:34 am

...like when I...wave a red porcupine around...

Is this another jewish ritual?

60. This human's life, decoded

Comment #67719 by Friend Giskard on September 4, 2007 at 1:53 pm

Bonzai wrote:

Evolutionary psychology is not even a science. It is just a grab bag of arm chair speculations and practitioners often demonstrate breath taking naivety and ignorance on relevant subjects such as anthropology, history and sociology.


Gosh, Bonzai, you must know an awful lot about anthropology, history and sociology to be able make such a sweeping judgement. I wish I had your breadth of knowledge.

61. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #67707 by Friend Giskard on September 4, 2007 at 1:06 pm

Richard's comment has finally appeared on the Times website!

62. This human's life, decoded

Comment #67703 by Friend Giskard on September 4, 2007 at 12:44 pm

"Race is a social construct, not a scientific one," Dr. Venter said. We are all originally related, and all of us genetically mixed, he said, so that no "bright lines" can be drawn to cleanly divide populations at the level of DNA.

Steven Pinker begs to differ:
Nowadays it is popular to say that races do not exist but are purely social constructions. Though that is certainly true of bureaucratic pigeonholes such as "colored," "Hispanic," "Asian/Pacific Islander," and the one-drop rule for being "black," it is an overstatement when it comes to human differences in general. The biological anthropologist Vincent Sarich points out that a race is just a very large and partly inbred family. Some racial distinctions thus may have a degree of biological reality, even though they are not exact boundaries between fixed categories. Humans, having recently evolved from a single founder population, are all related, but Europeans, having mostly bred with other Europeans for millennia, are on average more closely related to other Europeans than they are to Africans or Asians, and vice versa. Because oceans, deserts, and mountain ranges have prevented people from choosing mates at random in the past, the large inbred families we call races are still discernible, each with a somewhat different distribution of gene frequencies. In theory, some of the varying genes could affect personality or intelligence (though any such differences would at most apply to averages, with vast overlap between the group members). This is not to say that such genetic differences are expected or that we have evidence for them, only that they are biologically possible. -- THE BLANK SLATE

I shall not clutter this thread with my own inexpert opinion.

63. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #66911 by Friend Giskard on September 1, 2007 at 1:28 am

Pythagoras, you would be well advised not to attempt irony in this forum. There are all too many people who will take you at face value, as numerous contributors have already learned to their cost.

64. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #66877 by Friend Giskard on August 31, 2007 at 11:18 pm

angels are not wispy, winged beings in ethereal nightgowns, but something far more subtle and profound: archetypal images that dramatise the invisible realities. As such, they can act as symbols for the formless elements of physics; but also for the creative imagination.

What on earth is this insane woman wittering on about here?
Not that any of this is likely to alter the minds of the antiGod squad. They "know" they are right – that least scientific of attitudes since it precludes changes of heart or openness of mind. If only Professor Dawkins and Co would remember that Socrates was deemed the wisest of men because he "knew that he didn't know".

Are there two people called Richard Dawkins who have written a book called the God Delusion? Because I don't recognise the character painted in this review. Our Richard Dawkins presents his conclusions in terms of probabilities, and has taken pains on numerous occasions to stress that he is open the possibility of changing his opinions in the light of new evidence.

Salley Vickers, like most of Dawkins' critics, is just a strawmandering nitwit.

65. The Sacrifice of Reason

Comment #66757 by Friend Giskard on August 31, 2007 at 8:25 am

That was quick.

So, headhunting is a religious practice. Does that mean we have to respect it now?

66. The Fear Factor: When the Brain Decides It's Time to Scram

Comment #66754 by Friend Giskard on August 31, 2007 at 8:11 am

Feets, don't fail me now!

67. The Sacrifice of Reason

Comment #66745 by Friend Giskard on August 31, 2007 at 7:49 am

amanda marie (Comment #66524) wrote:

Comment #66290 by Friend Giskard:
"I fail to see how the mating habits of the Borneo headhunters relate to religion."

I think Harris was referring to the sacrifice being intended for a god/godess of love or procreation. I can see how it seemed a propos of nothing but I'm assuming that's what he meant.

Sam's info on the Dyak headhunters probably originates from this book:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3307

Having scanned the book (I searched for the words "suitor" and "heads"), I can't find mention of any explicitly (or even implicitly) religious reason for the taking of heads by suitors, so I'm still left wondering why Sam saw fit to mention it in an essay knocking religion.

Does anybody have better info that would explain it?

68. The Sacrifice of Reason

Comment #66290 by Friend Giskard on August 29, 2007 at 3:42 pm

I fail to see how the mating habits of the Borneo headhunters relate to religion.

That one quibble apart, this is a good piece.

69. Richard Dawkins at the Edinburgh Book Festival

Comment #65671 by Friend Giskard on August 25, 2007 at 1:01 pm

Regarding the Mo cartoons, perhaps it is a bit strong to compare the newspaper editors with the Vichy French, but the two do lie on a continuum of prudent cowardice.

However, I can almost sympathise with the editors. Perhaps I would do the cowardly thing too, under the same circumstances. But I would at least be honest about my reasons, with something like this in the editorial:

"It should not be inferred from our omission to publish these cartoons that we are guided by considerations of sensitivity or respect towards the muslim community. We are not publishing these pictures simply because we are scared of the muslim community."

70. Richard Dawkins at the Edinburgh Book Festival

Comment #65623 by Friend Giskard on August 25, 2007 at 6:59 am

He stated the reason for British editors not publishing them as prudence, as opposed to cowardice.

It is disappointing to see Richard taking this line.

It was prudent only in the sense that the Vichy regime's co-operation with the nazis was prudent.

(We need an mp3 of this event.)

71. A hole lot of nothing found by astronomers

Comment #65548 by Friend Giskard on August 24, 2007 at 6:00 pm

MOONCHILD!

There. Fixed.

72. Scientists Induce Out-of-Body Sensation

Comment #65320 by Friend Giskard on August 23, 2007 at 3:17 pm

Anyone interested in this stuff should take a look at the fourth link down on this page:

http://www.nobeliefs.com/reads.htm

73. The Politics of God

Comment #64311 by Friend Giskard on August 19, 2007 at 1:45 pm

Here's a more convenient link to the whole article on one page:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/magazine/19Religion-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

74. Bill Maher Making New Documentary Movie, 'Religulous'

Comment #64297 by Friend Giskard on August 19, 2007 at 12:39 pm

I think a better title would be Religiotarded.

75. Believe it or not: the sceptics beat God in bestseller battle

Comment #62976 by Friend Giskard on August 12, 2007 at 5:39 pm

However, the publication of The God Delusion last year also prompted a 120 per cent increase in sales of the Bible.

It doesn't say how they know that the one caused the other.

76. Believe it or not: the sceptics beat God in bestseller battle

Comment #62848 by Friend Giskard on August 11, 2007 at 9:23 pm

I mean, if you can't talk about your sex life or about religion, what's the point of getting together for dinner with your friends? At dinner parties I've been to, these have usually been among the main topics of conversation.

At the sex parties I've been to, all anyone ever talks about is dinner.

77. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62829 by Friend Giskard on August 11, 2007 at 6:58 pm

Bonzai

So what is your point? No one ever argued that the 14th century Islamic Empire was a "scientific civilization". If it were they would have abandoned Islam long time ago as a state religion and science would not have died in the womb and we wouldn't be reading this article. Nevertheless there have been some remarkable scientific accomplishments for a pre scientific revolution world. To sourly dismiss that off hand only proves your own bigotry.

Far from sourly dismissing it off hand, I actually said, in comment #3,

"...the value of muslim science, while not insignificant, has been greatly exaggerated."

That was my "point."

And I also requested from you some clarification of the matter which might sway my opinion, because, the way you were going on, it seemed that you knew a lot about it. But it turned out that you were unable to provide it.

So you just called me a bigot instead.

Yes, calling someone who disagrees with you a bigot is always a good move. Congratulations. I'm obviously no match for you. You really put me in my place. Nice one.

Discussion closed.

FG

-----------------

P.S. I am prepared to forgive your rash insult because I suspect you are a child, and I know how difficult it sometimes is to keep a cool head when carrying on an argument on the internet. But in future keep in mind that throwing insults around in a forum such as this only reflects badly on yourself. : )

78. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62804 by Friend Giskard on August 11, 2007 at 1:43 pm

I haven't shifted the goal. The original challenge was

So apart from al Hathan's elementary observations in optics, and Ibn al-Nafis' description of pulmonary circulation, what are islam's great scientific (not mathematical) achievements that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the accomplishments of Newton, Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein, Dirac etc?

I said apart from al Hathan and Ibn al-Nafis because they had already been mentioned in the original article, and I have acknowledged both of them. My point was that once you get past these two you can't come up with anything else, as you are now proving.

79. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62801 by Friend Giskard on August 11, 2007 at 1:29 pm

Bonzai

Mind you I'm looking for a simple list reflecting a breadth and depth of achievements, real insights, made by many individuals over a period of time of that would justify the praise that is typically heaped on the islamic "Golden Age"

But I knew when I made the challenge that your first response would be "mumble mumble al Hathan mumble mumble." This is not good enough. Al Hathan is one individual. Not a civilization.

I'm sure you can put together some kind of list and post it here, but I anticipate that it won't be an impressive one.

80. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62792 by Friend Giskard on August 11, 2007 at 12:50 pm

Bonzai

I actually mentioned al Hathan (I use a different spelling) in my post. You should read it. And then answer it.

Of course, you can't.

edit: pardon me if you responded before I got that last paragraph in.

81. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62789 by Friend Giskard on August 11, 2007 at 12:39 pm

I want Bonzai to name some of these "very brilliant achievements" of muslim science.

I hear a lot of vague talk about these "very brilliant achievements", but nobody ever actually says what they are.

Or if they try to do so they are very quickly reduced to scraping the the bottom of the barrel and pulling out such pitiful examples as "the pointed arch" or "the windmill" (actually a Persian pre-islamic invention).

So apart from al Hathan's elementary observations in optics, and Ibn al-Nafis' description of pulmonary circulation, what are islam's great scientific (not mathematical) achievements that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the accomplishments of Newton, Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein, Dirac etc?

82. Charles Brooker's screen burn

Comment #62783 by Friend Giskard on August 11, 2007 at 12:16 pm

darwin2:

If scientists studied religion more seriously, they would conclude that it is possible for one God to exist and for human self-awareness (THE SOUL) to continue after death.


Why not two gods? Is that not possible? Or three? Or none?

Anyway the question is not "is it possible", but "is it true"? Anything is possible. It is possible that I am a telepathic robot from the future. And perhaps, if scientists were to study the works of Isaac Asimov (PBUH) more seriously, they would see this.

But is it true?

The way to decide whether a thing is true is by studying the evidence, not by looking into fanciful belief systems.

83. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62772 by Friend Giskard on August 11, 2007 at 11:30 am

Neil S

"What the rest of the planet was up to 800-1100" is irrelevant when assessing the value of what the muslims were doing at the time.

Nobody feels the need, when praising the accomplishments of the ancient Greeks, to add pleadingly: "consider what the rest of the planet was doing at the time!"

Nobody feels the need, when praising the accomplishments of the West since the renaissance, to add pleadingly: "consider what the rest of the planet was doing at the time!"

Why is it felt that such extra justification is needed when it comes to islam's "magnificent Golden Age"?

84. Charles Brooker's screen burn

Comment #62750 by Friend Giskard on August 11, 2007 at 7:13 am

Ha ha. I love Charlie Brooker. His Screen Wipe is the funniest thing on TV. The whole tone of the show is exactly like this article.

85. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62747 by Friend Giskard on August 11, 2007 at 6:55 am

BT
Accepted.

86. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62680 by Friend Giskard on August 10, 2007 at 8:55 pm

If it doesn't impress you much, perhaps that says more about you than about the task. As I said, it's not trivial; try it.


It's not trivial. But it's not impressive science either. It's just a lot of hard work. I expect I could do it if I was willing to devote years of my life to something so pointless. But I'm not.

Perhaps that sounds arrogant, but it really isn't. I often feel humbled by real scientic genius. I stand in awe of the achievement of, say, Kepler, because I know that, given a thousand lifetimes to live, I could never achieve what he achieved. I'm just not bright enough. Contemplating the likes of him makes me feel inadequate.

I never get that feeling when I read about muslim science.

--------

Hey.

Did you just call me a bigot?

That's a great argument!

I've got no answer to that!

You got me!

87. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62675 by Friend Giskard on August 10, 2007 at 8:14 pm

In fact, Europeans had measured the circumference of the earth and the distance to the moon a thousand years earlier.

Between that time and the time of Copernicus the field of astronmy stood essentially still. Drawing maps and naming things doesn't impress me much. Muslim astronomers brought no new insights to the field.

It's quite funny to see how the author struggles to make his list of impressive muslim achievements:

They created algebra, elucidated principles of optics, established the body's circulation of blood...erm...named stars...erm....um...

It is true that they made significant advances in mathematics (though they didn't invent zero, and they didn't invent 'arabic' numerals, as is often claimed), but the value of muslim science, while not insignificant, has been greatly exaggerated.

88. Science and the Islamic World

Comment #62670 by Friend Giskard on August 10, 2007 at 7:13 pm

So, in Islam's magnificent Golden Age they "named stars," did they?

That must have been difficult.

89. A Designer Universe?

Comment #61535 by Friend Giskard on August 5, 2007 at 3:43 pm

Comment #61525 by jeepyjay

well that must have been some bang!

Well, it was.

Problem solved.

90. Electrons to Enlightenment 4: Debating Darwin

Comment #61532 by Friend Giskard on August 5, 2007 at 3:38 pm

This program is mostly idiots talking rubbish. It's no fun listening to idiots. I want my 53 minutes back.

91. A Designer Universe?

Comment #61478 by Friend Giskard on August 5, 2007 at 10:21 am

Dr Benway and steve99,

I will defend what I said until someone convinces me that I am wrong*.

The David Bowie laser beam thing is a red herring, since I am not suggesting anything that is physically impossibe. Biospheres we know to be physically possible.

A planet is just an agglomeration of elementary particles in a particular collective quantum state.

Consider an earth-like planet that is definitely in a state that is barren of life at a particular epoch**.

The wave function is constantly evolving with the passage of time. The wave function after a time becomes so smeared out that one could expect there to be a non-zero amplitude for the particles to be in any physically possible arrangement you could ever think of.

A biosphere is one such physically possible arrangement that the elementary particles might take. And of all the arrangements that could be described as a biosphere, a tiny minority of them would show evidence of having had a long and complex, and fully consistent, evolutionary history. A history which never in fact occurred.

Of course, if Darwinism is truly up to the job of producing complex life (as I think it is) then the biospheres which pop into existence spontaneously, as it were, would be in a negligible minority (counting across the entirety of the many-worlds multiverse***) and we would almost certainly be right to assume that we are not living in one of them.

**************

*Actually I will only defend what I said in the last part of my post. To be honest, I haven't properly thought through the implications for Richard's probability arguments yet.
**I've been waiting all my life for an opportunity to use the word epoch.
***I'm borrowing the word 'multiverse' here in a context different from the one for which it was coined.

92. A Designer Universe?

Comment #61336 by Friend Giskard on August 4, 2007 at 6:13 pm

As far as I can tell, the moral tone of religion benefited more from the spirit of the times than the spirit of the times benefited from religion.

Exactly.

It is interesting to note that the many worlds interpretation of QM, if correct (and if I have it right), seems to make all of Richard's arguments about probability irrelevant, since any turn of events that has a non-zero probability amplitude of happening, no matter how ridiculously small, will have it's own infinite set of branching histories in which it actually did happen.

If we admit that all histories are equally real, we have to admit also that, in our own history, earth's biosphere may have popped into existence a mere few thousand years ago! (Or a few minutes ago.)

93. Ducking the God Question

Comment #60293 by Friend Giskard on August 1, 2007 at 1:43 pm

I wonder if the Flying Spaghetti Machine is anything to do with the Flying Spaghetti Heroes mentioned in this previous article:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,1198,n,n

94. God-Fearing People: Why are we so scared of offending Muslims?

Comment #60069 by Friend Giskard on July 31, 2007 at 6:32 pm

A commenter at Little Green Footballs makes an interesting suggestion for future Koran flushers.

Instead of just flushing the Koran, flush a glued together hybrid of the Koran, the bible, and some other "holy" books.

If the police wish to treat this as a hate crime (as they are doing in this case), they have to be specific about which part or parts of the flushed volume warrant such a grave charge.

If they openly seek to protect only the Koran, their hypocrisy is revealed.

On the other hand, if they make a show of treating the flushing of the other "holy" books with equal gravity, everyone will naturally ask why flushing a bible only becomes a hate crime when the bible happens to be attached to the Koran. Up until now, the desecration of (non-muslim) religious symbols (e.g. Piss Christ, and a million other examples) has been protected as a right of freedom of expression.

95. Response to the God Delusion

Comment #57998 by Friend Giskard on July 22, 2007 at 8:20 pm

Comment #57962 by DV82XL

Well presented perhaps, but by no means anything more than an ad holmium attack dressed up as a dissenting opinion.


As DV82XL points out, this lecture is just another sad case in the rising tide of attacks against the lanthanide community. When will it end?

[smirk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmium

96. Religion beat became a test of faith

Comment #57842 by Friend Giskard on July 21, 2007 at 2:21 pm

From the conclusion of the article,

Either you have the gift of faith or you don't. It's not a choice


The author has come far, but not far enough to recognize that faith is a weakness, not a gift.

Must try harder.

97. Why I Believe Anti-Evangelism Is Wrong

Comment #57403 by Friend Giskard on July 19, 2007 at 7:54 am

This sentence in the second paragraph convinced me that I need not read any further.

Why do we often believe that WE have the "right answer" for everyone else?


"Right answer" in quotes. For everyone else.

The guy is an epistemological relativist.

98. Using the 'Beauties of Physics' to Conquer Science Illiteracy

Comment #57041 by Friend Giskard on July 18, 2007 at 7:49 am

I don't believe this guy. You can't succeed in physics just by memorizing stuff. You just can't. There's actually very little in physics to remember anyway. The struggle is to understand it. This can take days of pacing up and down thinking.

He just needs to design his exam questions intelligently.

99. Kenya: The Death of Religion And Rise of Atheism in the West

Comment #56579 by Friend Giskard on July 16, 2007 at 1:07 pm

Peter Odoyo fancies men.

100. An Atheist Responds

Comment #56239 by Friend Giskard on July 14, 2007 at 3:14 pm

What about Suicide Bombers???

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