51. AAI Convention webcam

Comment #74361 by 3legcat on September 28, 2007 at 8:38 am

there is a Cause?

i am being represented? spoken for?

hmmm.

52. Democratic Candidates on a Personal God

Comment #64485 by 3legcat on August 20, 2007 at 8:38 am

it could have been worse...

at least they answered "no" to the question.

wonder how many republican would have answered "yes"

grumble

53. In defense of dangerous ideas

Comment #58262 by 3legcat on July 24, 2007 at 7:15 am

for what it is worth, the questions themselves are not necessarily Pinker's, this essay is the preface to the book "what is your dangerous idea" from edge.org. it is a collection of essays (including, dennett, harris, schermer, dawkins and lots more). it is a fun and quick read.

54. Town Hall Seattle: God Is Not Great

Comment #57426 by 3legcat on July 19, 2007 at 9:54 am

teapot wrote: "Theists claim time and again that religion is the basis of morality"

yes many do, though often they underpin that position with created (transcendent) morality.

"They don't say that morality arrived along with everything else. They single it out."

please explain, because this i haven't heard, normally i hear variations on the god created "natural law" argument.

thank you in advance for your patience

55. Town Hall Seattle: God Is Not Great

Comment #57405 by 3legcat on July 19, 2007 at 7:56 am

"how does huck finn know?"

again, (i am perhaps repeating this too often) but the answer from theists isn't because god says so and we wouldn't know otherwise, but that god created huck (and everyone) with a moral compass, as well as creating rightness and wrongness themselves. that morality is meaningless unless it is infinite, eternal and beyond human choice. all we can do is interpret our god given moral compass. this is the real argument, not that before scripture people were morally lost.

this is where the strong theist argument comes from, the strong intuition we all feel that justice transcends any one individual or even any collective agreement of a society. for them it is not enough to say we evolved this way, even that "feels" too arbitrary.

i wish hitch would take this argument straight on instead of taking the easy way out and pointing out that morality can't come from scripture.

56. Fears Grow Over 'Mega Mosque'

Comment #56805 by 3legcat on July 17, 2007 at 10:16 am

maybe Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff will get the contract

57. Is Christianity Good for the World? A discussion between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson

Comment #55810 by 3legcat on July 12, 2007 at 12:34 pm

There you have it in all its penetrating veracity! Here's the short version...

CH - 'christianity is immoral because morality preceeded the 'events' in the old testement by the application of common sense and evidence of history.

DW- 'No it doesn't. Er, that's it.'

i do not find this approach very powerful, because this is not what the christians i know believe. they believe that god created right and wrong and us with the ability tell the difference between them, and gave us the freewill to choose. that these "events" happened at creation and long before moses and mt sinai. they believe that the ten commandments were only a dramatic reminder, further more, moderate/liberal christians do even believe that, but that the OT is inspired fiction. an imperfect and childish human account of what really happened. certainly hitchens knows this, and i find this line of attack disingenuous on his part. his much more powerful arguments are his direct attacks on the nobility of faith itself. what is more telling in the ten commandants is not that people didn't know better till they read them, but that 4 of the ten are about belief itself, that what is most important to religion is the religion and its self perpetuation, that it uses every human weakness to continue itself.

to me the strong arguments go straight to the heart of the matter, faith:

why is believing in god more important than being good?

why would anyone want an after life of only joy? (sounds pretty dull to me)

the concept of hell and is an obvious man made idea, it is wicked cruel and stupid.

why didn't the world end in the lifetime of the apostles as jesus said it would?

religions come and go with each claiming to have the "inside track", but yours is different?

god can only be defended as long as he doesn't do anything.

does the study of anthropology, authoritarianism and confirmation bias explain religion better than theology?

could we keep the good things people do without religion and remove the harm it causes?


ok i am done now, i got a headache.

58. Praying to a milk jug

Comment #55800 by 3legcat on July 12, 2007 at 11:03 am

now, i have a craving for a banana

59. Is Christianity Good for the World? A discussion between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson

Comment #55798 by 3legcat on July 12, 2007 at 10:43 am

david blackwell wrote:

I have the distinct impression that Hitchens is missing Wilson's point (or understanding but avoiding answering it because he really can't?)—or at a minimum not really addressing it satisfactorily.

i share your frustration, when theologians like wilson engage in the circular argument that absolute morality is evidence of god's existence, because it is eternal, they prey upon our innate deeply held passion for justice. wilson holds that god enables us to avoid moral relativism, i.e.. good and bad themselves are created into the universe and everything in it including atheists, he is not talking about scripture or fear of damnation here, he is asserting a platonic absolute. this is a very appealing notion, when someone harms someone close to us, it feels deeply wrong, not simply because society has said so, but wrong in all possible worlds, even ones without humans.

it is time to turn this emotional appeal back on the theologians and then concede a draw on this eternal question.

i suggest repeating this ancient response:

does god hate murder because it is wrong, or is it merely wrong because god made it so?

wilson holds the later, and from god's POV morality is again subjective, so god doesn't really solve the problem any better than evolutionary explanations and while believing "god hates what you did to me" is more emotionally satisfying than "we evolved a negative physiological response to that bad shit" it is simply that, merely more emotionally satisfying with no evidence for it.

i suspect this is why hitch changed the subject it isn't a sexy argument and people don't like to think of themselves as consequentialists

deja vu?

60. Won't anyone stand up for God?

Comment #54910 by 3legcat on July 9, 2007 at 9:47 am

"Atheists have to face the conundrum: why do so many people believe in God when there is no God to believe in?"

and believers have to face the conundrum: they Only believe because others believe, or at least say they do.

61. Debate between Sam Harris and Chris Hedges

Comment #50880 by 3legcat on June 20, 2007 at 9:42 am

**adding to the informal poll**

i found chris hedges typically infuriating, with his thinly veiled "hippie" jesus that everyone but him has misinterpreted. his jesus/god only commanded exactly the same brand of justice that chris coincidentally also believes, perhaps he is a prophet too. i do need to thank him for the laughable moment in his initial comments though... the irony of his boorish railing against the written word during his own written speech. tee hee.

robert scheer is sad, honestly, when he made the point that no muslim county had ever used an atomic weapon while only america had, as if this said something about anything, i felt nothing but pity for him. this world is no longer comprehensible to his vietnam era mental trap. it is sad really, to be so passionate and to have lost his mental capacity at the same time, must be frustrating for him.

sam harris was on his game as usual and probably was helped by having blinkered opponents. at this point i would like mr. harris to move his arguments along with some actual science. how much are beliefs really operative? lets see some experimental results, i look forward to what i hope will be a long career of good and informative writing from him.

62. PBS Revelation: Network's 'Wall Of Separation' Has Religious Right Genesis

Comment #49756 by 3legcat on June 13, 2007 at 8:59 am

i saw Wall of Separation last night on my local PBS station.

this documentary asserts that the founding fathers were deeply religious christians who never intended to prohibit the states from adopting official religions, that any discouragement at the federal level had to do with a general discouragement of the fed getting involved with state issues and that the "wall of separation" quote in jefferson's letter to the danbury baptists was taken way out of context in the supreme court rulings of the 1940's.

furthermore it claims that jefferson was a deeply religious christian with unusual thoughts on the trinity, only briefly mentions thomas paine once, and suggests that deism was merely the fashion of the day. they do back up these claims with a good deal of the "fathers" own words.

even if all the claims of this documentary proved true, what difference does it make? i don't give a rat's ass what the founding fathers intended, they were slave holders, did they intend federal slavery? maybe, who cares?. pluralism, free exercise, and no establishment are widely embraced notions that protect citizens from their government. build up that wall.

63. Religion - our maelstrom of ignorance

Comment #49512 by 3legcat on June 12, 2007 at 8:12 am

How to tell the difference: Poetic creationism is vague. No details given regarding when, how, etc. Atheists look stupid when they knee-jerk react to poetic creationism as if it were Biblical creationism.

i agree, but we rarely encounter the hovinds, usually it brownbacks

is there a difference between liberal creationists like hedges/gore vs brownback/huckabee, really?

al gore says we are the stewards of the creation, while brownback says he knows we were created for a purpose (specifically stating that he did not know when or how)

i don't see the difference, personally. (sure i prefer one man to the other, but i recognize it is for reasons other than their deeply held beliefs)

64. The 'Is God...Great?' Debate

Comment #48584 by 3legcat on June 8, 2007 at 1:15 pm

good afternoon xenocritic,

"Perhaps you should do some independent investigations"

perhaps, i claim no authority on the subject (or any other).

"The Oslo accords were an absolute joke"

why do you suppose that they were supported by fatah if they were a joke?

"provides Israel each year with $4 - 5 billion (half of the US's yearly foreing aid allocations), and Israel, basically the 51st state"

i tend to think of puerto rico as the 51st state, but it is true, the US has considerable leverage at its disposal and when it has exerted it, it has produced some results, i would suggest that if the extremists would take an extended break that the US would be in a better position to use it, again.

"the United States who purposely wants Israel to be at loggerheads with its Arab neighbours to ensure a measure of control that the US doesn't have directly"

this i doubt, and i invite you to convince me otherwise, however it seems to me that commerce (usually) abhors instability, that ultimately, energy is the US dog in this race. that is our long term strategic interest.

"There's a reason why such a small country has the world's fourth largest military, with more nukes than any other country in the Middle East, and it ain't purely defensive"

there clearly is a reason why israel chooses to arm itself, but you seem to know that israel has a plan of attack and you know what that is.

"We're commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 6-day war in which Israel was the aggressor....all US presidents since World War 2 are war criminals"

not very balanced, and thus, not very persuasive, perhaps you don't care about that, and if so, that's fine by me.

"Last time I checked it wasn't Bush's malapropisms which killed anybody, it was his policies"

actually i do think president bush's limitations did get people killed, that his policies were enabled by a lack of reason, that to him, it made sense to simultaneously posit a worst case scenario of threat and a best case scenario for easy cheap success. not very bright..

"Your blithe comments apropos the millions of civilians killed in Vietnam suggest that you aren't interested in a universalist humanist approach"

i think you may have misunderstood my sarcasm, i was arguing that it was shameful for the US to turn its back on the south vietnamese as we left. i believe we had an obligation to take as many south vietnamese who wanted to immigrate to the US as wanted to come. we had promised these people democracy and they fought with us for it, we owed them better than leaving them behind. i believe the same is true in iraq, i fear the kurds are about to get screwed again.

"I suppose to you, 3legcat, they're just "gooks" who deserved to die, right?"

i think this may be the first time in my life i have been called a racist, and yet i find it disturbingly refreshing....strange.

"This statement is both idiotic and a complete non sequitur. So, by your esteemed reasoning, because people want to come to the United States then that automatically means the US isn't the world's biggest terror state? What impeachable logic!!!"

impeachable? ... non sequitur (i love irony, thanks for that)

first of all, i am certainly idiotic, i claim no authority on any subject. (have you been chatting with my wife?). However here i wasn't trying to be logical, i didn't think you were trying either.

"I believe there is a famous saying along the lines of "there are none so blind as those who choose not to see"

i find the blind are blinkered by their certainty and on this i have none, i remain open to listen to both sides.

i wish you well xeno, take care.

65. The 'Is God...Great?' Debate

Comment #48548 by 3legcat on June 8, 2007 at 10:40 am

(apologies all for this OT)

hello Stuart Paul Wood,

(this is a quickie, previous post eaten)

"decide what is illegal and what is not those terms should be applied as neccessary with no exceptions"

i believe in the rule of law as do you, i want all parties to agree to terms and live by them, however when it comes to international conflicts each individual entity claims the high authority, and then these claims become infinitely regressive and worse they do not lend themselves well to compromise. the "real" authority here is what will lead to the longest term of peace, liberty, prosperity and self determination for the maximum number of people. that is the only authority i care about (at least in this instance).

"Israel as you probably know would prefer to call the occupied teritories "the disputed territories". This is a key and unforgivable difference."

can't say that i have heard that term very often, usually i hear the term "occupied territories", i try not to get bogged down by pre bargaining table posturing of negotiators. certainly you have heard arab heads of state argue that the entire jewish state is illegal. which does have its logic too.

"reliance on scripture"

is a non starter, it is intended, as always, to be the end of compromise, or discovery. it is the extinguisher of light and heat.

"strongly influenced by the powerful Jewish lobby in that country"

honestly i think this power is often over estimated, eisenhower, carter and clinton have asked for and received concessions and return of parts of those territories and would have gotten a lot more with oslo.

"International law has spoken, a long, long time ago (when UN resolutions were still in three digits) on this very matter and has defined the occupied territories and the settlements built upon them as illegal."

what do you think is stopping israel from returning the the occupied territories?

i think it is fear. what might the arabs do to alleviate that fear, perhaps, not having giant death to israel demonstrations would be a good start.

"I have no problem with Israel being able to defend itself"

good, we agree on that. palestine and its neighbors also have that right as well.

"However, there can be no excuse, no reason for them to continue to occupy the extra land they seized in that war."

does it hurt that argument when rockets are fired at israel from gaza?

if my neighbor said he was going to kill me, i would probably ask for a restraining order with a buffer zone.

"Northern Ireland. Let us use that example as a bastion of hope"

do you think 911 made terrorism too distasteful for the various irish factions and hastened improvement there?

good talking to you, cheers and have a great weekend.

66. The 'Is God...Great?' Debate

Comment #48531 by 3legcat on June 8, 2007 at 9:32 am

dag nab it what happened to my post?

sorry to stuart paul wood i wrote you a reply but it is not appearing hmmmmm.....

guess i will try later

67. The 'Is God...Great?' Debate

Comment #48319 by 3legcat on June 7, 2007 at 12:10 pm

I'm still waiting for the Harris vs. Hedges debate on audio or video.

here (partially)

68. The 'Is God...Great?' Debate

Comment #48315 by 3legcat on June 7, 2007 at 11:51 am

"They should take down their illegal settlements and leave the occupied teritories"

this, i can agree with, though i would remove the legal/illegal language, i am much more interested in actual progress than assessing legality.

however, wasn't this the essence of the Olso Accords, passed by the knesset and fatah but shot down by islamic jihad and the popular front?

69. The 'Is God...Great?' Debate

Comment #48280 by 3legcat on June 7, 2007 at 9:41 am

he would do well to remember that no fundamentalist Islamic state ever dropped nuclear weapons on civilian populations.

good grief

Last time I checked it wasn't Iran who illegally invaded Vietnam and killed between 3 to 6 million people.

impeach JFK!

remember how happy the south vietnamese were to see us leaving, waving goodbye and all from the embassy roof top, that was nice.

The reason many Palestinians have turned to Islamic extremism is because the secular Arab nationalists have not, in their eyes, been able to broker an acceptable peace deal with the Israelis, who, along with the US, are the biggest obstacles to peace in the region.

you mean like Sadat and the return of the sinai, that's right, they embraced him in the back of the head. why did the palestinians turn down the two state solution at oslo?

the manifold evils of the world's biggest terrorist state, the United States

i wonder if mail order american brides are popular in russia?

How many people know that Israel at one point funded Hamas so that they could divide the Palestinian populace?

and what do we call belief without evidence?

the Israelis are just as inspired to commit atrocities because of their religion as the Palestinians.

surrounded as they are, by governments that have publicly sworn to their complete destruction (genocide) for 60 years, what course of action do you suggest? should they leave? perhaps they would be interested in florida, i wonder if that would bring a cuban intifada?

it is possible to oppose this war on consequentialist grounds and not let your frustrations with this idiotic president get the better of you.

70. Should Science Speak to Faith? A dialog between Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins

Comment #47696 by 3legcat on June 5, 2007 at 9:56 am

bonzai:

To many, religion is a kind of meta narrative to make sense of their "small", personal lives , it is therapy to cope with tragedies, or some kind of visualization aid to experience the transcendence

this "therapy", and/or "visualization" is bad science (pyschology) as well.

71. What I Think About Evolution

Comment #46699 by 3legcat on June 1, 2007 at 7:34 am

sen. brownback

I firmly believe that each human person, regardless of circumstance, was willed into being and made for a purpose.

and

bizarro

If I called you a dog, would you appreciate it very much?

the rub, this is the essence of the meme, its pervasive persistence, people loath themselves and we fear our own lack of self restraint, we must constantly assure ourselves that "You are special! you are not a dog or a cow, your life is important" don't believe that awful thing mommy and daddy said about you. hush now child.

72. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46091 by 3legcat on May 30, 2007 at 7:19 am

"If you saw ten men walking towards you late at night, would you be relieved to learn that they were coming from a Bible study meeting?"

yes, but not because the bible has made them safer to be around but because they are more likely to see me as part of their tribe, as a person much like them. i am a US citizen and look it.

if i were a woman in a burka, or a brown man in a turban, i would feel less safe surrounded by the bible study gang. i would feel threatened by anyone who devotes that much effort on an old book that he/she thinks gives them authority over others.

this is in group/out group behavior at work.

in a small town near by, an old laotian man was beaten to death for being "charlie". a secular version of the same phenomenon.

prager's question only validates our own built in tribalism and makes hitchen's point about "poison".

73. Dental healer finds share of faithful believers

Comment #44138 by 3legcat on May 23, 2007 at 12:06 pm

"Dreams of teeth and rivers of silver and gold troubled his sleep."

jesus, me too.

i made street light go out.

74. The Conversion of the Casual Evolutionist - You can't spell love without evolve

Comment #44038 by 3legcat on May 23, 2007 at 8:03 am

I now not only think the author's understanding of evolution is not nearly so good as he imagines

it is because he is having a laugh at our expense, it is sarcasm and purposeful over simplification, though fairly subtle frankly.

75. The Conversion of the Casual Evolutionist - You can't spell love without evolve

Comment #44035 by 3legcat on May 23, 2007 at 8:01 am

i call shenanigans

76. Christopher Hitchens Is a Treasure

Comment #43442 by 3legcat on May 21, 2007 at 12:57 pm

the Hitchens v. Olasky debate held at the LBJ library is now available
here, pictures, podcast and ms media player video. it is a pretty good debate.

new thread?

77. Dobson, Armageddon, and Foreign Policy

Comment #41908 by 3legcat on May 17, 2007 at 9:38 am

If it's the other way around

my best guess: it is a little of both, they use each other, for example dobson gets veto authority for supreme court/federal bench nominations and a weekly personal phone chat and in return the flock is told jesus is a bushie.

78. Hitchens vs. Hannity on Religion and God

Comment #41083 by 3legcat on May 15, 2007 at 1:26 pm

(e. g., why not accept the flying spaghetti monster axiom?)

because Sanity truly is found in numbers. (as sam harris put it)

79. Is Christianity Good for the World?

Comment #39666 by 3legcat on May 11, 2007 at 1:34 pm

stuart,

"If a legal preceded can be set whereby it could be proved that freewill did not exist and that the perpetrator did not intend (which you state is important for Kant's notion) - then what changes, they go to an asylum and not a prison?- I also doubt this precedent would ever occur in a legal setting due to philosophy/scientific justifications."

Kant asserted that to be held responsible for your acts, you had to be able to act otherwise. I think this is a truism. If freewill is an illusion then it stands that no one should be held responsible (punished) for their acts, for they could not have acted otherwise, no freewill. You suggest that it is merely a semantic distinction, treatment vs punishment. I am suggesting (though uncertain) that it is more than that. I have no difficulty finding my empathy for victims, and I also find my understanding for their desire for justice over treatment comes rather easily. Now it does not follow that we need Mythology to decide this, however I do understand why people so easily couple moral outrage with the eternal. We feel some acts of cruelty are so horrific that they are wrong in every possible universe.

80. Is Christianity Good for the World?

Comment #39658 by 3legcat on May 11, 2007 at 1:17 pm

Thank you arildno (and others) for your reply,

"It does not follow, however, that "fear of punishment" is the main reason why ordinary people choose to be moral, but religionists insist upon just that within their ideological framework"

Crime prevention is not what I was after here, I was thinking about Justice for the victim. For example, if someone were to torture my child for their own amusement, I would want them punished, not merely treated for mental illness. perhaps that is primitive but I doubt it is unique.

81. Is Christianity Good for the World?

Comment #39637 by 3legcat on May 11, 2007 at 11:56 am

"Doug Wilson and other religionists have CHOSEN to retain a primitive "morality" concept, namely that based on "fear of punishment"."

I am curious, arilno, what would you replace punishment with for violent offenders?

82. Is Christianity Good for the World?

Comment #39633 by 3legcat on May 11, 2007 at 11:32 am

hello Jessie,

people like Doug seem to think that, without some external God, we may as well "quit" and let anarchy rule.

Agreed, I would guess that it has something thing to do with Authoritarian Personality.

if the existence of a man in the sky allows some to more easily come up with a moral code, that does not make him real

Agreed, however that wasn't my point so much, rather the opposite. People (most?) desperately want morality to be eternal and that requires a god. If morality feels eternal and it is so important to us, which it is, then it is easy for me to understand why most people have a lot of difficulty accepting it as arbitrary and not eternal, perhaps we could have evolved with out a strong empathy. People really want the golden rule to be more than merely agreed upon or evolved and amendable, they feel it deeper than that, they want it to be immutable. I feel this also, only I (we) am unwilling to accept beliefs without evidence even more.

There's no evidence for a caring God that really concerns itself with us. Therefore, we must rely on human empathy and reasoning to guide us, because that is all we have. Ultimately, we (and this earth) are all that matters, because that's all that CAN matter. We - all of us humans - are stuck here together, and we must make the best of this situation. Since this is our only chance at existence, we must at least try to make it bearable for everyone, because even in this material world, we all have unique minds, even if we don't know why. We do matter...we're all that even can matter, for now.

I agree completely, my point was to express what I believe is the unpinning to Wilson, Sharpton, Prager and others argument in a different way that might reach people here, as well also raising the valid implications that a mechanistic model of the unconscious/conscious raises.

if one brain state predetermines the next brain state and our experience of a freewill choice actually occurs after the event has happened, what then of accountability?

83. Is Christianity Good for the World?

Comment #39618 by 3legcat on May 11, 2007 at 10:12 am

I respectfully suggest that some of you are missing the point (understandable because Wilson doesn't express it). The point (as i understand it) is what becomes of the idea of responsibility when we prove that freewill is an after the fact illusion.

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/34008/page/4;jsessionid=baa9...

Kant's notion of responsibility is the deepest foundation of our legal system. We don't simply judge other's based on their actions but also their intentions and their ability to do otherwise. Socialpsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience is moving ever closer to declaring the idea of freewill meaningless, no matter how counter intuitive this "feels" to us. This is a truly troublesome notion for social justice, like it or not.

What do we do when we discover the extremely high repeat offense rates for pedophiles is do to their brain development and not because of their bad choices? Or for another example if fidelity is merely Vasopressin and Oxytocin levels then why expect honesty from your spouse?

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/34008/page/4;jsessionid=baa9...

These are in fact dangerous ideas to all of us, if we are alone without the old man in the sky to tell us what to do. If good and bad are merely products of evolution (they are) and not eternal then we are free to make the rules. And here is another problem, our empathy is subconscious, we feel it rather than decide it, it is innate and as such it feels like it comes before us, it feels eternal.

IMO we can and will get past these problems but it will be painful and difficult. We (society) will have to make compromises by fiat, on beginning and end of life issues as well as crime and punishment.

84. Is Christianity Good for the World?

Comment #39337 by 3legcat on May 10, 2007 at 10:55 am

Also, ( on the subject of whoolliheadedness of theological intellectuals )

Another reason why I find their approach so dissatisfying is that they often reduce their basis for belief to a kind of Deism, and frankly I don't have a huge problem with Deism, I find Deism to be rather a dull end of discovery to the question of freewill, but then I haven't seen a simple and elegant explanation from cognitive science yet either, perhaps someone here can point me to one.

85. Is Christianity Good for the World?

Comment #39333 by 3legcat on May 10, 2007 at 10:43 am

SteveN, It is intellectually honest to continually question your own "confirmation bias", we skeptics have them too. I too am often troubled by the dangerous idea that as a human it is impossible to really know if my beliefs are shaped by my experiences or if my experiences shape my beliefs, I only know that I am more comfortable with not making claims to certainty for which I have little evidence. That is where my peace of mind is found.

86. Hitchens, Sharpton and Faith

Comment #38912 by 3legcat on May 9, 2007 at 1:17 pm

joek said

I'm sick of the constant moral relativism argument and the pathetic hand waving that most atheists do when faced with it (especially Hitchens in this case).

i am as well, though calling to evolution theory is not without merit as CH did. however i am surprised he didn't bring up plato's argument:

does god want us to do what is right? or does god make what we do right and wrong?

if the former, then morality comes before god (god not needed), if the later then morality is relative to god, and thus the goodness or badness of murder and charity are created for what reason, god's entertainment?

87. Sam Harris in conversation with Oliver McTernan

Comment #38834 by 3legcat on May 9, 2007 at 9:23 am

my critique of Oliver: i am sick to death of claims of the intellectual high ground of this deeply nuanced vast body of theology...wretch and wretched...oliver doesn't believe in anything except he can't let go of the idea that if he does let go of the hand rail, morality will be come relative. and why would it become relative, because it is man made, so instead he turns to his self admitted man made religion as well as this wellspring of beautifully man made theology but some how it is also "revealed". craptastic.

my critique of Sam Harris: according to sam "beliefs really matter" to which i say where is the evidence? not the polling data. clearly beliefs matter to a certain percentage of the population, i will call them authoritarians while evidence really matters to another certain percentage of the population, the skeptics. but for the rest in middle, the vast majority, they have beliefs and never do they care enough about them to act on them. people who answer surveys about the rapture continue to contribute to their retirements for example. people who smoke do so believing it will not give them cancer today. etc... perhaps this group does need religion, what might they do without it? much worse, is just as possible as much better.

88. Richard Dawkins on Canada AM

Comment #38469 by 3legcat on May 8, 2007 at 7:59 am

"This evening I attended the debate between Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton."

thanks scooter, i hadn't heard about this. i just checked the NYPL site and the audio file is not yet available...dang.

http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/pep/pepdesc.cfm?id=2677

was this a fun debate?

89. Christians and Atheists to Debate Existence of God in First-Ever 'NIGHTLINE FACE OFF'

Comment #37357 by 3legcat on May 4, 2007 at 7:20 am

i wish brian and kelly well, i too am very leery of the format, 13 minutes is too short of a time too unpack misconceptions and mischaracterizations of evolution, especially by non scientists, it will only devolve to "your god is time and your prophet is darwin" and the other stupid sound bites like "your 'faith' tells you that humans and coconuts have the same ancestor and that your ancestor is a rock" and other such silly nonsense. in the short format this denial of evidence sounds like evidence, it simply takes too long to flesh out the case and then get them to talk about Noah and the "dinosaurs were called dragons" payoff.

comfort will likely layout a conformation bias case again like the "atheist's nightmare" , i presume he won't use the banana again, given that bananas are domesticated.

btw, why is it that theists are so poor at picking out good examples: bananas, eyes, wings, flagellum, clotting cascades etc...?

riley's advise is spot on RRS should follow it.

comfort and cameron are making a fantastically hugh assertion, the likes of which has never been accomplished by any person, ever. it is rather obvious that they are not up to it, (no fault to them, no one can do what they are claiming). RRS need only to keep reminding them of their own claims of evidence, and that evidence must show more evidence for god than for unicorns.

at a minimum be calm and polite. do no harm

90. Convention ends with Satan and immigrants

Comment #36204 by 3legcat on April 30, 2007 at 1:25 pm

very sad, very sad for my country

91. Pundit Christopher Hitchens picks a fight in book, 'God is Not Great'

Comment #36162 by 3legcat on April 30, 2007 at 10:49 am

"The US was not in a continuous state of war with Saddam"

You don't consider occupation, embargo, no fly zones, and frequent bombing a state of war?

"he was a neutered puppy thanks solely to the UN"

Huh? That was the USAF on those bombing runs and US carriers in the gulf. US Army on the saudi border, the UN provided inspectors (US and British). How did the UN neuter Saddam? Do you mean the corrupted oil for food program?

"Saddam was the least of our worries from a threat perspective"

Agreed

"we would bankrupt the entire country and that is a fact"

So your (our) country's wealth is more important than your country's moral responsibility?

"the war was that Iraq was a religiously moderate, secular country compared to other middle eastern regions."

It was, and fairly well educated too, mixed marriages and mixed neighborhoods were common in bagdad, that is why the death squads are sorting them out for years now, and why 2 million are now refugees.

"he gassed the Kurds years ago after the first Gulf War"

Saddam committed atrocities against the kurds and shia because they rose up against saddam at our (US) urging, and then we abandoned them. just as we are about to do again to the kurds. when the turks cross the boarder, will we bomb turkey? I doubt it. so the kurds will get massacred again.

"Intelligent people have realized that there are atrocities occurring in the world but not all can be fixed at the end of a gun. It is purely a matter of strategy."

I doubt unarmed africans in darfur or the unarmed bosnians would agree.

"the war was unwinnable."

Agreed, it is a shame though really. It would have been good if the neo cons had been right (or competent) an open society in the middle east with its own economic resources would have been good for the people of iraq and the world. It might have stolen recruits from the islamic fundies. Stable energy prices are essential for world development (energy costs hurt the poorest countries the hardest), it would have been good to have an open democracy in OPEC, so we could then pressure the Saudi's to open up their society. not to mention a small justice to the iraqi people for us having supported saddam for all those years and giving him the WMDs in the first place.

I understand why this folly was so intoxicating to the neo cons, a lot of good could have come from it for many generations, unfortunately they were wrong and we will have to go back someday and try and fix it again. clearly we will not allow Iran that much global influence, over the world economy. money equals standard of living here (and europe), but in the third world it means starvation.

92. Atheists Take On Religion

Comment #24193 by 3legcat on March 5, 2007 at 8:01 am

Loki asked,
"I live in the uk, and was wondering is this the normal length of a report in the states? or was it just an 'and finaly' one at the end?"

that piece was the average length of an "in depth" report (long format), for our (US) major network news. there is actual thoughtful news on our public television network, however few watch it. conservatives here have successfully painted PBS as dewy eyed liberals, misguided socialists or some such nonsense. the only way that story would have been longer or more even air time would have been if Sam Harris had large breasts.

93. Evolution Debate - Pigliucci vs Hovind

Comment #20430 by 3legcat on February 2, 2007 at 11:19 am

Hello (first post here),

At the middle of the debate, Mr. Hovind asked for evidence of a transitional species between plants and animals. Isn't there a kind of slime mold that behaves as slug in certain conditions (locomotion) and as a fungus (fixed and releases spores) in others. I realize that there are some fine differences between a mold and flora and fauna, but would this be an example of a transitional species in the living record?

my apologies if this is a trite question here.