51. It was a bad year for God.

Comment #110235 by Robert Maynard on January 10, 2008 at 4:59 pm

weavehole,
It was an article comments thread from early last year - quite difficult to find. :|
In any case, as I qualified for gawddawg, suggesting that beliefs about life after death play a really important role in suicide bombing is as simple as what Dawkins does in that quote - it's just a rational argument.
I must do the modest thing here and stress that I have no empirical data on the demographics of the LTTE or their suicide squads (though 90% of Tamils are Hindu), and I am by no means a student of the Tamil Tiger's history.

52. It was a bad year for God.

Comment #109376 by Robert Maynard on January 8, 2008 at 11:49 pm

AndreG

Can you, please, provide me with the purely scientific formula to test the existence or non-existence of God? ;)

Wait, which god? I'm confused. Are you telling me you haven't already devised thousands of experiments to test the existence of the gods whose existence you reject?

53. It was a bad year for God.

Comment #109368 by Robert Maynard on January 8, 2008 at 11:25 pm

gawddawg,

Is your contention that the LTTE's suicide bombing campaigns can be traced back to religious/cultural beliefs about afterlife, backed by any evidence or is that speculation?

Speculation. It was proposed as an argument against a quack here who had so blurred the notions of secularism and atheism that he was literally suggesting the LTTE were an example of non-religious (ie. atheist) suicide bombers.
I have merely said, there and here, that it's naive to suggest that the Hinduist beliefs of most Tamil's have had no influence on a willingness to commit suicide for their cause. I am not for a moment attempting to shift the primary motivation of the Tamil Tigers away from the secular goal of establishing an independent Tamil state - I'm just saying the belief that you will survive your body's destruction makes missions with a 100% fatality rate a lot easier to swallow. Certainly, it does nothing to sour the mood. This much, I would think, is indisputable.

Now, one could lazily pose the question, "If all Tamil's suddenly became atheists, would the LTTE cease their suicide bombing?"
Equally compelling questions would be, "Would they stop training children to be soldiers?" or simply "Would they stop murdering people?"
These kind of fantasy 'what-ifs' are about as bizarre as fan-fiction that explores the question "What if Luke Skywalker/Harry Potter and Han Solo/Draco Malfoy were totally gay for each other?" Without some kind of explanation for how they became atheists, how can we pretend to explore how an atheist Tamil Tiger might feel about her group's consistent ethical lapses and assaults on civil society?

54. It was a bad year for God.

Comment #109303 by Robert Maynard on January 8, 2008 at 8:01 pm

AndreG,

I personally lived through the atheistic brain washing, government sanctioned in former USSR. Therefore, what is an urban myth for you, unfortunately was a reality for myself and other soviets.

What I am challenging is the ridiculous straw man presented in this nonsensical folklore, not the reality of state-sanctioned oppression in the USSR, which I would indeed shake my fist at.

55. It was a bad year for God.

Comment #109268 by Robert Maynard on January 8, 2008 at 5:24 pm

Sure that's just Pascal's Wager in Soviet Russian form.

In Soviet Russia, Pascal wagers you!



I'm.. I'm so sorry.

56. It was a bad year for God.

Comment #109262 by Robert Maynard on January 8, 2008 at 5:00 pm

krisking, if a Wikipedia link is what passes for a response these days, I'm afraid I missed the thrust of your argument, unless you were simply agreeing with the assessment that essentially all historical examples of suicide bombing are inextricable from beliefs about life after death.

The page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze, contains numerous unambiguous references to the metaphysical beliefs behind kamikaze. I especially recommend the section "Cultural Background", in case you didn't actually read the article.

AndreG, I'd love to see a Snopes page for that one. Did you hear the one about the atheist professor and the Christian student? I don't want to spoil anything, but the punchline is: it was a fucking comic book.

57. It was a bad year for God.

Comment #109221 by Robert Maynard on January 8, 2008 at 3:36 pm

weavehole said

"NO SUICIDE BOMBINGS"

Erm, Tamil Tigers, anyone?

The issue has been raised before [edit: in this forum], and it has been rationalised by myself and others that although the Tamil Tigers operate for a secular, nationalistic cause, pretending that their willingness to commit suicide is not the least bit influenced by their belief in karma and reincarnation (as hinduists) is ridiculous.

58. New journal to target education in evolution

Comment #103775 by Robert Maynard on December 26, 2007 at 7:28 pm

Evolution denial is actually relatively common among medical doctors

It may be because training as an MD has less of an emphasis on theory than practice.
I'm fairly sure it's not even necessary to have a science degree to be a fully qualified obstetrician, as Mr. Paul is.

I suppose it's somewhat similar to the difference between theologians and pastors - the former are steeped in the ins and outs of a religion, but as a result have mostly become dulled to the ancient assertions, while the latter are showmen who haven't had to wade too deep into what they preach.

59. Clegg 'does not believe in God'

Comment #101052 by Robert Maynard on December 19, 2007 at 7:04 pm

For those who didn't know: besides being awesome, Brian Eno is also an atheist.

60. Borders Tags Atheist Book with 'O Come All Ye Faithless' Cards

Comment #100551 by Robert Maynard on December 18, 2007 at 9:45 pm

"Christians have always been used to being punch bags but I would have hoped that, in a society in which we are seeking to show respect to all people and beliefs, we might have grown out of this kind of nonsense."

Rev. Edwards, please..
No, please.. don't be like this. Please don't cry, you're making us feel bad. Stop crying. Please stop crying. Okay fine, you can have this candy bar. Please don't make a scene. Stop crying. Come here, give us a hug. It's alright.

61. Jail for creationist row killer

Comment #99206 by Robert Maynard on December 15, 2007 at 11:26 pm

I agree with Bizarro that this is a silly thing to use as any kind of argument for or against either ideology, considering both parties were inebriated at the time, had the argument hours beforehand, and it was allegedly accidental. Oh, and the fact that there are very few articles that strictly identify the ideology of each party.
Of course, it is very easy to jump to a comforting conclusion based on information in some rag of a source you wouldn't trust on any other topic, but that's a slippery slope.

Bizarro Dawkins said:

"Turning it around, why is Hitler's interpretation of evolution wrong while yours isn't?"

Besides your automatic loss by Internet law.. :P
We can claim that Hitler's interpretation of evolution is wrong because there is no compelling evidence that
a) there are significant genetic differences between human 'racial' groups,
b) we can establish a scientific criteria for evaluating and judging the selective fitness of these groups, either in nature or an industrialised environment, and
c) that if we could, people with white skin, blue eyes and blonde hair would somehow rank pretty high, if not the highest, and also that people of Jewish descent would rank low, or at least below so-called "Aryans".

In any case, there was no need to call York's Christianity phony (if indeed he was the creationist), because the court decided it was not murder, but manslaughter - an accident, and to be plain, they came to know more about this case than anyone on this article thread. I have no interest in conspiratorial nonsense about 'taking it easy on the Christians'. The same kind of comparisons came up in the Pharyngula thread on this topic, and all it really highlighted is that people don't know that Australia is not as slammer-happy as America.

62. All worldviews are merely paradigms, narratives having no more inherent value than any other narrative.

Comment #98396 by Robert Maynard on December 13, 2007 at 2:46 pm

PO-MO9000: All worldviews are merely paradigms, narratives having no more inherent value than any other narrative.

Robert: Isn't that proposition in itself a worldview? I'll wait while your head explodes, Mr. 9000.

*BOOOM*

Professor, running from offstage: My automated paradigm-subverter! No!

Announcer: Ladies and Gentlemen, the first human-robot debate has ended in forfeit-by-brain-explosion.

63. How do you explain the lack of transitional forms in nature, the gaps in the fossil record?

Comment #98389 by Robert Maynard on December 13, 2007 at 2:41 pm

How do you explain the stuff between the gaps?

64. Why do atheists care about what others believe when it doesn't affect atheists?

Comment #98341 by Robert Maynard on December 13, 2007 at 1:44 pm

It's asinine to suggest that our beliefs do not have consequences - that they don't explicitly inform (if not form) our actions. Our cognitions manifest in real, physical behaviour.
So you're asking "Why would you be concerned about people acting on a proposition you reject?"

Because your suffering is my suffering, or our suffering.

If I think your belief(s) are false, then from my point of view the actions that follow from them are probably foolhardy at best (believing crop circles are made by aliens, and holding lonely midnight vigils in paddocks), and life-threatening at worst (thinking you can cure cancer with the power of your mind, and charging gullible people for the service).
Our concern for your beliefs should scale smoothly from head-patting to cuff-slapping, based on the level of vicarious outrage we experience at the effects of your actions, on yourself and others.

65. Christopher Hitchens appears on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show

Comment #97440 by Robert Maynard on December 12, 2007 at 4:56 am

Thanks again Zzx1170. :)

66. ...and another FLEA...

Comment #96582 by Robert Maynard on December 10, 2007 at 6:25 pm

Looks like the beginning of a science documentary on VHS tape. I can just hear the muffled, honking trumpets.

67. Bah, Hanukkah

Comment #94179 by Robert Maynard on December 5, 2007 at 1:16 am

Nuclearman
I was mainly concerned with the semantics of "discovery" - it was a philosophical conclusion, not an empirical enterprise. Democritus didn't "find out" that the world was composed of atoms, he reasoned that it is probably so (and happened to be sorta kinda right.. kinda)
I'm aware that Democritus didn't have a monopoly on thinking about the world as made of 'atoms' back then, and that Epicurus thought along the same lines, but come on.. he was born over a century after Democritus in the same country and was a student of philosophy. I think it's safe to say where he got these beliefs from.
Co-crediting Epicurus with the "discovery" of atoms is a double-whammy of flat-wrong.

68. Bah, Hanukkah

Comment #94149 by Robert Maynard on December 4, 2007 at 11:18 pm

It reads like a fiery blog entry by a teenage malcontent enthusiastic about his ancient history classes, and the line about Epicurus and Democritus "discovering" that the world is composed of atoms made me do a bit of a double take (Epicurus? ..I don't ..think so?), but I still thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

69. Double-checking Dawkins

Comment #93345 by Robert Maynard on December 2, 2007 at 7:19 pm

VanYoungman:

Mac users display the ultimate in cognitive dissonance, except, of course, for a few retarded graphic designers.

I'm getting the impression you don't actually know what cognitive dissonance means, but I could be mistaken.
What are they cognitively dissonant about?

70. Why debate dogma?

Comment #93329 by Robert Maynard on December 2, 2007 at 5:50 pm

"An atheist who wants to remain an atheist cannot be too careful about what he reads."

It is not that atheists (or anyone, really) should avoid reading books that might challenge them, but that we should avoid reading any book presenting an argument if we lack the critical attitude to engage with that argument.
Many readers have come away from books like Holy Blood and the Holy Grail or films like Loose Change, wholly convinced of the truth in their content, seduced by the manner of presentation because of the lowered defenses in their critical mind. We should be careful about what we read - not by way of a censoring process, but by analysing the information we're receiving.

Obviously Lewis was not 'careful' enough about what he read - his journey into Christianity was coaxed along by fantasy writers like Tolkien and George Macdonald, until he finally allowed himself to start being impressed by 1st century texts describing "facts" with no secular corroboration.

When you're ready to start crediting rhetorical acrobatics or unsourced assertions over facts, you've stopped being careful about what you read. What Lewis says is true, though not in the sense he intended.

71. Getting Overheated

Comment #89404 by Robert Maynard on November 20, 2007 at 3:17 pm

crazy old man:

Mr. Fry assumes that following the motive to believe in man-made climate change can only lead to positive results.

I think what was explicitly stated and repeated is that it is a safer bet. Gamble. Wager. Action with uncertain outcome.

Clearly, you assumed you understood Mr. Fry's argument before you commented.

72. Why Science Will Triumph Only When Theory Becomes Law

Comment #88081 by Robert Maynard on November 14, 2007 at 2:37 pm

Monosilabbiq (that's a cool name, by the way :)

The idea of creationism is a failed and rejected theory, and should on no account ever be accorded the respect of being referred to as a "theory".

But you just did.

I don't really have a problem with calling creationism a theory, though Creationism as a whole is more of a family of theories. It only becomes a problem when we distinguish theory as a term just describing a system of ideas, from theory as a particularly well established system of ideas in the scientific community. We haven't stopped calling Lamarckism a theory, even though it's been thoroughly overturned by Darwinism, and rejected as a failed idea. Every incorrect theory is still a theory - just a crummy one.

The problem with non-scientific theories, like conspiracy theories and creationism (which should not be counted as separate from conspiracies), is that they're practically cancerous - that is to say, while bad theories are generally stopped in their tracks by peer review, a null hypothesis result in an environment without peer review (and intellectual honesty) can instead result in NEW theories growing to support the original theory, necessarily formulated on the belief that the original theory can't be wrong.
So from the falsified hypothesis of "Earth is less than 10,000 years old", you get "Radiometric dating methods are unreliable (they must be because they falsify the previous hypothesis)", and "Scientific orthodoxy is atheistic and dogmatic (it must be, because they're quite happy to explain why radiometric dating is, in fact, reliable, falsifying the previous hypothesis)"
Inquiry rapidly degenerates into paranoia and delusion when you aren't ready or willing to derail certain trains of thought. :P

73. Why Science Will Triumph Only When Theory Becomes Law

Comment #88072 by Robert Maynard on November 14, 2007 at 1:48 pm

1) Isn't the enshrining of physical laws (as opposed to prescriptive social laws) contingent on a fair amount of mathematical certainty regarding the process, a degree of axiomatic assuredness that allows us to set out principles like "IF THIS THEN THIS, ALWAYS (bitches!)"..?
Even laws in science are contingent on empirical evidence, and open to revision, so it's not as if we have to be 100% sure. But despite how profoundly well-established the basic idea is, the ongoing controversies regarding the details of rates, conditions, methods, etc. suggest that most scientists wouldn't be happy calling it a "law" until it was sufficiently diluted by committee, likely resulting in an overly vague, tautological mess.

2) While people say, "It's only a theory," to dismiss evolution, it hasn't been shown that they'll change their minds when it is "law" - at least, it doesn't become a matter of civil obedience, nothing bad will happen to them if they still refuse to accept it.
What'll more likely happen is that those rebellious, 'counter-establishment' creationists would parade this as an example of encroaching scientific doctrine, particularly when they exploit people who don't understand the caveat in my last point - that scientific laws are still contingent on evidence, and not immutable doctrine. There is already enough confusion about physical/civil law.. recall Al Sharpton dumbly (though jokingly) asking Hitchens if he "chooses to obey the law of gravity" every morning.
In a way though, they'll kind of be right about it seeming dogmatic, because

3) The use of terminology like 'laws' does seem somewhat antiquated in a paradigm of what you might call 'post-modern' science, where the limitations of induction mean we have to be humble about what we don't (can't) know. We really can't confidently declare something to simply be true - when the sun sets we can call it true for another day, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Of course, it's understood (among the science-literate) that what scientists mean by law isn't quite what the Vatican means, but the term is loaded with so much historical baggage.. the semantics of physical laws can seem (to me) like it's about reality conforming to our models, rather than our models to nature.

*shrug*
My last thoughts on this were a bit meandering.. basically, I don't think this is a great idea.

74. Jury Awards Father $11M in Funeral Case

Comment #84023 by Robert Maynard on November 1, 2007 at 3:03 am

Is it really a good idea to side with ceremonial burial over freedom of speech, Quetz? I mean, if I had to choose...
And again, what measurement scheme are we taking to these 'damages', which arrives at $11000000?

I think Jimill's made the best argument so far - that WBC's activities are more geared towards harassment than protest, and are therefore not protected.
Particularly in that they have no apparent interest in working to change American policies, in the sense that the Dominionists do, for example.

Still, I think that deterring the expression of certain opinions with gigantic fines is not a wise approach to washing those opinions (or those expressions) out of a society.

75. Jury Awards Father $11M in Funeral Case

Comment #84016 by Robert Maynard on November 1, 2007 at 2:38 am

More like 'crybaby fascism', am I right?

76. Jury Awards Father $11M in Funeral Case

Comment #84008 by Robert Maynard on November 1, 2007 at 2:03 am

Hugo:

you can be removed from a concert if you disrupt it, the same should apply to funerals.

Right, except they were protesting in a public space, outside the cemetery. So ..we're supposed to remove them from the public space? What's your next move, Mussolini? :P

mattpenfold:

[presumably sarcastically] the American people are there to serve the constitution rather than the constitution being there to serve them.

Right, because the Phelps's speech doesn't deserve the protection of the constitution. It's not like they're Americans too or anything.

77. Jury Awards Father $11M in Funeral Case

Comment #83975 by Robert Maynard on November 1, 2007 at 12:06 am

This is a good move on the part of the American legal system

Right, because freedom of expression is only important when it's protecting people we agree with! :D

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

Comment #83063 by Robert Maynard on October 28, 2007 at 7:23 pm

In case you hadn't noticed, at this point in our existence, humans are mostly operating at a level above natural selection, and our civilisation has a habit of rendering selective pressures extremely weak. There's no evolutionary advantage to taking steps to help women live past menopause, either, let alone standing up for them on a bus.
The reasons we help people are a consequence of natural selection, and a consequence of our evolved cognitive equipment.

Pathologies and brain dysfunctions nonwithstanding, we have a natural tendency to treat things as though they have agency which can be reasoned with (talking to our cars or computers when they fail, or pets when you want them to do something, etc.), and particularly with humans, we have a natural tendency to experience what happens to each other vicariously. This is basically why Jackass is so painful to watch, why romance movies make us all gooey, and so on.
Simply, it feels good to help people, particularly people who would otherwise suffer, even subtly. It even feels good to see other people help people, but the payoff is likely a tad smaller. It feels good because of earlier instances where altruism was selected for in the state of nature. Why you would ask how 'natural' selection works in scenarios involving roads and combustion-propelled vessels is beyond me.

79. Science can answer how questions but only religion can answer why questions

Comment #81403 by Robert Maynard on October 24, 2007 at 5:04 pm

"Why" questions presuppose purpose.

It is an imposition to tell someone what they should be doing with their life. A universally applicable, non-imposing 'meaning of life' would be too abstract (and intuitive) to warrant even declaring it.

80. If you don't accept the supernatural, you obviously think life is depressing, meaningless and cold

Comment #81391 by Robert Maynard on October 24, 2007 at 4:45 pm

The charge that atheists lead 'meaningless' lives rests on the notion that purpose can only be prescribed by a third party, and in the absence of that party, we wander without purpose. The unhappy state is to believe we have to be given a purpose, that we can't produce our own.

I have decided my own directives in life - to seek enjoyable experiences and cherish the companionship of my friends, to discuss and consume art and culture (and food), to argue and to create. These decisions have value to me, and the people close to me. They don't need to exist beyond my life (where I'll have no use for them), and they don't need to persist in order to be have been real.

81. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #78480 by Robert Maynard on October 13, 2007 at 6:25 am

Paul,

Okay, so if I have a preference that my corpse should not be violated, this counts for nothing?

Not a thing, unless your loved ones want it to, as I stated. Our responsibilities to our dead and their wishes are invented, perhaps as a wish to view the intentionality and desires of the deceased extend beyond death. There's really nothing wrong with that kind of thinking, but there are few good reasons for it.
It's not nice to disrespect those wishes if there are people who could carry them out still around, who'll be stuck with painful memories of their departed friend if they can't close the book of their relationship on a happy note.

What about someone who is dying - do their preferences count less?

Count less than who? People who ...aren't going to die?
If you tell a person who wants a flashy funeral at a countryside church that you're going to disregard their wishes, and toss their corpse in a ditch the minute they clock off, you're filling their mind with awful images of things happening to the body they've spent their whole lives with. You're unnecessarily increasing their anxiety; their difficulties in facing death. Basically, you're making their moment-to-moment experience worse than it would have been otherwise. Does.. does that not count as suffering?
If you don't tell them you intend to ignore their wishes, and pursue much simpler/cheaper disposal, and nobody else knows this person .. who is suffering?

Why on Earth would it matter what happens to a corpse, beyond how it effects living people?

82. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #78154 by Robert Maynard on October 12, 2007 at 2:40 am

devolved

I'm sure that God, having chosen to wipe out mankind because of its sinfulness was quite capable of looking after Noah and his family.

Simply paraphrased: "I am fully prepared to discuss science and subject biblical events to empirical scrutiny, but let's face it - my hand is nothing but jokers, so I'll raise your science and Goddidit."

83. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #77551 by Robert Maynard on October 9, 2007 at 4:22 pm

Paul,

There are some people who, for whatever reasons, choose to have sex with corpses. Whilst this would shock the people whose bodies are being used, they are now dead. You seem to be suggesting that, as no harm is being done to them, and those involved are happy, this is a good act?

Ooh, necrophilia - a curveball! Honestly, I was expecting an easy warmup like pedophilia, but I imagine that's been thoroughly tossed about here already. This is a little more complicated.
First, you're suggesting it's okay because only the corpse is in a position to suffer from this behavior. Determining how ethical an action is in this suffering/happiness paradigm is not relegated to the interacting subjects.

1 - Much like fetishes related to touching or eating faeces, this activity is a health risk to the practicing individual. Unlike in living partners, this risk isn't really effectively circumvented by using prophylactics (though this is dependent on the state of decay). Simply put, this kink is mostly a source of suffering, both physical and mental, to the necrophiliac. The sexual experience is fleeting, and necrophiliacs are anything but happy. This is further discussed below.

2 - Assuming that this burial process did not involve abandonment in the wilderness, the living people formerly connected to the corpse probably wish that some extent of respect be accorded to its earthly remains. Possessing such belief structures in their brains means they will experience a form of suffering if the act is perpetrated on a former loved one (assuming they are informed about it). I for one, am indifferent to the unforseeable (and as you mention, unexperiencable - not a word) prospect of such an individual violating my corpse - I may in fact run a greater risk of that than most who have the luxury of living lying underground, given that I have considered signing up to have my cadaver submitted to a university. If I get grossed out at the last minute I'll choose cremation though.. (these should be distant considerations for me in any case)

So, if the corpse didn't have living relatives, was very recently deceased, and perhaps somehow preserved, and the individual doing it took precautions - what's wrong with it, exactly?
Regardless, given public sense of decency (offenses to which are usually not actual 'suffering'), this kind of idealised environment is rarely available to the necrophiliac, who is compelled to work against the clock (as it were), not be picky about their partners, and generally have their embarrassing orientation go un-counseled.
According to a study by Rosman and Resnick (1989) [sourced from Wikipedia], 68% of necrophiles in their sample "were motivated by a desire for an unresisting and unrejecting partner", 36% by feelings of loss and low self esteem, and only 27% are motivated by emotional needs which literally seem to require the use of actual corpses. In the fullness of time, I think this behavior will be mostly satisfied by technology and simulation, well before the general public stop caring about what happens to their corpses. It is much easier to imagine the engineering of a surpassingly accurate sex doll, and a more widespread progressive attitude toward sex toys, than a state-sponsored program where families voluntarily sign up to have their corpses interred at a clinic for necrophiles. :P

84. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #77245 by Robert Maynard on October 8, 2007 at 8:38 pm

Styrer-

our pleasant encounters here are nothing but a continuous masturbatory endeavour to spout our opinions without any obvious recourse to a change in direction outside in the big bad world.

But this is what it comes down to ..this a comments section of a news feed.
Would you not concede that the ramblings of a crazy Muslim in the comments section of an article on an atheist website would be precisely as effective, and equally 'masturbatory', with regards to real world intentions and actions? Isn't it all simply talk? Could we not criticise your character of the same posturing?
I still can't grasp why you'd expect to find anything but diffident bemusement in a comments section, when anonymous threats are made against vague, disparate groups. It is precisely this subreal atmosphere which allows things like Poe's Law to work in the first place. Regardless of your intention, sir, this simulation was simply non-transferable to any real situation. There is a specific equivalence between our talk here and that Muslim's talk. You can't say that ours is meaningless back-patting, but that his was a "real threat". It was not - it was also mere chest-beating, and there was no reason for anyone to suspect he was capable of anything more than talk (if that).

Suppose that your character was real, made that post, and then suicide bombed a cafe. Would you seriously argue that we here would be partially responsible for failing to prevent this act?

85. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #77203 by Robert Maynard on October 8, 2007 at 6:45 pm

Styrer-,

No-one here has a decent rebuttal to the proposition that we should all ... be put to death. My own fake offering is exposed for its insincerity by its questioning: the real thing would not question: it would simply do, with absolute conviction.

So the question is, if you're admitting that 'the real thing' would simply do, and is not amenable to reasoning, why then is it a 'failure' on our behalf to come up with a rebuttal? Are you suggesting there is in principle some rebuttal which is so amazing that it would stop any fanatic in his tracks?
The rebuttal is "You really shouldn't kill people," and a chat establishing that. The problem with your challenge is that you admitted at the end that there is no conversation to be had, there is only action.
How then were you expecting us to respond, using words, to an anonymous threat on a website from someone that seemed harmless as a potential terrorist precisely because he couldn't keep his mouth shut?
We had no rebuttal, to a challenge which would not have been expressed in the first place. Outstanding work, sir - I can tell you, we're all pretty red-faced. That's like pitting us against a killer robot, and scolding us for not having any guns, while musing on the fact that killer robots are bulletproof.
Spare us the drill sergeant routine.

Gunnery Sgt. Styrer-"That was pathetic, you cocksucking maggots. If that had been a real Muslim, he would have reached through all of your screens and skullfucked you, where you sat, on your ass, drinking cola - because Muslims can do that now, apparently."

86. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #77074 by Robert Maynard on October 8, 2007 at 11:30 am

The Wee Flea,

Atheism does claim to have all the answers

I think the only reason you've gotten this impression is because you have a habit of frequently making incorrect claims here, and we correct you. Please note that these are not answers from an atheist doctrine we all have access to, they're answers from our own knowledge. Saying "atheism claims to have all the answers" ignorantly avoids mentioning where answers come from. If the answer atheists gave to questions came from "revelation", you'd have an argument. Instead what you're doing is akin to saying "Wikipedia is an absolutist doctrine - it claims to have the answers", without mentioning that its articles are built on independent references.

Stalin became an atheist through reading Darwin. Something which I believe the Believers here would applaud. Arguing that this atheism was THE cause of his brutality would be a step too far (although again quite logical if one followed the logic of this website)

The Believers? Is that you, Stan Lee? *sigh*
I applaud Josef Stalin for reading important scientific literature, especially a text as important as The Origin of Species, just as I applaud Jeff Skilling, the infamous CEO of Enron, for reading The Selfish Gene.
But both of these books have clear and unambiguous scientific arguments, intended for specific contexts, and if we're to draw a connection between their reading and their actions, it must be demonstrated that their actions are consistent with the books positions.

This is why we have ample reason to draw connections between religious misdeeds and their sacred texts, because these texts are full of explicit endorsements for these actions. Likewise, it's why we can dispute retaliatory accusations regarding the misappropriation of scientific arguments in misguided social philosophies, because they contain no such endorsements.

I assume "by the logic of this site" you're referring to the connection between beliefs and actions, which would mean that Stalin's beliefs lead to his actions. Except, as we've been over, repeatedly, atheism is specifically a non-belief. In reality, his behaviour and actions are most parsimoniously explained in the framework of totalitarianism.

It is at least clear that [Stalin's] atheist beliefs did nothing to stop his brutality. And he did set up an avowedly atheist society.

It's almost as though disbelief in deities is an uncomplicated position with carries no instructions on how to live and which doesn't automatically guarantee strong moral judgment - precisely contradicting your previous charge that atheism is a doctrine which claims to have all the answers.
So, what's your lesson here?

Totalitarian atheists are bad?

It's definitely sound. I don't disagree, at least. But this lesson feels a little rough, like it could do with a shave. Do you see any unnecessary terms here, Occam's Razor?

Occam's Razor: Totalitarians are bad. Like, all of them.

Thanks. And are all atheists totalitarians?

Occam's Razor: No.

Uh huh, and uh.. are most of the atheists here secular humanists who value democracy, and not murdering people we dislike?

Occam's Razor: Well I don't know about that, I'm not much of a conversationalist. I'm just a philosophical judgment criteria, you see..

Huh..

87. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #76935 by Robert Maynard on October 7, 2007 at 9:56 pm

I went to see the live concert ... and was underwhelmed.

Isn't that always the way. :P
I was considering going to one of the shows in the tour this year, but the price didn't seem to warrant the experience one could mostly replicate by turning up the volume on their speakers. I suppose people who really like the art (and.. holograms of dead actors) probably got more out of it.

88. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #76932 by Robert Maynard on October 7, 2007 at 9:28 pm

Has anyone else heard Jeff Wayne's musical rendition of War of the Worlds? Richard Burton narrates the story.
Be forewarned if you do check it out - it's crazy late-70s prog rock.

89. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #76743 by Robert Maynard on October 7, 2007 at 1:06 am

Prudery aside, there is still a perceived distinction between nudity in a Parisian cafe, and nudity on a French beach. For all intents and purposes, this website is more of a cafe than a beach.

Having said that, I had no problem with the breasts. My only self-conscious moment was realising I could recall the name of that nude model. :P

90. I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer

Comment #76719 by Robert Maynard on October 6, 2007 at 11:01 pm

Aw man, I missed it! What did your old avatar look like?

91. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76688 by Robert Maynard on October 6, 2007 at 5:53 pm

blackhaw,

Modernism has shown iteself to be insufficient. It does not explain how life really is.

How life is? Life is ..tradition? The value of ideas increases with age? I think we have a communication problem in that I don't know what modernism you're referring to. Modernism as a cultural/artistic philosophy has completely transformed the world, only to progress into Post-Modernism, but that hasn't reversed or rejected the principles of modernism, it's simply riddled them with ironic caveats about "understanding the ultimate answers", related to our deeper understanding of physical relativism (which has unfortunately given rise to cultural relativism..)

many Christians have believed in the Bible for over a millenia before there were any fundamentalists.

The original Fundamentalists saw themselves as upholding fundamental values against an ongoing trend towards apostasy. That is, they were specifically modeling their belief on how they felt it used to be practiced, the way it should be practiced, when the term would have been superfluous because everyone believed along similar lines.
Now it's simply been co-opted as a description for basically all literalists, and we can retroactively describe anyone who presents their holy text as an inerrant, perfect text, with specific instructions about how to live, as a fundamentalist. You can't properly criticise these people without criticising the source of their beliefs, which makes it difficult for moderates to outright condemn the medieval hatreds of fundamentalists.

I will say fanatical atheists instead of fundamental ones.

Thank you. Or even militant. Either of those are seriously much better and more accurate.

devolved

It's not a question of whether you believe in an absolute standard; rather does one exist (because it exists regardless of our beliefs).

EDIT: I took this as you saying "by the way, it totally does exist", but I see what you're saying now, and yes, an absolute standard either does exist or it doesn't. How do we answer that question, in your opinion?

jbblack

The sweetness of sugar is a chemical property, so it wasn't the best example to use.

Really? Aww, nuts.
But.. in what sense? The information that a particular compound of atoms is 'sweet' requires a perceptual paradigm. Suppose a Martian, which had evolved in a manner that didn't require an equivalent of carbohydrates, came down and ate a candy bar. He would probably taste something, but his taste senses have evolved to ring bells upon encountering some other chemical - he wouldn't regard it as (an equivalent description of) sweet, right? Likewise he might eat some of our soil and savour the nutrients. Or he might be photosynthetic, and has evolved to reward that exposure. Couldn't sunlight have a 'taste' for someone like that, if so wired?

92. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76515 by Robert Maynard on October 6, 2007 at 3:32 am

BaronOchs beat me to it. :)
Poe's Law

Because we've all run into people expressing crazy sentiments, it can become very hard to distinguish a subtle parody of fundamentalism from the real thing. If one person is behind both comments made by Styrer, it's likely he's kidding, but I missed the first one and completely fell for it.

Then again, it's also possible that Styrer was using an internet terminal in a university library or something, didn't log out or close the window, and a young muslim came across the page (a mere 9 hours later) and posted something. I kind of hope it's the former, but the more I think about it, the likelier the latter seems. :|

93. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76507 by Robert Maynard on October 6, 2007 at 3:05 am

Well spotted! Poe's Law is a much more pleasant explanation than the possibility that Styrer is an actual crazy Muslim.

94. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76494 by Robert Maynard on October 6, 2007 at 2:05 am

captain underpants,

This view [regarding natural disasters as divine punishment] is no less disgusting than the one that you cite.

Much less, I think. Identifying and aborting individuals with handicaps so severe that their existence will be nothing but suffering, is an unfortunate but compassionate gesture.
The only important thing to note is that neither I nor Bill Hamilton nor the state have the right to make that decision for a couple, so what 'should' be done with invalids isn't really a question we're fit to answer.

95. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76471 by Robert Maynard on October 6, 2007 at 12:51 am

Wow, The Wee Flea and devolved in the same thread - it's like old times!

The whole thing proved that,unlike Hitchins, RD is not a great debater and explains why he does not get involved in too many of these debates.

I really have to agree. Yet he still presented a better case.

As regards Stalin – read Montefiore's Young Stalin – which describes in detail his conversion to atheism through reading and being enlightened by the Origin of the Species.

If he became 'enlightened' by reading Charles Darwin, why did he go on to endorse Trofim Lysenko's explicitly anti-Darwinian science, Lysenkoism, as official state science? This laughable form of pseudo-Lamarckism helped compound the massive crop failures brought on by forced collectivisation. Besides the aforementioned social policy (which also has nothing to do with atheism), Stalin's culpability in the starvation of millions in the USSR is directly traced to his endorsement of an anti-darwinian science. That Stalin was atheist is one claim, that his barbarism was motivated by Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, or the scientific Enlightenment in general, is quite another. Don't try to mislead people with this conflation, David.

200 years ago there were no Christians in Korea – now there are 45%. How does this square with RD's oft repeated assertion (which he worked out when he was 9!) that your religion is determined by your birth.

Mis-representation. It is not claimed that everyones religion is determined by the beliefs of the parents. It has been found however, to be a very strong predictor.
Ironically, if it were true that religious belief is heritable, Korea's change in demographics could be explained as an evolutionary process. If Christian families had more children on average than Buddhist families, the descendants of Christian families would proliferate much faster than Buddhist families, and a tiny demographic could come to represent a larger proportion of the population in a short span of time. We don't have to explain it in these terms though, because religion is not explicitly heritable. Shuggy's mention of Christianity's memetic advantages are also notable.

Unless systematically misleading people happens to be a pastime of yours, please get your facts straight.

96. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76454 by Robert Maynard on October 5, 2007 at 11:36 pm

devolved,

If you really, really, really believe that people who wear reading glasses ought to be eliminated to protect the integrity of the species it follows logically that you will act on your belief. You will rationally do terrible things because of your beliefs religious or not.

True. But as long as people are expected to provide reasons for their beliefs, the paradigm of rational empiricism demands a higher standard before signing off on a belief as correct, as opposed to a paradigm where reasons can come from non-observable places, like gods.
We can't examine whether reasons claimed to be supernatural are actually true, so we can only judge the consequences of these beliefs.

The claim that people with reading glasses pose a threat to the species can be investigated and found (I would predict) to be incorrect.
If someone making this claim is presented with clear and unambiguous information that people with reading glasses are ordinary people, and refuses to amend their opinions and stop making threats - we can definitively call them out as irrational and dangerous to people with glasses, and we are ethically compelled to take measures to limit their power to act on their beliefs.

If they said their knowledge of how evil people with glasses are was not evident in the world itself, but known only to a supernatural agent operating outside the Universe - we can't touch that. We just can't say for sure whether or not it's true. But we have no evidence that people with glasses actually are evil, so the only ethical thing to do is treat them as innocent until proven guilty, and judge the belief by its consequences. If we're wrong about people with glasses, the consequences could be horrible - but we can't act on a possibility just because it can be articulated - we have to be honest with the information we have access to.
Someone claiming that God wants him to kill people who appear to be innocent is a dangerous person, and should be prevented from acting on his beliefs.

97. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76442 by Robert Maynard on October 5, 2007 at 10:46 pm

blackhaw,

I wonder when listening to him if he knows that modernism has been rejected

Really. How exactly does an entire society reject a philosophy like modernism? Was there a vote I missed? Someone should really get on the phone and tell the millions of Episcopalians, Unitarians, and members of other liberal strains of modern Christianity.
Has architecture gone back to frilly traditionalism? Are landscape oil paintings back at the forefront of the art scene? Are pre-war pop stylings and classical compositions back on the Top 40?
I'm really not sure you're referring to something that actually happened in history.

The points above just display that there is a atheist fundamentalism as much as a Christian or muslim one.

It's said repeatedly, but this really is a lazy use of pre-existing terminology for extremism.
I cringe when fellow atheists step over the mark, and make prescriptive, unqualified judgments about other peoples brains, or rights.
But here's where the distinction becomes clear. Fundamentalist theists can't be effectively criticised by regular theists, without distancing themselves from their religious text and the religion itself, because the beliefs of fundamentalists are drawn straight from explicit teachings contained in that text, be it the Bible or the Qur'an. Atheism has no fundamental principles, except perhaps that all atheists doubt the existence of all deities. This can be rephrased with some semantic backflips to become a positive principle - gods are not something that exists.

It bears repeating: this is the gross content of atheism.

Atheists who say things other atheists find too extreme will find no refuge in deferring to the authority of a text. They can't defer to any authority besides themselves, and their reasons.
If their reasons are good (that is, they can be traced to end in reality), not even the most extreme statement can be described as fundamentalist. The only honest way to describe it is "correct". For example, we can examine a claim like Styrer's: "infidels are pathetic dogs".
If human infidels were in fact demonstrably similar to canines, who could object to this description? If the similar claim that Jews are blood-drinking monsters was a documented fact, who could call it racist or extreme? It would be TRUE.

But it isn't. The fact that these statements are made in the teeth of contradictory evidence, is fundamentalism.

We can examine claims like "Lennox is stupid" and find it to be true only in a very shallow sense - the man is a professor of mathematics, probabilistically making him a better mathematician than all present. But he used extremely poor arguments regarding evolution, and fans of Richard Dawkins present probably could be tested and found to know more about evolution than what he seemed to. He is really not an expert on most of the topics he debated at this event.

We can analyse claims like this rationally, and we can change each others minds, reel each other in when we get ahead of ourselves.

There is no such mechanism available to temper fundamentalists. You really need to recognise this distinction.

98. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76419 by Robert Maynard on October 5, 2007 at 7:15 pm

Styrer-,
If your new God wants people like us put to death, can't he do it himself? Does Allah need your help in killing us? Are you better at killing people than Allah?

I hope you check back here to read our answers.

99. Teachers 'fear evolution lessons'

Comment #76417 by Robert Maynard on October 5, 2007 at 7:02 pm

automath,
No, I haven't been in a UK classroom, but you're talking about them (and the attitudes of students) as though they're immutable conditions. How do you believe the situation can be changed if you automatically assume that kids in science class will never pay attention?

Showing other beliefs to be inferior and bloody stupid in context is not dogmatism

You're misrepresenting my remarks. "Shooting down" does not describe an act of "showing", or "demonstrating". It is dogmatism to simply assert things without adequately exploring why such claims can be confidently made. Religious beliefs are reasoned beliefs, flowing from deeply flawed premises. If you simply dismiss the beliefs without systematically targeting the foundations, you're not going to convince or inspire anyone, you're going to anger and alienate them. Scientific arguments have good premises - it is criminal to simply assert them over the top of other assertions.

Besides this, I have not advocated respect for religious beliefs, here or anywhere else.

100. Teachers 'fear evolution lessons'

Comment #76394 by Robert Maynard on October 5, 2007 at 5:33 pm

I'm sorry, the teachers have to be replaced.
These classrooms are literally where the future is forged, and you cannot afford to not teach them this stuff.

There must be a way to gently assist kids in considering a dramatic shift in worldview. I'm probably not the best person to speculate how, though, because my childhood had such light religious instruction (weak sauce scripture classes). I did the obligatory model of the solar system in grade school, and became enthralled with dinosaurs as being specifically from a pre-human era, so very early on I was receptive to an old-earth paradigm (this made the significance of events in Jurassic Park all the more appreciable when it came out :P). One could snarkily suggest that I've been indoctrinated in scientific instruction, that I'm a "Scientist child", but they'd have to give me some credit for taking the claims of creationism against science seriously enough to critically study them.

It's a position frequently espoused by fundamentalist christians, but we can't afford to ignore the so-called "Islamification" of European democracies, as illustrated in this article and elsewhere. It just so happens that the solution is not more Christians, but less watery secularists, like these teachers.

PrimeNumbers

If they mention the Bible, this needs to be shot down in that the Bible is not evidence for anything.

Science classes have to find a way to help students get down to the core processes of their learning - teaching the scientific method and critical thinking and so on, before they introduce thorny issues. Discussing dubious claims is one thing, but you're not going to get many confident, moderate, happy science students by "shooting down" conflicting opinions. That's just another kind of dogmatism.