51. Censoring Sir David

Comment #69897 by Luthien on September 13, 2007 at 5:47 am

Reminds me of a family guy sketch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOYfG0QGG0

52. Censoring Sir David

Comment #69867 by Luthien on September 13, 2007 at 3:17 am

hungarianelephant, I remember in primary school being laughed at by the teacher (and the whole class) when I explained that, since colour is reflected light, black was technically not really a colour at all. Her reply was something along the lines of "If black isn't a colour, how can you have black paint?". The same teacher listed Astrology on my report card as one of my interests (it was Astronomy of course!!!).

With teachers like that it makes you wonder how anyone ever got an education!

53. Christopher Hitchens and Bill Donohue on Mother Teresa

Comment #66717 by Luthien on August 31, 2007 at 5:38 am

This idiot thinks he's Irish (No, I'm irish *waves pasport in front of loudmouth's ample visage* I doubt we would let you have one!), and doesn't know that Hitchens is an American now...

/sigh

Shuggy, PWNED is pronounced powned (po as in pony, owned), or sometimes just "owned". It comes from a common spelling mistake caused by the proximity of "P" to "O" when typing owned.

54. Another view

Comment #66475 by Luthien on August 30, 2007 at 4:53 am

79. Comment #66464 by wendelin on August 30, 2007 at 3:49 am
Baeoz, and others who suggest acupuncture acted as a placebo for my dad and me:

Exactly how does a placebo work when the ailment in question is a SLIPPED DISK? I have mainstream science's medical records to prove it, you know. A slipped disc means horrendous back aches, an inability to straighten up completely on bad days, and my dad even had trauma to muscle fibres in the area, which doctors said was incurable. The AFTER picture: muscle-fibre trauma remained, but the disc was back in place.

If it slipped out, perhaps it just slipped in again :-P

Seriously though, I fail to see the link between sticking pins in your skin and moving the bones or cartilage in your spine. If you and your father both showed this kind of recovery, perhaps you have a genetic condition that either predisposes your body to better regeneration, or to a condition that simply shows similar symptoms to a slipped disk? There could also be an environmental factor shared by your family that you overlooked?

55. Another view

Comment #66470 by Luthien on August 30, 2007 at 4:22 am

61. Comment #66265 by Bonzai on August 29, 2007 at 2:12 pm

Depending on what you consider "proper" evidence and "alternative therapies". Chinese medicine seems to work a lot better for some people at least for many non life threatening conditions.

How do you know that those people with "non life threatening conditions" would not have got better anyway? People who don't die of minor ailments generally do get better (unless it's something like a genetic / developmental abnormality). This is why experiments are conducted with a control to see what happens when you do nothing.

56. Another view

Comment #66198 by Luthien on August 29, 2007 at 8:30 am

The barefoot doctor is just jealous because he doesn't have a full complement of Atlantean DNA ;-)

It's ridiculously nihilistic to think that if you can't prove something right now, it isn't valid. It's so self-limiting: Dawkins must be very unhappy in himself. We've progressed beyond that. Look at the miraculous realms being explored by quantum physicists. We have to suspend disbelief for a while, and see where they'll take us.

Sweet Zombie Jesus! Here we go again with the invocation of quantum physics. Do I need to reiterate that the "strangeness" of quantum physics is backed up by experimental evidence, whereas his "alternative" medicine isn't? Or perhaps he thinks no evidence is required because what he knows, he knows...

57. Only secular schools will overcome sectarianism

Comment #65882 by Luthien on August 27, 2007 at 8:43 am

41. Comment #65871 by Cregaune on August 27, 2007 at 7:46 am

Yes, if those political views are underpinned by discrimination and fundamental irreconcilable differences in political outlook held by two sets of people living in close proximity to each other.

But the method of separation is undeniably religious. Keeping each generation in separate schools so they are not exposed to any opinion other than their "side" is the main cause of all the problems.

n the Sixties there were very tangible, non-religiously based reasons why Nationalists in Northern Ireland (and consequently, those in the Republic) felt resentment against the Unionist majority. There was widespread discrimination against Nationalists (making up the majority of the working class and living in certain defined areas). That they were Catholics was merely incidental. Simply becoming an atheist (or even converting to Protestantism) didn't make any difference. You were still considered part of the 'other' and the 'other' had nothing to do with religion.

It seems you are also caught looking at this from one "side". Of course Catholics had very real reasons why they might have felt resentment, but you are not looking at the whole picture. Why do you think it was so easy for protestants to justify such discrimination in the first place? Why did the divisions not dissolve through friendships and marriages? National identity can also be divisive, but it does not in itself provide a mechanism to keep 2 halves of a population so entirely isolated from each other. It is easy to demonise people if you did not grow up with them.

You cannot escape the system by abandoning the religion of your birth because the people on the other side won't let you, and the school you went to will mark you like a tattoo for those who care about such things.

You are right that education is the key, but it is the "mixed" environment of the University campus that allows people to meet and befriend those like minded people they should have met in school. I would never have met my partner if we had not met at university (in spite of our Atheism, we were trapped on different "sides" via the school system).

58. Only secular schools will overcome sectarianism

Comment #65854 by Luthien on August 27, 2007 at 6:00 am

38. Comment #65849 by Cregaune on August 27, 2007 at 5:34 am

The troubles in NI had little or nothing to do with religious sectarianism. Religion was simply a reliable indicator of underlying political affiliation....Nationalism or Unionism.

No, it is the other way around! Do you really think that it would be possible to reliably pass mere political views from parent to child for more than 400 years? No, it is the religious structures in place that keep the divide in place, and give people the feeling that they are morally justified in hating the other side.

In any case, the whole "situation" was originally caused by the power struggle between protestant England and the Catholic church (followed by a struggle between a catholic English king and a protestant Dutch king). Since Ireland was a convenient "back door" with a ready made army of brainwashed "loyal" catholics, the struggle ended up being played out here.

There was a general attitude of parochialism and a fear of the outside world where moral decay was considered rampant (a little like the attitude of the Islamic world today). Sinn Fein (the political wing of the IRA) used to conduct collections outside church gates on Sunday mornings.

I'm curious as to why you might link these 2 things, when it is clearly the catholic influence here perpetuating the idea of isolation and moral decay. It seems to me that the Sinn Fein collectors were just riding on the back of the more successful money collectors inside the church. After all, Sinn Fein have to walk to the church where the people are to collect money, whereas the church itself actually has people walk to it to give money. Who had the most power and influence?

59. Only secular schools will overcome sectarianism

Comment #65839 by Luthien on August 27, 2007 at 3:06 am

7. Comment #65726 by IanRobinson on August 26, 2007 at 5:08 am
Re: Comment 5 from student grant

I went to a standard comprehensive school in the suburbs of East Belfast in the 1970's and early 1980's. It was not a "Protestant" school. Anyone could attend from the catchment area. There were very few Roman Catholics attending (it had about 1300 pupils in total). The reason for this was that there were Roman Catholic schools that bused the children of parents of that religion out of the area. I would say that there were (indeed are) state schools and then there are religious schools (mainly Roman Catholic) in NI. We need to abolish the religious schools and make them all state schools with no influence from any churches at all.

Bah! I was one of those poor people bused off to be brainwashed. Thankfully it didn't take ;-) I really think we need to break the influence of the Catholic church here in NI. It makes me really angry that I now get marked down as a "Catholic" on the monitoring forms, just because I got dragged to one of those schools. It makes them appear to represent WAY more people than they actually do! It is bizarre that the government would release that statement:

The Churches have a long history of providing education in this country and have confirmed their commitment to community cohesion. Faith schools have an excellent record in providing high-quality education and serving disadvantaged communities and are some of the most ethnically and socially diverse in the country.

Given the Catholic Church's past record in working with children. They should put the whole organisation on the sex offender's register for trying to cover it up like that!

60. Amnesty to defy Catholic church over rape victims' abortion rights

Comment #63227 by Luthien on August 13, 2007 at 2:58 pm

"In Peru, a 17-year-old girl discovered that her foetus had anencephaly - meaning that it was going to be born without a brain - but a doctor refused to allow her access to an abortion. She was compelled to give birth and breastfeed the child for four days before its died."

Ugh! I have seen a picture of one of these foetuses! This is the worst thing I have ever heard, and coming back to hungarianelephant's point, it almost happened in Ireland! The young girl in question had to go to the European court of human rights because they refused to let her leave hospital.

61. Eight-million-year-old bug is alive and growing

Comment #62091 by Luthien on August 8, 2007 at 6:02 am

This is the kind of fascinating science article that I would love to see more of on RD. I think we should intersperse more of this between the "KGOD interview with Hitchens - God Is Not Great". I know I'll take some flak for saying so, but that's OK. It's another day in paradise!

/agree

62. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #60323 by Luthien on August 1, 2007 at 3:20 pm

Tom Cruse's minders won't let them on this site, CJ22 :-P

Really pisses me off that WH Smith keeps putting McGrath's book in the popular science section beside stuff like The Selfish Gene (I keep returning them to the fiction section when no one is watching).

63. At Fermilab, the Race Is on for the 'God Particle'

Comment #58294 by Luthien on July 24, 2007 at 9:07 am

Isn't it called the "God Particle" because it gives energy the quality of "mass", thereby bringing the physical universe into existence: i.e. E=m*C(squared)? That's what I always thought, anyway :-)

64. Preventing More Lal Masjids

Comment #57194 by Luthien on July 18, 2007 at 2:13 pm

2. Comment #56911 by Solarium Solaris on July 17, 2007 at 8:02 pm
I hope the same, geckoman. I wonder why the recent resurgence in extremism. I mean, Islam has been around for centuries and its teachings haven't really changed, so why is it now that so many more are turning to violence?

The sad truth is that, in a way, we all fund it via Saudi oil money. From the muslim brotherhood to "islamic" children's text books in the UK (full of anti sematism and hatred against "infidels"), they are all funded via this vast virtually bottomless fund. Before oil became important they didn't have the resources to spread it in the same way that the catholic church could spread theirs (they had the resources of the former roman empire at their command at one point, and it still shows).

65. Insurance for Sex Abuse: A policy tailor-made for the Catholic church

Comment #56887 by Luthien on July 17, 2007 at 4:43 pm

How can they let them have insurance for abuse??? The fines should be there as a deterrent to stop them covering it up in the first place!

66. The US map of faith

Comment #55996 by Luthien on July 13, 2007 at 6:25 am

30. Comment #55704 by Clapton_is_God on July 12, 2007 at 3:16 am

Not Spain or Italy, those countries are very secular now. Definitely red would be Ireland and Poland, most of the rest of Europe would be sub-yellow.

Oh please! Ireland would certainly not be red (even if you count the newly arrived
Polish communities). Ok, the laws in the republic still have to catch up with secular europe, but there has been a huge backlash against religion. Here in Northern Ireland, polls put the percentage of people who are atheist / agnostic at 10%, and this in spite of the tendancy for atheists I know to call themselves "catholic" or "protestant" out of some tribal loyalty that has nothing to do with religious belief.

67. Atheists: stand up and be counted

Comment #50946 by Luthien on June 20, 2007 at 3:28 pm

53. Comment #50707 by fides_et_ratio on June 19, 2007 at 2:52 pm
If however, I ever do meet a fourteen year old who fully understands both atomic theory and the doctrine of transubstantiation, I'll pray that I have the humility to leave them to it in the comforting knowledge that as their intellect is vastly superior to mine, they'll be able to make their own mind up about it.

That's good to know, because the teachers at my old catholic school certainly didn't "leave me to it" as I was reading John Gribbin's "In Search of Schrodinger's Cat" during my RE lessons (not that it stoped me contemptuously ignoring her of course). Last year they were forcing students who took an "ethics" course instead of RE classes to write their essays from the catholic point of view, by telling them that a catholic was marking it, and they would lose marks if they didn't. Oh, and not to mention them sending someone up to my sister's classroom to make her take the "ash Wednesday" ashes, after she failed to show up to the service (they know she is an atheist)!

To be honest, people like you who would apologise for the catholic indoctrination machine just make me sick! I, and other people I know have had so much trouble with them. I could go on (at length) because I have so many stories, but I'm all ranted out for tonight :P

68. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50115 by Luthien on June 15, 2007 at 5:54 am

This is the result of the Catholic Church's lobbying in Nicaragua:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6161396.stm

A ban on abortions even when the woman's life is at risk. Sick!

I think Amnesty International should open a file on the Catholic Church's human rights abuses!

69. Tome truths

Comment #49439 by Luthien on June 12, 2007 at 1:25 am

12. Comment #49311 by CJ22 on June 11, 2007 at 1:05 pm
pwnd!

I think you will find that the correct expression for the magnitude of a pwn by AC Grayling is:

OMGWTFBBQPWNAGE!!!11!!^^

70. Atheism is pretentious and cowardly

Comment #48532 by Luthien on June 8, 2007 at 9:32 am

Philos, here are some secular charities:

medecins sans-frontiers: The number 1 charity in offering medical services worldwide.

21st Century Child: operates a "shoe box" scheme, encouraging schools to collect shoe boxes containing small gifts, which they then forward to needy children in Eastern Europe. (See www.21stcenturychild.org)

UNICEF: http://www.unicef.org.uk/store/InspireGifts.aspx?grp=5D86D4AA-E5A4-4DFD-8552-6EFCC8612CC1

Oxfam: buy someone a flock of chickens or a camel, or textbooks or satchels or dinners for a third world school. For these and many other life-changing or life-saving gifts, see www.oxfamunwrapped.com .

Aquabox Scheme: welfare items from a recommended list are collected to fill a water treatment box, which costs £50.00. This then becomes a useful kit that can be sent quickly to disaster areas. Each box is numbered and linked to the donor, so that you can find out where your box went. See www.aquabox.org for more information.

www.goodgifts.org: Buy useful items for the needy around the world

www.MakePovertyHistory.org

...and many more (if you had bothered to google your query you would have found them)

I am just wondering if you expect atheists to do their good deeds in "the name of atheism"? Do you realise how stupid that is? How can you do something in the "name" of a non-belief?

Atheists give in the name of their fellow human beings, so check out some humanist sites for more information.

71. Atheism is pretentious and cowardly

Comment #48224 by Luthien on June 7, 2007 at 5:43 am

I posted this on the Guardian site:

WOW, what a great parody of all those aggressive rants against atheism that The Guardian has been printing recently. I particularly loved this little gem:

"Atheism is pretentious in the sense of claiming to know more than it does."

Priceless eh? ;-)

72. 6 Billion Bits of Data About Me, Me, Me!

Comment #47912 by Luthien on June 6, 2007 at 3:07 am

"Some people are going to have information that they don't know what to do with," said Angela Trepanier, president elect of the National Society of Genetic Counselors. "And that can do more harm than good."

Yes Ms Trepanier, but it's better than a hole in the head ;-)

73. Religion and Child Abuse

Comment #47590 by Luthien on June 5, 2007 at 3:21 am

Bizarro Dawkins

A vacuum is indeed full of things, it is full of virtual particles; pairs of particles and A vacuum is indeed full of things, it is full of virtual particles; pairs of particles and anti-particles that are created and annihilated constantly in an effect that can give visible results in some physics experiments. If these particles can appear from a little bit of quantum uncertainty, then given enough time (infinity) could a whole universe appear? You may be correct in asserting that a vacuum is "something", as it could be the entire universe ;-)

I also disagree that bad religion is the sole source of instilment of corrupt values. Just look at any number of communist or formerly communist secular societies. Their children were still indoctrinated in corrupt values

You are correct in the above statement too, because any ideology that infringes upon the rights of other individuals is just as bad as religion. You Americans have a saying about the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, and that is what needs to be protected from all religions and ideologies.

What right does the state have to monitor the values that parents instill in their children?

None whatsoever, (until they cross the line to psychological abuse of course) but they do have a duty to educate them with the knowledge to make their way in the world (proper sex education for example), and I am concerned that parents who isolate their children for religious reasons are deeply harming them (can they form proper relationships with their peers, or learn by themselves?). Privately funded (or in some countries publicly funded) indoctrination centres are another matter entirely, and should be banned!

I can tell people about my perfectly rational faith in the God who gives me hope without being fined for spreading my beliefs. I can even curse my own country without a care in the world. God forbid that any government ever tells me what to teach my own children.

I'm glad you can stand up for your rights, but other people have their rights too. There is no Atheist on this site that wouldn't stand up for your personal rights, but we also stand up for the rights of others who's lifestyles you may not agree with, and we stand up for the rights of children to get a proper science education no matter what stories their parents believe.

The main beef we have with religion on this site is that it teaches people that they need to infringe other peoples rights in their private lives for their own good. This phrase when refering to something that is not hurting anyone else (and I exclude the whole hell fire crap from that definition) should set off alarm bells with you.

74. Beggars belief: Robin McKie on The God Delusion

Comment #47125 by Luthien on June 3, 2007 at 4:16 am

the Catholic Herald accused the author of churning out 'philosophical nonsense'.

hehe, really?

Anyway, my post is really just an excuse to show you this little gem I found:

http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/patron00.htm

oh, and check out the patron saint of the internet!

75. U.S. a theocratic state, says former Canadian ambassador

Comment #46898 by Luthien on June 2, 2007 at 5:41 am

Canadians have this Irish mentality — 'Here comes our leader, pass us a rock.

Hehe, I was going to get all sulky for a moment there, but he may have a point.

76. Atheism shall make you free

Comment #46893 by Luthien on June 2, 2007 at 5:17 am

I would also be interested to hear about those twin studies, as I was asking in another thread (a few days ago) if anyone knew of a twin study for religiousness.

77. Atheism shall make you free

Comment #46892 by Luthien on June 2, 2007 at 5:15 am

4. Comment #46832 by james_the_doubter on June 1, 2007 at 10:02 pm

Yup, yup, yup... I found myself agreeing with almost all of that.

To quote:
"The studies - of which there are now many - indicate that a tendency to religiosity is genetically determined; if one twin is very religious the other nearly always is too, no matter how they were brought up. For believers, such studies should raise a confronting question: why would an all-loving God create some of his people without the capacity for believing in him, and then, according to scriptures, send them to eternal hellfire for not believing in him?"

As a Christian, I have been quietly wondering the same thing for years.

A similar situation that I have put to a few christian friends is the question of homosexuality. There is now clear evidence of what gay people have been saying for years, that there is no "choice" in this supposed "lifestyle choice", because it was determined by your genes and hormone levels during foetal development. It simply doesn't make sense to me that a loving god would deliberately make people that were by his own laws destined for eternal torture.

78. What I Think About Evolution

Comment #46525 by Luthien on May 31, 2007 at 2:38 pm

Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.

We should all email this man with the dictionary definition of confirmation bias...

...in fact, this should be added to the dictionary as an example.

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

79. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #46156 by Luthien on May 30, 2007 at 12:04 pm

Snail said: Is it not a valid point of view, that if you take two identical individuals, and raise one in the presence and the other in the absence of religion, the one that no matter what small comfort the religion exposed individual has derived from their delusion, the individual that has never known religion will never suffer guilt over 'sins' they may have committed, will never have persecuted others for having a variant delusion, will never have tried to repent for sins, never suffered at the thought of a deceased loved one suffering in purgatory or prayed for their early release from purgatory, will never have used up hours of their life in prayer to a non-existent higher being to raise them from their mortal suffering, rather than realise they have control over their own life.

Definitely, and I don't really think that "belief" or "non belief" can be things that in themselves make people happy. It is much more to do with the relationships you form with others, and whether you have a comfortable life without too much pain or worry. The following quote refers to tyrany, but I think it applies equally to religion:

It cannot be denied that nature is influential in shaping us to her will and making us reveal our rich or meager endowment; yet it must be admitted that she has less power over us than custom, for the reason that native endowment, no matter how good, is dissipated unless encouraged, whereas environment always shapes us in its own way, whatever that may be, in spite of nature's gifts...
...Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta, is reported to have reared two dogs of the same litter by fattening one in the kitchen and training the other in the fields to the sound of the bugle and the horn, thereby to demonstrate to the Lacedaemonians that men, too, develop according to their early habits. He set the two dogs in the open market place, and between them he placed a bowl of soup and a hare. One ran to the bowl of soup, the other to the hare; yet they were, as he maintained, born brothers of the same parents. In such manner did this leader, by his laws and customs, shape and instruct the Spartans so well that any one of them would sooner have died than acknowledge any sovereign other than law and reason.

Etienne La Boetie (Yes, I've just discovered his existence and have been reading him all day)

Science often uses twins studies to seperate out the effects of nature and nurture. What I would like to see is a study of twins seperated at birth, where one was brought up in a religious family, and one brought up without any beliefs.

80. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #46118 by Luthien on May 30, 2007 at 9:22 am

Nice post, I think you have hit the nail on the head :-)

As an aside (sorry if I ramble a bit), I often wonder if there is some way to trigger the cascade of chemical reactions in the brain (whatever they happen to be) that cause placebo effects, without needing to make the person "believe" anything that isn't true. The so called unconscious part of the brain (although I understand that the entire brain is involved in the experience of consciousness, even the motor areas) seems to have a greater power over the body's healing abilities than we realise. If we could switch this on at will it would be wonderful.

Again, I cautiously advise anyone against slipping into thinking too confidently 'That's me! Clear mind, far-sighted spirit – my middle names!'...

Heh, don't the scientologists claim to get into a state of mind called "clear"? (Perhaps they really mean "empty".) I think that those minds that are the clearest are probably the most aware of how muddled the human mind actually is (something similar to the way insane people never realise they are mad).

< /ramble>

81. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #46096 by Luthien on May 30, 2007 at 7:46 am

_J_ said:

Your 'I wonder if that 20% are the "leaders" ' line of thought is a pleasing and interesting bit of speculation, but it is again part of an attitude that inevitably creeps in over and over among this big bunch of mutually agreeing atheists. It's all too easy to slip into a kind of unchallenged assumption of superiority. This not only makes us seem rather smug and aloof when talking to the quaintly theistic, but more seriously constitutes a possible blind spot in the blanket rationalism that we pride ourselves on applying.

I appreciate the concerns you have about not being smug, but I don't think that this 20% can be considered superior to the rest(any more than people immune to measels are superior to those that fall victim to it). They are simply resistant to something that most people are not. While thinking along those lines, I came across this while reading http://www.constitution.org/la_boetie/serv_vol.htm

There are always a few, better endowed than others, who feel the weight of the yoke and cannot restrain themselves from attempting to shake it off: these are the men who never become tamed under subjection and who always, like Ulysses on land and sea constantly seeking the smoke of his chimney, cannot prevent themselves from peering about for their natural privileges and from remembering their ancestors and their former ways. These are in fact the men who, possessed of clear minds and far-sighted spirit, are not satisfied, like the brutish mass, to see only what is at their feet, but rather look about them, behind and before, and even recall the things of the past in order to judge those of the future, and compare both with their present condition. These are the ones who, having good minds of their own, have further trained them by study and learning. Even if liberty had entirely perished from the earth, such men would invent it. For them slavery has no satisfactions, no matter how well disguised.

Regarding you thoughts on the placebo effects of religion:

Effective in motivating sympathetic atheists and people who already doubt their religion, perhaps. Peeking behind the rhetoric, the metaphor simply restates that religion is a delusion held not for its factual truth but for its desirable psychological side effects. Sure, it's easy to compare this with comfort blankets, tooth fairies and Father Christmas and thereby to undermine it. But another fair comparison might be the visualisation exercises and mantras by which a person can overcome shyness, or insecurity, or a bad habit. Or the placebo effect, reliant upon a patient's ignorance though it may be, might be used by a doctor who fully understands the effect to alleviate that patient's pain more effectively.

You do have a point in that we cannot exclude the possibility that some people somehow "need" their religion, but I have another analogy that I think is more apt for this situation. If we think of a patient who (perhaps being a hypochondriac) thinks that they require "medical" treatment so they can feel "better", they will be at the mercy of those who would exploit them, taking their money and providing entirely bogus treatments. It is easy for these exploiters to excuse their actions because they are "helping" the person, and they are providing the placebo effect that the person needs, but potentially at great cost. Wouldn't it be better to have their family doctor (i.e. someone who is not making money, like an NHS doctor in the UK) give them "treatment" with a placebo? I don't think we should stand by and watch vulnerable people be exploited, even if it does turn out to do them some small good, we should seek a way to replace their support structures with ones that do not take their money and interfer in their personal lives.

82. Dawkins' Christmas card list

Comment #46007 by Luthien on May 30, 2007 at 2:31 am

2. Comment #45822 by savroD on May 29, 2007 at 11:00 am
...As far as animals for food.... I expect in the future meat growing on factory vines thanks to stemcell Research & Development!

I would worry about the quality of meat produced in this manner, as it would be missing all of those trace elements that we need tiny amounts of to remain healthy (in larger amounts they are toxic). I'm not even sure we KNOW exctly what trace elements we need (does anyone here know anything about this?). I would feel much better if cows were out eating the grass, and picking up these things as they go.

83. The Dawkins delusion

Comment #45994 by Luthien on May 30, 2007 at 1:40 am

_J_ said:

It's something that eludes sheer logic.

I don't think it eludes sheer logic any more that LSD trips or colour blindness elude logic. We know that the geometric shapes seen during trips are as a result of the underlying structure of the brain. If Prof. Dawkins could be tested for this "religious" capacity, then we must be close to understanding what is going on?

The question that interests me is the reason that 20% of us do not have this capacity. I know that some species of monkeys can have a great variety of different types of colour blindness, allowing some monkeys to see only yellow fruits, and others to only see red fruits. The advantage is that everyone in the group can take advantage of both types of fruit. I wonder if that 20% are the "leaders" who need to be able to see things as they are, and the "followers" who need to be able to switch off their own doubts about their tribe leaders so their tribe isn't torn apart by people fighting for leadership? Sadly the above no longer works the modern world, and people are taken advantage of left, right, and centre!

84. Would the World Be Safer Without Religion?

Comment #45747 by Luthien on May 29, 2007 at 5:35 am

124. Comment #45717 by Flagellant on May 29, 2007 at 4:26 am

I'm really intrigued by this Scottish/Northern Ireland swing business. After all didn't Jesus say "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath"? [Mark 2:27]

Perhaps he really meant "men", excluding kids. But then again, perhaps he meant everybody except Scottish piss-heads, but then again...

I did a quick search and found some a mention of it in discussion on the issue of sunday racing from the NI Assembly:

"Why should this industry be deprived of extra, much- needed income because of the Minister's and the DUP's failure to move into the twenty-first century with the rest of us? The fundamental bigotry of Maurice Morrow and Nigel Dodds before him is the only reason why this issue has been put on the long finger. The DUP is famous for saying "No". For many years its members have said this in councils all over the Six Counties: "No. You can- not go to the swimming pool on the day of rest, for we have closed the leisure centre. No. You cannot play with your ball, as it is a Sunday. You cannot play on the swings; we have chained them up to ensure that children do not enjoy themselves on the sabbath. No. We will not allow you to enjoy horse racing on a Sunday". Despite what the Minister says, that is the only reason why this legislation has not yet been introduced. The Six Counties is the last remaining area of the European racing industry that does not have Sunday racing, putting the industry here at a great disadvantage."

http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/record/reports/001128.htm

As you can see, Paisly et al (the frisbeetarians as I like to call them) still have some way to go, but at least we have stopped them locking up the swings. :-)

85. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Robert Winston

Comment #45722 by Luthien on May 29, 2007 at 4:44 am

Nice post chbg21808!

I looked up Étienne de La Boétie, as I had never heard of him before. Very interesting, thanks. :-)

86. Observer Diary 27th May 2007

Comment #45549 by Luthien on May 28, 2007 at 5:31 am

...or primary school teachers ;-)

87. Observer Diary 27th May 2007

Comment #45544 by Luthien on May 28, 2007 at 5:21 am

Oh no Leo, you've gone and made him jealous now. He must have thought he had something going with me, bless his little socks. All those spelling insults must have just been a bit of playground pigtail pulling. :-P

88. Observer Diary 27th May 2007

Comment #45537 by Luthien on May 28, 2007 at 5:01 am

Yeh leo, he was picking on my spelling in another thread, he must have got confused :-P

I see you live in Ireland, where abouts? (I'm in Belfast)

89. Observer Diary 27th May 2007

Comment #45531 by Luthien on May 28, 2007 at 4:39 am

leodavinci, just ignore him, the only argument he can ever "muster" is to point out spelling and grammar errors.

Ironically, (if you permit me to descend to his level for a moment) I saw him use "where" instead of "were" in another thread. :-)

Moderator, can we get his comments moved to the troll thread please? o.O

90. Christian sports workers degree ridiculed

Comment #45504 by Luthien on May 28, 2007 at 3:15 am

Fair enough. Though I think you should perhaps be a bit more circumspect before replying to posts.

I don't know why I'm even bothering to reply to you since you're obviously a pretentious, self-righteous arsehole who can't even spell properly.

91. Christian sports workers degree ridiculed

Comment #45478 by Luthien on May 28, 2007 at 1:38 am

45. Comment #45423 by NMcC on May 27, 2007 at 5:18 pm

Firstly, my post was tongue-in-cheek, as my reference to 'Gazza' makes obvious to anyone who can read.

Well obviously, since I am neither male, nor interested in football, I didn't get your little "joke" and thought you were being serious in criticising scotishgeologist (and given that assumption, I don't think what I said there was particularly pretentious, though I apologise if I came across as such).

I do think it was rather mean of you to pick on my spelling. I wrote that post at the weekend, when I didn't have access to a spellchecker (I was diagnosed with dyslexia at school, unfortunately far too late in life to do anything to about it).

92. Christian sports workers degree ridiculed

Comment #45417 by Luthien on May 27, 2007 at 4:46 pm

42. Comment #45261 by NMcC on May 27, 2007 at 2:53 am
Scottishgeologist,

Hailing as I do from Belfast's Shankill Road (though I don't live there now), I note that all your references allude to the religious bigotry of the Rangers fans - the protestants, in other words. Why so one-sided? Celtic has been just as bad with its pandering to the bigotry of its catholic supporters.

What's wrong, does it still hit a nerve when someone critisise the "tribe" you perceive yourself to be from? If we reasure you that the "other side" is just as bad, does it somehow make these things justifyable, or at least in some way excusable? If not, why do you feel the need to even mention the "other side"?

If you read Scotishgeologist's post again, you will see that he knows the words to the songs because that is the background he comes from.

You should take a long hard look at the thought processes that compelled you to post saying "but look, they are just as bad over there too, why didn't you point that out?" and realise that from the point of view of this site, catholics and protestants are on the same side, the side of irrationality and bigotry.

If you really want to hear catholics critisised, then hang around and read some of my posts. ;-)

93. Comic in US 'hate speech' row

Comment #45124 by Luthien on May 26, 2007 at 12:53 pm

I read all of your post, cassdenata, I just didn't agree with your last statement. These "less intelligent" people you speak of will be "inspired to hatred and violence" by their own hatred and innate violent streak. Pat's words would not in themselves inspire violence, but the accusation that they might could be used to silence him, and I find that very scary indeed (so excuse me if I over reacted to what was otherwise a very good post).

94. I'm Sure God is Scared

Comment #44958 by Luthien on May 25, 2007 at 4:44 pm

goatboy said:

I guess what Im getting at is that Hitchens makes the assumption that a God, if it existed, would be the God of "sacred" texts. He doesnt seem to allow room for the possibility (if, for arguments sake, we accept the possibility of a God for a moment) that God might be quite unlike anything yet concieved by man. He assumes God, if it exists, must be a fascist dictator. He's accepting the Catholic/Islam/whatever definition of God, rather than opening to the possibility of a different kind of Deity. Why let those nutcases define what God must be like?

Sorry, but I must invoke Epicurus here:

God either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, he is weak -- and this does not apply to God. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful -- which is equally foreign to God's nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?

95. Comic in US 'hate speech' row

Comment #44928 by Luthien on May 25, 2007 at 3:38 pm

cassdenata said:

Unfortunately, in less intelligent hands this comedians words would inspire them towards hatred and violence towards muslims and more importantly to support politicians whose foreign policy is to expend significant human and economic resources to destroy what they term islamofascism.

Utter rubbish! First of all, don't make excuses for people who would do violence to another human being. Secondly, and most importantly, silencing someone who is essentially speaking out against the oppression of women is akin to us standing silently by while women are murdered in so called honor killings, raped in "arranged" marriages, and forced to isolate themselves from their fellow human beings by wearing a black shroud, robbing them of any personal identity.

96. Christian sports workers degree ridiculed

Comment #44912 by Luthien on May 25, 2007 at 2:47 pm

The real question is, are they taught self defense with fruit? ;-)

Edit: I found it on youtube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5RKTSwAVaoU

97. Heliocentrism is an Atheist Doctrine

Comment #44517 by Luthien on May 25, 2007 at 3:34 am

I think siphylus (he must have it to be that barmy) realy outdoes himself here:

To assert that the Earth does move is to renounce Christianity. It really is as simple as that.

98. Adam and Eve in the Land of the Dinosaurs

Comment #44505 by Luthien on May 25, 2007 at 2:52 am

The heart of the museum is a series of catastrophes. The main one is the fall, with Adam and Eve eating of the tree of knowledge; after that tableau the viewer descends from the brightness of Eden into genuinely creepy cement hallways of urban slums.

It is a sick idea that people who are caught in "slums" are somehow being punished by god (see "Ideas that have harmed mankind" by Bertrand Russell). The worst thing is that the people who built this "museum" use that to push their own agenda, when the money / donations that went towards this could have been spent in ways to help people escape the slums; and from the sound of it they spent A LOT of money on that place!

99. Would the World Be Safer Without Religion?

Comment #44294 by Luthien on May 24, 2007 at 6:20 am

LOL alovrin

100. Would the World Be Safer Without Religion?

Comment #44288 by Luthien on May 24, 2007 at 5:45 am

82. BillySands - yes I am honestly telling you that wee frees don't lock up swing parks in the Outer Hebrides! And surely what they all community determines to do with its own transport is up to them. Why do you wish to impose your standards on everybody else?

In Northern Ireland they used padlock up the swings in ALL the parks on a Sunday. Do you agree that this is a meanspirited thing to do?