Comments by MartinSGill
51. If only gay sex caused global warming
Comment #27183 by MartinSGill on March 23, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Claim: pro GW people want third world countries in Africa to remain
poor and unindusturialized and deprived of electricity
Reply: At the beginning of the video they give no proof of this, it is
simply an Ad Hominem attack, later they imply that it is the communists
with nothing to do after the Soviet State fell that took over the
environmental movement and are trying to keep Africa from becoming
capitalists. I think thats a bit of a stretch, once again no proof is
offered. Most environmentalists encourage conservation in already
industrialized nations much more strongly since they are the ones
polluting now. If we can develop cleaner technologies for us, the third
world countries will benefit as well and not pollute when they do get
around to modernization.
Strange really... I just read an article about India where there is a fair bit being done about global warming and India, while not a 3rd World country is not part of the rich west either.
They might be introducing a great car soon... I actually envy them... I want that car... http://gizmag.com/go/7000/
52. The Fourth Flea!
Comment #27082 by MartinSGill on March 23, 2007 at 5:29 am
You might call a child middle-class. Is this child abuse also? Perhaps the child would be unhappy with their parents bourgeois values. They might hate being taken to the RSC and being subjected to shakespeare at an early age. Forced to read the guardian. Mummy why do we always buy the Guardian. I want to read some of Mr Boris Johnsons rigorous journalism. No dear, in this house we shall have but one God and that will be marks and spencer.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it's abuse, just as I wouldn't say calling a child a "christian-child" is abuse.
It is wrong though. The child has not made their choice yet, they may reject their parents "class".
In the same why I think indoctrinating a child to a religion is abuse, I also think indoctrinating a child to a way of life is wrong. You need to teach the child the value of money, that it doesn't grow on trees, that you don't always have to buy the most expensive thing. That people not of "your class" are just as valuable and important and worthy of respect as you are.
Anyone that imposes a world-view on their child, be it class/religion/economics is abusing their child.
The big difference is that if a "middle-class" child goes and buys a bottle of coke in a budget supermarket instead of an upmarket supermarket, their parents won't know the difference. At most, they might be displeased.
If a child decided to worship a different god though, the religious family would be up in arms; start torturing the child mentally (sometimes even physically) to change back to the "proper" god.
If in a religious household the parents tell a child that it doesn't matter where they go shopping, then everyone is happy. If in a religious household a child is taught that all religions are equally valid and important and correct, then you'll have outrage.
53. If only gay sex caused global warming
Comment #27077 by MartinSGill on March 23, 2007 at 5:15 am
padster1976.
I think you are overreacting just a tiny bit.
While you are strictly speaking correct and that sentence could be construed as bigoted, given the general tone of the article I believe it isn't. That doesn't mean a better example could not have been used, like incest/paedophilia/gun-ownership/abortion or any other hot topic.
I actually read it as a backhanded indictment/criticism of American society; your "average" American will care more about what two consenting adults do alone in a bedroom than that their grandchildren might not have a world to live in. A truly sad sate of affairs.
Unfortunately America isn't the only country that's afflicted by this problem.
Comment #27057 by MartinSGill on March 23, 2007 at 3:55 am
On reflection I can see why Engineers might be more religious (statistically) than scientists; if that statement is even true.
Because engineers design things, they appreciate just how difficult it is to create a complex system. This might well predispose us to believing in a celestial designer; not to mention the warm glow you might get for equating yourself more closely with God than others can; if God existed, he'd most definitely have to be an engineer, after all
As it happens, of every single engineer I've ever worked with the closest any of them ever came to religion is indifference; even the one who's married to a very religious wife.
Comment #27042 by MartinSGill on March 23, 2007 at 2:35 am
Shuggy, you are wrong.
I'm sure there are religious engineers, just as I know there are religious scientists.
Engineering though is most definitely science. It is the application of science to the real world. Science tends to be abstract dealing in concepts that have no direct application to the real world, no matter how fascinating they might be in and of themselves.
The fact that certain distillates of oil ignite under pressure is a very interesting scientific discovery. Yet it's the the engineers that can turn this discovery into something useful like the diesel engine.
The problem with the UK is that the word engineer is used to describe jobs that have nothing to do with true engineering. As steve19 pointed out.
The gas "Engineer" that reads your meter is not an engineer, he's a technician at best and at worst he's just someone that knows how to read.
The "engineer" that fixes your car is a mechanic (a technician), not an engineer.
The key difference is that engineers design things. It's like the difference between an architect and a builder. An engineer designs the car, a mechanic keeps it running. An engineer designs the aircraft, technicians build it. An engineer designs a stereo system and technicians assemble it.
The knowledge required for each vocation is very different. Think of it as a continuous scale:
Scientists are the most abstract. They are mostly interested in why things are the way they are.
Engineers combine the abstract and make it practical. They take the "why" and find a way to use it, to make it work. They need to understand the implications of the science.
Technicians/mechanics are very practical, they don't usually need to know why something works to do their job, they need to know how it works.
A mechanic knows that if he uses a bolt that's too thin, it will hold for a while then break. An engineer can calculate the size of bolt required to safely hold the item, so that size can be put in the manual the mechanic uses. A scientist studies the interactions of atoms and properties of metals to determine laws for their behaviour, which are turned into the equations the engineer uses to determine the size of bolt required.
These are not rigid divisions either. A good engineer will also be part scientist, allowing him to investigate problems. He'll also knows the basics of being a mechanic, so that he learns that some things that look great on paper will never work in practice. And a mechanic will through experience and practical knowledge gain an appreciation of the greater implications of what he does; something an engineer is trained in from the start.
It's for this reason people on engineering courses are required to do welding/metal work, or create a website and setup a computer network (depending on their specialisation) so that they gain an appreciation of the implications of their decisions/designs. In the UK, these courses are called EA1, EA2 etc (Engineering Appreciation) and without those courses you only get a BSc (note, a science degree) instead of a BEng (an engineering degree). The professional engineering societies in the UK will never give you chartered status until you have either done those courses, or done enough practical work to make up for them.
Ok.. essay on engineering over.
56. Germany Cites Koran in Rejecting Divorce
Comment #27037 by MartinSGill on March 23, 2007 at 1:54 am
"When the Koran is put above the German constitution, I can only say, 'Good night, Germany,' " Ronald Pofalla, general secretary of the main conservative party in the country, the Christian Democratic Union, said to the mass-market paper Bild.
yes, the Christian Democratic Union. So... if the judge had referred to the Bible, instead of the Koran to negate national law, would our friend here still be up in arms?
57. Is Your Baby Gay? What If You Could Know? What If You Could Do Something About It?
Comment #26123 by MartinSGill on March 17, 2007 at 4:41 am
This question raises the whole specter of manipulating children before they are born.
The thing is, I generally support the concept for removing disabilities, for example, but I know many disability charities object because they think it will demote/devalue disabled people as human beings. I disagree, but that's a digression.
All this man is doing is defining homosexuality as a disability, and saying it should be stamped out.
That is where I disagree with him. Sexual preference, race, or gender, has no impact on the potential quality of life of the child, and as such is not a disability, and there's no reason to "treat" it.
58. US Congressman Holds No God-Belief
Comment #26020 by MartinSGill on March 16, 2007 at 6:25 am
Couple of days late, but I've finally written a blog post about this...
http://blog.martinsgill.co.uk/archives/16
(yes, this is a blatant plug for my site)
Thanks to Cheshircat for pointing out Charles Bradlaugh.
59. US Congressman Holds No God-Belief
Comment #25592 by MartinSGill on March 14, 2007 at 7:56 am
@Hal9000
Well, I'm a foreigner that makes me more important :P, either that or he liked my email more :P
Or maybe he just liked my name :P
60. US Congressman Holds No God-Belief
Comment #25512 by MartinSGill on March 13, 2007 at 11:49 pm
I sent him an email of support. And to my surprise, he answered, replying that he was surprised by the amount of support and encouragement he's been getting.
He stood up and was counted. The least I can do is send him an email telling him I appreciate what he did and support him.
61. US Congressman Holds No God-Belief
Comment #25423 by MartinSGill on March 13, 2007 at 3:28 am
I'm confused.
The Unitarianism I looked up, basically says they believe god is a single entity, not a trinity.
Sort of implies you need to believe in a supreme being to be a Unitarian.
The Unitarian Universalism sounds a lot like Humanism disguised as a religion. The "Church of Humanism"; sounds a bit strange. Mind you, given the climate in the US, if they weren't the "church" of something, they'd probably find their buildings torched and their members declared Satanists.
Kudos though to Stark for speaking up, even if his views are a bit odd in my view.
62. British Book Awards shortlists 2007
Comment #24696 by MartinSGill on March 8, 2007 at 5:02 am
I've voted.
Votes close in about 2 weeks time, so get moving... and tell all your rational friends to vote for RD as well :)
They want an email address, so you can't really ballot stuff, not that we'd ever stoop to such practices... hmm.. I'm sure I had a 2nd email account somewhere :P
63. God, sex, drugs and politics
Comment #22653 by MartinSGill on February 20, 2007 at 10:58 am
So the question I'm asking is: why is the government in such a big hurry to shove this vaccine down our throats?
Surely they'd inject it?
When I read the bit about a vaccine that encourages promiscuity, I thought that maybe you needed to have sex for the vaccine to work or something.
It's like saying you can't have mixed sex schools because it promotes promiscuity. You're not allowed to sell alcohol because it promotes alcohol abuse. You're not allowed to sell cars because that promotes car accidents.
Get a grip. All this vaccine might promote is a healthier population. Or are these looneies claiming that 11 year olds are going to be given a leaflet when they're injected telling them they are now immunised against 1 (of many) STDs and can go out and shag everything that moves?
I doubt most kids will even know/care what this injection might be for, it's just yet another nurse sticking yet another needle into them.
64. Native American populations share gene signature
Comment #22468 by MartinSGill on February 19, 2007 at 4:55 am
Despite what I generally think about the Catholic church, I have to admit that of all the Christian sects they are the one that most supports scientific truth (at least in the last 100 years or so).
Quite possibly because they've been burnt so often buy opposing science and losing.
Pope J-P II even spoke out about the validity of evolution and how it doesn't conflict with catholic doctrine.
Of course, that doesn't make him any less a murderer for banning the use of condoms and therefore dooming thousands of his followers to slow agonising deaths from AIDS.
65. Sextuplet parents take B.C. to court over baby seizures
Comment #20362 by MartinSGill on February 2, 2007 at 1:40 am
Religious views are not an excuse to withhold life-saving treatment.
Anyone that refuses life saving treatment for themselves on any grounds should be treated as a suicide attempt. (Since I actually believe suicide is a valid option for degenerative or fatal illnesses, this does not conflict with things like DNR requests)
Anyone the refuses treatment for a child in their custody should be charged with attempted man-slaughter and have the child removed as they are unsuitable to be parents.
As far as I'm concerned refusing treatment for someone in your care is one of the grossest breaches of trust you can commit. What right do you have to decide for them?
If someone actively prevents life-saving treatment for anyone in their care, I'd actually go so far as to treat it as attempted murder.
66. No exemption from gay rights law
Comment #19801 by MartinSGill on January 30, 2007 at 2:03 am
"Government says homophobic bigotry legal for 21 months."
Now that is the correct headline. The government has just legalised for 21 months the catholic doctrine of intolerance.
I wonder if the Ku-Klux Clan would have received a 21 month exception.
67. Richard Dawkins' Report Card
Comment #17001 by MartinSGill on January 10, 2007 at 3:40 am
Reads a bit like my school report... there's hope for me yet.
68. Divided by a common language: Richard Dawkins clarifies his position
Comment #15618 by MartinSGill on January 1, 2007 at 4:07 pm
* Alcohol: In the U.S., alcohol is absolutely forbidden until the late age of 21, at which point you are suddenly given a license to get schnokered at will without restriction, which many people do. In many European countries, alcohol is served to teenagers in moderate amounts, and a culture of moderation limits binge drinking.
<< Reply >>
This is absurd. In a recent visit to Cambridge it appeared that many students were majoring in binge drinking and projectile vomiting. The pubs actually had water hoses at the ready to sweep away the vomit, and tile floors and troughs to carry it to the sewer. The most gauche thing I saw was when one of these Future World Leaders hurled his guts all over and then grabbed his equally drunk "bird" and proceeded to slobber all over her face and practically pull her clothes off. The girl didn't seem to mind at all. Yechh. Nothing like a high-quality education!
It's not absurd. The comment said "In many European countries". The french and germans an many other countries don't suffer anywhere near as much from the same binge culture the UK does. I have no idea why the UK seems to have this problem, but it's something I 1) cannot understand and 2) abhore.
69. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #14328 by MartinSGill on December 22, 2006 at 3:38 am
You will forgive me saying that I have an inherent bias against Wikpedia. I understand fully why Universites in this country ban students from citing Wikpedia in their essays. They prefer them to do real research. In terms of cosmology I guess the most helpful book I have found is the Goldilocks enigma. However I am more than happy to admit I am not a cosmologist or scientist. That perhaps explains why I could not understand most of your post. I do however find it significant that the majority of cosmologists are also theists or at least deists.
You seem rather quick to think everything comes form wikipedia. What Torb told you was that you should look up the REFERENCES cited in wikipedia, not the article itself.
Enough studies have been done to try and show the accuracy of wikipedia and enough have concluded that it's not any worse than any other source. Banning wikipedia as a source is as wrong as banning the Encylopaedia Britannica as a source. I personally don't take everything in Wikipedia on trust. Since i've actually spotted errors in the encylopeadia brittanica myself, I don't take everything in that work on faith either.
The university of edinborough, I suspect, would not allow the use of the bible as a source for physiscs, maths, chemistry or biology, so maybe we should ban you from using it.
70. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #14109 by MartinSGill on December 21, 2006 at 6:52 am
I guess you see what you want to see. I specifically argue against the God of the gaps idea. What you are doing is enacting a 'Science of the gaps'. The view that religion is against science, skepticism and other good forces in society is itself so prejudiced and 19th century that it is laughable. Many scientists are religious, many religious people are skeptical (hence my mocking of Dawkin's postulating my existing in another universe with a green moustache) and many forces are good which come from religion. But in the black and white world of atheist fundamentalism I guess that's too much to acknowledge!
The problem you have Dave is that you seem to personalise all the arguements against a god, you also seem to personalise what Dawkins says in his book.
The problem is that much as you might like to think otherwise, your view of Jesus Christ and the bible is significantly different to most other Christians.
Mormons believe that Jesus visisted the US and theat the Jews were the first colonists there.
Almost 50% of american christians believe that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, despite what science tells us.
The argumement here isn't that you disregard science and facts, but that most of your contemporaries do. Do you agree with the new african sect about to splinter from the anglican church that gays should have less rights than hetrosexuals, despite sufficient evidence to show that homosexuality is natural, and hence must have also been "created" by god?
I suspect one of the reasons you think of all atheists here as fundamentalists is because you only see our opposition to your own interpretation of religion, instead of seeing that we actually oppose all incarnations of relgion, from the relatively harmless views you hold to the looney creationist homicidal revelationists.
You might not take every word of the bible literally, but there are millions of chrisitans that do. There are also millions of christians that doubt the virgin birth ever happend, but who still accept jesus as the son of god. The majority of jews consider most old tesament stories to be legends and fables, so why is it that so many christians don't?
The problem you face is how do you justify that what you read in the bible is correct, and that those others read is wrong? Furthermore, how do you know the Jews, who insist that jesus wasn't anything special, aren't right? How do you know the hindus aren't right, or Islam?
You have no real way of knowing if what you believe is actually correct. If you are the rational skeptical christian you claim to be, can you at least accept this?
71. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #14091 by MartinSGill on December 21, 2006 at 4:50 am
Thanks billy, but I've read about that count a couple of times.
Satan sounds like a much nicer fellow to me.
72. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #14084 by MartinSGill on December 21, 2006 at 4:35 am
"Thank you very much. I was making this point a couple of pages back. Since people have been born of virgins it therefore means that God does not need to be involved."
Again a wonderful example of missing the point! People argue that God cannot exist because virgin births don't occur. I point out that actually they do occur. And now you occur that the fact that virgin births can occur means that God does not exist!
I have never argued that. I have always stated that birth cannot occur without insemination by a male, as you should know, since I've posted to that effect here, including a couple of examples of how it could happen.
You are also failing to accept that mary could be lying. Maybe she had an affair with the milkman and jesus was the result. Given the punishment for adultery and pre-marital sex was stoning one can see that lying about it would be in her own best interest.
Since a child can be born without the need for sexual intercourse, even in biblical times, there is zero need to suppose any god was involved.
Basically it comes down to what you use to measure virginity. Is Mary's word good enough? An inspection of the hymen? Or do we need ensure mary has been locked into a room on her own with zero male contact all her life?
Realistically the test for virginity in biblical times would be option 1 or 2. We know people lie, and Mary, if she had an affair would have massive reasons to lie, we also know that people can have sexual intercourse without the hymen breaking.
A repeat of my previous arguments on this subject, and proof that there is no need at all for any deity to be involved in the conception of jesus.
73. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #14080 by MartinSGill on December 21, 2006 at 4:15 am
Wrong. Once you work out what I argue please feel free to argue against it. Meanwhile I don't have the time to argue for something I don't even believe!
The problem is that your argument is neither coherent nor consistent, so it's hard to actually pin down what it is you really believe. THe problem is that your belief seems to be rather fluid, diverting and reforming around arguments.
Maybe if you presented a coherent and consistent arguement we might actually be able to get somewhere.
"The simple FACT of the matter is that we don't know how the constants of our universe came to be as they are. While this doesn't rule out a divine entity, neither does it support the existance of one."
I almost agree. The trouble is that Dawkins bases his whole argument upon the fact that it does disprove God because a designer could not exist
.
You again fail to understand atheism and what dawkins is telling you. You bend it so that you can more easily argue against it. Dawkins does not disprove god and he doesn't set out to do so, maybe you should read the opening chapter again, you seem to have conviniently forgotten it. The whole point is that god is extremely improbable. Therefore anything that doesn't actively support a god hypothesis cannot be used to increase the probablity of a god. Therefore the probability of god is not increased by us not knowing how the constants of the universe came about, and as such cannot be used as an arguement for god.
There is a certain desperation in your arguments. Quoting people such as Darwin, Collins et al is not 'an appeal to authority'. It is citing what other human beings, experts in the field have taught.
Pot and Kettle. When I use experts in the field to support my view you disregard them, please allow me do the same then.
" If you want to base your proof of god on what people think, then you will lose. There are 1.6 billion christians on the planet (leaving asside that some of them might not actually believe what you do) that means there are 4.4 billion people that think you are wrong."
Bizarre. Since when was truth decided by majority vote?
Yes, that was my point. Glad you figured it out.
Martin forgive me saying this. But are you really serious about atheists having different views?! This website is like any fundamentalist religious website the clones all agree and those who disagree get yelled at or classed as a troll!
You are forgiven. You also need to look up what a troll is in netiquette terms. You seem to use a very broad definition of fundamentalism, anyone that believes passionatly seems to be a fundamentalist in your view. This lumps you into that category as well. If dawkins is a fundamentalist for passionatly trying to convince people of his views, then so is every preist of every religion, or for that matter teachers.
Interesting use of logic. For me if someone is able to do the much greater thing then doing the lesser should not be a problem. If John can run a marathon I don't doubt that he can walk to the corner shop.
Define greater and lesser. Just because someone can create a unvierse doesn't mean they can do other things. You cannot logically assume one from the other. For example, neurosurgeons are extremely good at what they do, yet nurses complain that they tend to be useless giving first aid. By your argument someone that is amazing at healing really complex human problems, should also be able to give first aid. The two just don't follow. You therefore cannot use that as an arguement. It's logically invalid. For all we know creating a universe is actually really easy, but resurrecting someone dead is really hard. The thing is you can't know which is the easier, because humans have never done either, therefore you cannot compare them and use them as an argument.
" I also use it to confirmation of what I already know, my atheism."
As I suspected.
Isn't this obvious? The reason you go to church is to reinforce what you already believe. That makes you no different to any atheist. People prefer to be around people they argee with.
As to thinking atheists have a more open view of things. I base that on personal experience, so I cannot offer you proof. The majority of christians I have met are very narrow minded. A few aren't, just as I am sure there are atheists that are narrow minded. The difference is that my personal experience show that christians tend to be the more narrow minded. Maybe my sample isn't a good representation, but for my sample at least, it is correct.
"The only difference between us and animals is that we have formalised our laws, and because we live more complex lives our laws are equally more complex."
Interesting. Can you then justify eating a Beefburger just because we have a more sophisticated legal system than the cows?
Again, you fail to grasp the point at hand, making facetious comparisions that add nothing to the debate. I cannot debate with someone that simplifies everything to the point of banality. Assume for once, that humans are not superior to all other animals and you will quickly realise how silly your comments actually are.
Weird weird history. And what a closed middle class Western view of the world. There are actually more slaves in the world now than there ever have been. And there is as much discrimination as ever. As for indiscriminately killing civilians that is something that continues. Indeed one could argue that it was a product of the 20th century and one that owed a great deal to Darwinian thinking. Certainly the view that human beings are getting better and better is a nice fairy tale. But not one that is bourne out by the facts.
One could argue that, but one would be wrong. The genocidal slaughters in the bible are proof enough that the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians in war was not a 20th century invention and had nothing to do with dawrin at all. Since the slaughters are described in the bible, once should therefore argue that it's god's invention maybe?
As to there being more people enslaved now than in biblical times, you are probably right, on a numerical level. The problem with your argument is that, again, you fail to take into account how the world has changed. In biblical times the world population was less than the current population of London. When you compare the percentage of people enslaved you'll find that the percentage of slaves the world over has gone down considerably. In roman times there were periods where the number of slaves outnumbered the actual "citizens", are you saying that this is the case now?
Sorry _ I cannot seriously discuss with someone who thinks that numbers do not exist.
That's strange. Do you think money exists? It doesn't you know, at least not according to my GCSE business studies books. Money is an abstraction, just like numbers and maths. If people lost "faith" in the value of their abstract piece of paper there'd be chaos, the economy would collapse as people panic buy gold, jewlery and land.
Just to show you how abstract money really is, the US federal reserve has just made it illegal to melt down low denomination US coins because the face value of the coin is actually worth less than the physical value of the metal to create it. If money weren't abstract, that would be a paradox.
Since you cannot believe in numbers as abstract... does that mean you don't use money?
74. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #14046 by MartinSGill on December 21, 2006 at 1:39 am
Absolutely beautiful Torbjorn.
I now need to spend the next hour looking up some of the words :P
I'm sure you said the same things as me... of course I won't know that until I've finished playing with the dictionary :)
75. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13966 by MartinSGill on December 20, 2006 at 10:25 am
No you can't.. you don't believe in santa :P
Here's a potentially interesting aside for you. Do you know that in germany and austria Jesus Christ is actually still around? The christmas presents are not brought by santa, but by the Christkindl. The "Christ Child". He snuck in through keyholes and delivered presents that are opened on christmas eve.
Personally, I think british christians need to protest at the rank injustice that jesus does not deliver presents to them. Obviously german and austrian children are favoured by christ :P. English kids need to make do with some old fat man in a red suit. Mind you.. i think I prefer the old fat guy... :P
76. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13956 by MartinSGill on December 20, 2006 at 9:09 am
NoLongerHaveBelief forgot to close one of his italics tags :P
Using a bit of underhanded sneakyness, I've turned off the italics again :). Prize for anyone that can guess how I did it :P
Fedler, you don't have to preach or try to convince everyone else of your views. In the UK being an atheist shouldn't pose any problems, for the most part, if you'r USian then I suspect it will be harder. Just avoid the subject. I wouldn't lie to a direct question, but it possible to avoid the issue totally, one more piece of circumstantial evidence that god has zero impact on everyday life.
I hang out here both to learn about science and the different views atheists have (I think atheists are much more varied in this regard than theists), and there are loads of really smart people here. I also use it to confirmation of what I already know, my atheism. Every so often someone like roberston comes up with an arguement for theism that I hadn't heard of before and I actually need to think and do a bit of research to answer it. Alas robertson is not overly innovative in this regard. He just keeps rephrasing the same arguements.
While I don't intend to actually convert anyone, if I did i'd be posting on theist sites, I'm always happy if what I say helps others decide for themselves that atheism is the right view of the world.
77. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13942 by MartinSGill on December 20, 2006 at 7:44 am
You're welcome NoLongerHaveBelief.
Please don't forget to close your tags though.. or you'll upset the follow on posts :P
78. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13941 by MartinSGill on December 20, 2006 at 7:42 am
My Condolences on your recent loss Fedler.
I've not lost someone close yet, and hopefully I won't for a long time, so I can't really imagine what it must be like for you.
79. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13935 by MartinSGill on December 20, 2006 at 6:35 am
NoLongerHaveBelief:
You can write italics by using HTML tags.
Let's try (i)italics(/i), or (b)bold(/b).
Replace ( with < and ) with >.
Further to support your point about mathematics being a human invention.
The number nil (zero) didn't exist as it does in today's common usage until about 900ce where it was used by arabic/islamic scholars. The number zero moved to europe in the 11th century. It's history is well documented and clearly shows that it is a human construction.
Its use a number in its own right, instead of just the absence of things, was not common until about the 13th century. Almost all of our modern mathematics and all the technology that depends on it would be meaningless without the number zero.
If that's not enough for you... how about imaginary or unreal numbers? The square root of -1 is undefined. Not a single human number exits that can be squared to produce -1. Easy enough.. since any negative number squared is positive and any positive number squared is positive.
Therefore humans invented the concept of imaginary (or complex) numbers. SQRT(-1) is defined as "i" or "j", depending on whether you are an engineer or a mathematician.
Imaginary numbers are extremely important in electrical and electronic engineering. Many of the problems in those disciplines cannot be solved without the use of imaginary numbers. It is in fact an entire branch of mathematics in it's own right.
Imaginary numbers were invented in 1572 by Rafael Bombelli. A purely human construction.
They are called imaginary because it is impossible to visualise them. One cannot have SQRT(-1) apples for example.
Mathematics is a human construction. An abstraction of the universe that allows us to quantify it.
EDIT:
Billy: Here's a link to the BBC article with an image of the fossil. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6195345.stm
EDIT 2:
Errata: Rafael Bombelli was the first to define an imaginary number, my mistake.
From wikipedia:
Descartes was the first to use the term "imaginary" number in 1637. However, imaginary numbers were invented much earlier by Gerolamo Cardano in the 1500s but they were not widely accepted until the work of Leonhard Euler (17071783) and Carl Friedrich Gauss (17771855).
80. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13907 by MartinSGill on December 20, 2006 at 3:08 am
"Why then should I not treat the issue of the virgin birth as allegory or figuratively?"
And what would it be an allegory of? Or figurative of? In normal life most people manage to work out that when I say the sun has gone down I do not mean it literally. It's not really that difficult. The only reason atheist evangelists feel the need to explain the bible in this way is precisely because it then makes it easier to ridicule.
It's an attempt to make Jesus special. To show that he is different to others.
"Obviously Jesus isn't a door. But then using the same logic, obviously people can't be born from virgins, as it's a contradiction, so that must be figurative as well."
No it is not the same logic. Actually people have been born of virgins.
.
Thank you very much. I was making this point a couple of pages back. Since people have been born of virgins it therefore means that God does not need to be involved. Hence the virgin birth is not proof of god, as you have just yourself announced. Unless you accept that all those people born of virgins are sons and daughters of god and therefore divine, you cannot then argue that Jesus is such because he was also born of a virgin.
Also it is the same logic. If something is "obviously" not true and therefore must be figurative, then something else that is "obviously" not true must also be figurative.
"Are you saying you know Greek better than a native?"
I certainly do not know contemporary Greek better than a native. We are talking about biblical Greek and the last time I looked there were not too many native biblical Greek speakers around. Besides which I am not sure what your problem is. Are we disagreed on the translation? I thought that was clear enough. What is not clear is the meaning at least to you. You seem to think that Jesus was saying that we could ask for anything we want, without any preconditions, regardless of circumstance or morality, and we would get it. That is a novel and nonsensical way of reading the Bible.
Correct, biblical Greek is a dead language. That means our knowledge of it is reconstructed and hence while we can have confidence in our translation, we cannot have certainty.
Since the my friend didn't have any problems reading the passage it either means the passage was not in classical greek or that my friend actually knows classical greek. I'll have to ask him.
You disagree with many christians on this point, and more importantly you disagree with all of the many bibles I have quoted here. The most likely conclusion is that you are therefore wrong.
But then you are just like any other Christian in cherry picking the parts of the bible that you approve of and re-interpreting those that you don't.
You know that at least one time you prayed god didn't give you what you asked for. Since this contradicts the bible you conclude that it must have been meant figuratively. Since accepting that the bible is wrong would invalidate your beliefs. You therefore chose to think that what is on the page is not actually what is intended.
Those bits of the bible that agree with your view, you take literally. Those that don't agree with your view you treat figuratively. You shape the bible to fit your world view, nothing more.
And thanks for the thoughts about the morality of animals, birds etc. One question do you think we should establish courts for those animals who act immorally? Should we have laws for fish?
Could you please not resort to childish, facetious comments.
Certainly not, animals are perfectly capable of making and enforcing their own laws. If you read back up a bit, you'll find that I said those animals that "misbehave" are excluded from the social group, shunned, or to use the religious punishment, excommunicated. Punishment for the "crime" committed. How is that different to what we do? Someone that breaks a law is sent to jail, placed away from the "social group". We used to send criminals physically away, to Australia for example. If someone breaks an unspoken law, a taboo, they are shunned and excluded from society or groups within society. How is that different from how animals behave?
The only difference between us and animals is that we have formalised our laws, and because we live more complex lives our laws are equally more complex.
Your dogma induced arrogant superiority prevents you from seeing that we are not special.
"We see moral behaviour as natural, and just a single facet of an incredibly complex process that governs all life on this planet. "
Of course you do. You have to. But that does not make it right. And as an historian I don't see a great deal of evidence for this natural, evolved morality that you have faith in.
You see morality as supernatural, of course you do, you have to, your faith and dogma requires it, but that does not make it right.
I believe based on evidence. You believe based on dogma and an old book.
What a strange selective view you have of history. It's easy enough for me to show that morality has evolved. We used to keep slaves, now we think it's immoral. We used to discriminate against black people, now we think it's immoral. We used to discriminate against women, now we think it's immoral. We used to think indiscriminatingly killing civilians (WW2) in war was acceptable (albeit unpleasant), now we think it's immoral and actively work against it.
There's even examples in the bible. Jericho was the almost genocidal slaughter of an entire city on god's orders. I suspect Jesus would not have approved of that,so Jesus morals have advanced from the earlier morals of Jericho. Of course, if god were perfect, why would he one day ask us to mass murder and rape women and children, then a couple of centuries later send "his son" along to tell us this is wrong. Not quite as perfect as you would like us to believe he is.
That's quite a bit of evidence to support my view at least. Now where's your evidence that morality comes from god?
81. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13904 by MartinSGill on December 20, 2006 at 2:54 am
Finally we arrive at the centre of your book and its main argument. The title of this fourth chapter is a bold claim. (You will notice that I have retitled it because I actually think the chapter does the very opposite of what you set out to do). In it you propose to prove, insofar as it is possible, that there is no God. I truly found this chapter astonishing. Allow me to explain why. I had expected that your case against God was to be a cumulative one a bit like your view of evolution. Faced with the mountain of Divinity and the universal belief of humankind in a God or gods, I expected you to climb Mount Improbable gradually, building a case slowly and leading us by a cumulative process to the view that there is no God. However you go for the big leap. You think you have the killer argument and you can go straight to the Holy Grail of atheism, and then have a gentle slide downhill afterwards, picking of the remaining theistic arguments because you have already proved there is no God.
No need for a gradual build up. The belief in a god is preposterous and it only takes a simple arguement to defeat it. Brainwashing and societal conditioning just prevent theists from seeing it like a rational person would. The reason you are disappointed is most likely due to the fact that you have already asked yourself the same question, but through conditioning you dismissed it, therefore its impact on you is lost.
What is this killer argument? The one that even Nietzsche could not find? Your argument goes like this. Evolution is true. Evolution explains the illusion of design. The design argument is the main argument for God. Therefore there is no God. And the reason that the design argument does not work? The point that you think almost 'certainly' proves there is no God is an astounding one. It is the core and heart of your intellectual justification for your emotional atheism. I almost feel at this point that there should be a drum roll
.The argument is "Who designed the Designer?"
A series of ad hominem paragraphs, dripping with contempt, that don't actually add any substance, just so much hot air.
In your own words:
"Once again, this is because the designer himself (herself/itself) immediately raises the problem of his own origin"
"Indeed design is not a real alternative at all because it raises an even bigger problem than it solves: who designed the designer?"
"But whatever else we may say, design certainly does not work as an explanation for life, because design is ultimately not cumulative".
"As ever the theists answer is deeply unsatisfying because it leaves the existence of God unexplained"
"To suggest that the original prime mover was complicated enough to indulge in intelligent design, to say nothing of mind reading millions of humans simultaneously, is tantamount to dealing yourself a perfect hand at bridge"
It is clear that this point is very important to you and the foundation of the rest of your arguments. When I read it I was genuinely shocked. Not because of its originality, killer force or overwhelming logic, but rather because of its banality. 'Who made God?' is a question I would expect from a six year old. Likewise "Who made God then?' is the accusation I would expect from a sixteen year old. I am genuinely surprised to find the world's most famous atheist (now that Anthony Flew has defected) and an Oxford Professor to boot, using it as THE intellectual foundation for his atheism. This is the argument that is going to change the world? This is the key?! Forgive my incredulity and perhaps even the slight mocking tone but you are very quick to mock some of the stupider theistic arguments. Using the 'Who made God?' argument is the atheist equivalent of the argument from degree.
The flaw in the arguement for the existance of a supreme being is so trivially easy to spot that even a child can come up with it. Are you saying that children don't have anything important to say? The common saying "out of the mouth of babes" is a reflection of the fact that young children have a habit of speaking unpleasant truths out loud, not having yet been conditioned enough to realise what effect their remarks might have. Theologists have spent the best part of 2000 years or more doing their best to try to explain, getting more complex and contrived as the years go on, that those kids are just "too young" or "too simple" to understand the full complexity of the argument, when in fact it is the children that have just cut to the chase and given us the obvious. The whole theological apparatus is geared towards nothing more than trying to answer the questions that a six year old finds so obvious to ask. They are unwilled to accept that their life and their career has been devoted to a lie that even a six year old can penetrate, that they do all they can to convince the six year old that he/she is wrong.
The answer to the question who made God is simply 'nobody'. God is not made. God is the Creator, not the creation. God is outside of time and space. (This is not to say that he is not also in time and space and that there is not plenty evidence for him there). God creates ex nihilo. That's what makes him God. He does not craft from what is already there. He creates time, space and matter from nothing. I realise for you that is a nonsense because the core of your creed is that evolution means that everything starts from the simple and becomes more complex, therefore because that is the case (and any designer would have to be incredibly complex) God cannot exist. But even if we grant that this is true for biology, biology is not everything. To argue as you do is to take an incredible leap of faith and to beg the question. Who says that everything, including God himself, has to come from something? Christians and other theists do not argue that God was created. That is precisely the point. He did not come from anywhere. He has always been. He did not evolve, nor was he made. If there is a personal Creator of the Universe then it makes perfect sense to regard him as complex, beyond our understanding and eternal. When you state that you can disprove God because there can de facto never be anything that was uncreated you are engaging in a circular argument. We do not believe in a created God. We believe in an uncreated supernatural power. I'm afraid you disprove nothing when you argue against the existence of a created God.
There is no proof of any kind for your inference that there is a supernatural entity of any kind, let alone any proof that this entity always existed. At best this is a guess on your part, or more likely, just wishful thinking. The circular arguement comes not in what dawkins and other atheists argue, but in the notion that complexity and order indicates a supreme being. You argue that complexity and order must be result of an intelligence, since only human intelligence can create the complexity and order in our modern society. Therefore for your supreme being to be able to create complexity, it must be intelligent and as a result it must also be complex. But since complex entities can only come about by intelligence, god must have come about as a result of an intelligence. Therefore god must have been created, by your own arguement.
Please provide evidence that god has always existed, and while you are at it, please tell us what god was doing for the infinity of time before he created the earth.
Lee us assume for the moment that evolution is true, why would that disprove God? Let us assume that the Intelligent Design movement (and to be fair it should be pointed out that this is a particular political/philosophical/scientific movement primarily in the US) is wrong why would that disprove God? It would disprove one argument that some theists use but there are many other arguments and there are many Christians who do not accept the ID science and who continue to be believers in the God of the Bible. You mention with particular praise Kenneth Miller, of Brown University and author of Finding Darwin's God. He strongly disagrees with Behe and with the whole ID movement. By your logic he should then be an atheist. But he is not. He is a Theist. I am sure you would not call him stupid but you do accuse other theists who are also 'good' scientists of 'compartmentalising'. To my mind this is patronising and the equivalent of accusing them of a fundamental dishonesty. To you they have the evidence to prove there is no God (who designed the designer?) but they do not have the moral courage or the mental capacity to embrace the logical conclusions. Except of course these conclusions are not logical. As McGrath puts it "There is a substantial logical gap between Darwinism and atheism, which Dawkins seems to prefer to bridge by rhetoric rather than evidence" (Dawkins God p87).
A petty arguement. Very much a case of the pot calling the kettle black. I'd argue that there is a substantial logical gap between darwinism and theology that Reverend Robertson seems to prefer to bridge by rhetoric rather than evidence. Everyone compartamentalises. For example everyone knows that crossing a busy road or even getting into a car is one of the most dangerous things we can do in our modern daily lives, yet we neatly compartemantalise this fact so that we can actually get on with our lives instead of being scared to death all the time, you'd argue that this is a fundamental dishonesty. I have friends who refuse to drive because they are unable to comptarementalise the consequences of a small mistake enough to be able to drive, an almost literal repitition of their own reasons for not driving when we talk about it. It is therefore perfectly easy for me to see how Keith Miller et al can be both extremely good scientists and religious. They simply bury the conflicts so that they don't have to confront them and can get on with their lives. They are not being dishonest, they are doing their best to resolve two conflicting views in a way that works for them, most people don't even realise when they are compartamentalising.
In order for there to be natural selection there has to be something to select. Where did that come from? This is where the Unmoved Mover, the Uncaused Cause and the Cosmological arguments come into their own. In terms of the origin of matter there are only three alternatives.
Something came from nothing. At one point there was no universe, there was no material, there was no matter, no time, no space. And out of that big nothing there came the Big Bang and our vast universe, tiny planet, evolution and the human species. I think you will agree that such a notion is beyond the realms of reason and is a total nonsensical fantasy.
Something was eternal. In other words matter has always existed. There is a lump of rock, or a mass of gas or some kind of matter which had no beginning and will probably have no end. And at some point that matter exploded and we ended up with the finely tuned and wonderful universe we now inhabit.
Something was created ex nihilo out of nothing. And that Creator has to be incredibly powerful, intelligent and awesome beyond our imagination.
I cannot see any other logical alternatives and I don't think you can either. I found it fascinating that when you were challenged about this you argued that we don't know where matter came from but one day scientists will find out. Apart from this rather touching faith in the potential omniscience of scientists, I'm afraid that will not do. The existence of God is not dependant on the argument from design as regards evolution, it is dependent on the fact that there is any matter at all, and that we live in a universe which is so finely tuned that life is possible at all. Why is there something rather than nothing? And why does that something manage to produce you and I? That is not a question which you can just brush aside or express no interest in.
Unlike Dawkins, I don't know if science will ever find a true answer (I suspect if you asked RD he'd say the same thing), but then the whole point of science is the search for the truth. People used to wonder if we'll ever learn to fly, and didn't believe it would ever be possible, yet now we take it for granted. People didn't think we'd ever be able to "reach the heavens" but now we send people beyond what used to be considered the heavens on an almost daily basis, so far have we reached that we have even landed people on "heavenly" bodies. Does that mean I have "faith" in science finding the answer? No. I have confidence, based on past experience and past performance. All those things that people of the past attributed to deities, like the rising of the sun, the movement of the stars, natural disasters, solar eclipses, have all been explained by science. The trend in human history has always been that someone will look at something "impossible" and will say that a god must be responsible. There have always been a few people though for whom that answer was not good enough and they searched and searched until eventually they discovered the truth of the matter. Based on past experience, and evidence, I can confidently say that any arguement for the existance of an interfering divine entity will sooner or later be refuted, as they have been so often in the past. There is no faith involved here. I have evidence; evidence that science has always so far explained some apparently divinely inspired ablity or event as simply natural and above all as rational.
Let's move on to this second stage. It is not only the fact that matter exists at all, but that it is so ordered that life can exist. When I was a child I was brought up in an area which had very little light pollution and so during the winter nights I often walked under the stars, risking injury by continually gazing upwards. Even today when I can I visit the local observatory in Dundee where I am greeted by an inscription above the door "this observatory is given that you may observe the wonders of the Creator in the heavens". To stare at the stars is for me one of the major if not the major reason for believing in God. I found it difficult to believe that this vast universe existed by itself, or as the result of an accident. As I have grown older and in knowledge it has been a real delight to discover that my natural instincts in observation are in accord with what science has also discovered. Whereas I struggle with most books on evolution because of a lack of knowledge (your books have actually been the most accessible and interesting), I really enjoy cosmology. Recently I have been reading Owen Gingerich's God's Universe and Francis Collins The Language of God which beautifully explain why the Universe is the best evidence for the existence of God. After going into detail about the wonders of the Big Bang Collins cites with approval the astrophysicist Robert Jastrow from God and the Astronomers "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries". I thought you would like that! Jastrow also writes "Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements and the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same; the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time' in a flash of light and energy" . Stephen Hawking points out that if the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in ten thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present state. If it had been greater by one part in a million then the stars and planets would not have been able to form. Is that not spine chillingly incredible? Constants like the speed of light, the force of gravity and electromagnetism all need to work precisely together for there to be life. Apparently there are fifteen such constants. Wonderful and incredible.
A banal arguement. Just because something is ordered, or apparently ordered doesn't mean that is must have been created. I stare with wonder and awe at the stars. I acutally wish I could transcend my human limitations and float forever in the galaxy exploring it all, finding life and incredible sights where ever I go. I might as well believe that is what will happen to me when I die as believe that a god had anything to do with it. I at least know that it's wishful thinking.
If I walked into a room and looked at a table in that room and discovered on it six dice that all showed a different number my first reaction might well be that someone had arranged them like that. In fact, since I actually role-play and regularly throw lots of dice, I can tell you as a fact that I've quite often rolled dice to create patterns like that. I've rolled 5 20-sided dice and only seen prime numbers. I've rolled dice and seen only evens, or seen only odds. I've rolled dice that created a
fibonnacci sequence. In fact, every time I roll dice it is possible for me to see order in what is a random event.
Apologies to Einstein, but if you see the constants of our universe as dice, the perfect set of rolls to create a fibonnacci sequence, then if even a single one of those dice were different we'd not have a fibonnacci sequence and chaos would ensue. You argue that some divine entity (it had to be intelligent since it must know what a fibonnacci series is, and how to go about creating it) placed those dice in the order they are. You disregard, out of dogma, the other equally valid possibilities; Pure random chance could create that sequence of dice. This begs the question of what acted upon the dice in the first place. Mere random chance doesn't invalidate an intelligent creator, after all something must have caused the dice to roll. Maybe it was two gods playing a game. Or maybe it was 5 gods each rolling a single die. The dice could have always been there, eternally in that formation. A cat could have played with the dice and left them in that position. An earthquake (or just something passing by) could have knocked the table and dice ended up in that fibonnacci sequence.
Unlike theists, scientiests are actually looking for the answer to this question. Theists just say dogmatically that it was god and leave it at that. Scientiest want to know why the dice are in that fibonnacci sequence. Order and complexity is no indication of a god, and can therefore not be used as evidence of one, as it perfectly possible that it might have been more than one god, or no god at all, or a natural event, or something that is neither a god, nor a natural event.
The simple FACT of the matter is that we don't know how the constants of our universe came to be as they are. While this doesn't rule out a divine entity, neither does it support the existance of one. As I mentioned above, given past experience with natural events that people have in the past used incorrectly as evidence of a God, there is a much higher probability that our universe came about naturally than there is of it being created by one or more gods.
If you hold to position two which you must as a rational atheist then you are left with this vast improbability of the fine tuning of the Universe. And it is an improbability that cannot be explained by evolution because there is nothing to evolve. The question is how did we get the conditions for evolution? I guess you could argue that we were very very very lucky to the point of one in ten thousand million million. That takes an enormous amount of faith. Like the example you cite from the philosopher John Leslie we talks about a man sentenced to death standing in front of a firing squad of ten expert marksmen. All of them miss. There could be some way of explaining it but it is such an improbable event. Multiply that a million times and you have the improbability of the universe as we have it. So in order to avoid that what can you do? Well you can invent the multiverse. The view that there are billions of universes co-existing like bubbles of foam and the chances are that at least one will end up with some form of life. You even cite Lee Smolin's view that daughter universes are born from parent universes and that they in effect evolve thus eventually getting to a stage where life is possible. This is really special pleading and indicates desperation to try and explain the universe we have without God. You keep telling us that science is about what we can observe, that it is about fact and empirical evidence. The multiverse notion is a sci-fi nonsense for which there is no evidence whatsoever. One almost gets the impression that you would accept any theory as long as it did not involve the possibility of there being a God! This becomes especially evident when we move on to the last chapter there you take this speculation even further citing David Deutsch's Fabric of Reality. Deutsch speculates that there are a vast and rapidly growing number of universes, existing in parallel and mutually undetectable except through the porthole of quantum mechanical experiments. You write "In some of these universe I am already dead. In a small minority of them, you have a green moustache". And you have the nerve to mock those of us who believe that the Creator of the Universe could raise the dead! Are you really so desperate to escape God that you have to have faith in a universe where there are green moustaches? Why stop there? Why not suggest that the Matrix is correct? The world we live in is not really real we only think it is because we are wired up to a giant computer which feeds our minds with the illusion of reality.
That paragraph is just littered with logical fallacies. Ad Hominem, ad Ignorantiam.
Your ignorance of science is showing itself clearly. I don't know enough about big bang physics and cosmology, as I've not had the time to read up on it yet, to determine just how likely some of those hypothesis are. And that is what they are, hypothesis, as you correctly pointed out, speculation. The first step on the scientific road to an answer. Some one proposes a hypothesis and then sets out to prove it. Once evidence starts turning up, it becomes a theory. God is a hypothesis, there is no evidence. If you read my reply to the previous paragraph you will see that us living in The Matrix, is just as likely as us having been created by a god. But since there is no evidence to support either hypothesis, that is all they remain, speculation. What science is doing now is looking for the evidence, to finally see which hypothesis is correct and to start building theories. Maybe we will find proof of some supernatural being, but I consider it highly unlikely, seeing as we've failed to find any such proof for any other of the mysteries of the world that we've attempted and successfully managed to explain.
The big difference between the scientific hypotheses and the theist hypothesis of god, is that scientists don't go to church every sunday, get down on their knees, and ask the mulitverse to let them win the lottery.
You like to suggest that your position is a logical one caused by the fact that Darwin has raised your own consciousness and you seem to think that those who do not agree with so are not so highly evolved (at least in consciousness). Your position is the scientific one and you set up the debate so that it is always the forces of reason and science against the blind irrationality of faith. I'm afraid that that just does not square with the facts. In fact although you state that science is the reason you do not believe in God you offer no substantive scientific reasons as to why we should not believe in God. Your arguments for atheism as a belief system are primarily arguments which are non-scientific. And you need to stop misrepresenting those of us who belief in God as doing so because we are looking for a God of the gaps someone who will fill in until 'science' gives us the real answer. The reason that we believe in God is because of the evidence, because of science (knowledge), because of what we see in the universe. As Collins declares, "There are good reasons to believe in God, including the existence of mathematical principles and order in creation. They are positive reasons, based on knowledge, rather than default assumptions based on a temporary lack of knowledge"(The Language of God p93). I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.
Ad Hominem. You again attack dawkins by twisting his words to suit your own ends.
I admire your stance that you take understanding over ignorance. The problem of your assumptions is that you go looking for god, instead of looking at a problem open mindedly. Here's an exercise for you. Everytime you look in wonder and awe at "god's" whatever, why not ask yourself critically if what you see could have come about some other way, instead of being so lazy as to ignore or not even bother to look for alternatives. Relgious dogma idolises faith, and that is the biggest discouragement to critical thinking there is. What you will find, if you are open minded, is that everything has many more possible explanations than just god, and most of them don't require an intelligence to bring about. God is just one hypothesis amongst many, and based on past experience the least likely.
Let me leave you with a couple of other quotes "the best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole" (Arno Penzias, the Nobel prize winning scientist who discovered background radiation that proved the Big Bang).
"It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us." (Stephen Hawking A Brief History of Time).
"I am personally persuaded that a super intelligent Creator exists beyond and within the cosmos, and that the rich context of congeniality shown by our universe, permitting and encouraging the existence of self-conscious life, is part of the Creator's design and purpose." (Owen Gingerich, God's Universe).
" the extreme difficulty, or rather the impossibility, of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity for looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist." Charles Darwin (cited in the book you mention Brown's Finding Darwin's God).
Logical fallacy, appeal to authority. Just because one person believes something doesn't make it true. If you want to base your proof of god on what people think, then you will lose. There are 1.6 billion christians on the planet (leaving asside that some of them might not actually believe what you do) that means there are 4.4 billion people that think you are wrong. Of course this argument could be applied to agnostic/atheism (2 billion) or Islam (1 billion) or any other view just as easily, demonstrating that this arguement is worthless and meaningless and cannot be used to prove, nor disprove anything.
In bringing up the argument of the origin of matter and of the universe you have in fact scored an enormous own goal. Instead of proving that there almost certainly is no God you have demonstrated that there almost certainly is. It might be a good idea to find out who he is, stop burying your head in the sand and stop shaking your fist at a God you say cannot exist because in order to exist he would have to be more complex than you. He is.
Dogma. All you have managed to show in your arguement is that there's a possiblity that a god might exist, just as theres a possiblity that we might be living in "The Matrix" or that actually I'm the only person that actually exists and everything else is just a figment of my imagination. You have provided no evidence, merely arguements based on incredulity. Maths is amazing, hence it must have been created by god. The perfect alignment of the universal constants is amazing, hence it must have been god. Well, I actually think that the way a magician can so cunningly disguise what he is doing to bring about the seemingly impossible is also amazing, by the same logic you'd argue that was evidence of god, when it's just evidence of a really good magician.
Ps there is much in this chapter that I have not interacted with including another attack on the Templeton Foundation and further criticism of another backsliding compromising scientist Freeman Dyson. But there are a couple of quotes that I cannot resist. Firstly you point out that "It is utterly illogical to demand complete documentation of every step of every narrative, whether in evolution or any other science". I agree. Can I suggest that you also apply that to theology and the Bible?
I do, as I suspect does Professor Dawkins. The problem is that the bible is inconsistent. Instead of missing steps, it has contradictory steps. Genesis 1 and 2 are the quickest examples. Two inconsistent ways that "god" "created" the universe. The there are not just a couple of steps missing there either, regardless of which version you use, the steps mentioned don't coincide with anything else we know from obeservations. There are less flaws in the last science-fiction book I read, at least that book was consistent and not contradictory.
Secondly you declare "When pressed, many educated Christians today are too loyal to deny the virgin birth and the resurrection. But it embarrasses them because their rational minds know it is absurd, so they would much rather not be asked".
Wrong. An educated Christian believes in the God of the Bible who created this whole amazing universe. To raise the dead or create a virgin birth seems to me to be, if not quite chickenfeed in comparison, at least very probable and doable and certainly not illogical. Besides which I would regard it as a whole lot more logical to believe that an eternal omnipotent God could raise the dead, than to believe that the explanation for our universe involves there being multi universes in which I exist with or without my green moustache!
Logical fallacy. You are attempting to prove point C (triviality of virgin birth) based on Point A (existance of god), when point A has not actually been proven and hence cannot be used as supporting evidence.
Your final arguement is a logical fallacy on just so many levels. Just because some entity might be able to create the universe doens't mean that it's able to create a virgin birth, or ressurect people. Just because I can easily program a computer doesn't mean I can easily ride a bike. There is no logic to either of your two final statements, as they cannot logically be compared, hence using one to invalidate or support the other is totally pointless and meaningless. You are making a statement of belief, not a logical arguement. I could just as easily say the opposite with equal validity.
To summarise. Your article drips with contempt and ad hominem. You fail to provide any evidence whatsoever to refute the points in TGD and instead appeal to incredulity to support your arguments. You deny the existence of alternative explanations of your points and more importantly deny the fact that those alternative explanations are as, or possibly more, probable as your own explantions. In short, your entire argument is one based on faith and dogma and not on evidence or reason.
82. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13812 by MartinSGill on December 19, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Of course he'll prolong them Billy... he's the one that created most of them.
Fedler:
(if, indeed that was you)
It was him. Usernames are now unique on the comments threads, so that trolls can be banned.
Personally I rather like David, despite the fact that he keeps insulting me and atheists in general. He's the best advertisment for atheism this site could have, and he should stay around for as long as he likes.
83. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13748 by MartinSGill on December 19, 2006 at 9:19 am
Robertson:
Again with rare exceptions I note the inability of atheists who are responding to actually respond to the articles written. I guess if I wrote down the back of a cornflakes packet I would still get the same points being made. It is the curse of fundamentalism
Fedler:
On a brief side note, may I request at the very beginning of your responses that you not collectively belittle those of us who are trying to thoughtfully post back to you. It only sours communication and questions the sincerity of the poster. We can be grown-ups.
It's worth a try Fedler, but Roberston's default state seems to be to be to rudely opposed anything atheists have to say.
After all he's here "[...]to do all [he] can to resist the evil of atheism."
Since he considers us all evil, it's no wonder really that he's consitently rude to us and resorts to ad hominem and name calling instead of actually answering our questions and providing answers, as opposed to trying to force his views upon us instead of engaging us in debate.
If you read back to the beginning of this thread you'll find that most of the atheists he is being rude to have responded in kind to his ad hominems against us.
While I'd hope that he could hold a polite debate, he's shown time and again that he can't. Even Donald who tried his best to be civil (like most of us did to start with) received a personal attack, and the extremely common un-supported refusal to accept scientific fact.
I wish just for once when Rev. Robertson actually responded to comments here he could do so with supporting evidence instead of just saying "it is so". All I've ever had from him is his baseless belief in something and most of the time this view is easily refuted by evidence of other sources.
It's a good thing Roberston is a priest and not a scientist, because he'd be useless at the latter. No one would accept a scientific arguement that was unsupported by facts/evidence and above all valid and verifiable sources.
84. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13651 by MartinSGill on December 19, 2006 at 2:48 am
"The phrase I quoted is crystal clear in its meaning. What you have just said is that this meaning isn't what was originally intended. This raises a number of issues."
Nope. Again the meaning is not difficult. At least not for an adult. When Jesus said I am the door you could argue that the meaning is clear that he meant he was made of wood etc. After all that is what he said. Any adult understanding would recognize that he was of course talking about being the entrance to something. When he talks about moving mountains no one has ever thought 'oh if only I have enough faith then I will be able to command Everest to fall into the sea! I'm not sure why you are having such difficulty with this most basic use of language. Are all atheists as literalist as this?
So when the bible says Christ was born of a virgin this is also figurative and he wasn't actually born of a virgin? The problem with biblical apologists like yourself is that instead of reading what is actually there, and which makes no logical sense, you decide to interpret it and treat it figuratively or allegorically (and insult those that don't). Why then should I not treat the issue of the virgin birth as allegory or figuratively? Why should I not treat the mention of Christ as the Son of god figuratively, maybe it meant Jesus' ideas were worthy of the son of a god, but he wasn't actually the son of god? What makes you able to tell which bits are allegory and which are literal?
To use your door example. Obviously Jesus isn't a door. But then using the same logic, obviously people can't be born from virgins, as it's a contradiction, so that must be figurative as well.
Yes it is a copy of the original based on several hundred copies of the original. I am glad that you are not willing to argue with an eminent scholar of the that time period. So one assumes that you would not argue with DA Carson, FF Bruce and the vast majority of biblical scholars. Or could there be the slightest possibility that you cite Mr Fox because he agrees with what you have already decided?
Everyone prefers a source that supports their own view. One of the reasons I deliberately use sources that I don't usually agree with, theology/religious sources, to demolish your beliefs, since those people share your view that god is real, and claim to believe what you do, making my points stronger.
I've read some of Bruces work, but I find his arguments flawed and the evidence he presents dubious. Then again, there are bits I don't agree with Fox about. Mostly because Fox is also doing a good job of showing me that the bible isn't as big a work of fiction as I'd thought it to be. While Bruce and Fox agree that the bible is inconsistent and often confusing (something you reject) Bruce argues that those issues are inconsequential and trivial to the main thrust of the bible, Fox disagrees and in my opinion provides the better arguments to think otherwise, mostly because Fox doesn't argue at all, merely presents evidence, allowing people to make up their own minds instead of trying to dictate their views.
I know. Half an hour on Google and hey presto suddenly you can argue biblical Greek. If only I had known that before I spent three years learning the language!
You seem to have difficulty with your reasoning. I'm not arguing biblical greek. I'm letting other people that I feel are better qualified than me, argue for me. Hence I never say "You are wrong, it actually means blah", instead I say "You are wrong, as the majority of sources (listed) say otherwise".
Unlike you, I am at least honest and name both my sources and my view of their credibility. You just seem to make things up as you go along. Certainly all we have had from you up to now is your belief, and not a shred of evidence or reference. You keep claiming outlandish things, that only humans can use language for example, that even a superficial bit of research can quickly demolish. You have never yet provided a shred of evidence to support any of your beliefs.
Tell me why I should give you more credibility than a professor of theology.
I also asked a Greek friend of mine, he lives on Crete and unlike you he has over 30 years experience with the Greek language. He disagrees with both you and the theologian website, ironically. When I asked him to translate the passage Billy found from the original Greek presented there, his translation agreed with that of the bibles I have quoted, without any of your silly misinterpretation, which he rejected out of hand as nonsense. Are you saying you know Greek better than a native?
yes that is what I feared atheists thought. Thanks for confirming it. It strengthens me in my resolve to do all I can to resist the evil of atheism. The consequences would be horrendous.
Again your fundamentalist nature shows itself especially as you manage to completely miss the point again, reverting to your dogma. If you say atheism leads to evil behaviour then why are animals, such as apes, not raping, pillaging and mass murdering? Surely they are atheist? In your fundamentalist view of a selfish gene centric society, raping as many women as possible is the best way to ensure your gene's survive. So why do many species of mammals, birds and others mate for life with a single partner? Maybe they've read the bible? Or maybe your fundamentalist view is wrong?
Indeed. His inconsistency in this respect is something to be thankful for. Of course its not logical nor sustainable but at least for the moment we should be thankful for small mercies.
If you'd actually open your mind to the FACTS of the subject you're talking about you'd realise that Dawkins view is neither illogical, unsustainable nor inconsistent.
You cannot seem to grasp the complexities and differences between what our gene's "want" and what we as humans are able to do as a result. You think that moral behaviour is unnatural and hence only possible by having it imposed on us from outside by a god. Atheists aren't as simple minded. We see moral behaviour as natural, and just a single facet of an incredibly complex process that governs all life on this planet.
85. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13541 by MartinSGill on December 18, 2006 at 6:56 am
A slightly better source i think:
[A]n example is in Jesus' statement, "If you have faith, and never doubt," thus and thus will be done (Matt. 21:21, RSV). The word for "doubt" diakrithete, is in the aorist tense, meaning that one is not to doubt even for an instant. But the Greek word for "have," exete, is in the present tense, so that Jesus is saying that a person is to maintain faith in a continuing way in order for God to act on his behalf.
In Mark 11:22 Jesus says, "Have faith in God" echete pistin theou). Here the word for faith is a noun, so it has no tense, but the helping verb, for "have," is in the present tense, so the faith in God which Jesus wants men to have is a steady trust.
This source is quoted from a Professor of Theology, (Ph.d) at the Wesley Center[sic] for Applied Theology. http://wesley.nnu.edu/wesleyan_theology/theojrnl/01-05/05-6.htm
I'm afraid David that your fellow learned theologians seem to disagree with you, and agree with me. Or are they childish as well?
86. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13540 by MartinSGill on December 18, 2006 at 6:40 am
What an excellent resource Billy, thanks for that. I tend to use bible gateway, but this site is really good for version comparisons.
A couple of points about the greek though, is the greek there contemporary or classical, and what is the source of the greek text?
Not that it makes much difference. David will argue that he uses a different text.
I actually trusted David. Foolish of me really, I should know better by now. But I could make my point regardless, so I didn't bother.
I've done some more digging now. I found this page, written by what appears to be a Christian Greek Language scholar, at least he opens the page by saying "[...]regarding the word studies and books which God has had me working on for the past 25 years."
He actually does use the word David mentions... and even helpfully uses the passage under discussion as his example:
http://sigler.org/finnestad/word_stufdies.htm [sic]
GREEK VERBS (cont.)
8. Moods affect verb tenses. We already know that the aorist is a very strong pinpoint event in the past. The aorist subjunctive is a mood which adds a condition to this past tense. Something must happen for the aorist to become a pinpoint. This event may or may not happen dependent upon whether the condition is met.
EX: Mt 21:21 If ye have faith, and DOUBT (IVA. diakriTHEte, aor. subj.) not,
This is the passage where Jesus is explaining the power of faith. If we have faith and doubt not (this is the condition that must be fulfilled) then our belief in what we say can literally move mountains. (We always indicate the subjunctive mood when used with an aorist tense in our studies.)
Well, this greek language scholar agrees with my reading of that passage, not David's.
Alas I could not find any professional details of the author and hence cannot confirm his credentials. I suspect the person to be only a layman and the page confirms that his purpose in the site is to help people understand god's teachings, so it might well be biased. In respect to the passage under discussion it at leasts supports my, and the other bibles', interpretation of the passage and not David's.
I'll see if I can find a better source.
87. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13527 by MartinSGill on December 18, 2006 at 5:22 am
Now since this seems to be so important to you let us return to Matthew 21. 22. (Before your fellow atheists have a go at me for quoting scripture I should point out that I am only responding to Martin who seems to think that this passage proves the bible is false and that therefore there is no God). The Greek word used is diakrithete which is a 2nd person plural subjunctive of diakrino, 'to be of a divided mind'. What Jesus is teaching is not that anytime someone prays anything they will get what they ask for (providing they can only work up enough faith in themselves) but that 'no task in harmony with God's will is impossible to perform to those who do not doubt'. No one at the time, or ever since has believed that Jesus meant that The 4,000 foot high mount of Olives would literally take a plunge into the Dead Sea. That is basic common sense reading. And that is what you need to read the Bible. When Jesus said 'I am the Door' he did not mean ' I am wooden and have a handle'. When I say 'I watched the sun go down' I do not mean that the sun goes round the earth. Your excessive literalism just does not make sense in any way.
Finally, a straight answer. Took you long enough, why not say that right away, instead of insulting me by calling me childish?
Basically what you have just told me, and proved for me, is that the bible is false, or rather, that according to you, the bible has been wrongly translated from the Greek, so that its meaning has been changed.
The phrase I quoted is crystal clear in its meaning. What you have just said is that this meaning isn't what was originally intended. This raises a number of issues.
First and foremost, why is it that of all the 5 bibles that I quoted, your interpretation of the Greek texts does not coincide with what is actually written? You are one translator, those bibles were written by many more. The majority opinion of the translators would therefore indicate that you translated the meaning wrongly. Ironically, the only passage that I quoted that could support your translation, was from the JKV and that was the passage you objected to me using because of its age.
We have no established that the translators disagree. When I read a book that claims to tell me "the truth" then I need to have trust in the authors of that book. You have just shown me that I should not trust those authors, since you disagree with them on the translation of the meaning of this one passage. How can I therefore trust that anything else in the bible is correct, surely at this point everything must be suspect?
Finally, is your greek text the original text that Matthew wrote? (Based on historical evidence Fox believes that texts in those times tended to be anonymous, and I see no reason to argue with an eminent scholar of that time period, so we can't actually say Matthew even wrote it, but we'll leave that aside for the moment). Is your text a copy? A translation of a translation? You have already demonstrated that we cannot trust the modern bible as an accurate representation of the meaning of the texts. Why therefore can we trust the authors of the text you use? Maybe the translators of the current English versions had access to an older text that you don't have access to?
All of this can leave only a single conclusion, and that is that the bible cannot be used as evidence of anything, as you and other translators cannot even agree on the meaning of just a short passage in Matthew.
Most people don't have the time to go back to basics and try to translate the bible from source (if we can even find that source) and we have to trust the scholars and translators to do it for us. You have just proven that we cannot do that and therefore we cannot trust the what they wrote, the bible.
If it is in the nature of a seal to take a bite out of a salmon and then leave it to die fine. If humans are just another animal species then it if is in our nature to kill, rape etc then fine. Who can condemn us acting according to our animal instincts?
Why are you not able to differentiate between our position in nature and morality? We are just like every other animal.
In fact many other animals are better than we are. They kill to survive, we humans kill for sport and entertainment. We humans kill each other on a massive scale over an idea, a belief. Surely since animals don't do that, only kill when they have to, that makes them more moral than us?
Dawkins himself has said often enough that a truly darwinian natural selection based society is not one he wants to live in. In truth, neither do many animals, certainly not the higher mammals. Again if you look to our closest cousins, the great apes you fill find that they don't murder, or rape nor steal. Those apes that do tend to get excluded from the social groups. Even fights over pecking order and similar are rarely to the death or even serious injury.
These cousins of ours don't worship a god, yet they seem perfectly moral by our standards.
"There is a blue dinosour in my flat. You can't see him because he is outside of time and space. Now... a rational person will at once point out... how do you know he's blue then?"
Precisely. Even more how do you know he is a dinosaur? What does that phase mean? And what is your point?
The point is that you cannot know god or anything about him, since you claim he is not in our time and space.
You claim that Jesus is the son of god. If we allow that Jesus actually existed, then the only proof we have that Jesus actually was the son of god is the word of a couple of people who may or may not have actually known him, that has been copied umpteen thousands of times, and translated just as often and as we have shown above cannot be trusted; very dubious proof at best.
That does not explain how in the old testament our protagonists actually interacted with god. Saw him walking around, spoke to him. Or are those mis-translated as well? Maybe the old testament is just legends, but then how do you justify the fact that the new testament isn't just a legend?
88. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13088 by MartinSGill on December 15, 2006 at 10:17 am
Or you havn't a clue what you are talking about? The passage is saying that if we pray according to the will of God then we will get what we/he wants.
"So.. what your saying is that it was god's will that the people of New Orleans were to be wiped out?"
Yes, your 9 year old son could quite easily demolish your logic. I hope your son at least will be sufficiently open to reject your god. What will you do if your son becomes an atheist, or worse, a muslim or hindu, based on the "evidence" he sees?
Why do you keep rewritting the passage in your own mind, and your posts here, to say something it doesn't?
You say: The passage is saying that if we pray according to the will of God then we will get what we/he wants.
In other words, if we pray for what god wants, he will give it to us. How nice of him. I'll remember that trick the next time I need to buy presents.
You definition is balantly incorrect. The passage actually says: If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
Nothing in there about god's will. Nothing in there about gods wishes/wantes. Just where are you getting this amazing missing text about god's will in this?
Let's stay with your definition for the moment and reexamine the New Orleans question. You say: The passage is saying that if we pray according to the will of God then we will get what we/he wants.
The passage is saying that if we pray for New Orleans to be spared, and this is the will of god, then we will get what we/he want.
As New Orleans was not spared, and I am sure loads of people prayed, therefore saving New Orleans was not gods will. Even a 9 year old could follow that, maybe you should get your son to explain it to you, seems he's the intelligent one in your family. Granted god might not have delibertaly wanted New Orleans to be destroyed, but at best one can say that he just didn't care.
Interesting ideas about animal consiousness and awareness of concepts. Of coure the Christian views God as superior not humans. The atheist will either a) regard humans as the apex of 'creation' or b) the same as other animals which is going to make it kind of difficult for all us non-vegetarians.
Poor naive deluded theist with your fundamentalist black and white view of the world. You sure your 9 year old son isn't writing your posts? Maybe he could do a better job.
Chrisitans do see god as supirior to them, but he's the only one. They consider themselves as created in god's image, what a big headed load of arrogance right there. As such, being one removed form god, christians see themselves as masters of all "creation". Everything that isn't human is beneath them. That's almost the dictionary definition of arrogance.
a) Evolution, not creation.
We are not the apex of evolution, we are at the apex in our own specific niche. That's we we are still around and not extinct. Whales and dolphins swim better than we do, bats hear better, can move better at night, lions and jaguars can run faster than we can, birds can fly better than we can and pidgeons can navigate better than we can. If we could do everything better than all other creatures I might agree we were at the apex, but we are not. Move us out of our environment and we quickly succomb. I want to see how long you survive underwater without tools. We have the ability to create our own environment, and we are extremely good at it. The reason we have this environment (our cities/homes/huts) is to protect us from those creatures that are better than us at hunting/killing/running/seeing in the dark. Again, we are not the only animals that can create our own environments; bird nests, crustacians that create/make their own shells. Tool users in chimps, for example using sticks to get at ants. We are nothing special, we just happen to be really good at what we do in our niche of the food chain. We even grow our own food... big deal, there are ants that do the same, they cultivate fungi, feeding and maintaining the fungi and living off it.
b) Yes, we are the same as all animals. By your reasoning though (more 3 year old logic here from our petulant priest) lions (animal) should not eat anitlopes(animal), sharks (animal) should not eat human (animal). Oh dear, your logic seems to have come unstuck. Probably because it was not so much logic as pure childish petulance.
And.. so you don't throw another wobbly... let's deal with your God is outside of time and space arguement.
There is a blue dinosour in my flat. You can't see him because he is outside of time and space. Now... a rational person will at once point out... how do you know he's blue then?
If God is outside time and space, then he can't interract with us, because to do so he would have to enter our time and space and hence wouldn't be outside it anymore. While this certainly fits the deist view of the world, it doesn't fit the theist one you claim to follow. The moment god tries to do anything in our time and space, he must enter this space.
THe only way you can know anything about god is if he is inside our own time and space. By argueing he is outside time and space you have just invalidated everything you know about god because you cannot, since he is out of time and space, know anything about him.
To help fit this into your 3 year old mind-set, let me make it simple. You are inside a black box. God is outside the black box. For you to know anything about god, god must come into the black box, at which point he's subject to scientific analysys and our natural laws, or you need to leave the box. Therefore you would be outside, and noone here would see you anymore. I don't see people disappearing all over the place. Maybe god doesn't care about the world anymore.
89. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13044 by MartinSGill on December 15, 2006 at 6:43 am
Actually... NoLongerHaveBelief I'm the one posting bible passages. Let's not accuse David of more nonsense than he's actually guilty of, he's already got enough on his plate.
He just fails to rationally explain what that passage says in plainest English. He keeps avoiding the issue by saying no one actually teaches that, insults us by calling us children and generally looks down on us as inferior for actually reading the words on the page.
Maybe when he was a child his daddy said... "if you tidy your room you will receive some chocolate.", and he tidied his room and didn't get any chocolate and ever since then he has associated the word "will" with the meaning "won't". I can't see any other reason for him not actually being able to read the words on the page.
Edit: Corrected a sentence so that it made more sense.
90. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13037 by MartinSGill on December 15, 2006 at 6:15 am
"The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you"
Here are the details of the process to create cud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruminant
While cud is supposed to be regurgitated, you could read that passage as meaning that rabbits eat their own faeces, which they do. I used to have a rabbit as a pet and it did eat it's own pellets. I always suspected that by doing that it basically gave the digestion a second chance at pulling all the nutrition and stuff out the food that it could.
It could of course be that my rabbit was mad.
In which case the passage was translated wrongly. In either case the bible is wrong, regardless of how the error came about.
Maybe Leviticus also had a mad rabbit, to go with the mad master. "Bring forth the holy hand-grenade of Antioch".
91. Dawkins Delusion (3rd article, Same Stupid Title)
Comment #13036 by MartinSGill on December 15, 2006 at 6:03 am
And thanks for the info re the communication of animals fa