101. Review of The God Delusion

Comment #2859 by Martin on October 24, 2006 at 5:33 am

Has anyone else noticed that Review is spelt as Revew?

I think we ought to get that fixed before the creationists use that as the basis for ridiculing the review (not they won't anyway...)

102. Lawrence, Kansas : Speech

Comment #2857 by Martin on October 24, 2006 at 4:58 am

If anyone manages to save a copy of this video could they provide a link. I can't even stream it at the moment, it refuses totally. Maybe there are too many fans of RD trying to grab it at the same time.

Let's hope it turns up on youtube or google video soon.

103. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #2850 by Martin on October 24, 2006 at 4:27 am

I looked into Forbidden Archeology.

The amazon reviews fall into the usual categories for such a book (just as they do for the god delusion) the religious nuts love it, the rational atheists think it's tripe. So no real knowledge gained there.

The article Billy points to is quite interesting on the other hand. It does not critisise the theories as such, but actually critisises the assumptions and the scientific method of the authors. A lot of time is spent in the review asking why the authors kept looking for the complex answer, instead of attempting to solve the enigma using the simplest possible answer, e.g. they seem to have forgotten occam's razor.

What I find interesting is that Tarzia goes to great lenghts to point out that new views, such as those in the book, should be given full and critical attention, for there may well be merit in them, alas he finds their methods sloppy, which casts considerable doubts over their results.

My own view, having read the blurbs on the book and the reviews is that the book is basically a conspiracy theory book. I like a conspiracy theory as much as the next person, they make for great drama, the only problem is that the bigger the conspiracy the less likely that there is one, as sooner or later someone will find enough short term benefit to betray the conspiracy.

Conspiracy theories are as self defensive as religion. When someone goes, why isn't there more evidence... the answer (as opposed to "god did it") is simply "Duh! It's a conspiracy, they hide the evidence".

104. A God State of Affairs

Comment #2718 by Martin on October 23, 2006 at 4:38 am

Seems this satirical picture is becoming more and more true.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/funnypictures/ig/100-Funny-Pictures/Jesusland.htm

One has to wonder what might happen to the US in the future. If the religious nuts are not held in check and soon, then I can see another Civil War in the US, drawn along the lines of this image above.

Possibly more frightnening even than that is the situation where the intelligent people leave the US for places like Europe, Australia and Asia, where they can work without (well almost) bigoted interference. So that eventually only the nut cases remain. Imagine that lunatic asylum in charge of nukes and with dreams of a cataclysmic destruction to herald the 2nd coming of christ!

My first warning of just how bad thing were in the USA (being thoroughly eurpean) was when Bush came to power and I was left speechless by the nonsense he was talking. For the first time in my life, I could forsee a time when Europe might have to go to war with the US. I doubt very much it will be in my generation, nor the next, but even to just contemplating that possiblity is frightening enough in itself.

It disgusts me to think that in a few years time we might be thinking of the US in terms we now use describe places like Iran, or North Korea.

I wonder just how many atheists and seculars and liberal religious people didn't vote last time. Could they tip the balance? In the end though, all people like me can do is sit on the side-lines, shout advice and hope that enough rational people still exist in the US with the will (and the votes) to make a difference.

105. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #2702 by Martin on October 23, 2006 at 1:11 am

Phil: "Billy, I’m not here to argue."

Probably the only truth you have written since you started posting here.

You are not argueing you are preaching, which is why you fail to listen to anything you are told, because it doesn't fit your 2 millimetre wide world view.

I have actually learned rather a lot in this dicussion. From you, I have learned a lot more about the sources of the creationist idiocy, and I've learned a just how thoroughly they have been ridiculed by sane scientists (even ones sadly afflicted with religion).

I've learned that feathered dinosaurs existed! Is that cool or what?! I've learned of many more discrepancies in the bible. I've learned rather a lot in fact.

So, Phil, I would like to thank you, for despite your best efforts you have done more to convince me that my bliefs are right and proper.

106. Atheists' delusions about God

Comment #2585 by Martin on October 22, 2006 at 12:42 am

Jakob: this isn't the discussion forum. It can be found elsewhere on this site. Good hunting.

107. Atheists' delusions about God

Comment #2555 by Martin on October 21, 2006 at 8:38 pm

Anyone notice how Fraser got Kathy Sykes' (Bristol University) title wrong? He has it mixed up with Professor Dawkins' title, both of which can be found with a simple web search. Therefore, having shown his hand in this easily researched matter, my guess is that...

...he could not have possibly read further than the dust-jacket of The God Delusion

Remind me never to study philosophy at Wadham. The popular works of Grayling and Blackburn will do just fine thank you.

108. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #2554 by Martin on October 21, 2006 at 8:35 pm

I'm not even going to dignify the rest of Phil's nonsense with a response, but I just had to pick out this bit because it makes even less sense than the rest of the post.

-----------
You have compared all the religious atrocities that ever happened to the communist’s regimes crimes. That’s like comparing every shooting, bombing or murder what ever sort in the history of Belfast to the Twin Towers atrocity. This act of humanists inhumanity against man may have cost over 100 000 000 lives alone and must be avoided at all costs in the future. Hitler’s extermination of the Jews cost around 6 000 000 let alone the war he waged based on evolutions ideals in the “Preservation of FAVOURED RACES in the Struggle for Life”.

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

Phil, if you ever decide to actually learn something, as opposed to just repeating by wrote your brainwashing, you'll realise that Hitler's aims were in effect eugenics, and eugenics are un-natural selection, hence nothing to do with evolution.

Almost every major war, with the excption of the 2 world wars, was in some way caused by, or excused by religion. Even the genocide of the jews was tacitly approved by the pope! The roman catholic church did not oppose hitler, an incident that still embarrasses the modern church. I have no idea if you are catholic or not, but if you were, and the since the word of the pope is god's word, that means you must have apporved of the slaughter of the jews, since the pope did!

I am just as capable of using specious logic as you are.

Why shouldn't I add up all the attrocities carried out by religion? You seem perfectly happy to add up the numbers killed by idiots like stalin and hitler. I suspect the religious death toll over the centuries might even approach the billions. American billions or course, let's net get carried away. Oh.. since you like to impress with lots of zeros... here's what a millard looks like. 1 000 000 000.

I am a bit curious where you get your figures from as well. 100 million seems rather a large number. I doubt communism managed to kill 1/3 of the american population, or twice that of britain. I could be wrong... but I suspect the value is quite a bit less; given how the rest of your "facts" so called, are nothing of the kind, I suspect your figures aren't up to scatch either.

109. Danger ahead - there are good reasons why God created atheists

Comment #2470 by Martin on October 21, 2006 at 11:54 am

Huh? Exodus? God at his (almost) worst. Why did the good Rabbi forget to mention the jewish/christian god hardening Pharaoh’s heart in order to stop him from releasing the (non-historic) Jewish slaves? Then, to cap it all off, creating the plagues to rub salt into the wound he instigated in the first place? Sheer madness.

However, this is not my main point. Whilst I would agree many composers, Bach included, were inspired by the religious meme, Rabbi Sacks did not balance the equation in two ways:

1) Composers do not write their music exclusively for the love of their god(s), they require something other than thin-air to bring their art to fruition. That something is called 'money'.

2) Many composers were atheists; therefore, the composition of great music, including religious works, is not the exclusive domain of the religious.

I also expect the same points can be made regarding the greats in all the artistic forms. And don’t forget art is a product of the era from which it springs, which means that for many centuries those of an artistic bent had no choice as to the nature of their creative efforts. From a cursory browse of the Internet, here are a few atheist/agnostic composers I recently managed to happen across:

Beethoven, Berlioz, Bizet, Brahms, Debussy, Mozart, Paganini, Schubert, Schumann, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Wagner and Verdi.

110. Alan Colmes Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #2264 by Martin on October 20, 2006 at 8:15 am

Comment #2232 :

That's obvisouly a typo.. it should read:

Psalms 14:1 - "The fool hath said in his heart, there is God."

111. Wide-eyed and Godless

Comment #2262 by Martin on October 20, 2006 at 7:39 am

Yorker,

There is some kind of bug on the site that means people sometimes get an error message when they submit a post. I've raised a comment to site admins and I hope they fix it soon as it's prefectly natural for people to just click back and submit again, resulting in duplicate or triplicate posts.

112. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #2260 by Martin on October 20, 2006 at 7:19 am

Thanks Billy, I didn't have the scientific knowledge to refute those points out of hand, I'm rather glad you did.

I suspect I'm not going to post here again. I could argue until I'm blue in the face, but Phil and the other closed-minded people he assosciates with will never accept what is staring in their face.

We are just going in circles.

He brings up some mystical tripe, we knock it down, he brings up more mystical tripe, or just sticks his fingers in his ears and starts singing.

I'm off to read the bible. Dawkins has actually encouraged me to go read it. And unlike Phil and his ilk, I actually plan to approach it with an open mind. I suspect once I'm done reading I'll probably know more about the bible than Phil, but that wouldn't suprise me, i've noticed that most people that claim scripture is truth have never actually read the bible.

113. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #2255 by Martin on October 20, 2006 at 6:36 am

for "preprated" please read "perpetrated"

114. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #2253 by Martin on October 20, 2006 at 6:34 am

Phil, as usual you didn't read what I said, but immediatly raced into your prepared spiel.

I said:

"If we'd not had Jews and Christians, then Hitler could never have used the slogan of jews as christ-killers to support his drive to have them rounded up and slaugthered."

I never said Hitler was religious, although there is evidence to suggest that at least to start with he was. I accept perfectly that Hitler used religion to whip up a frenzy. But that is my whole point. If there had been no religion he couldn't have used it. Instead he'd have used black vs white, or tall vs, short, or whatever. Hitler was a nut case, and he was going to use anything and everything to justify his homicidal ambition, regardless of the origin.

All the you have shown is that someone as dogmatic as the inquisadors, the conquestors, the muslim extremists causes evil. Well.. I agree. Religion just makes it worse and encourages it.

My value of 4000 was a throw away value I used, I am perfectly aware that the bible was written over a considerable period of time, including as recently as only a few centuries ago.

As Usual you nit pick the trivial matter so that you may safely disregard the consequential points that shake your belief system.

Dawrin may well have been racist. I have no idea. But then again, 50 odd years ago most people in this country would have been racist by today's standards. It is equally possible to interpret darwin's title as an extension of his theory that natural selection favours those races most able to survive in their given environment, and there's nothing racist about that.

As to ignoring the greatest slaugters in history. If your literal belief in the bible is true, then the greatest slaughters in history were preprated by God, making him more evil than all human evil doers combined. The biblical flood wiping out 99.99% or more of the total human population, leaving only Noah and his family as survivors. Human evil is trival compared to god's. Hitler, despite his best efforts, probably didn't manage to depoluate the world of even a single percent, especially if only count those people killed in his genocide camps.

I'd further point out that if the technology at Hitler and Stalins disposal had been available to the inquistors, during the witch hunts, during the hundreds of heritic wars, during the protestant catholic wars and burnings in english history then the death toll resulting from religious intollerance and bigortry would have been at least as devastating, and probably more so.

Religion has killed more people than any other human endeavour, it is the dogmatic unreasoning belief of people like yourself that leads to that slaughter. All you've managed to point out is that religion doesn't have a monopoly on it.

As Weinberg said: " Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. "

115. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #2248 by Martin on October 20, 2006 at 5:13 am

Phil, I'm really starting to suspect that you've not read the book at all.

The cause of the problems in NI are the result of economic problems and a rather ruthless foreign policy by the british govenment that sanctioned the invasion, but that was almost a dozen generations ago. The reasons the problems in NI are still a problem is because of the religious polorisation.

Without reglion, after a couple of generations, you'd have had a group of people living in the same area, speaking with teh same accent, going to teh same schools. Instead of that you have segreation based on religious lines. The cathlics did it, let's kill em. The protestants did it, let's kill them. Religion didn't cause the problems, religion just makes them worse, and prevents them going away.

The same is true in the middle east, and in Nazi Germany. If we'd not had Jews and Christians, then Hitler could never have used the slogan of jews as christ-killers to support his drive to have them rounded up and slaugthered. Without religion there would have been no one to pick on in the first place. Everyone would have just been german.

As to your predictions, they are a load of hot air. It's easy enough to make predictions if you have them vague enough, fortune tellers make good money out of this. I'm not going to object to the writers of hte bible being pretty smart people, and I'm sure that just by observing the world around them and by using the studies of others (the samarian, greeks, babylonians etc) they already had quite a big fount of knowledge about the natural world to have made a number of predictions easy enough to validate, especially, as I said, if they are vague enough.

As to the earth being round. It might interest you to know that scholars (can't remember the names, but I think they were egyption, and based on SCIENTIFIC FACT older than the world you claim you believe in) that surmised the earth was spherical and even managed to prove it, including getting a fairly accurate measure of it's cicrumference. I suggest that any evidence in the bible to suggest the earth might be spherical (and circular implies flat, go use a dictionary) is very likely based on the knowledge available at the time.

Voodoo science because we admit we don't know yet? I was rolling around on the floor laughing when I heard that. The only Voodoo is the one that ingnores the facts and blithly claims some super being someone wrote about 4000 years ago is the answer.

I predict that you will never escape your irrationality and will die in ignorance of the beauty of the natural world. That is the fate of all zealots.

116. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #2235 by Martin on October 20, 2006 at 2:08 am

Paul, I'm basically in the same position.

On an instinctual level I have always "known" that religion is wrong, that there is no god, but I never had enough evidence to really convince myself of that. The God Delusion actually provided all the evidence and allowed me to fully examine all the arguements I kept using to doubt my own intuition. Richard finally made me realise just how silly my own arguements were.

Well.. if god doesn't exist, why do so many people believe in him? I finally realised that was a rather stupid argument. If the earth is round, why did so many people believe it was flat? Well the answer is simple, because they didn't know better.

I know better; that book did a first rate job of pointing that out to me.

117. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #2231 by Martin on October 20, 2006 at 1:21 am

Yes... I am fully aware of the irony of quoting a christian site that is attempting to convert people to the faith as evidence in favour of my secular views.

118. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #2230 by Martin on October 20, 2006 at 1:18 am

Here is the link to Dr Ross' work. http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/unravelling.shtml

You might be interested in paragraph in appendix A from correspondence between Drs Ross and Humphries:

"I have read the paper, but I saw no reason to check your solutions. Whether or not your solutions permit the universe to expand to its present condition in only a few thousand years, reality does not. Astronomical observations overwhelmingly confirm that the expansion rate was slower. In fact, the observed expansion rate is part of the evidence for God’s design. If the universe had expanded any more slowly or rapidly than the observed rate, life in the cosmos at any time would be impossible. There is ample documentation of this point in my own and others’ writings."

Dr Ross, a devout christian, points out that Humphries in his writings is actually trying to (indirectly) deny the existance of a designer god.

119. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #2229 by Martin on October 20, 2006 at 1:06 am

-----
Though you didn't address this question to me, I will attempt an indirect answer anyway. Are you familiar with Dr. Russell Humphreys' book, "Starlight and Time"? Have you ever heard of "white holes" and "gravitational time dilation"? Do you realize that cosmologists had to come up with the idea that the Universe everywhere looks the same (on average, generally) BECAUSE all the evidence indicates that the Earth is near the center of the Universe?
------

Since you mentioned a name, let me quote you an extract:

"The author, Dr. Humphreys, is not formally trained in general relativity or cosmology theory, and his initial article and book acknowledged the tentative character and possible falsity of the new proposal. He also solicited, publicly and privately, feedback from Christian physicists who did have formal training in these disciplines. Starting even before the appearance of Starlight and Time and continuing to the present, such feedback has been forthcoming, and, to our knowledge, it has been uniformly critical of the theory. In fact, Starlight and Time and related writings by Humphreys exhibit profound misunderstandings of relativity theory and cosmology. Humphreys’ theory is irremediably flawed. It is very unfortunate that these writings have been so widely distributed in the young-earth community and have misled so many Christians."

This is taken from The Unraveling of Starlight and Time by Samuel R. Conner and Hugh Ross, Ph.D.

Given that Humphries is not educated in the area he is speculating in, the he himself admits that his speculation is tentative and maybe false, and that those christian scientist whose opinion he has solicited disagreed with him on scientific grounds lead me to the inescapable conclusion that Humphries, like the original authors of genesis, is making it up as he goes along.

I have studied, and enjoyed, physics to an advanced enough level to have encountered time dilation and basic (very basic) reletavistic theory. I have learned enough about it that I know it would take me a years, maybe decades, of dedicated study to even begin to understand it. I therefore have no respect for someone proposing a theory on it that who has it appears no more a background in the subject than I do.

I love white holes, I think they are fantastic, unfortunatly they have been pretty much disproven. Firstly "The existence of white holes that are not part of a wormhole is doubtful, as they appear to violate the second law of thermodynamics." (Wikipedia). The Schwarzchild white holes appear to be rather unsable and unlikely to exist in anything other than a perfect vaccum, and space, is not a perfect vaccum. The references from the Wikipedia page lead to respected scientists whom unlike Humpries above, are actually qualified in the field in which they talking about.

The problem with young earth creationists like yourself Douglas is that, despite the fact that any alleged "facts" you might come up with can be shot down easily by a very large body of evidence and knowledge to the contrary, you refuse to change your stance, or even admit that you might be wrong.

I have made the effort to evaluate the evidence you provide in a rational way. I wish you would do me the courtesy to do the same with my evidence. Admitatly this is a alot harder for you, since there I only need to read a couple of people's work, whily yuo would need to read the work of most of the worlds expert on a subject.

Please do not provide anymore evidence from someone who is not an expert in their field. It does not help your argument and just makes you appear ignorant. It also encourages people to discard your arguments out of hand as coming from a zealot, and that will never help you advance your point of view. I'm willing to be convinced by you (an open mindedness that appears lacking in yourself), but in the face of overwhelming evidence against your point of view you've got your work cut out for you.

120. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #2016 by Martin on October 18, 2006 at 8:08 am

----------
Raptors with feathers? I've never actually seen any depiction of raptors with feathers. Most of the stuff I've seen of raptors has them with reptile like skin. Have you seen Jurrassic park? or the BBCs excellent walking with dinosaurs? Raptors with feathers sounds very much like apologist brainwashing, or scientific theory that has long ago been invalidated. The thing about these depictions is that no one was actually around when the dinosaurs were so it's impossible for us to actually know what they looked or sounded like. Scientific evidence though means that we can make a very good estimate.
-----------

I stand corrected. I would like to thank Paul for pointing out my error. I'd never realised that feathered dinosaurs existed, and I'm happy to accept that they do. Partly because I believe in the truth, and partly because I'm rather pleased that it knocks another nail into the coffin of the creationist bigots.

I rather liked that article as well, thanks for the link Paul, makes very interesting reading.

I still believe that feathered RAPTORS is incorrect, but who knows.. maybe we'll find one one day.

121. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #2013 by Martin on October 18, 2006 at 8:04 am

------
(Phil) What you don’t seem to understand is you own interruption of evolution. You seem to be puzzled at the fact you can witness tiny changes but can’t accept that they are limited. Your imagination wants to change one animal to another without proof and you continually fail to comprehend this.
------

Puzzled? Not at all, i'm amazed by it. It's an incredible example of complex structures can be created out of simple steps. My imagination has no problem changning one animal to another. The problem you have is that you keep demandind people to show you how to get from a collection of lego stones to a complete house in one step. Not even the 10 year old child that received the lego as a gift will be so naive as to demand such a proof. Evolution can show you how you get from from a single lego brick to a complete house. Every time you add a lego brick you have a tiny change. Sometimes you put the brick in the wrong place, and you need to remove it again (extinction). Evolution prooves equivocally that you can build a lego house using lots of little lego bricks and adding them one at a time. People like yourself are the ones that are too lazy to build a lego house one brick at a time, but insist that it must have sprung into being all at once.

I have no idea what that jumble of confused sentences are supposed to show with regards to my request for proof. I suspect it boils down the same thing as a petulant child refusing to accept what it sees with it's own eyes because it's not what it wants. You demand proof of evolution and you have been handed it in spades. You refuse to accept that proof, that's your prerogative, just don't demand we accept what you say without proof.

------
(Phil) Then why do Raptors display feathers in books when none have been discovered growing from them, its imagination. The point I am making is that no matter whatever the dog, it’s still a dog, big, small, frightened or tempered, its still a dog, not a turtle, ok. It will always be a dog and no science has shown any animal let alone a dog change to a different kind of animal. Stop repeating this faiytail “it takes millions of years” because you cant prove it.
------

Raptors with feathers? I've never actually seen any depiction of raptors with feathers. Most of the stuff I've seen of raptors has them with reptile like skin. Have you seen Jurrassic park? or the BBCs excellent walking with dinosaurs? Raptors with feathers sounds very much like apologist brainwashing, or scientific theory that has long ago been invalidated. The thing about these depictions is that no one was actually around when the dinosaurs were so it's impossible for us to actually know what they looked or sounded like. Scientific evidence though means that we can make a very good estimate.

------
(Phil) You are muddled! I though you believed it was billions? I believe yes, less than 30000 but there was a stronger magnetic field over the earth and now it is declining so less c14 was able to penetrate the atmosphere thousands of years ago. This would drop the rate of c14 as more is getting in today than there was back then.
-------

I believe it was billions. I was just using the 30,000 year figure out provided to invalidate your arguemnt. It's called conceeding a trivial point to make a larger one. If I were inclined to give any credibility to your less carbon-14 claim, which I don't, I don't see how that effect could make a difference of 24,000 years. A couple of millenia maybe, but surey not the travesty that creationism claims. It's obvious from your reply that you didn't read the article that Paul posted. It makes for very interesting reading. Of course your lack of scientific training and you're refusal to educate yourself and trust the bible blindly like some lemming, probably means you'd not understand the simple truth if it stood up infront of you and whacked oyu on the nose.

----
(Phil) It is not my goal to prove God exists. Please see my comments above, but to show how evolution and nothing exploding is not scientific and if you do believe it then you are deeply religious because you believe this with all you heart and youll end up like preachers such as Dawkins to prove it.
-----

Evolution and the big bang theory have stood up to peer review, scientific scrutiny and independent and verification and more importantly independent discovery. None of which can be said for creationism. That is the scientific method, that is how science and scientists know they are correct. The problem with your arguements is that while there are 1000s of examples that provide proof for evolution there are only one of two that support creationism and those "facts" have failed to stand up to the scientific process, i.e. peer review and independent scrutiny. If you accept things like cars, planes, the internet, medicine and computers, then you accept that the scitific method is valid, because without it, the research that led to those things would never have been accepted.

-----
If you can’t get my point about science and religious overviews (bible studies or evolution) that are crammed in and called scientific then don’t comment on them. This is the last time I comment on it.
-----
I'm a bit disappointed that you'll stop commenting. I was rather hoping you'd actually be able to produce a coherent and respectible arguement. I suspect though that that is impossible, as you refuse to even read the evidence that is presented to oyu and even discard it out of hand because it was not written by your creationist brainwashers.

122. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #1959 by Martin on October 18, 2006 at 5:38 am

Phil,

You're requests for proof by seeing dogs with feathers is ludicrous and certainly not rationale. If you understood the first thing of evolutionn you would realise that proof of that would be very hard to come by. I don't think video cameras were around millions of years ago.

I want you to prove that god exists without the need to resort to the bible, since that was written by man, not god. I want proof. I want a video of a miracle. I want to see something that contradicts scientific knowledge in a spectacular fashion. A video of someone parting the red sea maybe, or a video of someone flying without technical aids.

You may think this is unreasonable, but any rationale person will consider this request as reasonable, and possibly more so, than a request to see a dog with feathers.

If what you say about carbon 14 is correct, then fair enough, I was mistaken. You did say carbon 14 becomes invalid after about 30,000 years. Well, that's fine. The young earth advocates believe in a 6000 year old year, so my arguement is still perfectly valid.

You never did explain why the light from stars millions of light years away doesn't invalidate the young earth theory.

Those sentences of mine you qutoed in no way invalidate the probability that a god may exist. Those statements all just provide supporting evidence that he probably doesn't.

123. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #1838 by Martin on October 17, 2006 at 5:25 am

----
1) What's all this about 'Imagine' by John Lennon? One of the most turgid songs of all time, have a word Dawkins.

2) Lalla? Now I know I've read this before, but it just gets worse every time. He could at least try and make something up that sounds less Primrose Hill. Bottletop or something.

Flawless other than that.
----

Love the sarcasm... at least I hope it is.

If not: How dare you critisise Lalla Ward. I had a crush on her when I was a wee lad, her and whoever played Nyssa. But that's another story. Romana has to have been the sexiest time-lord (or lady?) ever.

124. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #1837 by Martin on October 17, 2006 at 5:12 am

I would like to register a new word :)

"agressivement": to have an aggressive temperament :P

125. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #1835 by Martin on October 17, 2006 at 5:10 am

I apologise for the intermingling of statements in the above post.

I was attempting to quote lines using HTML tags which appear to have been stripped out.

I hope though that it should be fairly clear which statements are mine, and which are Phil's.

126. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #1833 by Martin on October 17, 2006 at 5:04 am

Ok here is my point. I believe evolution is a religious philosophy praised and worshipped by humanists, Nazis or atheists of all sorts. It is mainly to inspire the notion to get rid of God but because of the lack of evidence it is not scientific. Where is the evidence to support the God delusion? Where is the evidence to evolution? Where is the evidence to support: nothing - BANG?


Evolution has nothing to do with religion. You seem unable to grasp what science is without turning it into belief. Evolution is a theory. It is heuristic that correctly describes ALL currently known FACTS. There are zero facts to support any theory that some super being had anything to do with things.

The whole "looks designed" argument is so narrow minded to be almost trivial. I'm sure you've seen those illusion images. I think specifically of the one where a series of lines are presented interlaced with curved lines so that the lines appear to be of different lenghts. The creationist see these lines and says "these look straight. QED, they are straight.". A scientist gets out a ruler and measures a couple of the lines that look different lenght and notices that they are all the same lenght. He proposes a theory that says, all the other lines must also be the same length, because the facts he has observed support this. The creationist just goes "but they look different lenghts, so they must be."

Young earth advocates conistantly fail to acknowledge (or just downright ignore) the fact that the Earth is facutally unable to be as young as they claim.

Carbon-dating alone shows that the earth has to be millions of years old. The light from distant stars has travelled much longer than 6000 years or even 10000 years.

Supposing they are correct, then their god is obviously a liar. He either created the light rays half way to the earth. He buried fossils in the ground and accelartated the carbon-14 decay (I think it's c-14 can't remember) to simulate age.

Either he did that, or he's manipulating and interfering with all scientific measurements being made.

In either case, god is a liar and a deceiver. You then must question why god would do such a thing. Lying is abviously not a good example to set. Who does god need to prove something to, does he have peers? Any super being as propsed by the creationists would have no need to lie to beings as inconsequential as us. Where is the gain in lying? Therefore it is most likely that god wouldn't lie. So even without having to question the existance of god, it becomes clear that the creationist arguement is self defeating. I certainly wouldn't worship any being that has to resort to lies and trickery, as the creationist god does.


Since you have not provided any during this discussion I can suggest an alternative: Creation. Although replaced at a time when thought we would get substantive evidence to support evolution the clock is now ticking and the evolution theory stands on the verge of imploding under its own lies and falsely called science.


Here you go. A wealth of scientific litarature to support my point. Yes not everyone agrees about the speicifc of evolution but the vast majority of scientists (religious or otherwise) do not question the fact that we evolved from more primitive life forms and that this happened over millions of years.

http://www.evolutionpages.com/resources.htm


I have ignored the so called faults with the bible because Im trying to point out the horrendous amount of nonsense weighting the big bang and the evolutionary process. I have still not seen one beneficial mutation. I ask for evidence and I get bacteria changing to adapt but remaining bacteria. How dose this prove you came from rocks or muck billions of years ago after a cosmic burp?
You are religious and this is not to attack emotionally but to inform you of a fact from one religious individual who thinks outside the evolution box to another wedged inside.


You don't see the them, because you refuse to see them. Dogs make a great example of beneficial mutation. I'll need to make a caveat here that I'm speaking as a lay person.

It is also an example of how humans made use of benefitial mutations and shaped evolution to our own will. All dogs started out as wild animals, untamed untrained, the wolves we still have today.

The reason we have so many different types of dogs, so many different temparments is because dogs mutated to have different characterisicsl; agressivement, passivity, speed, and so on. Humans found those mutations to be beneficial, and we ensured that only those dogs with the mutations we agreed with, that we found beneifical were allowed and encouraged to breed. As a result over many many generations we influenced the evolution of dogs to suit our needs and into the forms we have today. Selective breeding is just a fancy name for human guided evolution. The mutations those dogs had must have been beneficial by default, because those that weren't benefical weren't allowed to breed, and hence don't exist anymore.


To say my argument is muddled is amazing considering you show no defence of nothing BANGED and change the name in the paragraph of a literal point to have a laugh! I’m not showing evidence of Gods existence (although there is certainly evidence to suggest a worldwide flood as there is uncountable animals fossilised in layers of strata formed by hydrologic sorting) because the burden of proof is on you to keep you crumbling theory afloat.


I'm not going to argue that there was never a world flood. I doubt very much though that it happend all at once, and certainly not that there was anything divine about it. We are heading towards a world flood at the moment with global warming and the melting of the ice-caps, and god certainly has nothing to do with that. There is masses of evidence of ice ages, and when the ice melts.. teh water must go somewhere. hence flooding. Any sane person would give more credence to those possibilites than the possiblity that some super being decided to empty his bucket over the planet in a fit of pique.

I can't explain the big bang. Many people smarter than me are trying and many theories, backed oversable physics and extrapolated using verifiable mathematics have been provided.

Personally the theory of a cyclic universe appeals to me, although that has been moslty disproven in recent years.

I'm much more inclined to believe that there was nothing, then something. Than I am inclined to believe that there was God.. then there was something. Because that opens up another question: Where did god come from? Who created god. Who does god worship; himself? Does he worship some other super-god that created him? And who does the super god worship. The religious theory creates more questions than it answers.

As an atheist I cannot discount the existance of some super being, but given that almost everything we have always wondered about, questioned and not been able to explain, we eventually have been able to explain, by scientific and rational means, and above all by evidence. I am therefore convinced that all the other things can be explained by the same method.

Just because people believed you'd die when you hit the sound barrier, or you'd catch fire from air resistance when you travelled faster than 100mph doesn't make them true.

You never realise how stupid you were until you learn different. The difference between an atheist and a religious person is that the atheist is trying to learn better. The theist prefers to remain stupid, and ascribe everything s/he cannot explain to some super being.

127. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #1828 by Martin on October 17, 2006 at 4:24 am

"I don't have to prove my belief is valid"

Yet you admit this is science? And science dosnt rely on faith but facts?

You are muddled.


I'm sorry if the irony in my statement escaped you.

128. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #1807 by Martin on October 17, 2006 at 2:11 am

Comment 234 is mine.

129. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #1802 by Martin on October 17, 2006 at 1:46 am

Ah, it seems you acknowledged your source while I was writing my message.

I'm glad you decided to be honest.

130. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #1738 by Martin on October 16, 2006 at 7:40 am

Andy:

A challenge. Well.. if some of the stones float, then I as a rational being would have to wonder what makes those stones different.

I'd not heard of pumice before, i'll need to look them up. But I suspect that if i'd study them i'd discover something that would enable them to float. Maybe they contain air pockets and float for that reason.

A faith-head would just go "see the book was right", and use this as proof positive that everything the book says is right, ignoring that most of the other stones sank. A rational being would go "hmm.. i wonder why that happend."

131. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #1733 by Martin on October 16, 2006 at 6:46 am

I thought I'd write a rebuttal. I rather liked the intellectual challange and the opportunity to see just how much I can have my views stand up to scrutiny. It's a shame that no evidence was given for creationism, probably because there isn't any that would stand up to scrutiny. But that's ok, I gave very little evidence in my rebuttal, so fair's fair. I just happen to think that my thoughts are considerably more rational then the simplistic and lazy response of "god did it". My responses may well be wrong, since I claim no expertship in any major field of science. I do claim to be reasonalby intelligent and rational, and I would like to think my answers are both. Feel free to disagree, but please disagree rationally and with the blind faith of "but god said so".

I'm sure others have rebutted (is that a word?) it better, but I like a challenge :)

(1) Where are the trillions of fossils of such true transitional forms?
Critics of creationism often say that creationism is simply religion, whereas evolutionism is based on science. The Bible says in Genesis 1 that all creatures reproduce "after their kind" (no change to another kind, i.e., no transitional forms). So the complete absence of transitional forms in the fossil record supports creationism.


Transitional forms do exist. Not as many as we might like though. A little interpolation is required. It also comes down to what you exect to find. Judging by your later comments you probably have a very unrealistic view of what should be there. One of the big arguments of Intelligent Design is that because we haven't yet found an intermediate form from stage a to c must mean it was God that did it. When a rational person would simply say "Well, we've not found that yet".

And as someone pointed out... fossilisation happens under only very specific and rare circumstances. It's therefore a lot more likely that we will not find any fossils as opposed to the chance of actually finding them.

(2) Is this scientific evidence for creationism, or isn't it?
I have also noted that evolutionists only discuss this subject in the broadest terms. If evolution is true, why don't they give us answers to questions such as these:

No it's not evidence, because you make an unfounded assumption that genesis is correct. I can prove that genesis is wrong easily enough: every time a child is born with a deformity, or a mutation, a missing finger, or toe, siamese twins, sharing organs. Those are "not of their kind". I've not decided one way or another if these are actual "errors" in teh biological process or actually evolution trying out new things. I leave it to people like Richard to figure that out for those less able to examine it,

(3)Where did all the 90-plus elements come from (iron, barium, calcium, silver, nickel, neon, chlorine, etc)?

The sun, or rather it's siblings. Richard explains this quite well, maybe you should read the book. Basically when a sun explodes these elements are formed as by-products of the explosion. They are project out into the universe and eventually form gaseous clouds and then planets.

4) How do you explain the precision in the design of the elements, with increasing numbers of electrons in orbit around the nucleus?

Laws of physics and chemistry. You're question is actually reveresed. The elements are the way they are because of the way they are organised. The organisation came first, not the element.

(5) Where did the thousands of compounds we find in the world come from: carbon dioxide, sodium chloride, calcium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, oxalic acid, chlorophyll, sucrose, hydrogen sulfide, benzene, aluminum silicate, mercaptans, propane, silicon dioxide, boric acid, etc.?
How was it determined how many bonds each element would have for combining with other elements? When did these compounds develop from the elements (before the big bang, during the big bang, after the big bang)? When evolutionists use the term "matter", which of the thousands of compounds are included? When evolutionists use the term "primordial soup", which of the elements and compounds are included? Why do books on evolution, including grade-school, high-school and college textbooks not include such important, basic information? Evolutionists are masters of speculation. Why don't they speculate about this?

Maybe you should study chemistry. All those questions find answers there.

The reason all those things are not in grade-school text-books is because if they were, kids would not be able to learn the other things they needed to learn, like language, maths and many other things. That's why teaching gets much more specialised the older we get. I won't insult children by saying they aren't intelligent enough to understand the information, but they don't have enough knowledge yet to understand it, and that knowledge takes time to aquire, and schools can't afford to concentrate on just one area.

(6) How did life develop from non-life?

A very good question. I don't think anyone has an answer to this yet. Richard makes a good argument for it being chance, and I think his arguement is valid.

(7) Where did the human emotions, such as love, hate, and jealousy come from?

I have no idea, maybe someone could explain it to me. It's a good question, but certainly not one that requires "God" as an answer.

(8) What are the odds that the evolutionary process, proceeding by random changes, would produce human beings, plus millions of species of animals, birds, fish, and insects, all with symmetrical features, i.e., one side being a mirror image of the other? We take symmetry in all these creatures for granted, but is that a reasonable outcome for a random process?

There is no symmetry in humans, not even in the human face. Magazines and newspapers sometimes amuse themselves by taking the face of famous people and mirroring one side onto the other. The person is usually quite unrecognisable. You should try it. Why we have legs and arms equally on either side has, i suspect, got a lot to do with balance. It's also a lot easier to control things if we are consistent. I suggest that a brain that would need to be able to deal with two different sides would need to be a lot more complex. If things are mirrored the brain can just invert and needs to do a lot less work.

(9) What are the odds that of the millions of species of animals, birds, fish, and insects, a male of each species developed at the same time and in the same place as a female of the same species, so that the species could propagate?

Again, you pose an interesting question. You are wrong though. There are examples in nature of creatures that change sex during their life. Amphibians i believe have a number of such creatures. As to male adn female being there at the same time, well, you can't really have one without the other so they would have to be there, or we'd not be here to argue about it. At some point evolution decided things would be better if reproduction was carried out by two components, instead of asexually.

(10) Why are there 2 sexes anyhow? This is not foreordained in the evolutionary framework. Is there some sort of plan here?

Ants have 3 sexes (if you can call the neuter worker ants a sex). I'm sure a biologist could come up with more examples.

(11) If the first generation of mating species didn't have parents, how did the mating pair get to that point anyhow? Isn't evolution supposed to progress when an offspring of a mating pair has a beneficial mutation?
Conclusion: No parents, no evolution. A species would have to jump from a primitive form to a fully developed male and female, each with the ability and instinct to mate.

I'd argue that the first "mating pair" was actually so primitive you'd hardly recognise it as life as such. It probably started off as an asexual that later became bisexual, being able to fullfil both roles. Finally it transpired that things might be easier if the lifeforms specialised. So the male and female lifeforms started to specialise over the generations, but always maintaining that link that allowed them to reproduce. Sometimes I suspect evolution got it wrong, resulting in infertility, but since those failures by definition can't be propagated, they never survived long.

(12) How did the heart, lungs, brain, stomach, veins, blood, kidneys, etc. develop in the first animal by slow, minute steps and and the animal survive while these changes were occurring?
For example, did the first animal develop 10% of complete veins, then 20%, and on up to 100%, with veins throughout its entire body and brain? Then how did the heart slowly develop in the animal and get attached to the veins in the right spot? How did the blood enter the system? The blood could not enter before the veins were complete or it would spill out. Where did the blood come from? Did the blood have red corpuscles, white corpuscles, platelets, and plasma? At what point in this process of development did the heart start beating?
Did the animal develop a partial stomach, then a complete stomach? After the stomach was formed, how did the digestive juices enter the stomach? Where did the hydrochloric acid as part of the digestive juices come from? What about its kidney and bladder? The animal better not eat anything prior to this. How did the animal survive during these changes? (And over thousands of years?) Of course, at the same time the animal's eyes must be fully developed so it can see its food and his brain must be fully developed so the animal can control its body to get to the food.
Like the heart, brain, veins, and stomach, all of the organs and systems in the first animal's body must be fully functional in the first moments of life. This indicates that evolution couldn't occur, and the fossil record indicates that it didn't occur!!! In other words, if you cannot come up with a detailed, feasible scenario of how the first animal developed, the whole evolutionary theory goes out the window, because it never could have even gotten started! Or is your attitude going to be: "Don't bother me with such details. My mind is made up."?

Read dawkins book, he explains it very well. They didn't come about just like that. You are trying to make far too big a jump, a common mistake of those looking for God in everything. I'm not a biologist, but I can certainly speculate on how things developed. The thing to remember is that nothing developed by itself.

How does all of this happen in a baby? Human evolution can be seen on fast forward in a developing faetus. A couple of cells start reproducing. As the mass gets bigger it needs better mechanisms for keeping itself a live, so the heart develops. As the faetus grows it needs to make sure nutrients and oxygen are moved to all parts of itself, so the veins are grown to make the connections. As the lungs and hearts improve and grow stronger, so other parts of the faetus must evolve to support them. In 9 months we can see millions of years of evolution working to create a baby. It's amazing really.

(13) Why do books on evolution, including biology textbooks, always start with a fully developed animal when attempting to explain how one species developed into another species? Why don't evolutionists first explain how the first animal developed? (An animal with a heart, lungs, brain, stomach, etc.)

Because everything started as a single celled organism somewhere. How exactly do you define when something becomes an "animal"?

(14) What are the odds that the evolutionary process, proceeding by random changes, would produce a system in human reproduction whereby exactly 50% of offspring are male and 50% are female (based on 50% X-chromosomes and 50% Y-chromosomes)? Again – is there some sort of a plan here?

It's not 50/50, but I'll grant you it's fairly close. It has to do with number theory and statistics. If the chance of a creature being male or female is 50/50, then the chance is therefore 1 in 2. A coin has 2 sides. If you throw a coin 6 billion times, you'll find that you'll have it land on heads pretty close to 3 billion times.

To a creationist, the incredible complexity of human life, animal life, plant life, and the universe is absolutely overwhelming evidence that there must have been a designer.
Evidence for a designer: The law of gravity is basic to an understanding of the universe.

You have things the wrong way around. The universe is the way it is because of gravity. If gravity weren't the way it is, the universe would be different.

(15) Where did the law of gravity come from? Did it have a beginning? Isn't it reasonable to assume that when matter was created, the law of gravity was established at the same time to regulate matter?
Further evidence: The earth receives an incredible amount of energy from the sun, even though the sun is 93,000,000 miles away. Yet the earth only receives one part in 2 trillion of the sun's total energy. And since the sun is only an average star among the 100 trillion billion stars in the universe, the total energy in all these stars is absolutely beyond human comprehension. ( I have read that the number of stars is greater than the number of grains of sand in every beach and desert in the world! )

Newton used gravity to describe what he saw around him. Quantum physics is currently trying to figure out why gravity exists and why it behaves the way it does.

(16) Where did this energy come from? Isn’t the only reasonable answer that it was the result of a creative act by an almighty designer/creator?

Matter and energy are interchangable. e = mc^2 and all that. Someone else posted a better response earlier.

(17) Why do evolutionists summarily dismiss the evidence from design without any serious consideration?
Professor D.M.S. Watson, zoologist and Chair of Evolution at University College London has given us some insight as to why this is so. He said, "Evolution [is] a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible". This of course is an admission that the foundation of evolution is not science, but a rejection of the supernatural. Evolution then is simply the best alternative anyone has been able to come up with. This also means that evolution is the only field in science where one decides on the answer first, and then looks for evidence to support that predetermined answer.

No, evolution isn't the only field. ALL scientific research and study works on teh principle of setting up expected behaviour "the hypothesis" or theory and then trying to prove or disprove it. The only reason evolution is still a theory is because we've not been able to mathematically prove it. The empirical evidence is overwhelming though.

The reason rational scientists (even religious ones) dismiss creationism is because there is no evidence for it, only speculation. Should someone ever offer verifiable and repeatable evidence that evolution is wrong, then the theory will change. That's how science works.

Newtons theory of gravity was just that. Newton saw the way objects behaved. He then decided that this must be a universal constant and said.. if this object behaves this way, then this other object must as well. I suspect he was probably wrong hte first few times he tried out his theories. Eventually he found one that did actually work on everything he tried. That theory stood for centuries, until Einstein came a long and tried on something newton had never imaginged. Suddenly people realised that newton was only partially right. His laws apply only for slow moving objects. Once things start getting closer to the speed of light his theory breaks down, not because it's wrong, but because at those speeds factors which were insignificant at slow speeds start becoming increasingly significant.

(18) Other than rejection of the supernatural, how else can one explain the steadfast adherence of evolutionists to this theory even though they do not know the origin of the 3 main bases of evolution: the origin of matter, the origin of energy, and the origin of life?
If you believe in evolution:

As someone pointed out, that's not a question. It's a statement.

(19) Can you give us just one coercive proof of evolution, i.e., a proof that absolutely eliminates any other possible explanation for the origin of the universe, the material world, and human life?

Nope I can't. I can point you at vast quantities of evidence though. Let's take a mundane example. 2 Men are standing on a cliff. We'll call one man, Creation and the other Evolution. Creation says "If you drop a stone onto water it will float on top". Evolution says "Why do you believe that?" Creation says "I read it in a book.". Evolution goes and gets 1000 stones. He starts dropping them off the cliff into the water. Every stone sinks. Creation says.. "That's not proof, thats just evidence". Creation is right, it's not proof. Evolution can't prove that every stone that every existed or will ever exist will sink, yet given the amount of _evidence_ it's extremely likely every stone will sink.

(20) Isn't it true that rather than proofs of evolution, all that evolutionists can come up with are evidences for evolution to someone who already believes in evolution?

see above.

132. The Dawkins Delusion

Comment #1399 by Martin on October 12, 2006 at 4:41 am

Randy,

Even Richard himself doesn't advocate the burning of the bible, but states that the bible (albeit fiction) is a great work of art and of massive literary value. If one takes it as fiction it actually makes a pretty fair fantasy novel.

It is only the religious zealots and fundamentalist that go around burning other peoples' belief's books.

Richard's book has actually made me want to go and read the bible, since i've never actually read it fully. With my new found conviction that god probably doesn't exist, i can enjoy the bible like i'd enjoy any other fantasy novel.

133. Collateral Damage: Part 2

Comment #514 by Martin on October 2, 2006 at 1:53 pm

"I wonder how many years we're going to require before hitting your children becomes just as unthinkable"


It's illegal in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Latvia, Norway, Romania, Sweden, and Ukraine. In Sweden, it's been illegal since 1979.