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Comments by mmurray


101. God and Science Collide in Nation's Capital

Comment #181752 by mmurray on May 18, 2008 at 6:46 am

These essays were also commented on in Bob Park's What's New this week


1. BIG QUESTION: DOES SCIENCE MAKE BELIEF IN GOD OBSOLETE?

Yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, William Phillips, 1997 Nobel Prize for Physics, answered "Absolutely not!," while Michael Shermer, well known skeptic and author, said "It depends." Their stimulating debate was co-sponsored by the Templeton Foundation, created in 1987 to act as a "catalyst" for scientific studies into the "Big Questions." Shermer noted that "belief in God," cannot be obsolete since most people, including many scientists, are believers. Science, by contrast, begins with causality; supernatural causes don't count. To Phillips, however, that simply means that belief in God is not a scientific belief. Like most religious scientists, Phillips keeps science and religion separate. The God/Creator doesn't do much these days. He must be emeritus. Or perhaps quantum-indeterminacy exists to allow God to do stuff without being detected. You may recall that Templeton once went directly to the American Association for the Advancement of Science with a million dollars to create the AAAS Dialogue between Science and Religion. What Templeton bought was elaborate sound effects supporting his conviction that science and religion will find common ground. Many scientists found this relationship inappropriate and it was ended. For the American Enterprise Institute it seems perfect.




Michael

102. God and Science Collide in Nation's Capital

Comment #181742 by mmurray on May 18, 2008 at 6:10 am

Ah Mary Midgeley famous for not understanding the Selfish Gene and being very rude to Richard Dawkins

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

Can it just be a coincidence that a midge is an annoying little biting fly with an irritating high pitched whine ?

Michael

103. God and Science Collide in Nation's Capital

Comment #181735 by mmurray on May 18, 2008 at 5:43 am

AEI and Templeton. What an excellent combination.

All those cats seem to be in the same eigenstate of the aliveness operator.

Michael

104. The Dissent Of Darwin - The World Of Richard Dawkins

Comment #181718 by mmurray on May 18, 2008 at 3:46 am

There is an interesting article on testicles on wikipedia

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


The basal condition for mammals is to have internal testicles. Only the Boreoeutherian land mammals, the large group of mammals that includes humans, have externalized testicles. Indeed their testicles function best at temperatures lower than their core body temperature. Their testes are located outside of the body, suspended by the spermatic cord within the scrotum. The testes of the non-boreotherian mammals such as the monotremes, armadillos, sloths, elephants remain within the abdomen.[3] There are also some Boreoeutherian mammals with internal testes, such as the rhinoceros.


Michael

105. These dim-wits believe in anything but God

Comment #181711 by mmurray on May 18, 2008 at 3:06 am


Doesn't say a great deal for his understanding of the separation of church and state either.


It's the UK so there isn't any separation of church and state. Bishops of the Church of England are automatically members of the House of Lords. There is a compulsory act of christian worship in every school every week. My understanding is that this is often ignored or just becomes a school meeting.

When I grew up in Australia I was Catholic but I went to a non-Catholic government school. As such my parents were allowed to exempt me from RE because it wasn't Catholic. So I spent RE lessons reading in the library. A lot more fun than colouring in drawings of bible stories. Seems bizarre now I think about it.

Michael

106. Indian village proud after double 'honor killing'

Comment #181402 by mmurray on May 17, 2008 at 6:27 am

A quote from Wikipedia:


Honor killing of female family members occurs among some rural Muslim communities with a strongly feudal tribal culture, as well as Druze and Christian tribes in some Arab countries and Pakistan. It also occurs among other South Asian communities, including Hindu and Sikh adherents in India, the United Kingdom and Canada. However, it is much rarer or non-existent in the Muslim communities of most of Central Asia (including Kazakhstan and Kyrghyzstan), Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, sub-Saharan Africa, Malaysia and Indonesia due to its cultural roots.
The United Nations Population Fund estimates that the annual worldwide total of honor-killing victims may be as high as 5,000 women.


On the question of whether other primates or chimps do this Jared Diamond has a thesis that would suggest not. His idea is that these kinds of behaviours arise because of the long timeinvestment human males have to make in raising children and hence the evolutionary `need' to make sure the genes the male is investing all that time in are his. Couple that with the fact that human female ovulation is not obvious so they male cannot really know if these genes are his unless he keeps very close watch upon the female.

If this is true you would also expect that honours killings have been around ever since the physiological changes that lead to longer periods of parenting and difficult to spot ovulation.

While we justifiably view these murders with horror it is worth asking why our own societies still view consensual incest (eg brother and sister) as a crime.

Michael

107. Pelosi, Reid shunning Ten Commandments?

Comment #181372 by mmurray on May 17, 2008 at 4:01 am

Noo Roolz - Teh Ten Commanders
1 Then Ceiling Cat spoked all them werds:

2 I iz Ceiling Cat An I iz Top Cat, An I broughted u out of hawt lend wit no cheezbrgrs for hard werk at all

3 No can has other ceiling cat!! U gotz other Ceiling Cat, I shoot yous wit mah lazer eyes.

4 If u try be Ceiling Cat of any of mai creayshunz up in floaty skai, down in erth or in watr or I shoot yous wit mah lazer eyes.5 If u think faek Ceiling Cat iz Ceiling Cat, I mek u ded An ur kittens ded An if yur kittenz have kittenz, dey be ded too, for being stupid.6 If not I wuv u An all ur lotz uf kittenz!

7 U sez Ceiling Cat bad, I shoot yous wit mah lazer eyes, cuz I dun liek it. Srsly.

8 Remembur caturday An keep holy.9 U werk 6 dais An finish werk, K?10 Caturday, u no werk. U An all ur peepz go wrship me. And, if yu beez gudd, I maks it so yu can stays home and do alla stuffs yu wanted tu doos.11 I maded heavenz An erth An see An the stuff that does teh funney hoppey stuffz in An on it - so I make it holy cuz I no werk.

12 Bez u good to papa An mama so u has long lief.

13 U no maek peepz ded! Srsly!

14 U no maek sexxes wit other gurlz or menz than ur wief (so no awsum treesum alowed!).

15 U no taek stuffs for free if not getz for free.

16 U no tell bad stuff about ur neibor.

17 U no wantz neibor stuff! No wief, no gurlz, no menz, no animulz, NO BUKKITZ! DEY NOT UR BUKKITZ, K? dey da LOLrus' bukkits.

18 When peepz see mai great orkestr wit thundr An all cool speshul effects thei wur scardy wimps

19 Thei sed to Moses 'U goez speek to uz An we will listen; but Ceiling Cat will shoot us wit its lazer eyes!'

20 Moses LOL'd lotz, An a bit moar, for thei wuz such wimps, An sed 'Ceiling Cat no maek u ded; he just wantz to hav fun wit u gais An maek u scaredy cats so u obei him.'

21 But peepz wur still wimps An let Moses go ther to Ceiling Cat.

108. Bible Theme Park Faces Opposition in Tennessee

Comment #180731 by mmurray on May 15, 2008 at 4:28 pm

So they are concentrating on the historical aspects like parting the Red Sea. Right.

Michael

109. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #180478 by mmurray on May 15, 2008 at 4:05 am

Maybe they have finally got around to testing the blood in the Holy Grail and discovered it doesn't come from any earth based lifeform. So they are just softening us up for the big Jesus was an Alien announcement.

Michael

110. The Dissent Of Darwin - The World Of Richard Dawkins

Comment #180477 by mmurray on May 15, 2008 at 4:00 am

Even if the testes were inside we would still be having this argument about the penis. What good is the semen factory without the mechanism to deliver the product. In the absence of a fully retractable penis there can't be much greater cost to having the testes outside also.


Great idea. Pants would fit so much better. Seriously isn't the penis less fragile? Could someone test this for us ?

Michael

111. Is Science Killing the Soul?

Comment #180452 by mmurray on May 15, 2008 at 2:10 am

And how did we get here, and why did one particular group of creatures on the plains of Africa suddenly pick up a stone and start playing with it, scratching things, or skinning things, doing things, going places, colonizing the globe.


It wasn't one particular group though. Homo erectus and homo neanderthals picked up rocks as well and also moved out of Africa. Homo sapiens didn't do much for 100,000 years and then exploded out around 50,000 years ago to take over the world. IMHO why that happened is the interesting thing.

Michael

112. The Dissent Of Darwin - The World Of Richard Dawkins

Comment #180449 by mmurray on May 15, 2008 at 2:01 am

Why is it so implausible that evolution might have got stuck in a dead-end where the only option was to hang the testicles outside the body ? Do we know when the body temperature started to rise above the optimum level for sperm ?

Michael

113. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #180065 by mmurray on May 14, 2008 at 6:52 am

I wonder if the Rev has read `Childhood's End' by Arthur C Clarke where the aliens came but they all looked liked satan? He might prefer the Ray Bradbury short story `The Man' where the main character goes from planet to planet trying to meet up with Jesus and each time Jesus has just left.

Michael

114. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #180059 by mmurray on May 14, 2008 at 6:45 am

of course it doesnt because when you are talking about the unknowable, all powerful, supernatural entity you can just make up any stuff you want, on the spot at any time.


Of course but the Catholic Church do try and make the new stuff fit in with the old stuff. They don't usually bring out the `it's all a mystery' escape clause unless they have to. I remember as a kid listening to sermons and being amused how similar it was to reading something by an ardent Marxist of some kind -- there was that same sense of pulling a few things out of thin air and taking them as given truths and then trying to fit the rest of reality in with logical argument.

I have to admit, I find the snarkiness and use of logical fallacy in this "clear thinking oasis" a bit disturbing.

You mean everyone here is guilty of committing logical fallacies?


Epeeist I was sure you were someone who knew their quantifiers? I think the claim is that

\forall x \in RD.net x is clearthinking

is contradicted by

\exists x \in RD.net x is snarky and uses logical fallacies.

I kind of agree with the original poster. There are many, many evils that the Catholic Church should be held account for not least of which is their contribution to the population explosion underlying our resources problems and global warming. It's silly attacking them for things that they can easily refute.

Michael

115. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #179991 by mmurray on May 14, 2008 at 4:26 am

Just to recap, the son of God died on the cross, because a talking snake convinced some woman to eat an apple. Adam and Eve are booted out of the garden, and produce two sons, Cain and Able. Cain kills Able and then goes to live in the land of the Nomads. Where exactly did the Nomads come from?


Are you sure the Catholic Church believes in the whole Adam and Eve and the snake thing literally. I had a quick look at the Catechism and I'm not sure. It has obviously been too long since I went to mass :-)

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM

390 The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man.264 Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.265


Later they talk about Adam and Eve as if real.

Michael

116. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #179965 by mmurray on May 14, 2008 at 3:29 am

Catholics are permitted to believe in evolution.


Definitely. I went to a Catholic school in the late 70's in Australia. They taught a standard science curriculum including using the standard biology text that all schools used. Evolution was in there.

It's a mistake to assume that the Catholic Church is stupid enough to believe in biblical literalism. It is very skilled at survival. As has already been pointed out the main requirement is that you accept the authority of the Church to tell you what it is that God wants. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they dropped opposition to contraception and celibacy for priests in the future. None of these are essential to Catholic doctrine. I can see them finding it harder to drop opposition to abortion. These changes by the Church don't prove religion is made by man it is just the Catholic Church improving its understanding of the mystery that is God. :-)

Michael

117. Richard Dawkins discusses Einstein's new letters

Comment #179857 by mmurray on May 13, 2008 at 10:12 pm

I recently heard, if I remember correctly, that Dawkins thinks science can prove God does not exist.


Have a look at the wikipedia article

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

on a 1-7 scale where 1 = 100% certainty God exists and 7 = 100% certainty that God does not exist Dawkins rates himself a 6.8

Michael

118. Americans pray at the pump for cheaper petrol

Comment #179766 by mmurray on May 13, 2008 at 4:59 pm

Long term storage of waste is a big big problem that needs to be solved before we plunge headlong into a situation that could be around for centuries.


Definitely and some serious conservation of energy. If we need to take the risk of nuclear to avoid going back to the dark ages so be it but doing it just so we can continue to light up our cities at night with advertising seems pretty foolish.

These figures for energy demand in 2050 and the like. Are they based on present population trends and the assumption we will all have first world living standards in 2050 ? That is never going to happen. At some point we have to get the population under control.

Michael

119. The Neural Buddhists

Comment #179718 by mmurray on May 13, 2008 at 3:00 pm

Surely this bit


The mind seems to have the ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real.


should read

"The mind has the the ability to seem to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real."

Michael

120. Americans pray at the pump for cheaper petrol

Comment #179343 by mmurray on May 13, 2008 at 6:25 am

Well the praying seems to work and we have discovered that God like Chavez as the lowest petrol in the world is 17 US cents a US gallon in Carracas.

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

Michael

121. Americans pray at the pump for cheaper petrol

Comment #179247 by mmurray on May 13, 2008 at 1:05 am

Apparently Jesus does an awesome wheel alignment as well

http://www.americaslastdays.com/?page=tirewear-rea


Hello brethren. About a couple months ago, our truck was having strange wear on its tires. A Christian friend, who was a tire expert, concluded that there was a problem with the front-end of the vehicle. So we scheduled an appointment for the Toyota auto shop. After listening to David's testimonies from his Wilderness DVD as well as other UBM testimonies, we decided to command the truck to be healed in the Name of Jesus. Well, soon after this prayer, the Lord reminded me about the appointment I had already made. So, our works needed to follow our faith. I called and cancelled the appointment. We considered it a done deal. Well, yesterday, our friend who originally looked at the tires said that the wear was now gone AND in fact there was smooth wear distribution on the tires. The Lord fixed the front-end perfectly! Our friend was praising the Lord too! What an awesome God we have!!!



Michael

122. Childish superstition: Einstein's letter makes view of religion relatively clear

Comment #179224 by mmurray on May 12, 2008 at 10:57 pm

While this is good PR it would not make any difference to the existence of Gods if he had believed unless he had either new evidence or a new argument. Relativity isn't true because Einstein believed it, it is true because of Einstein's arguments in its favour and experimental confirmation.

While on great physicists and religion Wikiquote has some nice Feynman quotes:

"Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."

"The remark which I read somewhere, that science is all right as long as it doesn't attack religion, was the clue I needed to understand the problem. As long as it doesn't attack religion it need not be paid attention to and nobody has to learn anything. So it can be cut off from society except for its applications, and thus be isolated. And then we have this terrible struggle to try to explain things to people who have no reason to want to know. But if they want to defend their own point of view, they will have to learn what yours is a little bit. So I suggest, maybe correctly and perhaps wrongly, that we are too polite."

"It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil" which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama."


Michael

123. On Fitna, the Movie

Comment #178777 by mmurray on May 12, 2008 at 3:04 am

is like listening to people argue over Lord of the rings, Harry Potter or the lion the witch and the wardrobe.


Harry Potter of course. How could you even doubt it ?

Michael

124. I Am Evolution

Comment #178768 by mmurray on May 12, 2008 at 2:42 am

Given the countless examples of scientists being correct when they say something is a fact (I'm thinking engineering, medical advances, etc.), I think it is rather reasonable to expect the masses to trust the word of scientists. By all means, check it out independently, but trsuting scientists, especially when there is no tentative semantics or throngs of critics and doubters involved, is surely not irrational?


aussieatheist_111 -- assuming you are an aussie check out some of the things people are saying about the recent showing of Richard Dawkin's two-part series on new-age therapies and other mumbo-jumbo. Some are sensible but for other people trusting scientists is not on. They would much rather concentrate on the few examples of scientist being wrong!

http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/MessageList.aspx?b=81&t=1&te=False

Michael

125. On Fitna, the Movie

Comment #178748 by mmurray on May 12, 2008 at 2:03 am

If you want to see what the UN Human Rights Commission was up to have a look at this thread

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2416,Vote-on-freedom-of-expression-marks-the-end-of-Universal-Human-Rights,International-Humanist-and-Ethical-Union

The main points in the resolution are here.

This is one of the highlights

10. Emphasizes that respect of religions and their protection from contempt is an essential element conducive for the exercise by all of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion;



Michael

126. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178703 by mmurray on May 12, 2008 at 12:15 am

Unfortunately, their tribal code comes from their religion.


Do you have evidence that they didn't do honour killings before Mohammed came along ?

Michael

PS: Sorry Barry I missed your reply.

127. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178606 by mmurray on May 11, 2008 at 5:29 pm

If only we could get the women to fight back.


Well the mother has. It is kind of hard if the police are on the father's side.

Michael

128. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178595 by mmurray on May 11, 2008 at 5:02 pm

Appalling though this is it is not unique to Islam. In ancient greece (at least athens) women couldn't leave the house, lived in separate quarters etc. Hindu's used to do a good line in throwing widows onto their husbands funeral pyres and there are still lots of abandoned widows in India left to die in poverty even though they have children who could afford to look after them. I would have thought that this behaviour is part of Islam because it arose in societies that already did this kind of thing.

Jarrod Diamond gives a good argument that natural selection will favour this kind of appalling behaviour. The reasoning is, from memory, that because female ovulation is no longer obvious and children need a very long investment of time and energy from both father and mother to raise males are at risk of wasting a lot of time raising someone elses genes. That doesn't quite explain killing daughter's but it does favour draconian methods of controlling female sexuality. The world might be a different place if women's noses turned red when they were fertile.

The whole male honour bullshit thing is also not uncommon even on these boards. I recently read someone saying something along the lines of `if you called me that to my face you would have two black eyes'. As well as childish this seemed kind of rash when you don't have any idea how big the other guy is :-)

Michael

129. British Airways takes beef off the menu to avoid offending Hindus

Comment #178286 by mmurray on May 11, 2008 at 4:59 am

It seems that particularly in the UK everyone seems over concerned about things supposedly causing offense when there is really no offense there.


I don't disagree with this but I'm not convinced this decision is an example of that problem. BA in the article actually say it is not about offense. Maybe they are telling porkies but it seems plausible to me that they would want to be able to offer a choice to as many passengers as possible to avoid having to worry about running out of food. If lots of their passengers are not going to eat beef (for whatever reason) it makes sense to take beef off the menu.

Michael

130. British Airways takes beef off the menu to avoid offending Hindus

Comment #178182 by mmurray on May 10, 2008 at 6:02 pm


This did scare many away from British beef and like autism from the MMR vaccine it is completely illogical and unscientifically based because there is no human form of mod cow or foot and mouth disease nor is there even close to being a human form so please stop worrying.


Tell that to the local health department who haven't let me donate blood for years now after living in the UK from 1980-1983.

This article is a beat up. I would assume the main reason they want to be able to offer two choices that everybody will like is so they don't have to worry about one choice being used up.

While we are on the topic of Hinduism there was an article recently here about a lower caste woman who died after childbirth in India, outside the hospital, because the only doctor in the hospital who was willing to touch her was out.

http://www.medindia.net/news/Untouchable-Woman-Dies-After-Hospital-Refuse-to-Treat-Her-35871-1.htm

When your faith is a mismatch to reality disaster and suffering always follow eventually.

Michael

131. Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong

Comment #177860 by mmurray on May 9, 2008 at 8:48 pm

Once scientists move outside their scientific experience, they become like a layperson. I'm not a religious person, but if I want to talk religion with someone, it won't be a scientist; it will be with someone who understands theology (who might be either an atheist or a believer). I believe people like Dawkins give atheism a bad name because their arguments are so crude and unsubtle. They step outside their narrow competences when they produce these arguments.


Maybe he should talk to the Cardinal ?

I keep wondering why nobody ever writes a popular account of this wonderful, marvelous, subtle theology we have been hearing about ever since TGD came out ? Sure it's going to be tough for people like us to understand but people like Richard do a wonderful job of explaining science to the lay person. Surely someone can bring down theology to a level we can understand?

I can't decide if the reason they don't do this is because they really don't have anything to say or because they don't want to admit to the lay religious person that the theologians idea of God and Richard's are not that far apart.

Michael

132. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176292 by mmurray on May 7, 2008 at 6:16 am

I see they're also pushing Jesus' redemptive qualities on the London underground now... every time I get on the train, it's "JESUS SAVES!!!".


This must be the reason God invented indelible marker pens that write on any surface.

Back in the bad old days when cigarettes were advertised there was group here called ASH (= Action on Smoking and Health) who defaced cigarette advertising. They usually got lenient sentences from the judges. I guess if you deface a religious advertisement you run the risk of getting up in front of a religious judge.

Michael

133. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176290 by mmurray on May 7, 2008 at 6:11 am

We also have much less to fear from them if they are thousands of miles away.

Let us give them what they want. They want to be left alone.


I wish it were so but we are entangled with the the muslim world due to their oil, Israel and the large numbers of them already citizens of the west. The fact they are thousands of miles away is no help as 9/11 has amply demonstrated. They can get on planes with fake passports or they can find people with legitimate passports from non-islamic nations to do their bidding. Remember the good old days when terrorists used to swap around to avoid detection: the red brigade could do a job for the IRA in return for one back for them. Or they can just build missiles with the help of someone like North Korea. Or they can take over Pakistan which already has a good stockpile to nuclear missiles.

Michael

134. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #176132 by mmurray on May 6, 2008 at 4:37 pm

I am more concerned about the work we need to do to build a strong open society here then caring about the stupid rules and ideas some people have in Saudi.


It could be argued that the people in Saudi are working hard (using the money we give them for oil) to undermine our open society.

Michael

135. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175815 by mmurray on May 6, 2008 at 5:26 am

In case anyone else is wondering who Moazzam Begg is I'll save you the google search

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

Michael

PS: If you go there you might like to look at the link at the top where the neutrality of the article is disputed.

136. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175796 by mmurray on May 6, 2008 at 3:50 am

I sent this article article in but it never appeared. This thread seems like a good place for it.

Michael

137. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175776 by mmurray on May 6, 2008 at 2:36 am

I think restricting voting to people who aren't stupid is a dangerous path to take. This is how it used to be. First only aristocracy had any kind of vote, then only gentlemen and then only men.

One of the dangers of going down the testing line is that if you don't want some group (eg black people) to vote you just have to deprive them of enough education that they fail the general knowledge test. Then you aren't being racist just sensible.

You should just educate people and put up with a bit of `noise' from the less well-educated. The principle that we all vote for our leaders is too important to throw aside. Personally I like the Australian system where you *have* to vote.

Michael

138. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175773 by mmurray on May 6, 2008 at 2:31 am

vinelectric

I still think one such event or even two is sufficient to justify him saying `infrequent'. The dictionary says

infrequent - not frequent; not occurring regularly or at short intervals

I think once satisfies that definition. I also don't see why signing up to that particular (important) announcement lets all 500 off the hook from commenting publically about muslim extremism ever again.

Michael

139. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #175607 by mmurray on May 5, 2008 at 5:21 pm

Sam's favourite cliche and shameless lie! Remember this headline?


He said `infrequently' and you have given one example. One example doesn't disprove infrequently. One example disproves `never'. Where it the lie ?

Michael

140. Evolution's Critics Shift Tactics With Schools

Comment #174886 by mmurray on May 3, 2008 at 6:09 pm

Does anyone know what is the standard of science education amongst teachers in the US? If that is low -- ie you have staff teaching science who don't understand it -- that will compound the problem because they won't be able to easily answer the students whose pastor's have sent them off to read AiG.

Michael

141. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #174668 by mmurray on May 3, 2008 at 6:46 am

Romans 1:22

Claiming to be wise, they became foolish;

I think the lolcat version is better

They sed "Am smrt," but reeli r stoopid

Michael

142. Muslim Rebel Sisters: At Odds With Islam and Each Other

Comment #174611 by mmurray on May 3, 2008 at 12:04 am

"As for those women from whom you fear rebellion, "

You don't even have to get to the beating. If your relationship with your wife is such that you could even contemplate the idea that she might be going to rebel you have a lot of issues already.

Michael

143. Muslim Rebel Sisters: At Odds With Islam and Each Other

Comment #174540 by mmurray on May 2, 2008 at 3:58 pm

Does anyone know on what she bases the `true' Islam. I assume it is some kind of `moderate' Islam. I am no expert but everything I read suggests this is really difficult given what is written in the Koran. It is tough enough for a Christian but you can at least concentrate on the New Testament. All I have ever heard from moderate Muslims locally in the media is the `Islam is a religion of peace' line with a clear message that to suggest otherwise or to ask why is some kind of intolerance akin to racism.

Michael

144. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172888 by mmurray on April 30, 2008 at 6:40 am

Radiocarbon dating, Potassium-Argon dating - the difference is one of details not of principle. It's all scientific data analysis based on confirmed facts of physics and chemistry.



I assume you are trying to say if it's based on 'confirmed facts of physics and chemistry' is should be reliable? Since both dating methods qualify, why does one show tens of thousands of years and the other billions?


seeker_of_truth: Just in case you missed riandouglas's question can you explain what you mean here by `tens of thousands of years and the other billions'. Scientists usually notice errors which are five orders of magnitude.

Michael

145. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #172840 by mmurray on April 30, 2008 at 6:02 am

why do so many educated and professional naturalists find themselves stretched in debate with those who hold to intelligent design?


Nice example of a `loaded question' . So when are you going to stop kicking your dog ?

Michael

146. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #172759 by mmurray on April 30, 2008 at 4:00 am

What new argument for atheism is there? Everything we repeat has been repeated for centuries.


Every new scientific discovery that closes a gap a god might fit in is an argument for atheism.

Evolution has not been around for centuries.

Michael

147. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #172628 by mmurray on April 29, 2008 at 8:01 pm

I assume all three paragraphs constitute the press release ? In that case the blockquote should be removed. It is kind of confusing on the original site as well.

Michael

148. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #170740 by mmurray on April 27, 2008 at 11:38 pm


And if ID is a viable theory, why is my gullet behind my windpipe? That's only 'intelligent' in the same way as Vista is 'secure'. Joining the nasal and oral cavities seems to be a pretty big design flaw.


Yep and the testicles outside the body, eye-ball wired backwards, the lower back which isn't strong enough, female pelvis too small, auto-immune diseases, male urinary tract through the middle of the prostate gland and the old joke about the effluent outlet in the recreation area which, of course, isn't funny if you are a female with a urinary tract infection.

I think the simplest thing to say to ID is `balls'.

Michael

149. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #169760 by mmurray on April 26, 2008 at 5:43 pm


I'm no biblical scholar, but Leviticus seems pretty clear on gods view of 'men that lie with other men'. It bothers me more when christian apologists try to skirt around this issue and appear liberal.


Neither am I. But I think if you are going to use Leviticus as your moral guide you have to take all the other weird stuff in there as well. So make sure you aren't wearing more than one type of material today! I think the sensible approach to Leviticus is to realise it is a list of religious prohibitions typical of a society at that time in history and irrelevant to any attempt to construct morality for today's society except, perhaps, as an example of what not to do.

If you are interested in homosexuality in the bible there is a good wikipedia entry. I was surprised by how little it is mentioned in the bible given that it seems to be a complete obsession with some religious people.

Michael

150. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168327 by mmurray on April 25, 2008 at 2:54 am

How come when I click on Dave(TX) (on his comment 3991 on page 80) its says the user doesn't exist?

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=40087

Michael

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