101. Sam Harris debate with Rabbi David Wolpe

Comment #108042 by Shuggy on January 5, 2008 at 10:11 pm

4. Comment #107341 by Copernic on January 4, 2008

Wolpe did a fine job of countering Sam's (B. Russell's) teapot analogy in that the orbiting teapot can be verified yet God cannot so the analogy fails.

But the teapot could not be verified when Russell posited it. Maybe we should move it to a distant star.

102. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #107977 by Shuggy on January 5, 2008 at 6:09 pm

215. Comment #107948 by atheisticism on January 5, 2008 at 4:20 pm

Is it bigotry to suggest sexual orientation has a psychological base? Sexual attraction of any kind has a psychological element.

No, as long as you consider "sexual orientation" and don't implicitly pathologise one orientation, by treating it as a deviation from the other. But I'm not quite sure what you mean by "a psychological base". Since sexual orientation occurs in the brain/mind/personality/self, it has a psychological component by definition. I don't know if this takes us any further in finding out why some people swing one way, some the other, some both.

The great

Well, rich

musician Sir Elton John was hetero when his career began, then changed to bisexual, then finally homosexual. This confuses me. Anyone have some insight to offer?

Without talking to him, it's hard to know what happened for him, but I take it you mean his behaviour changed. That doesn't mean his orientation changed. He might have been acting contrary to his natural inclinations then (that's very common), or he might be now (very rare). Many men marry for the sake of conformity, and more or less gradually find they prefer men. The woods are full of them.

103. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #106890 by Shuggy on January 3, 2008 at 4:33 pm

128. Comment #106862 by Steve Zara on January 3, 2008 at 3:35 pm
It is quite common in higher animal species, and very common in primates.

I wish people wouldn't say "higher" (especially not here). We've all been evolving equally long, we're all equally evolved, equally "high".

So what should people say? The underlying concept is "more closely related to us". But would it be accurate to say "more complex"? Evolution does not necessarily move in the direction of greater complexity, but does that matter?

104. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #106883 by Shuggy on January 3, 2008 at 4:25 pm

123. Comment #106856 by eXcommunicate on January 3, 2008 at 3:31 pm

Shuggy - Unfortunately your design could be misconstrued to read "a theist" rather than "atheist."

I guess it could, but there's no limit to people's capacity for misconstruction. If I changed it to Big A - small atheist, people could say "What's an A-atheist? Is it someone lacking in atheism - i.e. a theist?" Ya can't win! You'd have to ignore the A VERY hard to read it as "theist".

Or do you think I should plagiarise our plagiarist and put ATHEIST across the bottom separate from the A ?

105. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #106877 by Shuggy on January 3, 2008 at 4:16 pm

I just sent him this comment:

"I surely did not expect it to show up at RichardDawkins.net." Why ever not? You plagiarise an idea from someone, they react.

"Not to mention that some of the emails I received simpl[y] use Richard Dawkins without the use of Mr., Dr., or Professor." (But you just did mention it.) Not to use an honorific is a Quaker tradition, because all people are equal. It's also a BBC usage. To use one, but a lower one than a person is entitled to, is a deliberate insult, one that you persist in and use sophistry to wriggle out of. He may indeed not be offended, but that makes your insult no less.

"OUT simply stands for "Observable Underlying Testimony"" Since Observable and Underlying are near-opposites, that's hardly simple. Seems to me you were straining for an initial.

What's the matter, weren't the fish and the cross and the crucifix and the lamb enough? It isn't as if any christians in the western world have to hide anywhere, and in the US, sometimes some of them ought to hide more.

I don't expect he'll publish it.

106. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #106823 by Shuggy on January 3, 2008 at 2:15 pm

For those who thought the scarlet "A" wasn't enough, I created a more explicit version, and it's at http://www.cafepress.com/wero/4407434

Should I make a more explicit version of this one...?

107. The OUT Campaign has its own Flea!

Comment #106813 by Shuggy on January 3, 2008 at 2:01 pm

40. Comment #106423 by Will in Aus on January 2, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I have a big problem with plagiarism. After having "don't plagiarise" drummed into me whilst studying science at Uni, it makes me cringe every time I see such a blatant example of it.

I have a big problem with "intellectual property". After hearing James Dyson gloat about having kept the patent of the cyclonic vacuum cleaner (which he just adapted from the cyclonic sawdust separator) from Hoover, I began to wonder what would have happened if Paul Citröen had patented front-wheel drive, or Ug the caveman, fire. Aren't we lucky nobody owns the rights to the Internet or the w w w! The free transmission of memes is how human culture advances. Rewarding people who contribute new memes is essential, but secondary.

Josh, is there not some sort of copyright held on the OUT campaign concept.....surely this would be an infringement?

If there were a copyright on the OUT campaign concept, it would be held by the gay community, but we're generous like that.

OBChristianOUT: "CHRISTIAN OBSERVABLE UNDERLYING TESTIMONY" doesn't even make any sense. How can it be observable testimony if it's "underlying"?

108. The Pagan Christ

Comment #103806 by Shuggy on December 26, 2007 at 11:15 pm

#103802 by righton

I keep coming across the interview where someone asks RD to give an example of a mutation that increases the information in the genome. RD pauses, then there is a wierd edit and he starts talking about something else.

Could anyone tell me what happened? I am a molecular biologist and I know RD could have given many examples of mutations increasing information in the genome.(gene duplications, transposons/retrotransposons, mutations causing new acceptor splice sites, etc.)

So what happened?

Here is a current thread on this topic:

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=14255&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=tv+mutation+question+creation%2A+interview

109. The Pagan Christ

Comment #103803 by Shuggy on December 26, 2007 at 11:04 pm

202. Comment #103798 by Downunder on December 26, 2007 at 10:32 pm

Re 183#3103730 Steve Zara. ... every now & again you show to have suffered greatly from being gay.

No, he has suffered from homophobic reaction to people's being gay.

I, as a now fallen Catholic, apologise for the holier-than-thou attitude of the Pope and Cardinals

That's a nice thought, but if you've bailed, or even if you hadn't, you can hardly speak for them, any more than I can.

and can only offer the feeble excuse that they are "in the boat, have to row in tune or must jump overboard to swim for their life".

It would be stunning if one Easter Morning, His Holiness, the Vicar of Christ on Earth, Pontifex Maximus, Bishop of Rome, Benedict XVI, né Joe Ratzinger, came to the balcony of St Peters, and to the assembled tens of thousands and hundreds of TV cameras, in 35 languages including Esperanto, said

My dear brethren and sistren, having read The God Delusion, I have come to the conclusion that there is no God, and the rock on which our church was said to be founded is made of sand,... etc. etc. I apologise to our dear gay brethren and lesbian sistren and call on governments around the world to repeal all statutes that deny them full equality,... etc. etc. We have been mistaken in denying women their reproductive rights, etc. etc. ... and we humbly apologise to the families of the 82 women in Nicaragua who died from ectopic pregnancies as a result of our foolish policy ... we call on the Government of the United States to ... promote safe sex and provide free condoms in Africa ... in nomine pa^h^h oh, no, we don't believe that any more. Amen

but it's not going to happen soon. (What would happen if it did? Would he be shot "by a madman in the square" [with a magic bullet that entered the back of his head]?

One of the major events that made me leave the church, after say 75 years of indoctrination, was when our Melbourne Bishop (now Cardinal in Sydney) on live TV, refused communion to all who wore rainbow sashes during a Sunday morning mass in St Pats Cathedral. The Bishop throwing stones while sitting in a glass house! He must think that he is God to condemn people in public. I accept that gay people have to live their lives, like all of us, within moral bounds.

which in the nature of things, they have to set for themselves. If that's Pell, isn't he far more culpable for covering up for a paedophile priest?

do you feel that gay is normal or do you feel that it is a natural affliction, say like having to wear glasses or some such?

How about a blessing and a gift?

do you accept that afflictions impose some limitations, I can think of let's say legal marriage, which seems essentially in conflict with its natural intent?

Nature does not have intentions.

Rest assured, the churches must feel the pressure of so many leaving, the hierarchy will wake up to the fact that "round-earth" concepts work fine and that gay people are not devils.

And we're not sick, either. How about a natural variation, like left-handedness or red hair? (Redheads are particularly susceptible to sunburn, but we still don't consider it an "affliction".)

110. 2 fleas for the Christmas week

Comment #103486 by Shuggy on December 25, 2007 at 7:55 pm

windweaver, quoting Malcolm McLean:

nothing can happen but the supermarket is in stock and you have sufficient funds in your wallet to buy sausages. In all cases God has answered the prayer in the positive.

In what sense did God do anything, in that case? Would God have answered it in the positive if you found you didn't have enough money, but you could afford sardines? Cheese? At what point does God's involvement become so negligible that we may say he wasn't involved?

What is striking about the "What has God got against amputees?" argument is that healing amputees would require serious decrease of entropy and hence use of energy, unlike healing from cancer. Is McLean saying that God never uses, or can't use, significant amounts of energy (the way he used to)?

111. 2 fleas for the Christmas week

Comment #103482 by Shuggy on December 25, 2007 at 7:37 pm

Paula Kirby:

I'd like an "Atheist" pullover too. Or sweatshirt. Just not a t-shirt. Do you have any idea how often it's warm enough to wear a short-sleeved t-shirt in the north of Scotland?!?!

See http://www.cafepress.com/wero/1440313

112. 2 fleas for the Christmas week

Comment #103481 by Shuggy on December 25, 2007 at 7:27 pm

quill

These things just keep setting new records for cover ugliness.

Not just ugliness, the strong diagonal element of the latest contender makes its title look twisted. (But it wouldn't if our eyes had been Intelligently Designed....)

113. 2 fleas for the Christmas week

Comment #103479 by Shuggy on December 25, 2007 at 7:23 pm

A refutation or confutation of TGD would imply an ironclad proof of the existence of God/dess/es, wouldn't it?

114. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #103187 by Shuggy on December 24, 2007 at 12:34 pm

"I feel like this is an attack on my beliefs as a religious person," said Houser.

This sentence doesn't parse. Houser's beliefs are not a religious person. Nobody is attacking Houser, only her beliefs. Houser and her beliefs are separable. That, of course, is what bothers Hauser.

"Imagine no religion is an attack against me,...

What, we're not even allowed to imagine no religion? That really is the creation of a thoughtcrime.

"... as any person of faith should take it as an attack against them,"

No, only a person of shaky faith, or what does "faith" mean?

115. Blair converts to Catholicism

Comment #102943 by Shuggy on December 24, 2007 at 2:40 am

I don't much care now what Blair thinks, but it puzzles me how any Anglican can convert to Roman Catholicism. Do they sort of say "That was only a pale imitation; this is the Real Thing (TM). When the Anglicans taught me that Mary died in the ordinary way and that the Pope is just the Bishop of Rome and the wine and wafer only change symbolically, that was lies, but now I know The Truth (TM). And when the Anglicans taught me that they were going to Heaven and the Left Footers to Hell, that was a mistake, and now I know the reverse is the case." Extraordinary! The only thing that could strike me as more extraordinary is going the other way.

116. Huckabee Stands by Christmas Campaign Ad

Comment #102919 by Shuggy on December 23, 2007 at 11:39 pm

OT?

This morning on New Zealand's National Radio, all the political leaders gave Christmas messages. Not one mentioned God, Jesus, religion or spirituality. All were about families, being together and road safety. Some mentioned water safety (we have a lot of road accidents and drownings over the holiday break). The National (conservative) leader spoke only to the rich, as if everyone was going to drink champagne. The Green leader asked us not to waste wrapping paper. I think without exception they reminded us to enjoy the beauty of the country and rejoice in how lucky we are to live here. (Don't expect too much...)

117. This Week's Flea

Comment #102454 by Shuggy on December 22, 2007 at 9:51 pm

From the interview
"But if you ask me whether a scientific experiment could verify the Resurrection, I would say such an event is entirely too important to be subjected to a method which is devoid of all religious meaning."

Bingo...

Is there some rule, somewhere, that says that when an event reaches sufficient importance, it may not be subjected to a method which is devoid of religious meaning? Where, I wonder, does the Big Bang fall on that scale? After all, if the Universe never came into existence, all bets would be off, wouldn't they?

Hmm, what sort of method would be replete with religious meaning?

What is religious meaning?

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

Comment #102449 by Shuggy on December 22, 2007 at 8:30 pm

He continued, "Christians have always been used to being punch bags

Well, lion tucker, maybe, but didn't that stop about 313 CE? And since then, the rest of us have been, well, kindling, not to mention faggots.


As for objecting to nativity scenes, I only object to the ones paid for through my taxes.

119. ...and another FLEA...

Comment #98898 by Shuggy on December 14, 2007 at 9:13 pm

Who's Mary Magdalene/John/the yellow-haired woman on Tina Beattie's book's cover?

120. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #94119 by Shuggy on December 4, 2007 at 9:05 pm

imagine a sort of intelligent Ann Coulter speaking with a British accent in a voice like Minnie Mouse

• Universe banged out of nothing in a nanonanonanonanonanonanosecond? Check.
  
• Shrödinger's cat is both dead and alive? OK.
  
• Particles match their spins across the universe? Sure.
  
• Photons are waves or particles depending on the experiment? Uh huh.
  
• An intelligent Anne Coulter? Richard, what have you been smoking?

121. Atheism's Wrong Turn

Comment #93631 by Shuggy on December 3, 2007 at 7:03 pm

Northern Bright:

"The fools says in his heart, there is no God." This verse from Proverbs always leaves me feeling torn - if atheism has been around for so long, it's rather depressing that it hasn't yet made more headway ... yet on the other hand, I'm encouraged that, even in an age where religious supersition was, it could be argued, excusable given the lack of scientific understanding, even then there were humans who were logical enough, rational enough and brave enough - and can you imagine just how brave they would have had to be? - to say "No: there is no God!" I find that pretty inspirational.

When you consider how much in the world was mysterious and frightening before it was understood - earthquakes, thunderstorms, tsunamis, ordinary storms, auroras, plagues, individual sickness (especially in children), birth defects, it amazes me that anyone was brave enough to say there is no God, for the psalmist to refer to.

What really gets up my nose is people who quote that line today. Now, it's just abuse.

122. Atheism's Wrong Turn

Comment #93627 by Shuggy on December 3, 2007 at 6:51 pm

God bless ye merry gentlemen, should he in fact exist,
But he does not so lets just eat and drink 'till we get pissed,

A thousand years from now I ween we'll none of us be missed,

Oh oh tidings of bleakness and doubt, bleakness and doubt, oh oh tiiidings of bleakness and doubt!

But I think the last line can be improved on....

123. Fear of censure deflects The Golden Compas

Comment #93626 by Shuggy on December 3, 2007 at 6:45 pm

Mrs Coulter, eh? That really is life imitating art.

124. Golden Compass author hits back

Comment #91665 by Shuggy on November 28, 2007 at 11:37 pm

mcadamsdj:

Have you seen Bill Donohue's video about TGC on the catholic league website? Check it out: http://catholicleague.org/videos/.

Doesn't he know that kids' movies always come out around Christmas? And he seems to think it's sneaky that it tries to undermine Christianity by stealth. Did he have any objection to The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe trying to promote Christianity by stealth? On the contrary, I seem to remember they had religios going round the schools to spell out its hidden message.

125. Turkey probes atheist's 'God' book

Comment #91648 by Shuggy on November 28, 2007 at 8:01 pm

NormanDoering:

And what about all the other languages you'll need for Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia...

yyuryyub (icuryy4me):

they should spend whatever money they can raise to translate TGD into as many languages as possible and post them on the net.

I would give money for this to happen

Just Arabic.

126. Mitt the Mormon

Comment #91170 by Shuggy on November 27, 2007 at 1:01 pm

Hitch keeps saying Romney was "an adult" in 1978 when the LDSs officially abandoned racism. Googling yields "Date of Birth: 12 March 1947" so he was 31, and had spent 10 years as an adult. May we ask where he stood with respect to the church's policies from 12 March 1968 until it officially abandoned them?

(I don't think that either the Garments nor the loopy stuff about Missouri is here or there.)

127. Mitt the Mormon

Comment #91164 by Shuggy on November 27, 2007 at 12:54 pm

Baron Ochs:

If all said here is correct it suggests the mormon racism thing is at least a little more complex:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacks_and_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints

Sorry, Wikipedia can not be relied on for any controversial topic. Its content gets reduced to a lowest common denominator that everyone can agree on. Otherwise you're at the mercy of whoever vandalised it last.

128. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!

Comment #90984 by Shuggy on November 26, 2007 at 10:00 pm

This is a little like Pascal's Wager.

Pascal's Wager says, don't believe in God because S/He/It exists, believe because it'll get you into heaven.

"Hitler/Stalin/Mao were atheists" says, don't believe in God because S/He/It exists, believe because it makes you good.

Both make a parody of what it means to believe. If there is/are no god/dess/es, there is/are none, and it would be intellectually dishonest to believe there is/are. Getting into heaven and being made better should have no place in that decision.

(Of course "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven" - which excuses everything.)

129. Taking Science on Faith

Comment #90941 by Shuggy on November 26, 2007 at 6:33 pm

All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way.

On the contrary, the "rational and intelligible" ways for nature to be ordered would be that

• the earth is flat,
• the sun goes around it, and that
• bodies approaching the speed of light stay (and look) the same length, shape and mass, and
• light that they emit or receive departs or arrives at the vector sum of c and their speed.

Science overthrew all of those rational and intelligible assumptions and replaced them with ideas that were not "common sense" at the time at all - and commonsense people argued with each of them. It is only in hindsight that the conclusions of science appear either rational or intelligible.

130. Bankrolling Ali's Asylum

Comment #90915 by Shuggy on November 26, 2007 at 4:43 pm

"Rick," Harris jokes, "may yet convince me that Christians are more moral and socially engaged than atheists."

Now if he'd only said "... are as moral and socially engaged as atheists" it would have been both funny and pointed.

131. Stem cell breakthrough

Comment #90635 by Shuggy on November 25, 2007 at 11:55 pm

Monty Python would have to revise the song to "Every cell is sa- cred..." You'd have to call in a priest to baptise hair and toenail clippings.

132. Stem cell breakthrough

Comment #90628 by Shuggy on November 25, 2007 at 10:17 pm

Interesting that the US researchers worry about the ethics of using cells from aborted foeti but not from foreskins pillaged from non-consenting babies. Thank heav^H^H^Hgoodness the Japanese researchers have shown that facial skin cells will do.

133. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #90373 by Shuggy on November 24, 2007 at 9:55 pm

63. Comment #88336 by 27b-6 on November 16, 2007 at

Original sin is defined by Dawkins as "apple scrumping"

No it isn't. That would be a tautology. RD made it very clear that there is no other kind of scrumping than of apples. Please don't dilute this wonderful (onomatopaeic, since you scrump in order to bite into the apples) word's mysterious specificity.

134. Getting Overheated

Comment #90253 by Shuggy on November 23, 2007 at 7:28 pm

2 Things:
Americans vs Brits at debate:
A quietly spoken (even by our standards) NZ friend went to the US for post-graduate research and was at a seminar where a point needed to be made. He stood up and made it and sat down, and the meeting continued as if nothing had happened. A few minutes later, an American got up and said almost EXACTLY the SAME THING, but LOUDLY and with LOTS of EMPHASIS, and people finally heard and agreed.

I notice that US TV dramas commonly treat a controversial subject with a couple of ignorant statements, loudly expressed, two on each side, and this seems to count as "debate". But of course, I don't imagine this is close to reality.

Global warming.
I was astounded to see the reaction to the news item about the US announcing a lower rate of HIV than was previously thought. About half the responses were of the form "Oh, in that case they're wrong about global warming too. Global warming is just a plot by the Cahmee United Nations to stop the wonderful US from enjoying as much oil as we want." But of course I guess it depends what else is on that page.

135. Study: Babies can tell helpful, hurtful playmates

Comment #90105 by Shuggy on November 23, 2007 at 1:28 am

...how sure are that this was properly controlled? It could be one of those social science "experiments" where the over eager researcher sort of gives the answer away non-verbally. Maybe the babies felt that they were expected to choose a certain shape.

Indeed, it could be like ape "language", that was much less impressive than the experimenters would have liked. How could you rule out the experimenter effects?

136. Why Science Will Triumph Only When Theory Becomes Law

Comment #89847 by Shuggy on November 22, 2007 at 12:06 am

Ruht:

The basic principle of ID was around long before Behe.

Sure it was.




Before Behe, it was called Scientific Creationism.
And before that, it was called Creationism.
And before that it was called Fundamentalism.
And before that it was called Christian orthodoxy.

"C'mon. What's your favorite irriducible complexity Ruht?"

--

Infinity - no beginning and no end.

Infinity has two components less than something with a beginning and end. Therefore it is less complex than any alternative. Therefore it is the least complex possible thing. Therefore it is the most reduced complexity. Therefore it is no complexity at all.

("Answer a fool according to [their] folly" - Proverbs)

137. Exorcism death shocks archdeacon

Comment #89757 by Shuggy on November 21, 2007 at 4:26 pm

Goldy:
The taniwhä was reported in a very redneck way. The story as reported in the Mäori media was very different (as was the Tühoe hïkoi).

The revival of moko was very different for men and women. The käuae (women's chin tattoo) never died completely. In 1973 I went to a dining hall opening at Mangakino where Waikato fielded more than 10! (all old ladies), and Michael King's book came out soon after, written very much as though it was the end of an era, but there were a handful - largely in the backblocks - right through until the current revival. There were no full-facial male tattoos at all between about the 1910s and the 1990s, so the art had to be rediscovered from, um, scratch. You may be right that the male revival began with the gangs, but there are some very respectable bearers of it now, and even more of the body tattoos, especially on the buttocks (rape - two syllables) and thighs. Someone should write another book about the revival.

138. Exorcism death shocks archdeacon

Comment #89028 by Shuggy on November 19, 2007 at 2:29 pm

(I've had the devil's own luck getting this posted...)

shaunfletcher:

White people call themselves pakeha! think about that. We call ourselves an insulting maori name because that word is just part of our language now.

Any insult is in the mind of the Päkehä. It's just the Mäori word for non-Mäori. Te reo Päkehä means the English language, and "whakapäkehä" means "translate into English". Its derivation (contrary to some fanciful back-constructions that usually get the vowel lengths wrong) is lost. I like it because it's positive, and to object to it because it's a Mäori word would be racist. I'm certainly not European, nor from the Caucasus.

Goldy:

And look at the fuss when that woman was told to sit at the back in a marae...

Not the back, just not the front row where the speakers sit. This is a thorny issue (because sex roles are deeply entrenched, and they don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater) that Mäori women are working on. If you want to change it, do it by supporting them. That woman (Josie Bullock) just barged up to the front.

And then there's the money given to Maori for education - sort of a placating thing, son't you think?

You can't just take off a ball and chain that someone's worn for over a century and expect them to win a 100 metre sprint straight away.

And what is your first thought when you see a guy with a moko?

What a beautiful moko! (Or, what an incompetent moko - must have got it at a shop.)

hopeful:

I think that in the case of the Maori, politically correct NZrs of European descent have convinced many Europeans and most importantly the Maori themselves that the European NZrs of today are responsible for most Maori misfortune (past and present).

That is so obviously false that no-one could believe it.

In my opinion, while the do-gooders fall over themselves to appease Maori cultural sensitivities and right the wrongs of the past, they actually create a racial divide, and hold Maori back from integrating into a 21st century global community.

You assume that Mäori want or need to "integrate". Has it occured to you that we might have something to learn from them? Some of us have taken on some Mäori values, and been enriched by them. EG how we handle death, or the emphasis on people over property. And compared to the creationists, the Mäori creation myth is closer to reality than the Judeo-Christain one, in that it emphasises that all living beings are related.

139. Excerpt from 'The Portable Atheist'

Comment #87719 by Shuggy on November 13, 2007 at 12:59 am

I love how he lumps Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin in the same camp as Bin Laden: "bare, narrow, constipated, and fearful." Very well said!

In the case of Luther, we know that was literally true. I wonder if the shit-shippers of the Tora Bora caves also have a lot of time to lean on their shovels?

140. Exorcism death shocks archdeacon

Comment #87701 by Shuggy on November 12, 2007 at 10:41 pm

22. Comment #87678 by steveroot on November 12, 2007

16. Comment #87559 by Shuggy on November 12, 2007 at 1:08 pm

steveroot:

And they criticize the U.S. for waterboarding "detainees". Really, such hypocrisy!

You're dern tootin' we do! Not hypocrisy at all. ...

Where did this "Dr." Kaakaa

His name is Kaa. They're a well-known East Coast family with many distinguished representatives. That's like saying "'Dr' Dork-ins"

Shuggy, my tongue was so far into my cheek when I typed that it was hitting the keyboard! I failed to use the "sarcasm" emoticon; my bad.

I'm glad to hear that, but there are plenty of USAmericans who would write that (about the waterboarding) with a straight face.

"Kaakaa" was a play on the Spanish "caca", which loosely translated means "shit".

I got it. "Dork" is perhaps not known in the US and means "penis".

Anyone who can say "'These types of ceremonies, maketu's [lifting ceremonies] go on quite regularly but you usually don't hear anything about them publicly because they have achieved what they were meant to,' Dr Kaa said." is clearly full of it, no matter *what* kind of doctor he is.

Sounds perfectly sensible and afaecal to me, granted the placebo effect, and the hydrotherapy effect.

141. Exorcism death shocks archdeacon

Comment #87677 by Shuggy on November 12, 2007 at 8:05 pm

Scott McMeekin:

They intended to hold this person, despite their no doubt last few desperate painful thrashings, underwater to the poor bugger's unfortunate and inevitable demise. Ignorance of the laws of a country are not considered to be an adequate defence, so why should ignorance of the laws of nature count? What else could one reasonably expect of these actions?

A homicide investigation is underway. We can expect someone will be convicted of manslaughter. The police's main problem seems to be working out who was in charge.

Of COURSE they drowned, and given the physical evidence of struggle, we only have the word of the wingnuts that this wasn't some form of mob revenge killing. How convenient to use religious practice as an excuse.

There is not the slightest bit of evidence that that was the case.

kaiserkris:

Referring to this tragic circumstance as hydrotherapy, even with a question mark or a Milgram experiment gone wrong is belittling the fact we a have a dead victim. A victim that tried to fight off a "well meaning" mob. That is no excuse in civilized society.

I'm not trying to excuse it, I'm trying to explain it. They're her loving (by all accounts) family, absolutely devastated by what happened.

There is also the small matter of the NZ land wars though. The Maori put up a good fight to start with, but soon succumbed to colonial might. Large areas of land were confiscated and all native schools closed down.

The land wars were guite localised in time and space. Tacticians agree the Maori "won on points". The "confiscations" were land-grabs to "punish" the Maori for fighting to keep the land they had been guaranteed by the Treaty. The Native Schools were not closed until the 1960s.

There is a racial undercurrent to this thread I don't like. I agree that this exorcism was loony, but it is any more culpable than any of the fatal exorcisms that have occurred in white societies? I don't think pre-European exorcism practices were so dangerous (or no more dangerous than comparable contemporary European practices) - I know one way of warding off evil spirits involved w*nking with the left hand while saying an incantation.

142. Malaysia firm's 'Muslim car' plan

Comment #87625 by Shuggy on November 12, 2007 at 4:01 pm

BMMcArdle:

What's next, a Rapture feature for Christians that automatically puts on the car's emergency flashers and slows it to a stop when it is suddenly unmanned?

And maybe a sunroof that pops from the inside? I seem to remember Rapturists (Dispensationalists? Tribulationalists?) believe in a physical rising (suggesting they are also Ptolomeicists and geoplanarians).

When I was younger I would see bumper stickers that said:
Warning, In Case Of Rapture, This Car Will Be Unmanned!

Have I got a bumpersticker (http://www.cafepress.com/wero.61071022) (and a numberplate holder - http://www.cafepress.com/wero.61071023) for you!

143. Exorcism death shocks archdeacon

Comment #87559 by Shuggy on November 12, 2007 at 1:08 pm

rory:

And by 'ceremony' we should read 'murder', yes?

No, murder requires the intent to kill. That was the last thing they wanted.

kaiserkris:

the Maori, Aborigines, and North American Indian, all of them are a conquered people(by the Europeans)

The Maori were NOT conquered. They signed a treaty in 1840 with Queen Victoria's representatives granting them the rights of British citizens. International law has forced recent goverments to acknowledge this and redress past wrongs.

The practitioners of these barbaric rituals should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law

Hydrotherapy? Baptism by total immersion? I don't think so. We need a sense of proportion here. Putting disturbed people in water does calm them down. What seems to have happened here is a kind of Milgram Experiment where, perhaps, no-one was in charge and no-one had the strength of will to overcome the group mentality and call a halt.

steveroot:

And they criticize the U.S. for waterboarding "detainees". Really, such hypocrisy!

You're dern tootin' we do! Not hypocrisy at all. The only thing in common is the water. One is a family trying to treat a disturbed person by wacky means and it going disastrously wrong, the other is a major government redefining torture so that it can get away with it.

(What's the derivation of "dern tootin'"?)

Where did this "Dr." Kaakaa

His name is Kaa. They're a well-known East Coast family with many distinguished representatives. That's like saying "'Dr' Dork-ins"

get his degree?

The Venerable Dr Hone T K Kaa, MA (Hons) (Auckland), DMin (EDS), LTh. Lecturer in Maori Studies, Ministry Studies/Homiletics/Minihare History
EDS seems to be Episcopal Divinity School, an Episcopal Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts
So it's a pretty low-level doctorate, but Hone Kaa is a liberal christian who spoke up for the Anti-smacking Bill when the fundies were opposing it, and supported gay rights when his Archbishop was opposing them.

themanchoo

.....my new favourite word is "whakapapa".

Yes, it's a lovely word, isn't it. It doesn't mean "family" but "family tree" or "genealogy" (whaka- = cause to be, papa = laid out flat) and it's pronounced (more or less) "fukapuppa". Doubtless many English words sound like rude words in other languages too.

144. The Cancer From Within

Comment #86657 by Shuggy on November 9, 2007 at 9:56 pm

I later learned from Air Force Academy chaplain MeLinda Morton, a Lutheran who was forced to observe from the choir loft, that no priest, rabbi or mainline Protestant had been permitted to participate.

Bizarre!

But looking at that chapel, don't the words "house of cards" immediately spring to mind?

145. Arguments Against Evolution

Comment #86288 by Shuggy on November 8, 2007 at 11:52 pm

oeditor:

The creationists have now conflated heat with information, and Andy McIntosh is going around saying that even if you can add information to a system, it can't do anything with it unless there is a (divinely implanted?) "machine" in the system (McIntosh's Demon). By this argument he declares evolution impossible.

Can someone tell me clearly, is information conserved? There's some discussion about information escaping from black holes that implies that it is, but I see no reason why it should be, why people (especially) aren't creating new information all the time. Such as this.

146. Hello Again, Michael Behe!

Comment #86277 by Shuggy on November 8, 2007 at 10:57 pm

This is only marginally relevant, but it might as well go here.

The Catholic Church opposes condoms because they prevent the transmission of life.

The tranmission of death, however, is quite OK by the Catholic Church.

147. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #86043 by Shuggy on November 8, 2007 at 12:43 am

...the typical atheist error which is to first imagine objective reality according to scientific naturalism and then to consider whether it makes sense to add God to it. It doesn't. And it's irrelevant anyway. Theists posit an alternative understanding of reality, not reality as atheists understand it plus a supernatural being.

I think I almost understand this. You posit a universe in which some theical being (an expression I just made up, for the sake of all the transcendental theists who aren't christian and won't call it "God"), some theical being is intrinsic, part of the structure, and therefore doesn't require proving. Einsteinians/deists do much the same but they don't call it theism. The problem is that such a being can't do anything or it becomes part of the naturalistic universe and its existence may be called into question.

You may posit such a universe, and such a being, if you like, but that doesn't make it so.

148. Response to Theodore Dalrymple

Comment #85984 by Shuggy on November 7, 2007 at 5:03 pm

Marquis:

Medicine is employed specifically to help, to cure, to relieve, and not to harm, to subjugate, and psychologically manipulate as religion does.

That is at least arguable. Have a look in particular at how medicine has treated women, for example. In some ways, medicine, like religion, has often fallen short of its good intentions. The difference is that medicine is in transition from an art to a science, albeit one that needs a human touch.

Religion has basically broken in two - a progressive wing (tiny) that strives to keep in touch with science etc., and maintain its ideals through the "social gospel" while its theology is quasi-Einsteinian and minimal, and a large amorphous mass, with one end salving its conscience with some social gospel and in a mess about theology, and the other end totally reactionary, socially and theologically (Big Daddy God made some people just better than others).

149. Jury Awards Father $11M in Funeral Case

Comment #84341 by Shuggy on November 1, 2007 at 8:33 pm

A useful thought-experiment is to turn it round and ask what we would think of someone who wanted to picket a religious funeral with atheist slogans ("He's not going to Heaven, he's not going anywhere!"), or an atheist funeral with religious, albeit upward pointing, slogans ("He was a GOOD atheist, God will welcome him into Heaven!")

I think we'd say the same thing in every case - piss off!

150. What the New Atheists Don't See

Comment #84335 by Shuggy on November 1, 2007 at 7:12 pm

"Religion spoils everything."

What? The Saint Matthew Passion?

Absolutely!

Pilate: I am innocent of the blood of this just person, see ye to it.

CHORUS: His blood be on us and on our children, be on us and on our children, be on us, be on us and on our chil - dren.