101. Look Forward to Anger

Comment #52570 by BT Murtagh on June 27, 2007 at 10:03 am

KRKBAB, I consider that high praise; I don't always agree with William Buckley but I deeply admire both his intellect and his writing style. If I ever get a piano and you ever tune it, I'll match his tip, too.

I could say much the same about Christopher Hitchens, come to that. Assuming he has a piano, and you tune it, and he gives you a big tip, of course! ;)

102. Look Forward to Anger

Comment #52475 by BT Murtagh on June 27, 2007 at 5:16 am

I for one don't get a party line leaflet telling me what my opinions should be, and I don't always oppose war - I make my own mind up, as does Hitchens. I simply disagree with him as to the value of the war in Iraq. Attacking the Afghanistan Taleban, who were the fundamentalist whackos who were actually sheltering and supporting the people who attacked us, was necessary and justified.

The Iraq war was not, and the best intelligence available at the time damn well said so; our government just opted to ignore the best in favor of the worst, because they were determined to have their war. Well they got it, and now we're reaping the whirlwind; if anyone honestly believes that the Iraq war has had the effect of decreasing the number of jihadi lunatics in the world then they need to seriously wake up and smell the cordite.

We merely exchanged a contained and stable secular dictatorship for a chaotic maelstrom of would-be theocrats, and every day we're there makes our position worse. Fighting fundamentalism is something we can all get behind. Doing it in stupid and counterproductive ways that actually increase the ranks of the fundamentalists is not.

103. Look Forward to Anger

Comment #52423 by BT Murtagh on June 27, 2007 at 2:16 am

Summer Seale, I didn't refute your point, I added to it. I agree that the conclusion "we should do nothing" does not follow from our prior support of Saddam; however, as I said, "we should launch a pre-emptive military attack on Iraq" doesn't follow either.

That's a false duality, and another false duality should be dealt with before I reply to your longer post: 'the left' and 'the right' are directions on a vastly oversimplified spectrum, not a pair of zombified hordes. The labels are a currency too common to completely discard easily, but they can be massively misleading (and are often used to deliberately so mislead).

But, you see, coming from the left *and* the right....and being an Atheist, I do see the serious flaws in both sides. First of all, the enemy knows we won't go bombing everyone. They will, and they're counting on our moral superiority *not* to do it. And because they know it, they're going to win. You're not talking about a moral debate here, you're talking about a *war*. That's where the left fails, and it fails *badly*. They don't recognize that it is a *war*.

And if they do, they do not recognize what *war* means. They discount everything we do in self-defense, or hell I'll admit it, an offensive strike, as a blow against human rights.

To be more specific, there are many on 'the left' who do regard this struggle as a war, and use the term war, and there are indeed some few on the 'right' who question the use of the term war and consider it misleading. I don't know of anyone, at any point on the political spectrum, who regards it simply as a moral debate, although there are many all across it, from 'left' to 'right', who do see a moral debate as being inextricably interwoven into the causes, proper conduct of and potential solution to the struggle.

I for one do not have an issue with using the word war; I think the word is often misused in rhetoric ("War on _____" == increased funding) but it's justified here. However, you're missing an adjective or two; this is an asymmetrical, guerrilla warfare we're having here, and if there's one thing that the history every war of that type has shown, it is that conventional military attacks alone don't win them, and can actually be counterproductive if badly applied.

The case in point is that the military attack on Iraq has made the war against al-Quaida orders of magnitude more difficult.

Well, I'm sorry, war is the ultimate blow against human rights. Face it, there *is* no "humane war". That's a load of crap. Admit it, and move on. War is the ugliest of things, but it is sometimes a necessary thing. If you can't accept
that, then you can't accept the way the world is - logical conclusions about religion notwithstanding. If you can't accept that, you're being dogmatic to a utopian viewpoint. That's my real prob with the left today.

I accept that just fine. I also recognize the reality that every noncombatant Iraqi killed by American ordnance radicalizes a dozen relatives, and in an atmosphere soaked with religion, that means 'Iraqi' becomes bound up in 'Muslim' and 'American' bound up in 'Christian' and there's your jihad.

I am not speaking purely from theory here; being brought up Irish in England, I grew up thinking blackheartedprotestant was one word. Note that Ireland gained independence through guerrilla warfare, and look how easily religion got brought into it. With regional variations the same thing happened in most of the British Empire's colonies, and this despite Britain having one of the greatest military forces ever assembled. Note also that the Irish Troubles are only now winding down, and it emphatically is not due to an increased military presence in Northern Ireland - quite the opposite!

Imagine Saddam had been a dictator, the way he was, in "The Christian World" - see how offensive that term is? It used to be the term we used for the West, but we fixed that little problem with a *lot* of bloodshed because, quite frankly, we thought it was worth it. But just imagine it. You think, for one minute, that any of you, seeing a dictator claiming to be the *direct* descendant of Jesus, claiming the annihilation of an entire people to "liberate" a city for a holy book, claiming the right to fund suicide bombers of abortion clinics, and claiming the right to sew "God Is Great" on our flag....do you *think* for one minute that people here would not want to see him removed post-haste?

Frankly, you're going to have to clean up and explain your analogy before I can respond properly to it.

I wasn't aware that Saddam claimed descent from Mohammed, though it's certainly possible since the man did have children; in any case, I don't see that the US would go to war with someone for making the claim to be a descendant of Jesus - the theocratization of America hasn't progressed that far yet - but neither did we attack Saddam for any such reason.

Saddam did gas Kurds, but in response to an uprising, not to rescue a holy book; in any case, we did not invade him at the time he did that, did we? Use of war gasses is pretty rare, but I note that we didn't attack Russia over the brutal suppression of the Chechen uprising either.

I'll grant you that funding suicide bombers who target allies of ours is a provocative act, but it's plainly not one which we consider worthy of a declaration of war, at least at the level Saddam was practising it - the timing alone shows that. There aren't a great many Christian suicide bombers, and bombing abortion clinics is a tad more specific than what the jihadis Saddam funded were doing, but I question your assertion that we'd be ever so much quicker to attack a nominally Christian country for equivalent acts - I simply don't buy it.

If a fundamentalist Christian government started funding millenarian suicide bombers targeting Israel, I think our response would be more or less proportionate. If anything, the current US government would be slower to action against such a Christian nation, which is equally wrong and disagreeable to me but goes directly against your thesis.

As for the flag, are you seriously suggesting we'd go to war because some dictator, of whatever religion, put a religious quote on his flag? Get real.

Be real. Be *honest* with your viewpoints. You know, and I know, that almost *everyone* here sees Christianity differently than they see the "Muslim World". It's racist. It's sad because it is so obvious. I know, as we all know, that if you had seated Saddam in the West, everyone here would be enraged to the point of calling directly for his ouster. Period. End of discussion.

You're either using Muslim where you mean Arab, or racist where you mean sectarian. Muslim is a religious adjective, not a racial one. And no, you're wrong; I, and I suspect many others here, see differences between the "Muslim World" and the "Christian World" only to the extent that such differences actually exist. I fully supported our first war against Saddam Hussein, and I suspect that many others here did also, and that is because it was a justified war in response to an aggressive act; had Saddam staged another invasion of a neighboring country you would find almost universal support for war against him, on the 'left' and 'right' alike, and not a man jack or woman jill would give a rat's patootie about whether he was Arab or Aryan, Muslim or Christian or secular. Period. End of discussion.

And then look at the reaction of the left to the war in general. I don't mean just in Iraq but to the entire situation. It is disingenuous to the core.

There is a reason why the armed forces don't *trust* the left. Let's take a look, shall we?

You'll find, if you choose to research it, that the armed forces do not trust the 'right' any more than the 'left' these days; rather less, in fact, given the dog's breakfast the Republicans have made of funding things like equipment purchases and veteran's benefits.

Iraq: Oh, "secular" dictator! We shouldn't have attacked. He wasn't the enemy.

That's correct. It seems like an awful lot of high-ranking military people agree with that assessment too, and an ever-growing number of prominent politicians and pundits on the 'right' - although whenever any of the latter go public, they're invariably rebadged as "really liberals all along" by Bush's water-carriers. Hard to make that stick on names like William F. Buckley, though.

Afghanistan: Oh, we're screwing up so badly. Let's just pull out and stop supporting a "puppet" democracy which can't actually control anything out of Kabul.

You must be listening to a different 'left' than me; the principal complaint I've heard is that we've been unable to deal properly with the Afghans because we're wasting all our resources on Iraq. Incidentally, I don't recall hearing anyone on the 'left' saying that Afghanistan was unjustified - only that it was poorly done, for the preceding reason.

Iran: Well, yes, they're religious fanatics at the top but we believe in the people. They'll slowly change the regime (how long do you want us to wait?) and we should stay out of it and talk to the bad guys in power.

Syria: Well, we should just butt out of their business and get to the negotiating table. Then they'll just listen to us as equals. Let's not attack them for supporting terrorism.

Iran and Syria are universally acknowledged as threats, but the recently bitten don't want to rush into war there, particularly when we're so weakened and stretched by our idiot involvement in Iraq. And yes, you do talk to 'bad guys' when you can, because if you only talk to people you are already bosom buddies with then you don't get ahead. That's called pragmatic reality, and I seem to recall from elsewhere in your post that you claim to be in favor of it.

Saudi Arabia: Oh well, they're extremists and most of their countrymen hate our guts, and they incite violence all over the world, but can you *imagine* the effect of attacking Saudi Arabia? How that would *inflame* the Muslim World? (Again with that term and "respect"....when did Atheists suddenly care about inflaming the "Christian World"? Or does the "Muslim World" get a free pass? Is that how it works?)

Again, this is a matter of pragmatism and you're trying to make it something else; the fact is, invading Saudi Arabia would gain us no benefit, we couldn't do anything useful with it, and yes, it would likely inflame the entire region. This isn't about some meaningless 'respect' for Islam, it's about not sticking your fucking arm in a wood chipper!

Pakistan: Well, he's a dictator, we shouldn't be doing business with him (but it's okay to talk to Syria, Iran, etc..). We don't know what to do about Pakistan, but we wish we could do something. What can we do? No idea. Leftists
haven't given us any practical solutions on the matter yet.

Neither have the 'right' and for the same reason: no idea what can usefully be done. Pre-emptive war doesn't seem like a good idea there either.

So...exactly *when* is it okay to fight back, and against whom? Is there *anyone* out there that people on this board think we should be at war with?

We have Jihadis blowing themselves up all over the world in the name of their pathetic god, and everyone here, who *should* be outraged to frigging hell...is excusing it as some sort of cultural quirk.

You're conflating the Iraq war with fighting jihadis. You shouldn't do that, because the failure to do so has made things worse, not better. Remember the conversation between Richard Clarke and Donald Rumsfeld? "Al-Quaida isn't in Iraq. We know where they are, they're in Afghanistan." "There are no good targets in Afghanistan."

So, aside from attacking the bad guys, then what *is* your solution? I haven't heard a *single* practical one from the left yet. All I hear is what we shouldn't do, and whom we *shouldn't* fight. That's not a solution. It's a war. Bombs killing people means *war*. WHAT is your solution for victory, please?

Attacking using the wrong weapons because it's simpler is as pointless as attacking the wrong targets because they're easier to aim at. You fight terrorists mostly with police work, including everything from infiltration to forensic accounting. Tightly targetted military strikes are part of it, when you can locate an actual training camp for example, but full scale invasions and occupations are not - they mostly serve as recruiting bonanzas for the other side. If you need to kill them then you do so by preference after giving them a transparently fair trial - not just because it is the right thing to do, but because the occasional live one who might get off is far less to be feared than the ones who will so easily be made martyrs if you don't.

It's not as sexy as 'shock and awe' and it takes a while, but it works. Sometimes at least, a lot more often than simple military galumphing does. Heard anything of the Baader-Meinhof gang lately? How about the Symbionese Liberation Army? How about the Weather Underground?

Hurry, lots of people are dying and the clock is ticking, thank you. =)

Summys <3

Yes, and a lot of them are dying because the methods that work aren't as sexy and immediate as a nice hot little war. That's the point.

You can also make it much, much harder to recruit terrorists by making less desperate and confused people who live amid constant warfare. Poverty and chaos breed desperation, and desperation breeds both religious zealotry and warriors with nothing to lose. No, I'm not saying that poverty and bad living conditions are the sole cause of this war - they aren't - but they sure help the process along.

Whatever we do, and things most certainly need to be done, it will be a long hard illness the world is going to go through. Readiness to war is not a trait which will make the fever shorter though - it's a potion which can sometimes help, in small and precisely measured doses, but it is more often and more easily made a poison than a medecine.

Oh, and one more thing... ;) I'm almost certainly what you would call a leftist, but I'm no utopian either, and I also am a firm believer in the Second Amendment. I just don't shoot every religious idiot who looks dangerous.

(edited to corrct formatting and spelling errors)

104. Look Forward to Anger

Comment #52368 by BT Murtagh on June 26, 2007 at 9:51 pm

MIND_REBEL says:

And the reason why you're safe is because people like GWB have the stones to stand up to bullies that want to destroy your world in the name of religion.

Not only am I not 'safe' in an absolute sense, I would assess my safety as being considerably lessened by Mr. Bush's choices. While some Muslims certainly have always desired to 'conquer' America with Islam, the ones who would do so with violence were a small and dwindling minority before we attacked Iraq, while now their ranks are rapidly growing.

He is, in any event, someone who also wishes to alter my world beyond recognition in the name of his religion, which makes him at best a 'lesser Satan' and one who is making much more rapid headway in his abhorrent vision than any Muslim terrorist was ever likely to in my lifetime.

Finally, I would question what 'stones' it takes to send others into battle to die. Mr. Bush has not suffered a damn thing from his war, and has gathered all manner of (hopefully short-term) gains from it. Spare me the 'stones' and deliver me a leader with more concern for the consequences of his policies for the country and the world.

Summer Seale says:

But what doesn't follow in that argument is the conclusion that, since we supported Saddam in the past, we should do nothing about it in the present.

Neither does it follow that preemptive war against Iraq was an intelligent or helpful thing to do. It didn't rectify our earlier misdeeds, it simply added an arguably worse set of misdeeds on top of them. Certainly the poor consequences of the war in Iraq, its cost in blood and treasure and opportunities lost, far outweigh those of the earlier errors, not only for us but arguably for the people of Iraq and for the world at large.

105. Trio to rock against religion

Comment #52360 by BT Murtagh on June 26, 2007 at 9:02 pm

I'm no longer a metal fan, and never was all that deep into it, but from what I remember the genre is not so much anti-religious as buying into a Satanic motif, with a strong minority of its prominent musicians even explicitly declaring themselves to be Devil-worshippers. The active Satanists are not a majority, but the use of the imagery is overwhelmingly common.

Satanism is about as far from atheist rationality as you can get; not only is it just another religion, but it's even more retarded than Christianity in that they're worshipping the loser in the cosmogonic battle.

Perhaps your experience of metal is quite different than mine was, perhaps metal has progressed (heresy!), but despite this story I find it difficult to picture the metal scene becoming a hotbed of rationalism.

106. 4 page German spread on The God Delusion

Comment #52343 by BT Murtagh on June 26, 2007 at 7:53 pm

I like the background for that advertisement much better than the one on the flyers on the home page of this site, in almost every way.

The golden hue and dramatic angle on the towers emphasises what was lost, the airplane flying overhead points much better to how and thereby why it was lost, as well as counterpointing the 'ascent of reason' because it is flying toward the light to escape the clouds. It's altogether a much more satisfying composition.

Is there any chance of getting this design incorporated into some downloadable and printable flyers as well?

107. Executive Actions to Promote Religion Ruled Beyond Court Scrutiny

Comment #51989 by BT Murtagh on June 25, 2007 at 7:54 pm

heafnerj says in comment 51945: "The only missing piece is the seizing of the military by the executive branch."

I have bad news for you.

It's already been done, but almost nobody but a few policy wonks even noticed.

In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.

Quote taken from here:
http://www.towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/911/
Just Google "Bush Posse Comitatus" or some such for more.

108. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #51666 by BT Murtagh on June 24, 2007 at 2:59 am

The phrase "Moderates [in religion] encourage sloppy thinking" is for me the core of why I oppose religion in general, rather than simply opposing fundamentalists.

It's akin to opposing both the chronic and acute expressions of a disease; a total opposition, while it may seem extreme to those who are personally only mildly inconvenienced by the chronic, is in the long run the only hope for those dying from the acute expression.

109. Bill O'Reilly and Kirk Cameron on Atheism

Comment #51659 by BT Murtagh on June 24, 2007 at 1:51 am

Bats do have eyes, and they are functional too. They rely more upon their sonar, but sight is a strong second - just the reverse of our setup, in a way.

110. U.S. circumcision rate drops

Comment #50571 by BT Murtagh on June 18, 2007 at 8:02 pm

Well, I can explain how someone in this day and age does such a thing. It's mostly a lack of education. I have to confess, I did not do the research on this before my son was born. It simply didn't occur to me.

Then, on his birth day, his mother raised the issue (D'oh!), and she wanted it done, the doctor recommended doing it, decision has to be made today if it's to be covered under the insurance, I myself had been chopped as a baby and it hadn't done me any harm that I knew of... so I went along.

Had I thought about it earlier I would have done the research and would have opposed it. Maybe I'm a negligent dad for not having thought about it, but hey, while he was his mother's fifth he was my first child, and somehow the word circumcision didn't enter any of my conversations for the entire pregnancy. I was a passive atheist then; now that I'm an active one it crops up regularly.

Unfortunately I don't have access to any supernatural beings who can save me from the bad decisions I made in the past, while in a state of ignorance. To paraphrase those who claim they do, please, hate the ignorance, not the ignorant (or formerly ignorant).

111. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #50324 by BT Murtagh on June 16, 2007 at 7:25 pm

Anybody got a transcript? I spend half my time on a computer with no speakers.

112. Why Do Some People Resist Science?

Comment #46294 by BT Murtagh on May 30, 2007 at 8:20 pm

I'm going to have to try this later, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the "common-sense Aristotlean theory of object motion" will turn out to be more accurate than the 'correct' model, in the real world where things like friction exist.

If I propel a ball straight into a curved tube as shown, my guess would be that the ball will pick up some spin from the wall of the tube. When it comes out the point of contact with the floor will be spinning and this will make the path curve.

If anyone's able and willing to make the experiment before I can (I'm not at home) post the results.

It puts me in mind of a time I was 'corrected' by one of my childhood art teachers for putting the sun and moon in the sky at the same time in my drawing. I pointed out the window, where both were cleatly visible in the morning sky.

113. If It Feels Good to Be Good, It Might Be Only Natural

Comment #46289 by BT Murtagh on May 30, 2007 at 7:51 pm

While I do consider it a likely hypothesis that there's a built-in tendency toward generous behaviour, let's not jump the gun. All this study appears to have shown, from the details provided, is that there's a brain response in a region associated with food and sex. It's a correlation, causation seems very likely, but unless there's something in the protocol not mentioned there's zero proof of it being "hardwired".

Since all the study volunteers are adults, it could be a learned response. After all, there are food responses which are learned; I've had the experience of not even recognizing a food item, presuming it to be garnish. Certainly we can get sexually triggered by stimuli which don't occur in nature - I refer you to a large chunk of the Internets! ;)

It does fit in well with the reciprocity model, in that there may be a predisposition to associate generosity with the prospect of being rewarded with food and/or sex, on a pre-rational level of mental processing. Until there's further study, I wouldn't presume that social conditioning doesn't have as much to do with the development of that response as raw genetic instinct, though.

We are creatures of both genes and memes, after all, so the ultimate explanation of our better natures seems likely to involve both.

114. Hitchens and Prager Debate

Comment #46101 by BT Murtagh on May 30, 2007 at 8:22 am

I love the way Prager sets up this completely hypothetical and unrealistic situation, but when Hitchens counters with a suggestion that he'd be even more comfortable if they were coming from a Thomas Paine study group Prager huffs that that isn't realistic, "in the real world" only Bible study groups are likely to be going on in bad neighborhoods.

It doesn't have anything to do with the point he wants to engineer, but if we want to talk about "real world" I'm hardly likely to know the ten strangers are coming from Bible study, am I?

Not unless I've received a supernatural revelation, that is, in which case I'll test it by asking and upon discovering the disembodied voice spoke accurately I'll finally have something approaching evidence for this God hypothesis.

But not in the real world, I'm afraid.

115. Christopher Hitchens at Politics and Prose

Comment #45911 by BT Murtagh on May 29, 2007 at 3:25 pm

Seeing speakers like Hitchens take questions provides a much needed reminder that it is a rare thing to treasure, this sublime ability to get to the fricking point already (or at least to make the journey there interesting).

116. Observer Diary 27th May 2007

Comment #45670 by BT Murtagh on May 28, 2007 at 10:00 pm

Re: Comment #45412 by He'sAVeryNaughtyBoy

Your numbers are for New York alone, whereas Prof. Dawkins refers to the entire US: "swamped by road accidents and domestic murders, 9/11 made no noticeable blip in the USA's violent death statistics for a typical September".

That said, these are the US murder rates according to the FBI for the US in years you looked at:

1999 15522
2000 15586
2001 16037 (Does not include 9/11 deaths)
2002 16229
2003 16528
2004 16148

I can't see that these numbers are large enough to 'swamp' an additional 3000-odd deaths, and bear in mind that these are yearly figures! Naively we could divide by twelve for a reasonable estimate of an 'typical September'.

Source:
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html

As for traffic fatalities, September crash fatalities have not exceeded 5000 in the US between 1975 and 2002, according to the summary graphs from the NHTSA here:

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/809855.PDF

I didn't chase down the exact numbers because I think we can all agree that any number less than 5000 is not going to swamp 3000.

In his defense Prof. Dawkins did say several times in _Unweaving the Rainbow_ that he is no statistician!

(Please don't take this as jumping all over your casual remark, Professor, I was just interested in chasing down whether the numbers really justified it or not.)

117. It came like yesterday

Comment #45663 by BT Murtagh on May 28, 2007 at 7:48 pm

Spatially and effectually we are insignificant on the scale of the cosmos; however, we don't live on the scale of the cosmos. We live on the human scale, and on the human scale we matter deeply.

Despite all our flaws, sometimes maybe even because of them, I like people. They're my species, after all; it'd be surprising if I didn't. I'm in favour of any project which increases our probable survival time. I think it dreadfully wrong-headed to simply accept the prospect of our own demise, merely because we are already insignificant on the scale of galaxies - or the scale of atoms, for that matter.

I am therefore a fervent supporter of space exploration for that reason alone, quite apart from the prospect of all the wonderfully interesting information that's bound to come our way as we move outward.

The cosmos doesn't care about us particularly, it's true, but by the same token the cosmos won't mind a bit if we make ourselves at home in a larger portion of it.

118. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Robert Winston

Comment #45660 by BT Murtagh on May 28, 2007 at 7:24 pm

Re: #45636 by dyingfaith: For any next debate, how about a really simple question like where exactly is heaven? Is it closer to our galaxy or some remote galaxy? Maybe between Io and Jupiter? How about the Crab Nebula?

But Jack Van Impe has already answered you! I transcribed it for you here:

http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,1032,Worlds-most-prominent-atheist-takes-on-the-Biblical-God-and-other-topics,Jack-Van-Impe,page3#comments

"The Bible teaches in Second Crinius (?) 12:2 that there are three Heavens. The first one goes up 600 miles and consists of the atmosphere, trophosphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, ionosphere, and exosphere. Then, from 600 miles up, and the astronomers have already discovered this, it goes up to 186 trillion billions of miles, and then above that is a third Heaven where God rules and reigns.

"Now there's only one way to get to that third Heaven, and the Bible says that there's an empty space in the north. What an up to date book!

"Job 26:7, 'He hangeth the Earth upon nothing, and stretched out the north over the empty place.' Why? Because the north is where God has shown us the way to get into Heaven.

"It's in the north? Yes, because when Satan fell from Heaven, in 14:12-14, he said 'I will sit upon God's throne in the side to the North,' and Psalms 75:6 adds, 'Blessings come neither from the east nor the west nor the south but from the North.' Now why is that important?

"Wow, what a book! In the constellation of Orion there is an opening out of the Second Heaven to get to the Third!"

119. Group Threatens to Sue Pentagon Over Military Role in Evangelical Festival

Comment #45273 by BT Murtagh on May 27, 2007 at 3:46 am

Thanks, Gordon!

< style=blatantPlug>
I've crossposted it to my fledgeling blog, http://QuarkScrew.blogspot.com if anyone wants to comment there!
<latantPlug>

120. Aiming for knockout blow in god wars

Comment #45269 by BT Murtagh on May 27, 2007 at 3:28 am

Root Of All Evil is a "shockumentary"? RD is giving Somerville "disturbed, sleepless nights"? It's a good job these people have the solid foundation of faith to stand on, because they certainly seem easily perturbed. Unstable, that is.

I mean, I worry about them, too, but mostly because they're often in positions of power - it seems sensible to worry about US Presidents who go to war because their imaginary friends tell them to. That hardly applies to Dawkins, Dennett, Harris or Hitchens, and despite all the overblown rhetoric about atheist anger, only Hitch seems to have the inner rage that makes a good street fighter. (Although it must be added that Sam does exude the scary calm of a secret martial arts master!)

It seems that ideas alone are enough to terrify Somerville's crew. Sad, really.

121. Group Threatens to Sue Pentagon Over Military Role in Evangelical Festival

Comment #45252 by BT Murtagh on May 27, 2007 at 1:49 am

As a US Navy veteran I'd like to point out that the military is a particularly dangerous venue in which to allow this kind of unfettered evangelism.

There are obvious Constitutional difficulties inherent in having what is, if not the, certainly one of the most visible and respected parts of the US Executive becoming so obviously partial toward a particular religious congregation. It is also an arena which is directly on point as to why the Founding Fathers wanted to raise the Wall of Separation in the first place; you do not want all the serious firepower concentrated in the hands of a particular religious faction!

I would add that giving over all the big guns to an emotive, evangelizing and millenarian style of religion is a particularly dangerous idea; this isn't paranoia, history books contain many examples of states which have been overthrown by militaries in the thrall of such ideologies.

On a smaller level, spare a thought for individuals within the military who aren't of the dominant religion, as was my own situation while I was in.

As a military subject you are usually a captive audience; on board a ship, or in a barracks, there is no easy way to escape the proselytizing. I can't count the number of times on board ship when I was forced to sit through lengthy prayers and even full religious services, broadcast over the ship's loudspeakers into every corner.

Consider also that a military subject, by the nature of the profession, is often forced to live and work in continual close proximity with other members of his or her unit, under extremely stressful and unnatural conditions. Not only success in mission or career, but sometimes life itself is at stake, and dependent upon being able to develop and maintain close and trusting relationships. If a majority of the unit belongs to a particular faith, and is encouraged or simply allowed to push it onto the minority, it is difficult for a civilian to even imagine the overwhelming social pressures which can be brought to bear.

If impartiality of religion is not vigorously enforced as a principle of military life, eventually you will end up with a self-enforcing culture; only Christians will be able to effectively work in the unit, because the existing members won't trust or bond with a non-Christian. There's a reason why Iraqi police and military units aren't typically mixed Shia and Sunni; the analogous issue fails of becoming a problem for US forces by a much smaller margin than you might imagine. Take it from one who's been there.

122. Heliocentrism is an Atheist Doctrine

Comment #45072 by BT Murtagh on May 26, 2007 at 5:12 am

Bill O'Reilly on a pogo stick:

"Sun goes up. Sun goes down."

123. Importing a slave class

Comment #45069 by BT Murtagh on May 26, 2007 at 5:08 am

'The people who make arguments about "jobs Americans won't do" are never in a line of work where unskilled immigrants can compete with them. Liberals love to strike generous, humanitarian poses with other people's lives.'

From what I've seen it's mostly 'conservatives' who make this argument, and who hire the illegal immigrants - excuse me, 'undocumented workers' - at slave wages. 'Liberals' tend to argue for a livable minimum wage (which would make those jobs into ones Americans would want) and for harsher penalties on those who exploit the green-cardless.

It's kind of the flip side of supply side / demand side economics.

124. Heliocentrism is an Atheist Doctrine

Comment #45052 by BT Murtagh on May 26, 2007 at 3:29 am

Einstein in the bus:

"Excuse me, does 49th Street stop at this bus?"

125. Would the World Be Safer Without Religion?

Comment #43513 by BT Murtagh on May 21, 2007 at 9:44 pm

I have a meta question: when we rate an article like this "poor" or "excellent" or whatever, are we judging whether the writer is arguing well (given the quality of their propositions), or are we judging whther this is an appropriate article for discussion on this site?

126. Would the World Be Safer Without Religion?

Comment #43512 by BT Murtagh on May 21, 2007 at 9:41 pm

@ratio Obviously we can't ethically perform such an experiment. That's why the social sciences are constrained for the most part to making comparisons of existing communities - uncontrolled natural experiments, in effect.

In the case of this question a valid argument, which several have pointed out, is that there is a direct correlation between the degree of religiousity in various countries and the amount of violence. The question remains whether there is causation, and if so in which direction it exists: does the religion cause the violence, does the violence push people toward religion, neither or both?

I strongly suspect the latter, from anecdotal evidence, but anecdotes aren't evidence. The experiment I would like to try is to persuade (not force) as many members of my own society as possible to ditch the religion; if the level of violence then tapers off it'll be, if not proof, at least strong evidence for religion being a cause of violence.

127. A meeting of unlike minds

Comment #43501 by BT Murtagh on May 21, 2007 at 7:53 pm

I'm noticing a pattern here.

[DEBATE_OPPONENT] added that Hitchens might just as easily have titled his book "[NOT_GOD] Is Not Great: How [NOT_RELIGION] Poisons Everything" because he could have found innumerable examples of atrocities perpetrated by them. "Does that mean we should do away with all [NOT_RELIGION]s?" he asks rhetorically.

Hey fellows, I know it would be easier to debate a book of straw or sticks, but you're supposed to be dealing with the book of bricks Hitchens actually wrote. Just take a deeper breath, eh?

128. Christopher Hitchens Is a Treasure

Comment #43236 by BT Murtagh on May 21, 2007 at 2:07 am

But suppose God is not like the Hitchens model. Suppose that God is not a Rationalist, a Logician, a straight-line Geometer-of-the-skies. Suppose that the Creator God deliberately made a world of probabilities and failures, of waste and profusion, of suffering and hardships and frustrations. Suppose that He loved the idea of an unformed history, slowly developing (almost like an organism), nearly everything good won the hard way. Suppose that He loved chance, crossing chains of probabilities, freakish accidents, wild and unnecessary profusion, contingencies of every sort — to keep even angels guessing. Suppose He desired a world of indetermination, with all its blooming, buzzing confusion, so that within it freedom could spread out its wings, experiment, and find its own way.

Suppose, in short, that the Creator God chose to make a Universe that looks exactly like the Universe that would have existed without Him in it at all. Such a God, if He desires to be believed in, has just cut His metaphorical throat with William of Occam's razor.

129. Catholic Church Reconsiders Limbo

Comment #43204 by BT Murtagh on May 20, 2007 at 8:04 pm

The Onion has quite often given me a belly laugh. This one didn't, but it gave me a smile. I thought the Swiffer line was funny, particularly.

130. Hitchens on Falwell

Comment #42534 by BT Murtagh on May 18, 2007 at 10:50 am

The Hannity and Colmes interview is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doKkOSMaTk4

The Hitch really, really gets under Hannity's skin here! It's particularly sputtermaking to hear Sean Hannity refer to Hitch as a 'pseudointellectual'! :)

131. Freethinking Ruins All Things

Comment #42242 by BT Murtagh on May 18, 2007 at 1:14 am

The religious man not only assumes that paradox will occur, but he takes the paucity of reason to explain paradox as an indirect confirmation that there are realities that not even reason, as estimable and valuable as it is, can penetrate or comprehend.

In other words, they know their beliefs make no sense and despise those who insist on sense.

132. Pedal power takes Islamic shape in Iran

Comment #42188 by BT Murtagh on May 17, 2007 at 9:00 pm

DISGUSTING!!!

Why, you can see at a glance that those women are bifurcated! Bipedal, so to speak. Two completely obvious legs, drawing the male imagination inevitably to speculate on where they join, and just to make it worse, they have a physical object (the bicycle itself) jutting obscenely between them!

Why couldn't they ride sidesaddle in a full-length skirt, like Allah intended?

133. The Case Against Intelligent Design: The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Comment #40213 by BT Murtagh on May 13, 2007 at 10:08 pm

The spurious comforts of religion really are difficult for even intelligent people to give up.

A fervent Christian came to work in my lab as a temp for about six months. He was quite intelligent and articulate (or he wouldn't have been working in my lab), albeit woefully misinformed and a bit lacking in what Sagan called the 'baloney detection kit,' primarily because he relied far too much on appeals to authority.

He was also very willing to engage in 'apologetics' for his Christian faith and associated ideas, including a firm belief in creationism (or I wouldn't have discussed such issues with him). So while working together over the course of half a year we engaged in essentially one long conversation, bringing in citations and written arguments from home as well as the purely verbal debates in the lab.

In the end I did convert him to a belief in evolution - he simply couldn't deny the logic, and fell back from being a Biblical literalist to an interpretationalist. He admitted I had systematically demolished all of his arguments - I gained a great deal of ammunition from this very site, BTW.

Just before he left he confided that he had even taken a weekend to try and look at the world through a rationalist's eyes, and had seen that his religious beliefs in general did look pretty silly - but he just couldn't see himself "ever becoming comfortable in that world." In other words, he chose to keep his beliefs even though his rational mind recognized their invalidity!

I congratulated him on at least having the courage to visit my world, and told him I held out hope that he'd one day come back to stay. I wish I'd had another six months, I might have been able to show him that it isn't all that uncomfortable here either!

134. World's most prominent atheist takes on the Biblical God (and other topics)

Comment #39814 by BT Murtagh on May 12, 2007 at 2:56 am

I painfully transcribed part of this, because I wouldn't want anyone to miss Jack's important revelation from his amazing and up-to-date book.

--

"The Bible teaches in Second Crinius (?) 12:2 that there are three Heavens. The first one goes up 600 miles and consists of the atmosphere, trophosphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, ionosphere, and exosphere. Then, from 600 miles up, and the astronomers have already discovered this, it goes up to 186 trillion billions of miles, and then above that is a third Heaven where God rules and reigns.

"Now there's only one way to get to that third Heaven, and the Bible says that there's an empty space in the north. What an up to date book!

"Job 26:7, 'He hangeth the Earth upon nothing, and stretched out the north over the empty place.' Why? Because the north is where God has shown us the way to get into Heaven.

"It's in the north? Yes, because when Satan fell from Heaven, in 14:12-14, he said 'I will sit upon God's throne in the side to the North,' and Psalms 75:6 adds, 'Blessings come neither from the east nor the west nor the south but from the North.' Now why is that important?

"Wow, what a book! In the constellation of Orion there is an opening out of the Second Heaven to get to the Third!"

--

I'm almost dumbfounded. This crap is easily on a par with the Heaven's Gate nonsense. Maybe Comet Hale-Bopp is actually the sintered remains of Satan's left shoe that he lost in the Fall?

135. Supporters of abortion have no future in Church, Pope tells faithful

Comment #39051 by BT Murtagh on May 9, 2007 at 9:34 pm

Brazil's one thing, but it'd be REALLY interesting if he starts excommunicating US politicians like Kerry for supporting abortion. I suspect this hard-nosed attitude will be re-thought if it causes a serious decline in Catholic membership.

Not saying he'll rethink the policy - he won't - but we'd probably see a return to benign neglect of enforcement.

136. Brazil Greets Pope but Questions His Perspective

Comment #39048 by BT Murtagh on May 9, 2007 at 9:28 pm

What language would we have this debate between the Pope and Harris/Dawkins in? I don't think a verbal debate would work at all. Maybe something like the written debate Harris had with Sullivan would be doable.

I, too, suspect that the pontiff would be wiped all over the floor of St. Peter's by either SH or RD, or CH for that matter. Sigh... not going to happen though, is it?

137. Sam Harris in conversation with Oliver McTernan

Comment #38911 by BT Murtagh on May 9, 2007 at 1:14 pm

"I am not articulating a worldview. I am really articulating a reluctance to accept people pretending to be certain about things they are clearly not certain about."

Sorry, IQHQ, but this isn't "a youngster who thinks he's got it all worked out". He's simply someone who can't accept the propositions of religion with no evidence, and considers those propositions dangerous, and he expresses his doubts with remarkable clarity and precision, and a bit of humour as well.

I find Sam Harris a careful and clear thinker, and delightfully articulate with his thoughts. "Smartest man in the world"? Well, no, but a very smart man indeed, and worth listening to.

138. A Bunch of Monkeys

Comment #38350 by BT Murtagh on May 7, 2007 at 9:08 pm

You stopped?

139. Richard Dawkins on Canada AM

Comment #38314 by BT Murtagh on May 7, 2007 at 1:27 pm

Nope, something's misconfigured at the Canada Am site. Depending upon how I access it it either hangs on the loading graphic or it claims it can't find Windows Media Player - this on two different Windows XP computers, both fully updated, and whether using Firefox, Seamonkey or Windows Explorer.

140. A Bunch of Monkeys

Comment #38299 by BT Murtagh on May 7, 2007 at 12:53 pm

WE ARE NOT MONKEYS!!!

We're apes, dagnabit.

141. 'No proof Jesus heals Aids'

Comment #37835 by BT Murtagh on May 6, 2007 at 12:24 am

#37730: Nails, that's the funniest thing I've seen in I don't know how long! Thanks!! :D

142. Dinesh D'Souza says I don't exist: an atheist at Virginia Tech

Comment #33289 by BT Murtagh on April 19, 2007 at 7:45 pm

Beautiful.

143. Almost Human, and Sometimes Smarter

Comment #32646 by BT Murtagh on April 17, 2007 at 9:29 pm

I'll go even further than denoir in 32629; the researcher is just plain wrong. Humans are perfectly capable of doing this; it's a simpler version of a memory game which my son mastered at about the age of 5, and with a greater number of symbols involved too. I don't know if a chimp would be able to do it faster than him, but he could do up to 20 matches (the maximum the program offered) very swiftly indeed.

You can also see human adults doing similar games in bars all over the US, usually with successful answers revealing a picture of a scantily-clad human female, and generally doing quite well.

144. Atheism isn't the final word

Comment #32319 by BT Murtagh on April 16, 2007 at 9:05 pm

I'm with roach, except in my case it was Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam I didn't know was out. Perhaps it was hidden behind the entire bookcases devoted just to Bibles, and even more devoted to Christian-themed works. It's amusing to me that Mr. Feder feels so obstructed in his perambulations by a mere five titles.

I do wonder where he's reading these atheist claiming societal victory, though. Most atheists I know consider the arguments compelling, obviously, but I don't know of any who think we've convinced everybody, or even that it's inevitable we will. Quite the contrary; most of us are desperately concerned that nothing will suffice to get through to those hooked on faith, at least to the extent that they cease trying to insert their theology into our classrooms and government.

145. God and His Gays

Comment #27635 by BT Murtagh on March 25, 2007 at 9:28 pm

DavidJMH claims: "Homosexuality, once accepted as the norm by a society, is a precursor to inevitable decline. History shows this to be the case and every civilization which ignores this rule does so at it's peril. This rule has nothing the do with religion, it is a proven evolutionary fact, no matter how unpalatable it may be to some".

I'd be genuinely interested in seeing a justification for this bald statement, but I doubt you have one. Since every society other than those still extant have by definition declined, whether or not they accepted homosexuality, and since some which are still extant do accept homosexuality, how do you isolate that attitude in particular as a precursor to destruction?

Since you claim it is a "proven evolutionary fact", let's see your evidence. I thought I was doing a fair job keeping up with the applications of evolutionary thought to anthropology and sociology (I've never met an evolutionary historian), but I can't say I've even seen it put forward as a serious scientific hypothesis, in any discipline.

146. A hundred residents of a Russian village have refused to switch to new passports because they believe the documents' bar codes contain satanic symbols

Comment #27633 by BT Murtagh on March 25, 2007 at 8:40 pm

10. Comment #27602 by tomwb on March 25, 2007 at 3:05 pm Well, actually the code for 6 is: thin line, thin space, thin line, thick space

Just to add to the confusion, that's what it is on the left half of a UPC barcode. On the right side the lines and spaces are reversed. The serpent's sign is subtle... (Say that six times suddenly!)

It always irks/amuses me when these idiots get all worked up because their grocery bill adds up to $6.66 or whatever. Even by their own moronic superstitions it's supposed to be the "number of a man" NOT the number of a can of chicken soup!

Still, I guess I am talking about people who often can't distinguish flesh and blood from a cracker and grape juice.

147. 1986 Oxford Union Debate

Comment #26112 by BT Murtagh on March 17, 2007 at 2:50 am

Although I think I understand Prof. Dawkins's reasons for no longer debating creationists, I think he did the larger debate a service by doing so this time. It's a dirty job but every once in a while someone has to do it, lest the idiots in opposition gain credulity by default.

That's one reason I am so glad to see so many passionate and well-argued books on atheism gaining prominence in the marketplace' _The God Delusion_'s success has had the happy side effect of directing my attention to this site and to a number of other Dawkins books I had overlooked.

Had Professor Dawkins refused the call to express his views so widely my own life would have been considerably diminished. Thank you, Professor Dawkins, for many hours of enjoyable reading, and for the thoughts provoked and discussions enabled by your work.

148. 1986 Oxford Union Debate

Comment #26110 by BT Murtagh on March 17, 2007 at 2:25 am

10. Comment #25342 by LookToWindward on March 12, 2007 at 9:05 am: And I am exceedingly pleased to have this affirmation of my decision not to join the Union (nor, in fact, its lesser, if slightly less hacky version in Cambridge). Go me!

Yes, but isn't it a pity that the debates thereby lacked your incisive insights and devastating rhetoric?

149. God's dupes

Comment #25966 by BT Murtagh on March 15, 2007 at 9:04 pm

"Mythology is where all gods go to die... a fresh grave should be dug for the God of Abraham."

Sam Harris is not only a remarkably clear thinker, he has a real gift for turning a memorable phrase. It's always a deep pleasure to me to read his writing.

150. Does God answer prayer? ASU research says 'yes'

Comment #25965 by BT Murtagh on March 15, 2007 at 8:52 pm

Comment #25929 by BaronOchs on March 15, 2007 at 5:36 pm : I recall in some of the prayer experiments the patients knew they were being prayed for. Which means the placebo affect could lead to some result showing up.

Actually. BaronOchs, it was even more interesting in the STEP study. While there was no difference among the patients who didn't know, the ones who did know they were being prayed for actually did worse! Either there was a reverse placebo effect (e.g. performance anxiety, "Why do I need praying for especially?") or Gawd really, really hates being tested and took it out on them!