Comments by Bonzai

Comment #97778 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 4:07 pm

Steve,

Martyrdom is not a uniquely religious concept. There were many examples of people undertaking missions for causes and that they knew they wouldn't come out alive, even though that didn't always involve strapping a bomb to oneself. The after life doesn't have to be part of the deal to get people to give up this one.

2152. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97768 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 3:58 pm

Amazing! What do you feel was their motivation? It's truly hard for me to imagine (spoiled American). Sacrifice for family? For country?

I think people do that when they think their collective survival is under threat. This is just a speculation.

Edit

Martyrdom is not a uniquely religious concept. There were many examples of people undertake missions that they knew they wouldn't come out alive, even though that don't always involve strapping a bomb to oneself.

2153. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97765 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 3:54 pm

Steve,

Because when there is a kid up there with matches, and with rocks, you get rid of the matches first. Religion is the matches, rocks is politics.

Without the rock, it can be a piece of glass and the sun. The means of ignition is incidental. The politics is the gun powder, you need to get rid of the gun powder.

In the same way, religion is incidental here. If not Islam, it would be other religions, if there is no religion it would be other ideologies such as nationalism, when there is nothing people will invent whatever belief system they need. That has been proven in history.

2154. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97757 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 3:32 pm

Walk,

However, and this goes back to the sign, do you think these educated guys would have suicided if they were atheists?

Probably. The Viet Cong has launched suicide attacks against U.S. troops in the 1960's. They were as atheist as you can get. Half of the human bombs in the Lebanese war were from secular organizations. (see link below)

On the other hand, the Quran does have strong injunctions against suicide. "Jihad" doesn't mean killing yourself. So in what way are these terrorists inspired by religion when what they did was against the religion? This is a very good example of cherry picking based on their own agendas.

Here is an interesting link.
http://www.alternet.org/audits/35815/?page=1

2155. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97733 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 2:58 pm

steve,

Right, so we have a poster saying (summarising yours and Riley's) posts:

"Imagine no testicles, and no planes"

Exactly our point, this would be just as ridiculous as the poster in question.

Fine, but doesn't this make my point in an even stronger way? It is not just Islam that could have been used as a motivation for the attack, but the pagan gods as well.

No, it doesn't. This shows that religion is at best just a pretext, a flag to rally the troops, so to speak.

If the underlying causes are not religious, they could have rallied around other ideologies. There is no shortage of revolutionary ideologies from post Enlightenment Europe.

It is interesting to follow the rise of political Islam. While much criticism can be launched against the backward religion that is Islam. The kind of Islam that enables Bin Laden and his followers is a recent development. After WWII, secularism swept most of the ME. Pan Arabism, not Islam, was the rising force in the region. Secular regimes informed by a mixture of Fascism, populism and socialism steam rolled Islam under their feet. Islam only became a political force in the last twenty or thirty years after Pan Arabism has failed to deliver.

Instead of trying to locate its roots in the Quran, a much more germane explanation for the rise of political Islam is that it fills the vacuum left by Pan Arabism, which has been defeated and discredited. Another enabling factor for Jihadism is Washington's patronage, a lot of the terrorism infrastructures stretching from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan to Afghanistan were set up with the help of the U.S. to fight the Soviet Union.

I am curious about your position.

Unlike some others here, you view is more nuanced. You acknowledge religion might only be an enabling cause, so we agree that there is much more beneath the religious facade.

So then why are you so fixated on the enabling cause? It is like someone living atop a huge gun powder keg thinking that he would be safe if he gets rid of all the matches. Well some kid with two rocks who rubs them together hard enough or a magnifying glass would blow you up til kingdom comes.

As long as those underlying causes for radicalization remain untackled, even without religion they will invent it if needed. That was the case in Chinese peasant rebellions. Without any respectable theology or revolutionary ideology to latch onto, they made up religious cults as they went along.

think you are missing the power of religious belief.

I don't think I am. But I think it is dangerously naive to reduce international politics to religion.

It is like some radical feminists who argue that testosterone is the root cause for war, peace will reign only if the world is run by women. This way of thinking is naive because it ignores the complex institutional and economical reasons behind conflicts and tries to explain a complex situation with a superficial single cause. I think it is the same mistake that many people are making here.

When confronted with examples such as Margret Thatcher, the radical feminists would say she is a man in skirt,--or she has balls,-- as if by making the silly insinuation that she is a transvestite they can maintain their ideology in the face of contradicting evidence. In an exactly identical fashion, when faced with a Muslim (or a Jew or Christian for that matter) who condemns violence, some atheists would simply write him off as not a real Muslim (or whatever).

2156. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97641 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 1:13 pm

Steve,

The poster describes imagination and theology. So of course it is about motivation.

I know that. But we are debating exactly whether the poster is appropriate. It seems odd that you would use the poster's premise as a rebuttal while we are exactly debating the soundness of the reasoning behind it.

I actually haven't expressed an opinion on whether the world would be a better place without religion. I think this is a hypothetical and not a very realistic one. I think the world would definitely be better without certain ideologies, whether religious or not.

Extreme ideologies strive under the harsh conditions of oppressions, poverty and alienation. We will go a long way if we actually eliminate some of the these conditions rather than putting up a poster with a badly off the mark reference whose intention is clearly to offend and accuse rather than to "provoke thought", as you say.

Mind you, I don't mind being offensive, but I think there has to be a larger point if they insist that the purpose is to provoke thought, not just being offensive for offensive sake. I fail to see any larger point beyond a crude caricature.

2157. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97627 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 12:46 pm

steve,

Fine, but doesn't this make my point in an even stronger way? It is not just Islam that could have been used as a motivation for the attack, but the pagan gods as well

See my reply to gr8hands above.

2158. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97623 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 12:42 pm

gr8hands,

That means he could have used other cover than Islam.

That means he was probably not motivated by any specific doctrine. Islam happens to be convenient. So without any religion he might have use Lenin or George Washington.

I think you are too intelligent to miss my point (and Atran's)

2159. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97614 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 12:32 pm

Steve,

We aren't talking about things that where used in the process of making attacks, we are talking about why people did things.

Now you are trying to rig the game in your favor by only talking about things from an angle you think you have an upper hand. :-)

If I were the intended victim, I would feel a lot more secure if I know that you don't have the means to attack me even though you have the intention to, rather than knowing that you have the capacity to kill me a hundred times over even though you don't feel like doing it at the moment. Isn't that what the psychology of pre-emption is all about?

There is not much doubt, no matter how anyone tries to argue out of it, that Islamic doctrines were a significant motivation for the attack on the twin towers.

Ok, I would agree that certain interpretation of Islam was an enabling factor, I think we all agree. But how does it generalize to all religions? Moreover, those people were likely drawn to a certain strain of Islam because of their experience, which was political. American policy in the region is like recruitment ads for radical Islam. Religion doesn't have an existence independent of society, history and politics. Only the believers think that their religion has an ahistorical, eternal existence. I am surprised so many atheists subscribe to it.

There is a good chance that without that motivation, the attack would not have happened.

You are quite wrong in this. In the 2007 beyond belief conference Scott Atran quoted Bin Laden in saying that even without Islam, the pagan gods would have commanded them to drive out the Americans. So it was politics, the specific doctrines probably played a much lesser role than you think.

2160. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97600 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 12:09 pm

Backwards ignorance is best for humanity.
Let's all turn off our computers, and shovel camel shit.

This is not my opinion of course, but it is an example to show the absurdity of single out one cause for a complex situation and attempt to universalize. You shouldn't push the analogy beyond its intended purpose.

P.S. I can also mirror your rhetorics and say without religion that would have been no civilization, no JS Bach, no beautiful cathedral, no literature etc.

2161. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97592 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 12:02 pm

Merry Christmas to you flying goose. Screw the holiday season bs. :-)

2162. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97588 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 12:00 pm

You're right, without science, no bomb, and then the Normandy style invasion of Japan but on a bigger nastier scale that would have killed at least a million, and a shitload of our grandfathers wouldn't exist, and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

But how do you invade Japan Normandy style without science? Without science there would be no WWII. Only local skirmishes.

Without science the terrorists also wouldn't be able to fly two planes into the towers. Aviation technology is science.

Try again. :)

2163. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97582 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 11:56 am

The poster is about ideas; about ways of thinking about reality and truth; about who you get moral guidance from.

This is not what his analogy was about. He addressed the tendency to generalize, the tendency to look for a single cause in complex events and attempt to universalize. I think you are taking his analogy at the wrong level by understanding it too literally.

2164. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97580 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 11:48 am

How about a banner showing the mushroom cloud of the atomic bomb dropped on Japan with the caption "Imagine without science".

Without science, the atomic attack would definitely not have happened. The link is much stronger than that of religion and the twin tower attack.

2165. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97574 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 11:31 am

Steve,

Secondly, there is little or no evidence that motivation for their killing is their opinion on masculinity.... "I am male, therefore I should kill".

Not because of their opinions on masculinity, but because of their masculinity, I mean hormones, aggressive tendencies etc.

This is the opinion of some radical feminists. I don't agree with that opinion. Riley's point is that there are people who do make that kind of arguments and there is a symmetry to the blanket claim that religion is responsible for terrorism (as the sign clearly tries to convey)

I think the comparison is quite valid.

2166. Girl, 16, dies after hijab dispute with father

Comment #97560 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 11:00 am

Sharon,

The National Post is not a rag because it is rightwing, it is a rag because of the dishonest way it pushes its agendas and its frequent resort to sensationalism

An example of dishonest journalism is its use of misleading headlines that don't reflect the actual story in order to create impressions.

To give an idea of what I am talking about, you may find a story in the National Post with heading "Canadians want major overhaul to health care according to poll". When you read the story the poll in question actually indicated the vast majority or respondents were satisfied with public health insurance and they wanted changes only in some relatively minor details. For those who don't live in Canada, the Post has been a consistent advocate for privatized health care.

A journalism professor actually did a study on manipulative headlines and found the Post to be most guilty among all major Canadian papers, and by a big margin.

If you agree that Sun Chain papers are rags there is really no reason to think that the Post is any different. It just has a more glossy lay out. It is staffed by mostly people whom Black has recruited from the Toronto Sun.

I brought up Black because the Post was founded on his vision and it hasn't changed after being bought by the Asper. I mentioned Black's jail sentence in passing because it was only announced yesterday, it is hard to talk about Black without mentioning it.

2167. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97552 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 10:37 am

266. Comment #97509 by Riley

Terrorist attacks are neither a universal part of religion, nor are they limited to religion. By a long shot on both accounts. Clearly, obviously, another factor is necessary. It feels good to blame it on religion, but it isn't true, it's too simplistic.

It's self-indulgent and presumptuous to claim that the United States and other Western powers would not have suffered an attack emanating from the Middle East at some point given the history of our involvement in the region: fomenting war, propping-up dictators, privatizing oil reserves, and the countless other types of treacherous meddling we've engaged in for over a century. How convenient it is now to dismissively say: "oh, this attack is just mostly about religion - without religion we would never have been attacked". What a wonderful dreamworld you're imagining.

And what should this have to do with atheism? If atheism is simply a non-belief, why are atheists asserting this "world without religion" utopian belief under the banner of atheism? Do we know for a fact that the world we imagine without Janism in it, would be a better world? That's quite an assumption.

I totally agree, well said.

2168. Girl, 16, dies after hijab dispute with father

Comment #97546 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 10:25 am

Sharon,

The National Post is a rag, only with a better lay out than the Sun chain papers. Many of it editors, writers and columnists used to work for the Toronto Sun. The National Post was founded by Conrad Black ostensibly as a voice of the Right (Black is go to spend the next 6 and a half years in a U.S. jail for fraud, the sentence came just yesterday) The paper was bought by the Aspers some years ago, but its style and content remains the same.

2169. Girl, 16, dies after hijab dispute with father

Comment #97411 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 3:31 am

Bonzai - 'simplistic'? Really? So this murder is more complicated than Andysin conveys? How so, may I ask?

I mentioned some possibilities in #21.

2170. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97402 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 3:05 am

Steve,

I think both you and krisking can be right.

I agree that we should take the terrorists' words that they were motivated by religion, we have no reason to doubt their sincerity. However, apart from the theological drivels Bin Laden also made very specific political demands. Primarily the U.S. should leave the ME.

Radicalization doesn't happen in a vacuum. A strong case can be made that politics is an important factor that pushes many people in the ME to embrace a militant form of Islam.

2171. Girl, 16, dies after hijab dispute with father

Comment #97381 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 1:59 am

Comment #97372 by andysin

Looks like you have stumbled upon the HQ of the PC brigade.

To be honest I find your post there a bit simplistic and somewhat premature, as we don't know what has actually transpired at this point. But I find the reflexive responses telling, with gems like "Islam is a religion that embraces women's equality, fosters peace, and has at the core a belief in democratic institutions."

While I think we shouldn't assume Islam is the culprit before any investigation, these deluded cultural leftists are determined to exonerate it no matter what evidence may turn up.

They are correct that Islam doesn't approve of honour killing, but not for the reason they think,-- that "Islam is a religion that embraces women's equality, fosters peace, and has at the core a belief in democratic institutions."

According to Sharia punishment has to be carried out by the proper authority. If your daughter renounces Islam and elopes with a boy it would be wrong for you to kill her not because she doesn't deserve to be killed according to Islam, but because you would have usurped the authority of the Sharia court by taking matters into your own hands. She should be executed under the order of a Sharia judge.

P.S. Is rabble.ca Judy Rebeck's outfit?

2172. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins

Comment #97355 by Bonzai on December 12, 2007 at 12:09 am

When someone told me Hitler was a athiest, I asked her why he hated the Jews. Oddly, that shut her up - the hatred was religious in origin and she couldn't counter that...

Well I heard a theory that he was once rejected by a classy Jewish lady, and subsequently caught syphilis from a Jewish prostitute.

P.S. I don't claim this is from reliable historical sources.

2173. Girl, 16, dies after hijab dispute with father

Comment #97328 by Bonzai on December 11, 2007 at 10:19 pm

It is bad enough to get into a big argument over something so trivial,let alone getting into physical violence, but there is nothing in the article that says the father intended to strangle the daughter, it could very well be a scuffle that has gotten out of hand.

Another thing to consider is that religion may be just a proxy for other conflicts that have been simmering beneath. For example the father's perception of threat to his authority. The hijab might have been just the last straw(ethnic and religious identities are almost inseparable for many people)

Many men emigrated from very conservative, patriarchal societies suffer a profound cultural shock. They see woman better educated, making more money than themselves, they may have female bosses, their wives are working and making their own money and no longer have to be meek and submissive. The only women they still have absolute control over are their daughters. When even the daughters say no, their world finally falls apart.

2174. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!

Comment #97256 by Bonzai on December 11, 2007 at 8:19 pm

Goldy

Given Mao rather liked Qin Shi Huang, one wonders if maybe he was into ancestor worship?

Actually Mao was rather like Hóng Xiùquán.

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

I also find some similarities with the Hongwu Emperor.

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

Wonder what Mrs. Goldy thinks of my nominations.

I think you mentioned that Mrs. Goldy has a rather favorable view on Mao. Well, I wouldn't want to live through the cultural revolution, but I certainly wouldn't put him in the same league with Stalin, Hitler or even Pol Pot. I know of very few Chinese people who actually think that way even among those who don't particularly like the Communists (My mom dislikes the CCP very much but she went ballistic one time when she read in the paper that some people in the West compared Mao with Hitler)

To evaluate Mao properly one needs to know the historical context. I think he was a great Emperor and a visionary; he was also ruthless but he wasn't a pathological sadist like Stalin. Mao was no worse than the people he defeated, he was just a better strategist. IMO among the rulers in recent Chinese history he was very far from being the worst. You may want to look up the death tolls in typical civil wars and other disasters in recent Chinese history to put things in perspective. It was indeed quite tragic for China that life had been so cheap in recent history that a few hundred thousands deaths here and there were almost unremarkable for the rulers and the people alike.

P.S. You may know that Mao's got most of his inspirations from Chinese classics. He once admitted that he actually hadn't read any writing of Marx except for an old translation of "The Communist Manifesto" in the 1920's.

2175. Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty

Comment #97238 by Bonzai on December 11, 2007 at 7:44 pm

I know this will come across as almost sacrilege. :-)Sagan never did anything for me. I much prefer the intimate, reflective style of the late Heinz Pagels who wrote on the same subjects of physics and astronomy.

2176. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97222 by Bonzai on December 11, 2007 at 7:10 pm

Goldy,

Guess, like gods, prayers are known to those that pray for what they are and that might differ to what the bystander understands them to be.

I think so. That's why I think in having discussions or debates with theists it is best to let them tell you what they actually believe without assuming what they believe, or worse, telling them what they should believe based on the way we interpret their holy books.

Scott Atran made an excellent point in criticizing Dawkins. He argued, with rich empirical and quantitative data as it is his style, that religion is not a "mime", because it is not transmitted with high fidelity like genes. He argued that the transmission of religion is highly distorted. Religion is open ended, fluid and the way it is interpreted is mediated through psychology, politics, history and culture. It is not a stable entity that passes around and replicates like genes.

2177. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97212 by Bonzai on December 11, 2007 at 6:16 pm

Sorry for coming in late here but I have to ask - what is the point of praying if not to ask for something?

Probably to serve a similar function to chanting in Buddhism, or as a way to express strong emotions such as reverence or lamentation; or just to get things off your chest like lonely people calling phone in shows to tell their problems, not really expecting any solution might come of it.

There are many possible reasons why people pray.

The idea of prayer as a way to beg for special favor seems to be a very Christian concept.I am not sure that is the way Jews and Muslims think about it, they seem to pray from standard scripts.

A lesson from the book of Job is that don't waste your breath if you try to get God to do things for you through small talks and pleadings, it won't work as God has his own agenda. The Jews seem to have a tragic theology and their God is an aloof deity. In contrast, the Christians, especially the born again variety, are taught to think of Jesus as a buddy.

Not even all Christians pray for special interventions. Terry Waits, the Anglican negotiator who was held hostage by the Iranians told a radio interviewer that he was ashamed for praying for God to get him out in the beginning of his captivity. He said that it was tempting God and it was arrogant to expect God to change his plan just for Terry. Once he realized that he resisted the urge for the rest of his time in captivity. He did pray, but not to ask God to bail him out.

American evangelical Christianity is a very shallow religion and like American pop culture it is very sugar coated,--for those who has a "personal relationship" with Jesus,-- and it appeals to a very infantile sensibility. It is inaccurate to think that it represents the typical religious world view across history and cultures. We shouldn't generalize and think that all religious people pray for the same purpose.

2178. 'Boycott Worked': Compass Flops - Opening Weekend $26 Million; Narnia $63 Million

Comment #97049 by Bonzai on December 11, 2007 at 10:43 am

It depends, Bonzai. It's certainly cheaper to destroy New York (floods, asteroids, giant reptiles, giant gorillas, etc) on your computer than to film it for real.

Of course I don't mean really destroying a city. Before computer animation they built a small replica of the city and used real actors and a lot of extras like in the old King Kong movie and other classic disaster flicks, I was told that it was actually cheaper to use a real set.

2179. 'Boycott Worked': Compass Flops - Opening Weekend $26 Million; Narnia $63 Million

Comment #97037 by Bonzai on December 11, 2007 at 10:15 am

Rtambree,

the co-stars were stupid CG talking animals and most of it was just one big exercise in compositing.

I once talked to an animation artist who worked for Disney. Apparently a lot more painstaking work is required to create realistic looking computer animations than we think. It takes hours and hours to create only one scene. He told me actually it is a good deal more expensive, not cheaper to use computer graphics than to use real actors and real landscape.

2180. Islam's Silent Moderates

Comment #96475 by Bonzai on December 10, 2007 at 3:26 pm

Why do we assume that Inayat Bunglawala and the MCB represent moderate Muslims?

I know a few moderate muslims, they have jobs and families , they have quite mainstream opinions on a variety of issues. They are just as outraged and perplexed by the teddy bear incident in Sudan and the disgusting treatment of the rape victim in Saudi Arabia like we are. But they are not activists, they don't organize protests and go on TV debates. No one interview them on national media.

They may go on a march or lend their signatures to support a cause if someone has set up the venues, but otherwise they have more mundane, every day concerns. Their lives revolve around work, friends, family, relationship and recreational activities rather than international conflicts and theological debates in remote places such as the Middle East.

In other words they are like most of us.

Some may go to the Mosques, many don't and most are not involved in any Mosque politics or activities other than yard sales or social events. In other words, they are like our run of mill, wishy washy Christians.

The professional "moderates" are largely people with organizations and clouts, they have agendas, whether it is religious, identity politics or personal ambitions. They are not very good representations of everyday Muslims.

2181. Is Infant Male Circumcision An Abuse Of The Rights Of The Child?

Comment #96148 by Bonzai on December 10, 2007 at 4:11 am

I don't know of any doctor that uses anaesthesia during circumcision

It may depend on the age of the patient. I was actually under total anaesthesia (they put a mask on me and I passed out). I was 10.

2182. Is Infant Male Circumcision An Abuse Of The Rights Of The Child?

Comment #96141 by Bonzai on December 10, 2007 at 3:56 am

While ever EVERY circumcised father does the same to his sons then the practice will spread whatever the cause

Whatever the cause, but it was not religion.

You try to reduce everything to the evil "meme" of religion I just prove to you that your model cannot be right. The facts don't support it.

In the US the cause was not Jewish as you seem to think I claim, but it is still religious

How so? Considering

1)America has always been predominately Christian and it is not a Christian concept to circumcise infants.

2) Circumcision apparently didn't become widespread until after WWII. Why? Americans were even more religious before.

P.S. I am not arguing for circumcision in case there is any misunderstanding,--even though personally I don't think that is that big a deal, I am cut. I just find your explanation unconvincing.

2183. Is Infant Male Circumcision An Abuse Of The Rights Of The Child?

Comment #96131 by Bonzai on December 10, 2007 at 3:28 am

Up until relatively recently EVERY father had his son circumcised for the reasons mentioned, and in the past EVERY father was religious.

Yes, maybe almost all fathers were religious but certainly only relatively few were Jewish.You should have said almost all fathers were Christians.

I could be wrong but I am fairly sure that it is not a Christian practice to circumcise newborn males. There were stories about Jews being identified because of their circumcised penises in Nazi occupied Europe (BTW: this also indicates that circumcision was less common, not more when "fathers were more religious")

I think it would be a stretch to say that Judaic rituals and practices were very powerful "memes" in predominately Christian societies.

EDIT
So I don't think religion was an important reason why circumcision became popular after the war.

2184. Is Infant Male Circumcision An Abuse Of The Rights Of The Child?

Comment #96125 by Bonzai on December 10, 2007 at 3:18 am

Why is it our job to explain this?

Where did I say it is? But Adrain B offered an explanation voluntarily and I don't think it makes a lot of sense. If you don't want to explain that's cool, but if you present an explanation you should expect some questions.

2185. Is Infant Male Circumcision An Abuse Of The Rights Of The Child?

Comment #96114 by Bonzai on December 10, 2007 at 2:46 am

It's a barbaric religious procedure that has continued with the help of memes. A circumcised father is likely to have his sons circumcised for religious reasons, because everybody else is doing the same, or to do otherwise could just sow the seeds of doubt about his own manhood.

Then how do you explain the vast number of circumcised men who are not Jewish? I know quite a few circumcised non Jewish men and I can tell you this is utter nonsense.

BTW, I know it is not going to be popular in Rd.net here but "memes" is not even a scientific concept. It is only a notch better than magic spells and the holy spirit.

2186. Is Infant Male Circumcision An Abuse Of The Rights Of The Child?

Comment #96105 by Bonzai on December 10, 2007 at 2:26 am

Don't know what is the % of men who are "snip" in the Western world but I suspect it is much bigger than the Jewish population. If that is true all the rants about religious ritual are off the mark. There would have to be a lot of non Jews who are actually circumcised.

I am from Asia, I was circumcised at around 10 years old but I have never heard of the Jewish commandment until I moved to Canada in my late teens. The doctor told my parents it was for health and hygienic reasons. He might have been wrong but religion got nothing to do with it.

2187. Biologist fired for beliefs, suit says

Comment #96101 by Bonzai on December 10, 2007 at 1:57 am

robo

you can hit the delete button on the upper right hand corner (the X next to "edit") to get rid of the multiple posts.

2188. The Pagan Christ

Comment #96080 by Bonzai on December 10, 2007 at 12:07 am

Diacanu

After the "resurrection", supposedly, no one recognized him.

Why wouldn't his own friends and family recognize him?

What, does resurrection give you a new face?
What, is he Doctor Who all of a sudden??

Remind me of this

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

This is a true event of outlandish imposture that happened in 16th century France where records were a lot more well kept than in 1st century Palestine. The witnesses were actually cross examined in court.

One wonders how much confidence one should place on second hand report of "eyewitness" account of miracles and resurrection by scribes decades after the alleged fact back in the 1st-2nd century. The "eyewitnesses" (like the women who found the body missing) were not only never cross examined, their very existence was probably doubtful.

I am not suggesting that someone actually impersonated Jesus, just to note the unreliability of sketchy "testimonies" about improbable events at a time when rumors were the only news source. Even when testimonies were well corroborated and witnesses cross examined things could still go strangely wrong as in the case of Martin Guerre.

2189. The Pagan Christ

Comment #96068 by Bonzai on December 9, 2007 at 11:34 pm

Steve

There is another possibility that I have never seen mentioned. Jesus had a twin brother.

Hey, you may not be far off. There is actually a claim that Jesus' brother died for him on the cross and the real Jesus went to Japan where he married and died a rich man at the ripe old age of 106. :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingo,_Aomori

2190. Richard Dawkins - Science and the New Atheism

Comment #96042 by Bonzai on December 9, 2007 at 8:29 pm

Mitchell,

Oh, did you refute my arguments? Not a chance as you obviously just set up a series of strawmen.

Only an idiot would try to argue that eating beef implies it is ok to kill your senile granny or a newborn. Humans are special to us because we are humans. That is a special category, any argument about the pros and cons of meat eating doesn't apply to our own species. I have declared right from the begining that I am a specieist and if you try to apply your "non specieist" assumption to my arguments you are barking up the wrong tree, not to mention that indicates a basic inability to carry out logical thinking by identifying what the premises of your opponent are.

But don't worry, I won't argue that it is less of a crime to rub you out just because you're an idiot, because being speciest I do accord special status to fellow humans, even if they are preachy morons.

Your system of "pain and pleasure" is irrelevant to our discussion unless you can show me that a cow experience pain solely based on the knowledge that it is going to be slaughtered and experience similar stress that a person might in the mock execution scenario I described in my reply to go swimmer. No one says that you should kill the cow by inflicting a slow and painful death.

So my argument has nothing to do with, as you alleged, if we cannot prevent some suffering we should condone all.

You concede that you put more value on a cow than a cockroach based on what you think the cow may feel. The cow experiences "fear" you wrote. "Fear" is a higher cognitive function which requires the capability of abstract thinking which the cow doesn't possess as far as we know. A herd of zebras going on a stampede when they see a lion is instinct, not "fear". This is a textbook example of anthropomorphic projection. You're the one who should look up a dictionary my dear.

Yes, my tone is abusive and shockingly nasty even by my usual standard (I am no model of courtesy) because I hate self righteous pricks like you more than anything else, only the most extreme bible thumpers come close. Even if I were a vegetarian I would start eating meat just to piss you off.

Have a nice day.

2191. Richard Dawkins - Science and the New Atheism

Comment #96016 by Bonzai on December 9, 2007 at 6:08 pm

I want to hear from the vegan atheists here why it is wrong to eat eggs (assumed free range) but ok to be pro choice and pro stem cell research.

Eggs are chicken menstruations, not even embryos.

2192. Richard Dawkins - Science and the New Atheism

Comment #96004 by Bonzai on December 9, 2007 at 5:03 pm

go swimmer

If you are feeling guilty enough to ascribe it with that intention, I would look into the reasons why.

The evangelical nutbags who tell you that you are sinful and need Jesus for salvation are also "merely arguing a position" and I would call that an attempt at guilt tripping without feeling guilty at all. I think most here would feel the same. So by insinuating that I do feel guilty, you are attempting to lay more guilt on me. Sorry, that doesn't work.

The difference between vegan sentiments and religious ones, is that the former are arrived at via logical reasoning.

I have yet to see the logic.

You keep talking about 'false arguments' without providing any evidence that they are false.

I did. But see below.

Also, you keep talking about veganism/vegetarianism as a 'lifestyle' choice that people are trying to push on you. Well, only a meat-eater could think of it as a casual 'choice'. It is a life and death issue, no matter which way you look at it... it just depends on whether you draw speciesist distinctions or not.

Yes, I do draw the speciesist distinction and I don't see any valid argument that we should use the same ethical standard to treat all animals.

In practice we never do use the same ethics on all species because it would be idiotic. Even a vegan wouldn't hesitate to crush a cockroach, well most won't. Some vegetarians eat fish and eggs, some occasionally eat chickens. So I would say that is very speciesist.

In the end the basis of alleged non speciesism is an anthropocentric one. You rank animal life based on how easily you can make anthropomorphic projections on them, so a cow is rank higher than a chicken because it is considered more like us, a chicken is ranked above a fish, a fish above a lobster.. and so it goes all the way down to the cockroach.

I have no qualms about a cow being slaughtered for its meat. It is life and death, but a cow is not human. I am a specieist and not ashamed of it.

You also implied that we don't have any evidence that other animals feels pain. What?!

Well where did I say that? In fact I was quite explicit that I think livestock should be raised and slaughtered humanely.

But you are making the leap to equate death with pain. Well for a human who can imagine his own death, the knowledge of impending doom would be a torture in itself. A mock execution, even without actually being carried out is a form of torture because you can measure physiological indicators of the subject to confirm that. But this is premised on the subject possessing some kind of capacity of abstract thinking, to be able to project himself into a hypothetical situation.

If you have any evidence that the mere killing of a cow would cause suffering in the sense that the cow can anticipate its own death in the way you put someone on death row, I would like to see it.

Here you are as a self-aware creature, able to make novel decisions based on new information, saying essentially that everyone should do what 'nature intended' by default, unless someone can provide convincing evidence to the conrary (this really is an example of the Naturalistic Fallacy, by the way). Well, the evidence is in: you don't need to kill and eat lifeforms with complex nervous systems (and the ability to register pain, emotional responses etc.) in order to live a healthy life. That's a fact. Now, put that free will of yours into action. What is YOUR ethical justification for continuing to do this, now that you know it is superfluous.

Why is it wrong to kill and eat life forms with complex nervous systems if the killing is humanely done? Having a complex nervous system doesn't entail capacity to think and imagine. IMO death in and of itself (i.e. without pain) is a tragedy only for beings with agency or the potential to develop it (like human infants) You are projecting yourself onto livestocks.

Besides, I have to ask, for a vegan what are the possible reasons to think it is wrong to eat an oster or a clam?

No, I am not committing the naturalistic fallacy. I am not arguing whether it is right or wrong to be an omnivore (as we are constructed to be). I am saying ethics has nothing to do with it and until you can show me otherwise, it is not an ethical issue. It is you who try to impose morality on a neutral arena. If you were to tell me that it is wrong for the uranium nuclei to radiate then I would say this is insane argument because this is just the way the uranium nuclei naturally do. It is not "naturalistic fallacy" to tell you moral judgments don't apply.

I don't doubt that we can survive without meat. But food is not just fuel in human civilizations. Eating is a pleasure and a cultural experience. Maybe it won't make a difference to the puritans who have a purely functional attitude towards food. They probably wouldn't mind taking a pill which would provide all the nutrients they need and get rid of eating altogether. But I have no desire to subsist on nuts and seeds if I have a choice no matter how smug and politically correct it makes me feel. I am off to China town with my friends to get some steam dumplings with meat,vegetable and shrimp fillings. Really delicious.

And no, i'm not trying to push this on you. I am, however, trying to get you to concede my position... maybe even convince you of it. That is the very point of an argument.

Well you fail, I concede nothing. I won't tell you that you are stupid for eschewing meat, at the same time don't try to lecture us that we are somehow immoral.

2193. The art of the soluble

Comment #95974 by Bonzai on December 9, 2007 at 3:10 pm

The difference between scientific hypotheses and "the God hypothesis" is that scientific hypotheses, no matter how speculative, must find a way to answer the "how" question. So they have to propose some mechanisms to be considered even legitimate attempts at "explaining" phenomena a b c.

The "God hypothesis" is under no such constraint, it doesn't have to answer any "how" question, all it says is basically "the magic man does it in his magic ways which are too mysterious for our mortal minds to comprehend". This is not even a legitimate attempt of an explanation, let alone a real explanation. It doesn't enhance our understanding of the phenomenon under study in any way, whether it is lightning or the "fine tuning" of physical constants. It is just a verbose way of saying "I haven't a clue."

Answers to "why" questions that don't address "how" are worthless because it can be all bs and no one can hold you to account.

This puts "the God hypothesis" in a unique epistemological category of uselessness even among the most speculative scientific hypotheses.

2194. The art of the soluble

Comment #95967 by Bonzai on December 9, 2007 at 2:53 pm

Zbob,

While I will not attempt to explain the intricacies of the theories of relativity, suffice it to say that Einstein thought that the distinction between past, present and future is an illusion.

Hmm.. I don't know exactly what you have in mind, but relativity does distinguish the past and the future. Causality still make sense. The difference is that unlike the Newtonian picture where there is a global structure of causality based on an universal clock in relativity causality is defined by the local light cones which differ from place to place. Time and space are in some sense "mixed" in relativity, so they are bounded up in a package, so to speak,--that was what Einstein meant by spacetime existing as a single entity,-- but they are not equivalent. The local metric has different signs for the space and time coordinates. You can move in any direction along the space coordinates but you still cannot move backward in time.

It is possible that I might have misunderstood what you're trying to say.

2195. Biologist fired for beliefs, suit says

Comment #95858 by Bonzai on December 9, 2007 at 11:04 am

Well I am sure some Christian somewhere will say that Mother Theresa didn't believe in God for forty years but they didn't kick her out. :-)

2196. Richard Dawkins - Science and the New Atheism

Comment #95851 by Bonzai on December 9, 2007 at 10:50 am

Mitchell,

You are right that I am not interested in your arguments because you ain't got any. You are sermonizing and I hate people who sermonize. You are trying to push a life style choice on others by guilt tripping, that in my book puts you at the same level as an evangelizing Christian fundamentalist.

Your whole system of "pleasure and pain" breaks down because it is based on an unfounded assumption that human ethical concepts apply universally to all animals, that is not self evident, nor is it logical. Arguments such as "if it is ok to kill a cow humanely since it doesn't involve pain it would be ok to kill a mentally handicapped person in his sleep.." is just plain stupid and dishonest.

You insist on using big words like "naturalistic fallacy" without even understanding it. There is a difference between saying whatever it is natural is right and asking you to supply valid reasons to override nature. In the absence of such reasons we don't even have an ethical debate because ethics doesn't apply. But judging from the general muddled headiness of your arguments you wouldn't able to see the difference.

In real life when I meet people like you I would eat a big hamburger in front of them for the sole purpose of pissing them off. I don't even like hamburgers.

2197. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #95718 by Bonzai on December 9, 2007 at 3:21 am

Dr. Benway,

I take it for granted that the default explanation for any phenomenon is random chance. Been thinking like that for so many years, it's odd to find myself in a discussion where people don't view things like this.

I think there is some miscommunication here. "Random chance" to my mind means uncaused. Physics seeks the underlying laws of the universe. It certainly cannot start off with the assumption that everything happens without cause by default It has to assume laws exist in order to search for them.

Based on our current knowledge the only uncaused events are those relating to wave functions collapse and some forms of the uncertainty principle (emission and absorption of virtual particles, quantum fluctuations)

What you describe is statistical hypothesis testing about whether two things are correlated.

The null hypothesis is that they aren't, this may be expressed as say, some regression coefficient being zero. Now you collect a random sample and calculate the sample estimate of the regression coefficient and find that it is not zero. There are two possible explanations. 1) the population regression coefficient is really zero, the sample value represents a statistical fluctuation 2) the population regression coefficient is really not zero. To find out which possibility is more likely, you assume 1)(the null hypothesis) and decide how probable it is to get a statistical fluctuation as extreme as the value observed in the sample. If the probability is small, reject 1) as being too unlikely, otherwise accept it.

To calculate this probability, you need to assume a probability distribution of the sample regression coefficients. This is typically a normal distribution or a t distribution based on the central limit theorem. Under the null hypothesis that the true coefficient is zero, the corresponding distribution centered at zero.

The purpose of this exercise is to infer the properties of the true sample distribution with the data. In this case whether the true distribution is centered at zero (ie whether it coincides with the null distribution) The purpose is not to explain why you see a non zero value in your sample, that is assumed to be due to random fluctuations, i.e, assumed to be uncaused. Of course nothing as far removed from quantum mechanics as human physiology is uncaused. Here "randomness" really means "we don't care about the peculiarities of the sample (noise) that produce this observation" A fundamental assumption is that there is nothing "special" about the sample, it is drawn randomly.

Now what is our problem?

We have one universe, this is the only thing we are sure about. Everything else is speculation.

We find something peculiar in this universe, namely the structure of our universe is determined by some physical constants in some very delicate way. We want to know why they have those particular values.

The multiverse answer,--at least Steve's version,-- is basically that there is no reason, it is uncaused. But instead of saying it like that, they frame it in probability and say the values we observe are just statistical fluctuations. This is essentially saying the same thing but only in a more fancy language to make it sounds as though they have given an answer.

Their way to do this is to embed the universe in the multiverse (which is speculative) and treat it as a member of a large ensemble of universes. Then they declare that these constants are "randomly distributed" across this ensemble and that we observe the particular value in our universe is because of statistical fluctuations,--uncaused. This is a vacuous argument unless you can say something specific about the probability distribution based on the physics. It won't work by declaring some kind of distribution by fiat or based on some philosophical dogma such as "parsimony", whatever it means in this context.

This is not like your hypothesis testing scenario.

If you try to frame it that way, we have exactly one sample, which is definitely not randomly drawn and our sample consists of just one data point. The job is exactly to understand the peculiarities of this very particular sample. In other words, it is exactly those features you ignore as noise in hypothesis testing that we are interested in

In hypothesis testing, the null distribution is used to infer about the true distribution with the help of the data. We ask whether the data is likely given the null distribution, and based on the answer we decide whether we should accept the null distribution as the true distribution or not. The null distribution is not used to make assertions about the sample. But what you and steve are suggesting, is exactly to invoke a "null distribution" to make assertions about the sample, albeit rather vicuous assertions.

A final point, "randomness" is not synonymous with uniform distribution (all values being equally likely) In fact uniform distribution doesn't even show up that often in the kind of statistical hypothesis testing problems that you sketched. Typical null distributions are something like normal distributions, t-distributions, chi-square and F, in more sophisticated work you may use beta or gama distributions.

2198. Are the 'New Atheists' avoiding the 'real arguments'?

Comment #95685 by Bonzai on December 9, 2007 at 12:57 am

To be fair to ADH, I don't think the war is a atheist v.s theist issue. You have pros and antis from both sides. It is about geopolitics and oil, not faith.

2199. Richard Dawkins - Science and the New Atheism

Comment #95672 by Bonzai on December 9, 2007 at 12:30 am

I don't need an ethical argument. Meat eating perse is not an ethical issue unless you can show me otherwise.

If you want to be a vegan be my guest, just don't try to force your lifestyle on others with guilt tripping and false moral arguments.

Food is not just fuel. If there is a pill that can provide you with all the nutrients you probably would take it. People like you are like the puritans. Eschew all the little pleasures in life to be oh so "moral",--in your own mind,-- and smug but you don't even get to go to heaven.

2200. Richard Dawkins - Science and the New Atheism

Comment #95662 by Bonzai on December 8, 2007 at 11:59 pm