201. Mitt the Mormon

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

Baron Ochs:

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

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

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

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

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

This is a little like Pascal's Wager.

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

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

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

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

203. Taking Science on Faith

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

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

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

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

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

204. Bankrolling Ali's Asylum

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

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

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

205. Stem cell breakthrough

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

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

206. Stem cell breakthrough

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

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

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

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

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

Original sin is defined by Dawkins as "apple scrumping"

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

208. Getting Overheated

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

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

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

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

209. Study: Babies can tell helpful, hurtful playmates

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

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

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

210. Why Science Will Triumph Only When Theory Becomes Law

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

Ruht:

The basic principle of ID was around long before Behe.

Sure it was.




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

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

--

Infinity - no beginning and no end.

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

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

211. Exorcism death shocks archdeacon

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

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

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

212. Exorcism death shocks archdeacon

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

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

shaunfletcher:

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

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

Goldy:

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

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

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

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

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

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

hopeful:

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

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

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

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

213. Excerpt from 'The Portable Atheist'

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

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

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

214. Exorcism death shocks archdeacon

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

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

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

steveroot:

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

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

Where did this "Dr." Kaakaa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

215. Exorcism death shocks archdeacon

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

Scott McMeekin:

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

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

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

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

kaiserkris:

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

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

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

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

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

216. Malaysia firm's 'Muslim car' plan

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

BMMcArdle:

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

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

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

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

217. Exorcism death shocks archdeacon

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

rory:

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

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

kaiserkris:

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

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

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

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

steveroot:

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

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

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

Where did this "Dr." Kaakaa

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

get his degree?

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

themanchoo

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

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

218. The Cancer From Within

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

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

Bizarre!

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

219. Arguments Against Evolution

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

oeditor:

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

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

220. Hello Again, Michael Behe!

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

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

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

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

221. The Transcendental Argument for God

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

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

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

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

222. Response to Theodore Dalrymple

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

Marquis:

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

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

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

223. Jury Awards Father $11M in Funeral Case

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

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

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

224. What the New Atheists Don't See

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

"Religion spoils everything."

What? The Saint Matthew Passion?

Absolutely!

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

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

225. Jury Awards Father $11M in Funeral Case

Comment #84243 by Shuggy on November 1, 2007 at 1:52 pm

Robert Maynard:

Is it really a good idea to side with ceremonial burial over freedom of speech, Quetz? I mean, if I had to choose...

I don't think not believing in an Invisible Friend entails requiring everybody to behave with complete rationality when someone near and dear to them has died (presumably by getting the recyclers to haul the body away in a compressor truck). People have a right to get together in peace to wind up the life (I'm struggling hard not to say "cl*s*r*") of someone they loved. A funeral's a funny event, because like a wedding, it's inclined to spill out of the building and occupy some of the road, and I think all the people taking part in one are entitled to freedom from harassment.

And again, what measurement scheme are we taking to these 'damages', which arrives at $11000000?

I think it was treated as something of a de facto class action. The Phelpseses have picketted hundreds of funerals over the past few years, and caused untold grief and anguish.

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

Comment #83402 by Shuggy on October 29, 2007 at 11:49 pm

marshall1:

... you insist on blaming the power hungry's use of Religion to fuel their drive as some sort of indictment on religious people.

No, on religion. Shouldn't religion have some kind of inbuilt defence against such misuse? Religious people can usually manage to defend whatever they do using a biblical quote.

Pointing out the Stalin's and Hitler's is just a way of turning a flawed argument back on you.

Hardly. The people who use this argument generally do say that religion makes people good. When you point out the many exceptions, they say things like "Oh, but they weren't REAL Christians." - making it impossible for REAL Christians to do any wrong at all, by definition.

You guys seem to think of yourselves as a bit more intelligent than us simple religious-folk.

I have to admit we're tempted in that direction - with the help of a lot of religious folk.

So I'm surprised you can't see that the key here is power and the love of it more than anything.

So why does religion apparently leave people defenceless against that addiction?

I doubt that Bin-Laden spends even 1 minute per year in his cave praying to any God's.

You may doubt that, but on what basis? Why should he not? According to his reading of Islam, Allah is on his side. "If Allah be for us, who can be against us? Who shall lay anything to the charge of Allah's elect?"

227. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #83099 by Shuggy on October 29, 2007 at 12:21 am

This is the nearest category I could find to

'Why is there something rather than nothing?'

(which should maybe have its own thread)

Here are my answers:

Answer 1. If there were nothing, we wouldn't be here to ask.

Answer 1a. In fact there wouldn't even be a "here" for us not to be.

Answer 2. I don't know. It's all right not to know.

Answer 3. If your answer is 'Because God/dess/es decided there should be.' then you've only added one layer to the problem: Why are there one or more god/dess/es rather than none? An intangible all-powerful intelligence (or more than one) doesn't actually answer that question.
Is it even a sensible question?
So

Answer 4. One of its legs are both the same.

228. What's the evolutionary advantage of offering your place to an old woman on a bus?

Comment #83069 by Shuggy on October 28, 2007 at 8:29 pm

Isn't the "give up your seat" meme built on the back of the "respect your elders" meme, which in turn is part of the "old is good" meme by which religion survives?

There is an alternate reason for doing so, based on the Silver Rule, "Don't do as you wouldn't be done by." - "You'll be old some day, and then you'll want to sit down."

I think the "attract a mate" and "please the townsfolk" explanations fail if you'd still do it when they aren't around.

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

Comment #81590 by Shuggy on October 25, 2007 at 12:00 am

How about -

"But Hitler and Stalin weren't REAL atheists...."

230. Pascal's Wager

Comment #81588 by Shuggy on October 24, 2007 at 11:57 pm

I like Bertrand Russell's rebuttal (sorry I can't find his exact words):

But what if God does not reward belief, but critical thinking? Then He will send you to Hell for gullibly believing, and me to Heaven for thinking clearly and not believing in Him without sufficient evidence.

231. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #81584 by Shuggy on October 24, 2007 at 11:43 pm

Excuse me? How have you shown that reason can not arise from absence of reason? You just made that rule up! Prove it.

If I pour dry sand into a heap, it forms a cone. By your logic, disorganised sand cannot of itself form a geometric shape such as a cone, but requires some supernatural conemaker...

232. You can't be moral without God!

Comment #81580 by Shuggy on October 24, 2007 at 11:30 pm

I have often tangled with a theist who kept saying "But if there is no God to give morality, then Naziism (selfishness, tyranny, etc) is OK." I could never get it into his head that by taking it for granted that I would agree it was not OK, without invoking God, he had already lost the argument.

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

Comment #81579 by Shuggy on October 24, 2007 at 11:22 pm

Nothing morally follows from atheism as such (and before you hold that against it, we get our morality elsewhere, from people and the environment). How could it?

But moral behaviour is SUPPOSED to flow (is defined as flowing?) from religious belief. When it doesn't - and when it glaringly doesn't, as in the Crusades and the Inquisition - that is religion's FAULT.

234. Arguments Against Evolution

Comment #81569 by Shuggy on October 24, 2007 at 11:02 pm

2. Comment #81465 by maton100 on October 24, 2007

Just ask them to look at an old yearbook picture.

Can you explain this please? Yearbooks are not a universal, but so far as I know they show a picture of every kid in high school each year. What follows?

235. Arguments Against Evolution

Comment #81565 by Shuggy on October 24, 2007 at 10:59 pm

Stupid Design in the Human Body:

The backward-pointing receptors
- and hence the blind spot

The birth canal going through the pelvic girdle
- forcing human babies to dislocate their crania to get through

The downward-pointing uterus

The male urethra passing through the prostate

The vasa deferensa looping up and over the ureters

236. Arguments Against Evolution

Comment #81561 by Shuggy on October 24, 2007 at 10:55 pm

The Second Law of Thermondynamics:

If evolution breaks the Second Law of Thermodynamics, then so does LIFE. Both involve bringing order out of disorder. Both do so by expending energy (which ultimately comes from the Sun), so they don't break the Second Law.

237. Egypt's fight against female circumcision clashes with tradition

Comment #81049 by Shuggy on October 24, 2007 at 1:12 am

the izz: "The difference between female and male circumcision is the differece between virtually NO sexual pleasure and slightly reduced sexual pleasure. Or to put it more bluntly: can't have an orgasm or can have an orgasm."

Female circumcision does not reduce sexual activity

12:30 24 September 02

NewScientist.com news service

Circumcised women experience sexual arousal and orgasm as frequently as uncircumcised women, according to a study in Nigeria.

The researchers also found no difference in the frequency of intercourse or age of first sexual experience between the two groups of women.

( http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2837 )

(Paradoxically, the above is used as an argument for not doing it. When exactly the same thing is said about MGC, that's an argument for doing it.)
Not all FGM is clitoridectomy.

238. Egypt's fight against female circumcision clashes with tradition

Comment #80949 by Shuggy on October 23, 2007 at 3:52 pm

The gynaecologist says comparing female and male circumcision is like the difference between clipping a nail and cutting the whole finger off.

Hello? The foreskin (http://www.circumstitions.com/Works.html) is living, sensitive tissue too.

Yes, FGM is usually much worse than FGM, but they are actually on overlapping bell-curves of severity, and as human rights violations there is nothing between them.

This determination to see only the differences and not the similarities
(http://www.circumstitions.com/FGMvsMGM.html) is quite remarkable, rather like "Male blood sanctifies, female blood pollutes."

I can sympathise with the women in Africa who put male circumcision in the too-hard basket and don't want to lose focus - but not with the people in the "civilized" West who can't see the atrocity committed several times a minute under their own noses.

There don't seem to be too many circumcised males who find it a problem.

More than you'd think -

http://www.circumstitions.com/Resent.html

http://www.circumstitions.com/Complic.html

http://www.circumstitions.com/death.html

http://www.circumstitions.com/Botched.html

239. Prejudicial concerns

Comment #80938 by Shuggy on October 23, 2007 at 3:15 pm

bluebird, should pharmacists be required to dispense birth control? Should doctors be required to perform abortions? Circumcisions? Should people be required to perform military service? There are questions about when one person's conscientious objection impacts on another's conscientious requirement (and a third party's protection).

McClintock's case is clear: as a magistrate he is required to uphold the law, not rewrite it, but in some of these other cases, the individual needs to be protected from the collective (sorry for the Ayn Randianism).

240. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #80647 by Shuggy on October 22, 2007 at 1:39 pm

D'Souza credits christianity with the abolition of slavery, and excuses it for not doing so earlier because slavery was universal.

He fails to note that religion was universal too, so of course it was christians (in the West) who were the first to oppose it. What's interesting is that it was Quakers, the most liberal and least theistic or patriarchal of christians who did so.

He said that earlier on. I couldn't bear to listen to any more.

241. The greatest debate

Comment #80385 by Shuggy on October 21, 2007 at 3:12 pm

gd_edi:

Australia:

1996	16.6%
2001	15.5
2006	18.7

New Zealand:

1996	26.1%
2001	29.6
2006	34.7

And the pavlova, and Phar Lap, nyar nyar nyar!

(Actually it has a lot to do with "No religion" being the first box you can tick on the census paper.)

242. Does fundamentalist religion cause the rejection of evolution? or is it the other way around?

Comment #80254 by Shuggy on October 21, 2007 at 2:32 am

Like Diaconu, I find evolution to be perfectly intuitive. I look at
cats, lions, tigers, leopards, lynxes, etc
dogs, wolves, foxes, etc
apples, pears
oranges, lemons, limes
cherries, peaches, plums
bees, wasps, hornets
snakes, lizards
and so on
In each row, the simplest explanation for their similarity is that they're related. Then it's easy to imagine a general somewhat cat-like ancestor being related to a general somewhat dog-like ancestor, and so on and on, back as far as you like.

The sharp division between "human" and "animal" never made sense to me (or my mother, who used to tell of taking us to a circus and seeing a tiger in one cage and a chimpanzee and her child in another. The tiger glanced at her and looked away, but the chimpanzee mother looked at her and us and was obviously wondering the same as my mother was, how come she was in a cage and we were free?)

243. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #80250 by Shuggy on October 21, 2007 at 2:17 am

147. Comment #80171 by frankie1958 on October 20, 2007

A long time ago, I read Ayn Rand and she said something that basically religion makes beggars of people. That the do-gooders actually do no good because they allow people to owe their benefactor which becomes some sort of cycle. Anyway, I cant find the book now but it always stuck with me and that is what I thought when I saw Mother Theresa with the poor in India. You are better to make someone earn their money, no matter how small, than to just let them sit there with their hand out. I can see that religions do this to the poor and in effect they feed off each other. Another reason to get rid of religious institutions and let people get back to work making an honest living. Anyway, if I've got this wrong I'm sure someone will correct me.

There's do-gooders and do-gooders. Some are as you say, and some are like the televangelists who scoop off a goodly share for themselves, but there are some who do the equivalent of teaching people to fish, offering a handup, not a handout. Not all are religious, either. The evil of Mother Teresa was different; she rejoiced in suffering, for her own reasons, which is all very well when you confine it to yourself. Making people suffer is another story, and that's what she did.

Ayn Rand? Another cult.

244. God's honest truth?

Comment #79877 by Shuggy on October 18, 2007 at 11:50 pm

18. Comment #79778 by Nick Good on October 18, 2007

I understand that Sweden banned the genital mutilation of male infants too.

Not quite.

Beginning October 1 [2001], circumcision of boys may only be performed by those who are doctors or have the necessary competence. The child must receive pain relief, and this must be given by a doctor or qualified nurse.

The National Board of Health and Welfare reviewed the law in 2005 and recommended that it be maintained.

TT news, Wikipedia

245. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #79865 by Shuggy on October 18, 2007 at 7:54 pm

137. Comment #79372 by scottishgeologist on October 17, 2007

... In quod mondo scentium? ...

...(...how does he smell?...)

That would be "What in the world does he smell?" or "In what world does he smell?" (non "mondo" sed "modo" and probably non "scentium" sed "scensit" or some such)

But those Latin jokes always look terrible in good Latin, and the books of modern Latin translations are the lead balloons of humour (except "Winnie Ille Pu" of course).

246. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79334 by Shuggy on October 17, 2007 at 1:30 am

Has anyone ever seen Alistair McGrath and Rowan Atkinson at the same time? I thought not.

247. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #79323 by Shuggy on October 17, 2007 at 12:01 am

The Archbishop of Canterbury ... [was] invited to be interviewed by me [for The Root of All Evil]. [He] declined, doubtless for good reasons.

- TGD, 318f

Having been given an opportunity to explain his complex God who is nothing like the one TGD disposes of, isn't it somewhat churlish now to complain about it?

248. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #79017 by Shuggy on October 15, 2007 at 10:30 pm

"If God was there before the Big Bang, ...

I know it's hard to get your head around, your ArchGrace, but you must have read Hawking's Brief History and know that time began with the Big Bang. It has no "before".

...he must be complex.

In that case, he needs more explaining than a simple one would. What are his complex attributes? How did they come about? Since you've read TGD enough to comment on it publicly, you know that "His existence is going to need a mammoth explanation in its own right." (p149) How did such a complex Being come into being? Or how could such a complex Being always be? Start explaining.

249. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #78755 by Shuggy on October 14, 2007 at 6:23 pm

76. Comment #78743 by Lauregon on October 14, 2007

Does Archbishop Rowan still lead his flock in reciting the Apostle's or Nicene creeds on a regular basis? Does he still believe in the creedal statements? If so, what the heck is the dispute with atheists about??? Or, does Archbishop Rowan not believe in the creedal statements of the Anglican church anymore? If not, why is he still leading the people in reciting them---if he is? Please advise, Archbishop Rowan.

An excellent question. For those who don't know it (and it has various versions, but this is from Anglicansonline.org), here it is:

WE BELIEVE in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.

Amen.

[Edit:] To be fair, he's excused from endorsing the literal truth of what are obviously rhetorical flourishes, like "is seated at the right hand of the Father" and if he wants to argue that "virgin" should be glossed "young girl", that's OK, but otherwise, isn't it about time the Creed was rewritten to reflect what Anglicans are actually supposed to believe, according to the Archbishop.

250. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #78728 by Shuggy on October 14, 2007 at 2:29 pm

"There are few things more annoying than people saying 'I know what you mean.'"

...when they don't.

"The religious believer says that moral integrity, self-introspection, honesty and trust are styles of living that connect with the character of an eternal and free agency, the agency most religions call God."

I don't know what you mean. There, is that better? (Actually, I wonder if he means anything.)

Could he mean that religious believers have a monopoly on moral integrity, self-introspection, honesty and trust? That's usually what they mean. But if they said so in so many words, all the rest of us would fall about laughing.

(And "self-introspection"? Does anyone practise somebody-else-introspection?)

(And what's it doing in there, anyway? A mass-murderer can be introspective.)