301. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #173787 by Mitchell Gilks on May 1, 2008 at 8:45 am

238. Comment #173691 by Cartomancer

If anything that's a hangover from the traditional world view too, though the changing cultural dynamics do produce some interesting interplay and creativity with the attitude.

302. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #173686 by Mitchell Gilks on May 1, 2008 at 5:55 am

Sigh, clearly you aren't willing to listen to reason. Especially now that you are using a "I know you are but what am I" rebuttal.

I did answer everything you had to say, then I called it silly, and a waste of my time. I explained how your attempting to qualify evidence in such a way that you can have it a le carte doesn't work, because it depends on the person, you ignored this, and fabricated more silly examples without directly addressing my question at all. You did not even mention the three mutually exclusive premises that I asked you to address.

A jawbone is not evidence of what an animal looks like, a jawbone carries certain taxidermic information about what a creature looks like. That is like saying that a page of a book is evidence of what type of story it is. It isn't evidence, it is direct information. (Notice how I actually did address your premises, and reject one, giving reasons, and explaining why it's wrong.)

This also ignores the obvious, that if a million people claimed to have wittnessed something, it is a hell of a lot more believable than if one person claimed to have wittness it. The more wittnesses, the more believable, and the more credible it becomes. It doesn't increase or even hold an evidence value of the proported event, but as I explained before, when evidence can't be established credibility of the claimant or claimants is sought, and the number of claimants directly does increase the likeliness it is true, and credible information. That is how every court on earth works to my knowledge.

The intellectual dishonesty, evasian and unwillingness to listen to reason has become insufferable. This will be my last post.

Here, this is a link to a thread on a philosophy forum, with someone I had a discussion with who also had an idea in their head and wasn't willing to listen to reason, even after it was demonstrated logically incoherent.

Perhaps from a neutral position you will see things more clearly. Try to notice the parallels in how you both attempt to argue.

http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/soft-proof-of-a-higher-existence-29803.html

Well, I've given up on you. I originally didn't want to be pedantic and anal about it, and instead just wanted to explain why this was so, as I've been told that just quoting fallacies and definitions doesn't really help people understand, but after reason had failed I resorted to just that. Now that you have rejected logic and the way the words are normally used, then I have nothing left I can add. Ja-ne.

303. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #173673 by Mitchell Gilks on May 1, 2008 at 5:20 am

230. Comment #173623 by Ichneumonid

Sama is just a more formal version of San. It is a common misconception that Sensei means teacher, it does not. It is an honourific used for all forms of professions, craftsmen, or even just the learned or intellectuals.

It is used for teachers, doctors, politicians, artists, authors, and all types of craftsmen.

The reason sama isn't used in conjunction with Kami when refering to other gods is because Kami isn't used as their name, it's what they are. Though when using their name they would use Sama.

Sama is not for someone you don't know well, it all depends on who they are. Young girls are refered to with "chan" by people whether they know them well or not, and young boys "kun". Celebrities are often given nick-names, and when nicknames are used the honourific "chan" is always used, because it's cutesy. People you just meet that are around your age or older, you'd only use San. Sama would only be used if they really looked up to them. chan and kun are not sex related as many people think, since chan is almost never used for boys, and kun rarely for girls, but this is because kun is formiliar, while chan is cutesy, and guys generally don't like being called cutesy.

Superiors, in school, the military, or an office setting are refered to say Senpai, and inferiors as Kouhai. Like Sensei, Senpai can be used alone, as a title without being attached to the name as a suffix, while Kouhai can as well, but it is considered rude to do so.

A misuse of honourifics are be construed as insulting, like a misappropriation of a title one does not deserve is seen as ironic, or sarcastic. So it can be easily taken as rude to over use Sama.

304. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #173590 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 10:49 pm

Gahh... What did you not understand about the three options?

Firstly, math is tautological, meaning it is true by virtue of the way the terms are defined. It is conlusively proven that 2 2=4, because that is how the terms are defined and work. Many conclusions in math are extremely complex, but as long as the rules and followed, and no mistakes are made, then conclusive proofs are established. They are necessarily and absolutely true, because of the way the terms are defined.

Just as it is necessarily and absolutely truth that a married man cannot symotaneously be a bachelor. It defies logic.

You are attempting to have it a la carte. You cannot eat your cake and have it too. Either claims are evidence that can establish proof after enough is accumulated, or they aren't evidence. There is no number involved, proof is subjective. Something is proven to you when it inspires belief, there is no objective standard of proof. When enough evidence has been established to make you believe it is true, then it is proven to you.

Clearly people accept the bible as evidence, and because of all the people that believe it, and all the other non-evidence they accept it as true. More intelligent theologians knew this is ballocks, and none of that constitutes proof, thus the concept of faith. An excuse to believe without proof. They use this out because they know that claims don't constitute evidence of their truth.

Stop giving examples, and attempting to explain your way out of this. I have outlined three mutually exclusive premises, where one logically must be wrong, just say which you reject. You cannot just trying to explain how you can be forwarding a logically impossible yet coherent idea. You need to demonstrate that it does not defy logic. The only way this can be done is to address my three mutually exclusive premises, and show how one is wrong. You cannot ignore then and try to invent some system where it only defies logic after some many claims are accumulated...

You example, I will answer, but stop attempting to wiggle out of this problem. No more of these absurd attempts and just answer my question, explain where I have made the mistake, don't try to invent rationalisations or define your way into victory "claims equal evidence, but only up until a certain point, so it doesn't prove anything" c'mon, give me a break. This is just gettig silly.

Your example is simply, we use rules of parsimoni. What is the simplist explanation and most likely explanation? That the note you find just happens to confirm one of your explanation but is wrong, and the other explanation is true? Or that it is right, and the explanation you had that jives with it is the one no most likely to be true?

The principle to determine this was parsimoni, and the evidence supporting the usefulness and reliability of parsimoni is abundant.

The claim itself was not evidence, and wouldn't be by itself, the rules of investigation, dictate how one should act in those situations, and they themselves are supported by their success in the past.

Even the most unevident and miraculous claim can be accepted with absolutely no evidence if its not being true would be a bigger miracle.

These decisions are determined by the rules of a methodology, or system, and the burden of evidence for implamenting them rests on the system or methodology, and the fact that it has had such success in the past is the evidence that justifies its implamentation.

Now, stop attempting to invent sceneroes where you're right, or play with words and definitions, and just answer my question, show me where I'm wrong, or just give up the ghost already.

If I come in to read again, and you refer to attempt to address the logic problems, or admit your wrong. Then I'm going to conclude that you are immune to rational discussion and give up. I am stunned that you are still arguing this. Even the crazy theologians that think atheism caused the holocaust don't claim this.

305. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #173582 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 9:51 pm

Not that I am in anyway qualified to talk about Japanese culture or history in anyway that would reflect the understanding of even the most laymen of Japanese citizens, but since I do spend all my time emersed in Japanese pop-culture I would like to offer some of my observations to what you have said Cartomancer.

The first thing you mention is the ability for Japanese people to mesh shintoism buddhism and christianity so seemlessly, and to seem to have no problem with this. That is something I picked up on quite awhile ago. They use shinto ritualistic expressions in their daily lives that have all but lost their original meanings, for instance they say "itadakimasu" before eating. Buddhists attend christian schools, still carrying buddhists beads, without anyone really saying anything. It really stood out to me because I didn't see anything like that in north america. Not like religious schools would refuse entry to non-christians, but they would definitely make noise about anything that wasn't completely christian.

The second thing you mention about how hiarchial they were historically, this is something I came to realise must be true after beginning to learn to speak the language, which is extremely hiarchial. They have several ways to say things as simple as "I" depending on formality (of course all the honourifics allude to this fact as well). Though this is noticably changing in pop-culture Japan, much of the hiarchial language is archaic to modern Japanese people. At least if how they talk is accurately reflected by their television programs that take place in modern times. You can see a huge drift in formal language between setting taking place in the past compared to settings taking place in modern times.

I was going to fervently disagree about the simple mindedness and rigidity of their views on good and evil, and there being one obvious right choice in every situation, though luckily I went to go watch the daily show before replying and had time to think. If talking about pre 1950 Japan, then that is completely true. Though I would argue that western nations were not all that much more nuanced or thoughtful in those respects at those times either.

Nationalism, and hero-worship was worldwide. Honour and glory was propagandized all over north america and europe. Durring parades for the war effort young women would hand out chicken feathers to men that were within the age to be a soldier but were not soldiers. They also very much painted the opposition as evil, and us as the good guys. Prison camps were established were "enemy aliens" where inprisoned (being anyone who bared a physical relation to members of the "central powers") So I don't think that it is fair to say those things about them as if it wasn't true of other countries.

I completely concede that Japan was indeed moreso, with a entire class of citizens who basically lived and breathed "honour" and loyalty. Growing up with glorious stories of ancestors who died for honour, even took their own lives in dishonour to preserve the honour of the family. I just think that it is fair to point out that peer pressure, nationality, glorification of fighting for your country, and the demonization of the enemy, and simplification of otherwise nuanced and complicated events was not unique to Japan.

In modern times I think that Japanese pop-culture reflects that less so than north american pop-culture. That at least tv and movies reflect a clear cut line between good and evil, and obvious righteous action and evil action where the line is far more nuanced and blurred in Japanese culture. With modern heroes out-right challenging and dissenting from old views on honour, obediance, and giving up your life, or taking anyone else's. Often having no good guys or bad guys, just people doing what they think is right, and being wrong and right in their own ways. Something that is extremely rare in western pop-culture.

So I did realise that you were talking about Japan during the war, and what you said no doubt accurately reflected Japanese culture at the time, though I think it is far different now than it was then. I just thought that needed to be said.

What you say about the Japanese's seeming inability, or lack of desire to seperate supernaturalism from science and technology is completely accurate from my experience, and something I find somewhat annoying. I have seen very very few si-fi produced in Japan that wasn't inseperately tangled with supernaturalism. At least in pop-culture the people tend to talk about science and magic as if it were inseperable things (in the west this happens sometimes, The Matrix, or Star Wars, for instance, but it is far more rare). All those giant robots you see running around, well about 99% of them are inexplicible magic giant robots. Even good well written si-fi that I like almost always has some elements of supernaturalism.

I should also mention that christianity is not universally well received or left alone in Japanese pop-culture, it is not alien or all that rare to have clear anti-christian themes. Especially in setting talking place between the late 19th to earily twentith centeries, where the church had quite a strangle hold on the Japanese economy. At least that is what I have gathered from how it is presented.

The thing about Gods you mention, I find they use the word Kami quite loosely, I always find it funny that they refer to the christian god as "Kami-sama". I would think that god being omniscent and the creator of the universe would qualify as sensei, but I guess not.

306. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #173390 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 5:48 pm

You said claims are evidence. Claims in and of themselves.

You neglected to answer any of my questions and instead just reiterated that I'm wrong.

I thought that what I wrote was quite well reasoned, it is annoying to have it just dismissed without being addressed and your assertion reiterated.

As least answer my question, since proof is evidence enough to establish something as true by definition, and claims are evidence. How many people need to claim something before it is proven?

I suspect you will reject the definition of proof and hide behind obfuscation in one of the other definitions, and claim it to be a semantic problem, so I will pre-empt this.

There are a few different concepts and application of the word "proof". There are mathematical, logical, and everyday proofs. The first two don't apply to the world, while the last one does. The only sense in which the word proof applies to the world is in the sense of evidence enough to establish something as true.

It is an "appeal to the people fallacy" to suggest that something is true because a certain number of people say so.

This all being said, it means one of these things must be true

1. Claims are not evidence
2. My definition of proof is mistaken
3. The logical fallacy is mistaken.

I am 100% sure that 2 and 3 are false (yay for tautological and deductive certainty). Both of which are easily looked into by you. That being said, it is logically impossible that 1 is also false, it then logically must be true.

If order to reject this, you must either reject proof, or logic.

I really hope that not admitting your wrong isn't worth that to you.

So far your discussion format has followed quite closely to so many theists that I've talked to.

1. Get an idea in your head.
2. Say it's true
3. Refuse to defend it
4. Constantly ask questions of anyone who disagrees, moving away from them instantly when they are answered to ask more.
5. Nelgect to answer questions forwarded to you.
6. Continue to assert anyone who disagrees is wrong
7. Continue to reiterate the truth of your original assertion.


I think I have attiqutely demonstrated that claims in and of themselves are not evidence of anykind. I think you should either show me where I have made the mistake, or just admit your wrong.

307. Bill Good Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #173352 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 4:55 pm

It's sad how these guys all think they have such great points to make.

308. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #173324 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 3:58 pm

Also, the whole using the bible against the theist, that depends on what you mean. If their believes about the bible, as in, what it says, what it implies, or that their ideas of an omnixxx god is coherent with what is written, then it is perfectly reasonable to challenge them on this issue, and argue what it says. Whether it's true or not doesn't come into it. The semantics is all that is being argued, or the consistency and coherence.

309. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #173322 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 3:56 pm

There are some fundamental problems with this however, and I will point them out.

When we only have hearsay, and anecdote, then we try to establish credibility. We exam the person, and decide if they are more likely to be telling the truth, or more likely to be lying. The events that the claim proports are out of our hands, we can't establish evidence for it, so we decide if it is justified believing the person.

If a claim were the evidence, then it would be so regardless of who uttered it, and it would not be less so, or more so believable depending on a person's credibility. Clearly this is not the case. You don't believe the word of someone who lies, not because the claim has changed when they say it, but because you know that they aren't worry of trust.

Never in court, or in life do we exam claims that can't be evidentiarily established removed from the people that made them. Because we can't establish whether or not they are true, or gather evidence in their favor, we instead investigate the person, and decide if they are worthy of our trust. You can establish probabolistic evidence of this based on how truthful they have been in the past, and things of that nature.

Secondly, the definition of proof, the only one that applies to the world "evidence enough to establish something as true" contradicts the claim that ancedotes can't prove something. Because they are evidence according to you, then logically you should be able to establish enough to proof something. So, how many people need to say something is true before it is proven?

What you are confusing, is credibility, and evidence. They are different things. One justifies our willingness to accept a claim without evidence, and the other is capable of proving something truth given enough of it.

One involves investigating the people involved, and evaluating whether or not you are justified believing them indepedent of their claim and the other involves investigating their claims independent of the person that uttered it.

In the first case, it is justified in rejecting claims uttered by known liars, and people not trustworthy. In the second case it is justified rejecting claims that evidence cannot be established for.

If a claim were evidence independent of who uttered it, then the claim of a liar is equal evidence as the claim of a truthful person. We both know this isn't true.

Now, when a claim is made by a truthful person that contradicts something that we know about reality, or doesn't jive with it, then either evidence for their claims has to be established, and your world veiw corrected, or their claim must be rejected. In cases where no evidence can be established, then the most parsimonious and reasonable explanation, is that they were merely wrong or mistaken.

Only when a claim doesn't contradict what is known about reality do we even bring the person into it, and decide if they are credible, and worthy of your trust. This is because if their claims involves things we know can take place, and do not contradict what we know about reality, then all that is in question is the person's credibility. So that is what needs to be established. When it does contradict what we know about reality, then we need evidence for the events proported in the claim.

310. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #173198 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 1:52 pm

No, I already answered that question too.

"I couldn't, there would be nothing to investigate. What would I investigate? Would I just read the bible and decide if it sounded right to me? How could I possibly go about gathering any evidence? Or even begin to varify any of it's claims? If I were asked to do that, I'd ask them how am I suppose to do that exactly?"

There is nothing I can think of that would work as evidence of a specific event happening at one time. Though if we lived in a universe were magical stuff happened, then presumably it happens more than once.

Even if unicorns were proven to exist, it would not automatically mean that everyone who claimed to have seen one really did, it would just be a lot easier to believe them.

Likewise, if evidence could be established for events of a similar kind, it might not mean the claims are true, but it would make the claims a whole lot less controversial.

If I told you that I had a grapefruit for breakfast this morning, you have no way of determining if that was true, or gathering any amount of empiricle evidence, but since the claim is not controversial, and nothing about it seems unlikely or improbable, then it is reasonable to just trust me, because I take on a certain responsibility when I make a claim. You will never have evidence for my claim, or a way of varifying it. All you will have is my word, and you can chose to trust me or not. The fact that I made the claim is in no way evidence of its truth.

However if I told you that I ate a dinosaur for breakfast, you would have good reason to think I did not. That would violate what you know to be true about the world, or at least not jive with it. Thus it is a controversial claim, that requires evidence to support it before it would be reasonable to accept it as true.

So how could be establish evidence for the events recorded in the bible? By making it's claims uncontroversial, and believable. It would not prove they happen, that is impossible, they have long since taken (or didn't take) place, and there is no way in which we could investigate the specific claims. Though if we could establish that they were quite possible, it would allow someone to reasonably accept them as true without evidence, because they would not be a controversial claim. It would then be trivial if they happened or not, because we would already know that god and magic is real, and christianity is true, so it wouldn't really matter if the specific events took place.

So for the specific events, it is impossible to gather evidence for. For supernaturalism, or christianity, it would require that they could produce predicted, testible, and repeatable supernatural events in a controlled environment. Like praying the limps of amputees back on. Maybe they could get god to come to earth and tell us all it's true. Things like that.

One of course couldn't gather that type of evidence for past events, they are overwith, and can't be reproduced, or examined in a controlled environment.

311. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #173110 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 11:14 am

You're a weird guy Ty_webb.

You clearly cannot read if you keep asking what I would accept as evidence. Since you don't know, nor do you care you look into it, I guess I will have to tell you what science accepts as evidence.

Empiricle, testable, reproducible, examinable. That is what something has to be to be evidence of the objective existence of something, or state of affairs of reality.

"Do people believe in unicorns" and "do unicorns exist" are too completely different questions, that require two completely different styles of investigation.

One is asking the state of people's minds toward a proposition, and it is regardless and irrevelent to the existence of unicorns. It is determined through a completely different style of investigation.

The other is about the state of affairs of a proported entity or creature, and is wholly unrelated and irrelevent to people's opinions of it, or their beliefs in it. It requires a completely different style of investigation, and completely different kind of evidence.

The first one can be determined by interrogation, observation, and analyses of people's behaviours.

The second one can be determined through investigation of the world, and an attempt to gather empiricle evidence that would varify the existence of such a proported creature. It would in no way involve asking people what they think, or counting up the amount of people that believe in them, or claim to have seen them, and then desiding it must be true when the count reaches a certain number.

I don't know how you think things about the objective world, the state of affairs of reality is determined, but I can tell you that it in no way involves asking people if they think it's true.

312. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #172931 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 7:23 am

Okay, evidence is anything which might sway the possibility of a claim's veracity.

If you have a scientific claim, then there are various ways that you come up with evidence for it. Fine. When trying to look at whether something happened or not a long time ago, there isn't any scientific evidence of it. Historians deal with this all the time. As far as I know, all there is is the written word.

If someone asked you, from scratch, to determine whether or not the whole Jesus thing happened, would you or would you not include the bible in your investigation?

One last time, what would you accept as evidence of any of the things claimed to have happened in the bible?

313. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #172857 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 6:12 am

Nothing is permanent Steve. Even the universe will not last forever, even we some long removed, hundreds of trillions of years in the future descendent somehow survives until the end state of the universe, they will die then. Though I'm not enough sure we will last as long as other successful species, let alone ride the universe all the way to the last stop.

314. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #172845 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 6:05 am

Andrew, I think people downplay language to a huge degree when talking about our acheivements. They seem to not release that what we have is a collective acheivement of the last 50 thousand years. Because of our ability to communicate, and record our thoughts and ideas, we can expand on them, and build a collective of millions of minds, and billions of bodies, to acheive what we have.

I am quite confident that without language, we would still be running around naked in the plains of africa.

I also think that an animal could be ten times more intelligent than we are, and never achieve anything but basic tools without being a social animal with complex communication.

Us individually are not all that far off from our chimp cousins, but because we can unify our minds as a group, and work collectively toward tasks, accumulate information, and take generations upon generation to solve a problem, we are capable of so much. We individually, achieve nothing. We as a species, could achieve almost anything given enough time.

A quote that has always inspired me was by Newton: "If I have seen farther than most men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."

315. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #172831 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 5:55 am

You have to be joking SavroD...I am as defensive of other animals and how they are underestimated as you can perhaps rationally be, but MPhil has made no controversial claims. If anything he has stated exactly what we can do that according to our current knowledge about the world no other animals can.

I thought he was specific, and quite accurate. I also read him as disagreeing with the article and agreeing with me.

Unless you can point me to another animal that possesses any of the things MPhil has outlined, I am inclined to think he is completely correct.

Also, lots of animals are special in some regard, that have unique qualities that no other animal possesses. Doesn't make them better, it just makes them different, and unique.

I see no reason to assume we will always be the only animals capable of those things. Surely there is a first for everything. There was a first animal capable of flight, and we are the first capable of the things MPhil outlined.

316. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #172815 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 5:43 am

(*sigh*) for the last time, I do not accept it for evidence fo anything other than the fact that claims were made. You can accept it as evidence all you like, but there is no objective standard of evidence. You cannot tell me what I accept and don't accept as evidence. I have outlined my reasoning, you can like it or dislike it, but you can't tell me what I am to accept or not accept as evidence. Especially by assertion alone. Saying "yes it is" "or but it is" and "it totally is" is in no way a productive way to have a discussion. If you think it is evidence, then first define evidence, and then explain why it necessarily qualifies.

Read the scientific method, and how science is proformed. I have already alluded to the fact that I attempt to subscribe to the same epistomological criteria of evidence that science does.

317. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #172587 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 6:51 pm

Courts don't decide what is true about reality. They settle disputes between people, and often hearsay is all there is. Though it would not be evidence of an event by itself. If someone claimed they wittnessed a murder but could produce zero phyical evidence then there would be no court case, and their claim would not be evidence of the proported crime in and of itself. The claim would be investigated, and independent physical evidence would be established, or the investigation would be dropped.

Socrates, maybe, but it is trivial and doesn't matter. Plato, absolutely, there are books authored by him. If that isn't his real name it is irrelevent, the guy we know as Plato existed.

Also you need to weigh the kind of claims. I don't need it proved to me that people can exist, and have names and do things. I know this to be true, that is all uncontroversial. All the important elements that would be scientific are established. I also think it is quite trivial if the people and places in the bible existed. That can be true of any fictional story, the events are what is controversial, and require evidence. If a guy named Zues existed it in no way suggests that any events surrounding the myths of Zues are true. That is independent and only trivially related to whether or not a person with that name existed.

The more controversial the claim, the more evidence would be required to accept it. Whether that people that proportedly made the claims are real or not is also trivial to whether they are true.

It doesn't defy any amount of scientific knowledge I possess to say that a guy named Jesus existed 2 thousand years ago. I don't require evidence for that, it is a trivial claim, likely several person named Jesus existed at that time. When you say a magic guy named Jesus existed two thousand years ago, then I want evidence for the magic part, not the guy part. It in no way follows that if the guy existed than the magic existed.

318. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #172570 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 6:32 pm

I was saying that I didn't like the fact that it was edited and corrected so I didn't know what happened, not that you offered a correction.

Makes sense now. That is a funny mistake.

319. Pat Condell: Anthology DVD available now!

Comment #172538 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 5:22 pm

I like Condell enough to watch his videos, though I can't say I anticipate them or anything. I've considered ranting about stuff, but I don't know enough about anything to do that, I'd end up looking like an idiot to anyone who knew more about the subject than I do.

320. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #172534 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 5:11 pm

80. Comment #172356 by Ty_Webb

I think you are assuming a definition of evidence that I do not share. I do not count anecdotal evidence. You can all you like, but I prefer to make my epistomological criteria as closely as I can to a scientific one, because it has proven to be unquestionably, and uncomparably the best method for arriving at true beliefs. It excludes anecdotes as evidence, therefore, so do I.

You are of course free to count whatever you want as evidence, there is no objective standard of evidence, it depends on the person.

This person, however, doesn't count the bible as evidence in anyway of it's claims. I accept it as evidence that claims were made, that is all. The claims in themselves are not evidence for their truth, no more than any claim is evidence of the truth of its assertion by virtue of being uttered.

321. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #172523 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 4:55 pm

255. Comment #172437 by Bonzai

I also edit my posts a lot, sometimes hours after I post them. I make tons of mistakes, and weird ones that I somehow don't notice while reading them over until awhile later. Like past page I somehow managed to mispell "pacifist" as "passivist", and didn't notice until I came back a couple hours later.

With my dyslexia I do stuff like that a lot. So my posts often get edited several times. I also add stuff or change wording once in awhile. Though I make a point to not change things that people have addressed, even spelling mistakes. I find it retards other readers abilities to keep track of what is being talked about. So if someone quotes something I said, or speaks directly to it, then I won't change anything, no matter how unintelligible it is without correction.

If necessarily I'll clarify or explain when asked about something, but won't correct it so other know what was talked about. For instance I was bothered when you pointed out a mistake to MPhil, and he fixed it. Now I have no idea what it was, or what you could have meant by your joke. I try to avoid that myself.

322. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #172519 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 4:49 pm

Good. I completely agree that this shamelessly makes use of the holocaust to further it's political, religious and ideological agenda. I hope to countinue to see the systematic and constant denounciation of this propoganda by everyone who sees or hears about it.

323. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #172354 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 1:52 pm

To be fair religion doesn't have to involve unsupported or unjustified believes. It only must be a system of beliefs that involve dogmas and tenets, they could be completely uncontroversial dogmas and tenets.

You could say that I religiously adhere to rules of logic, or that I have some religious views on ethics. Though that doesn't mean I believe in magic, or that it is in anyway related to my atheism. Depending on how loosely you are defining "religion" we could all be correctly contrued as religious in some sense.

So I agree with Steve that it is an inaccurate generalisation.

I do however admit to intellectual laziness in often using words like "the religious" though if asked I would always clarify as meaning the three major religious. Or religions that involve unsupported and unjustified beliefs.

324. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #172265 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 12:12 pm

45. Comment #172242 by al-rawandi

Indeed! become a pirate, save the world. RAmen (which by the way is delicious. Oiishii.)

The second one is from Lisa on the simpsons right? The episode with the bear, that prompts all of the anti-bear measures. She ends up selling it to Homer if I remember correctly.

325. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #172239 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 11:25 am

It is the same idiotic mistake everytime. People have an inability to tell the difference between causation and correlation.

326. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #172235 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 11:22 am

Lol, did the guy ever consider that maybe his critics were just full of shit? Doesn't that seem the most parsimonious answer to his Dawkinses paradox?

This guy is just another idiot that clearly doesn't know what "logically follows" even means.

327. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #172225 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 11:08 am

I agree MPhil, I am completely anti-war, and anti-violence of anykind really. I stop just short of pacifism. I think that in-action has it's consequences as well though. So I am for any other possible polution, and war as a complete last resort.

I also completely agree with your no winners opinion. I think if you are forced into war, then you have already lost the important battles.

328. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #172209 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 10:46 am

Anecdotal evidence doesn't count.

329. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #172068 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 7:49 am

If a god is responsible for evolution, then our current theory is wrong. Unless this god lets it go naturally and then usurps it on whims, in which case it would only be half wrong.

A god that used evolution as it's mechanism for creation is definitely not the proportedly omnipotent omniscience and omnibenevolent god of christianity.

Using a convoluted and round about process with a huge waste ratio, resulting in 99.8% Species extinctions. Relying on blind chance to stumble upon slight improvements, never able to built up toward improvment in a uniform manner. Lacking the ability to forsee future limitations created by the way in which something evolved. Making such a being either quite uninterested, or incapable of doing it a better way, in which case hardly omnipotent.

The huge amount of suffering, and death caused by this process. Where everything is in a constantly struggle to survive, and countless species survive by living off of other creatures. Resulting in predation, parasidic relationships, dieases, harmful bacteria, and viruses.

In no way a loving or merciful god. I couldn't think of a crueler or more moralless system. Even nature conspires to kill us. Natural disasters all over the world, every couple hundred thousand years we get hit by a massive meteorite, causing destruction and extinction for miles. Every couple hundred million years we get hit by one large enough to cause mass extinctions, and climate shifts.

Just face it. The idea of an omnixxx god has been long falsified by the evidence. The only remotely plausible argument I've heard in counter is that somehow evil is good, and this is the best of all possible worlds, and every single evil has it's purpose. This then of course makes good evil. If you prevent evil, you have prevented a necessarily evil that god was going to allow because it would result in greater good. So then, stoping a child from getting raped becomes an evil act.

I don't understand how anyone can cling unto such ideas at such a cost to their decensy, good sense, and moral compass.

Just let it go, things become a hell of a lot clearer.

330. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #171924 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 2:37 am

43. Comment #171892 by Christopher Davis

Of course there are "meaningful" ways in which humans are separate from (other) animals. They are simply differences in degree, not differences in kind.

Acknowledging this very observable truth does not make a person a theist.

331. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #171919 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 2:33 am

On that basis we can at least speculate that the fact that animals behave as if they understand and think about fairness and as if they have imagination and can speculate, and as if they have thought-through ethical codes doesn't mean that they do necessarily have these attributes.

332. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #171652 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 4:47 pm

Lucas, we are animals, and I think you mean developed mentally differently. Not "less". Otherwise I would like to know what scale of mental developement you possess that I am not aware of.

Clearly human beings are smarter, and can do some mental tasks that other animals can't. That doesn't make us more developed, and them less developed. No more than are ducks more developed cause they can fly.

Surely every species has different brains, and are developed differently, and have different mental facualties. Since we are all related, we also undoubtably have many similar aspects.

I think they are plainly wrong saying that other animals have no imagination. I am fine with the claim that humans are capable of a level of abstract thought that other animals are not. Or our system of morality and ethics is far more involved, and entires a lot more. I don't think that is true of our sense of fairness, I've seen some other primates act with an extremely strong sense of fairness.

My disagreement was in their saying all other animals lacked those facualties completely, and that imagination was the most important. I think that complex language is more important.

333. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #171645 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 4:41 pm

I never said that other animals lack communication of anykind, or the ability to share ideas of all kinds. I was specifically talking about sharing ideas that do not have a referent in reality. That require complex communication skills to be able to explain my idea to you without the aid of the world in anyway. When conveying to you an idea of something that in no was exists, or can be demonstrated to you in an meaningful sense.

334. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171611 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 4:00 pm

I should clarify when I said "they", and "us" in my denounciation I was refering far more generally than was assumed. I was refering to the whole of humanity. That shit like this happens everywhere sickens me.

I used to hit my pets when I was a kid. I can't think back to my youth without cringing, and thinking about what a sick fuck I was to do something like that. When I was talking about there being a fundamental problem, I meant with the species. That we are capable of such cruelty and anger, and disgusting behaviour.

I completely admit that I was generalising, but not about a race, but about the species as a whole. Clearly that shit happens everywhere, yes, even in the secular free world. The major different though is that shit is illegal. No one defends it, at least no one sane.

I think that can be brought about in those countries given enough time and intellectual preasure.

My polemic was aimed toward people in general, for being capable of that kind of shit, and how I don't think it will ever stop, or can be stopped.

I didn't segway between the article and my denouciation of the species as clearly as I should have.

So, I admit fault for ambiguity. I still think that it is odd to even bring race into it. Nothing was further from my mind.

The human species is less genetically diverge than most other species, we almost appraoched extinction, widdling the species down to something like 2 thousand individuals. It has only been fifty thousand years since our species left africa. I don't consider race to be a thing at all, nothing worth talking about or mentioning. It is an invention of ignorance, and holds nothing other no information value beyond a slightly aethetic one.

Even if races were fundamentally different, that doesn't make any better than any other. There is no objective level of goodness, or betterment. That requires context, and a value judgement. Even if one group were better than others at something that in no way makes one objectively better. Such a value judgement could only ever be arbitrary.

I don't consider humans to be better than other species, let alone populations within the species to be better than any other. I think anyone who even begins to think talking about one group being better than another group, for whatever reason misunderstands the different between objective and subjective, and the requirement of a valuer. Only crazy people that believe in magic think that things hold intrinic or objective value.

So, on that note, I don't consider the concept of races to be an meaningful one at all. Something not worth talking about.

335. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171591 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 3:38 pm

I will take that as an apology to me, and will say that I shouldn't have called you an idiot, I was just taken aback but some seemingly completely uncalled for and out of the blue remarks.

I can also agree that the dishonesty is bad, and itself an admition of guilt. You don't change what you said and then lie about it unless what you were accused of saying was accurate.

336. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171575 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 3:23 pm

I think it's not very insulting to be called an animal. It is rather redundant. We are animals.

337. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171573 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 3:21 pm

Perhaps you didn't notice when I said I didn't support sanctions. Of coure you seem to be willing to not notice much. You seem to also being attempting to justify one evil by pointing at others. Why do I have to accept any? You keep forgetting that I'm talking about people not races. You are the one fixated on races.

If someone killed a man, and went to court, it would be an awefully poor defence to start naming people that killed more people than he did.

Unless you are saying that what he did was not wrong, or that the system that let him go was not at fault, or that women in their societies are just fine. Then I fail to see what point you are trying to make.

338. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171562 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 3:10 pm

I wanna say that I am in no way a lunatic that would call for violence towards anyone. I in no way have ever supported any of the Iraq stuff at all, being Canadian, that has of course been a majority opinion they entire time, nor do I think that enlightenment, freedom, or emancipation can be forced on anyone.

I think that the only reasonable way to do anything to attempt to win a war of ideas. It is even hard to suggest economic santions because these countries have their citizens held hostage, and it would result in starvation, and other related problems.

It is disgusting that this happens, and I think that there is clearly something wrong with us that we are capable of such things, so I am not optomistic about our ability to wipe such behaviour off the earth. I do hope that, and think it is possible as many countries around the world attest to, that if we can win a battle of ideas, we can win over the majority, then a change from within can occure, and such people will be forced to the fringe of their societies, like they are in ours, and will not get away with such blatant crimes against human rights, and murder.

The last thing we can do is give an inch in this war of ideas, and I think that allowing countries that do did not adhere to established basic human rights to join the organization was a huge mistake, and it has indeed caused it's distruction.

Pretending that we are on an equal moral ground with people that support such barbaric traditions and ideas for fear of sounding racist, is itself racist. Pretending that they can be excused for such actions, and don't require meeting the moral standards set by the free world, because they are another race, it itself racist. Bring race into it at all, when it is clearly a non-issue and was not alluded to by anyone, is itself racist.

It doesn't matter if your racism is in favor of the race, or against, it's still discriminating based on race.

339. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171532 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 2:38 pm

(*Sigh*) I almost don't want to dignify your idiocy with a reponse, but I will give you one, and only one, then you can call me whatever you like Al.

These people as in the ones that support soceities that allow things like that to happen.

"most muslims" so the generalisations are fine when you're doing it eh?

Please do compare these cities, and then tell me how many confessed murderers of their daughters they let go every year.

Well if you weren't such an idiot, you would have realised, that in context I was saying that there is something wrong with us all us for letting it happen. I think that everyone should not allow such things to happen, of course including arabs. Unlike you, I was not excluding them when I said "us".

Should being the important word, I was stressing how I feel there is something wrong with us, as a species that we would allow this to occure.

This will be my last response to you again. I'm not going to explain the obvious every time you take something to mean something it clearly did not.

340. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171512 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 2:28 pm

Well there wasn't even an affair, but that would still hardly be worthy of stomping her to death by her family.

Can you even think of a scenerio where someone's family would partake in stomping them to death in an enlightened secular country? IT didn't mention how many brothers, but presumably at least 2, that is 3 family members stomping another one to death.

341. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171486 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 2:16 pm

This is beyond disgusting. This needs to be stopped...it just needs to be stopped. Women are merely property and sex slaves to islam, who can be beaten, raped, and murdered legally. To say they are second class citizens would be a lie, they aren't citizens at all. They aren't considered people.

These are the people we let become members of a group dedicated to human rights, people that don't consider half the human species to qualify. What's going on? How can any of this be? Asking why this is done, and who would do it is one thing, you say that kind of thing because you expect it is rare...but to think of whole cultures where it is perfectly fine to do...it is not something I can even begin to make sense of...

It makes me wonder if there is something fundamentally wrong with people, that people can do those sorts of things, while the rest of us sit by...and do nothing.

342. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #171460 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 1:55 pm

I think that this is patantly, and demonstratably wrong. I think that zoologists would fervently disagree that we are the only animals with imaginations, ethical codes, or a sense of fairness.

I think that the obvious secret ingedient is language. The imagination is abstract, and conceptual, and has no referents in reality. It is impossible to communicate your abstract ideas to someone without language. Every creature on earth could believe in supernatural gods and afterlives but it wouldn't equal a group belief, like a religion, without the ability to communicate the abstract and conceptual.

To have specific words to describe your thoughts...and perhaps more importantly to the religious, have words of ambiguity and abfiscation.

Your imagination could be exceptionally prolific, but your ideas would all die with you without the ability to communicate them to others. I think that it is beyond obvious that although imagination is a necessary vactor of religion, it isn't sufficient by itself, you also need to be able to communicate your invented concepts to the members of your society to have a unifying and shared superstition.

343. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #171347 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 12:52 pm

I've heard that some birds have IQs comparable to Dolphins.

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

Comment #171090 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 9:59 am

Thanks Bonzai, though you probably generally don't like poetry, right? I find people look for emotion in poetry, not as much ideas.

I've never felt anywhere near like Cartomancer describes either. I'm quite cold of a person, emotionally anyway. I think that I am far more empathetic in my actions than most people though. I've never had long lasting friends, I moved around constantly during my youth, so I got used to not forming long term relationships.

Now that I'm an adult I'm still the same. I don't have trouble getting along with people, but when I have no more reason to see them, then it doesn't bother me to not ever talk to them again.

I often feel alien to the world, not that I'm lonely, or saddened by this. I just feel that there is a degree of seperation between myself and everyone else.

I got sick of being told my poetry was desolete, and emotionless and sad. Even though it wasn't suppose to be. It wasn't as if I was some tool writing about death and how much life sucked. My poetry was about nature, or ideas. Clearly poetry is suppose to be emotional, and personal.

I think poetry is suppose to be somewhat hyperbolic though. If it isn't then there must be something wrong with me.

I've heard it said that if you have to ask "is this love?" then it's not. So, if that is the case, I've never been in love.

I know what you mean about the words, just wow. I used to have a list of words, when I was watching tv if I heard a word I didn't know I'd write it down and look it up later. I used the list to write a poem just for the hell of it one day. I don't watch TV anymore, so I don't keep such a list.

I used to be a member of a poetry site, I deleted my account a couple years ago, alone with my poems. I wrote that one from memory, I'm not sure if it is exactly the same, it was my favorite one. The objective of the poem is to strip away its personage, making it less and less a thing in every line, until it ends with what is left when you strip everything else away.

345. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #171073 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 9:42 am

Doctor zeius Doctor zeius
Doctor zeius Doctor zeius
Doctor zeius Doctor zeius -ooh - Doctor zeius

What's wrong with me? I think you're crazy.
Want a second opinion! You're also lazy.

Doctor zeius...

346. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #171071 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 9:41 am

15. Comment #171036 by Bruno

I was being facetious.

347. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #171028 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 8:50 am

10. Comment #171017 by Verylee

so why would one decide to go for such a slippery catch (High effort/low payoff)for protein when mice and voles would suffice?

348. Science leads to killing people

Comment #170814 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 3:55 am

I agree with PJG, when I first saw this yesterday, I commented there was nothing funny about it. I had no idea how insane the same was. I felt physically sick after listening to his lunacy.

This is not just ignorance, and stupidity, it is quickly becoming evil propaganda that will do the world harm.

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

Comment #170781 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 1:56 am

They say that poetry makes for poor philosophy, but I also like to think that the reason my poetry was bad was because philosophy also makes poor poetry. Cartomancer gave us an excellent piece, which is personal, and full of emotion, and it is superbly written. All of which makes it fantastic poetry in my opinion. When something lacks all of that it is poor poetry, which is why I gave up.

This is one I wrote about god a few years ago, called "I am".

I am sent from dream
A person of no wants or desires
I go unseen
A creature of no emotional fires

I pass life by
A being with no life or age
I cannot cry
A force without love or rage

I have no race
A soul without home or relation
I cannot embrace
A ghost without touch or sensation


I have no face
A spirit without thought or imagination
I am empty space
A apparition void of wish or inspiration



I cannot resist
A thought of human creation
I do not exist
A personification of humanity's lack of perfection.


(*Edit*) I remembered another part.

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

Comment #170269 by Mitchell Gilks on April 27, 2008 at 2:35 pm

...folding a single piece of paper?