301. Study: Religion colors Americans' views of nanotechnology

Comment #128390 by mmurray on February 16, 2008 at 10:27 pm

state collects the tithe for the churches from any tax-payer who is a registered member of either the roman catholic or lutherean protestant church.

Are people really handing over 10% of their income (before other taxes or after?) as a voluntary donation to their church ?

Michael

302. Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Comment #127902 by mmurray on February 15, 2008 at 5:25 pm

The person writing this article says

cause millions of Americans to switch off "American Idol" and pick up Schopenhauer.

and poses a false dichotomy that seems to be part of the issue. Surely the real problem is not that America is full of people like me who haven't read Schopenhauer but that there are too many people who don't know basic science, geography and history.

Michael

303. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #126526 by mmurray on February 13, 2008 at 12:49 pm

I think this is his basic position regarding modern medicine. Big Pharma, particularly in the US, is motivated too strongly by the profit motive and its pronouncements have to be viewed sceptically.

I guess one of the advantages of a system of universal health care and subsidised medicine like we have in Australia is that it puts pressure on the Government to support programmes that decrease expenditure on health and medicines. For example we have a rising obesity problem. It is pretty straightforward to translate this into extra government health costs in ten or twenty years and even short sighted governments can see the need to put in place programmes to combat this.

One of the interesting impacts from modern medicine is the dramatic improvement in quality of life particularly for older people. We are not just living longer we are having a better and healthier life when we are old. Some of that is down to lifestyle but some of it is down to treating things with drugs when people are in the mid years. Put me down for having high blood pressure and reflux disease treated by drugs. Non of these things actually are a big deal are my present age - high bp is symptom free but they are an investment in a longer and healthier old age.

One of the things that concerns me about the kind of discussion I see here is the sometimes unspoken assumption that there is something unnatural about medicine or taking drugs. On the contrary disease, infant mortality, death in labour and early death are all really natural. It would be interesting if some big pharma company discovered a drug which if you took from birth gave you another 50 years of healthy living. Would we take it ?

Michael

304. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #126360 by mmurray on February 13, 2008 at 4:04 am

Today, most doctors will just prescribe you medicaments after a few minutes they spend on you and consider their job done. And unfortunately, this includes child doctors, who do not dare suggest that the child needs to change their unhealthy lifestyle fast.

Maybe we live in different countries but I have never had either of these experiences.

Stop misinterpreting arguments because of a black and white view.

I was reacting to the comments above that Maher doesn't believe in the germ theory of disease. I think that is dismissing modern medicine.

I agree there are problems with Big Pharma and their desire to make everything a disease they can sell a drug for but there are also serious unanswered questions about what needs treating.

Michael

305. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #126312 by mmurray on February 13, 2008 at 1:01 am

Not sure what New Scientist are thinking of:

Although a century-and-a-half's study has bolstered the theory's standing among scientists,

`bolstered' ?? Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is as close to truth as science can get.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13307-darwin-still-controversial-after-all-these-years.html

Michael

306. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #126252 by mmurray on February 12, 2008 at 7:50 pm

before a bit ago that had possible death as a side effect

That just isn't true. When I was a kid and asthmatic forty years ago it was well known that regular use of some of the then available steroidal inhalers could lead to heart attache. I knew someone whose uncle had died that way.

I also doubt very much that allergy `cripples' the immune system. Cripple is a very strong word. HIV cripples the immune system and the effects are very dramatic.

Michael

307. Bill Maher on Larry King Live

Comment #126250 by mmurray on February 12, 2008 at 7:46 pm

Maybe while we are dismissing modern medicine it would be a good time to read Dan Dennett's remarks from a few years back.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dennett06/dennett06_index.html

I am with Dan on this one. I would rather be well than sick and alive than dead. Give me modern medicine anytime.

Michael

308. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125210 by mmurray on February 11, 2008 at 4:20 am

Good suggestion but Baroness Greenfield already holds a chair at Oxford.

But she could resign that and take up this one. Surely New College is better than Lincoln College :-) This chair also has

The standard duties of the post, for example with regard to teaching, supervision and examining, are lighter than is normal for a professorship in the University. Although obligations in these areas are specified (see below), the requirement to meet them will be interpreted flexibly.

which sounds good to me!

Michael

309. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125205 by mmurray on February 11, 2008 at 4:12 am

Sir Martin Rees has struck me as a good writer and speaker on the subject of science.

2 yeards older than Richard so would not be in the job very long.

Similarly Roger Penrose would be great but already an Emeritus Professor at Oxford and thus too old.

Victor Stenger is 72 so also too old.

Hart-Davis is 64.

(This assume the birth dates in Wikipedia are correct).

Suggestions need to bear in mind this from the job ad

The University's normal retirement date for professors is 30 September immediately preceding the 66th birthday, except that for those who can establish vested rights as defined in the University's statutes (details available on request) in retirement at age 67 or later, the date of retirement will not normally be later than the 30 September immediately preceding the 68th birthday.

Michael

310. What he wishes on us is an abomination

Comment #125195 by mmurray on February 11, 2008 at 4:00 am

The General Synod wants the bishop to quit. The Synod is currently having a five day meeting. Let's hope they fire this man who is the spiritual leader of 75 million Anglicans

Unfortunately I am not sure this is due to universal revulsion at what he said. My impression is that he has many political enemies and they are more conservative than he is on such things as homosexuality. I suspect they are just taking the chance to get the knife in. But someone who lives in the UK can probably explain the politics on the Anglican Communion better than me.

Michael

311. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125178 by mmurray on February 11, 2008 at 3:32 am

What about Sir Harry Kroto? He is very involved in projects to educate the public about science.

2 years older than Richard according to wiki

Michael

312. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125158 by mmurray on February 11, 2008 at 3:16 am

non-materialist candidates

Good idea they should allow ghosts to apply. In which case I would go for Darwin.

Michael

313. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125155 by mmurray on February 11, 2008 at 3:12 am

Nevertheless, there will still be people addressing him as 'Dr. Dawkins'....

Unless of course the Queen decides to touch him on the shoulders with her sword ... :-)

Michael

314. Charles Simonyi Professorship in the Public Understanding of Science

Comment #125154 by mmurray on February 11, 2008 at 3:10 am

I don't think Bill Bryson would satisfy the selection criteria

The starting point is likely to be a specific field of science, which may, as well as the natural, medical and mathematical sciences, include the history of science and the philosophy of science. He or she will be an accomplished scholar who has made original contributions in his or her field, and who is able to address the subject, where necessary, at the highest levels of abstraction,

Follow the link at the top of the page for the job ad.

Pity Sam Harris didn't have a bit more track record.

Michael

315. The challenge of finding peace in Lourdes

Comment #124654 by mmurray on February 10, 2008 at 12:54 am

Noodly: You forgot the hologram that looks like Dawkins from one angle and Darwin from another.

Michael

316. Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'

Comment #124208 by mmurray on February 8, 2008 at 6:54 pm

Some sensible Islamic comment here

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yasmin-alibhai-brown/yasmin-alibhaibrown-what-he-wishes-on-us-is-an-abomination-780186.html

Michael

317. Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'

Comment #123888 by mmurray on February 7, 2008 at 9:31 pm

For those of you who don't read the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,,2254597,00.html

Michael

318. Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable'

Comment #123716 by mmurray on February 7, 2008 at 2:43 pm

He looks ready to fondle some children.

OK that's my vote for tasteless remark of the day. In any case it's usually the Catholics who have problems with paedophilia because of the celibacy requirement they place on their priests.

Picking on the guy for how he looks is pretty lame IMHO. Particularly when his ideas are such easy targets! Come the future athiest utopia is there going to be a dress and hair code? Sounds like going back to school. Yuck.

Michael

319. Exploding black holes could expose hidden dimensions

Comment #122743 by mmurray on February 5, 2008 at 11:22 pm

That's true, and they should be given support in proportion to the level of excitement that their ideas generate within the community of their scientific peers as measured by the number of researchers / citations in major journals in the field. I've seen no evidence that the funding for string theory is excessive by this measure. If someone researching loop quantum gravity comes up with an exciting result that generates a large number of citations and motivates other researchers to enter the field, then funding for loop quantum gravity will increase. I just don't see any other basis for someone who isn't a theoretical physicist to prefer one to the other or any other criteria which are reasonable to consider from the prospective of policy-makers who must decide on funding decisions (at least in a field so esoteric that it has no foreseeable implications for social welfare).

I'm not too familiar with the way funding works in this case, but I'd guess most researchers in these highly theoretical fields have tenured positions where they could research whatever they wanted anyway since they don't need to run expensive experiments. I'm sure the presence or absence of grants exerts some force on the direction of research, but it wouldn't prevent someone from pursuing an idea they thought was truly groundbreaking.

Smolin makes a case that the usual self-correcting mechanisms are not working in the case of string theory. He also makes a case that even tenured staff have to get grants. If not after awhile the University starts to notice and comments are passed and after a little bit longer the Dean may start talking retirement packages ! It is awhile since I read the book but I think that was his argument.

Pursuing a ground breaking idea may also mean no publications for awhile or no publications in the high impact journals as you are not working in the `right' area. That also will be noticed.

Michael

320. Blasphemy

Comment #122642 by mmurray on February 5, 2008 at 5:55 pm

I mean when the Pope says no to contraception, the more modern Catholics use it anyway, and can buy their way out of sin at confession.

You can't actually do that. If you go to confession and confess a sin which you have the intent of repeating you won't be in the correct state of mind to be absolved of the sin. You can't really mean sorry if you took another pill that morning or the bedside drawer is full of condoms.

My guess is they use contraception, don't go to confession and justify it as a matter of conscience.

Michael

321. Christopher Hitchens Debates Timothy Jackson

Comment #122587 by mmurray on February 5, 2008 at 2:15 pm

I think you are arguing over meanings here.

If by theology you mean the study of God aimed to try and remove the logical contradictions apparent in religious belief then I think this a non subject.

If by theology you mean the study of religion you mean the study of how religions behave, or the history of religious thought or why people are religious etc that is a serious subject.

I'm with Gymnopedie -- we should call the second of these religious studies or similar and the first theology. There is probably some overlap of course. If you study God you will want to read religious books but your aim is different.

Michael

322. Dusty Clues: Study suggests no dearth of Earths

Comment #122272 by mmurray on February 5, 2008 at 3:47 am

Continuing on in my depressive vein here is an article about how big the universe is and how it is likely to be impossible to communicate with other sentient beings even if there are some:

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/071206-seti-aliens-apart.html


Of course you could hope that dark matter and dark energy allow you some unknown technology. This is a sort of `warp drive of the gaps' approach where you hope any gap in known physics represents something we can turn into an interstellar spacecraft. But the deafening silence from ET and the lack of visits kind of suggests otherwise.

Michael

323. Dusty Clues: Study suggests no dearth of Earths

Comment #122179 by mmurray on February 4, 2008 at 9:20 pm

Why do some people regard it as obvious that because there are so many stars life must exist elsewhere? You can only draw that conclusion if you know the odds of planets and life forming and we don't. None of the available evidence we have including these results contradicts the hypothesis that we are the only planet with life on it in the whole universe. All we have so far is the suggestion that planets are not unusual, based on observation, but no evidence that earth like planets are common. Even if missions like Kepler tell us earth like planets in the habitable zone are other there the evidence of our own solar system suggests that planets without life are more common than those with. We can't even find microbes on the other planets in our solar system.

Michael

324. Some non-Christians feel left out of election

Comment #121533 by mmurray on February 3, 2008 at 2:50 pm

I would say that atheists are necessarily less conservative than Christians, on average.

Maybe maybe not. There are a number of people who post on these forums who come at their atheism from a US right-wing, libertarian point of view. No government, everybody looks after themselves, nobody tells me what to do sort of thing. I don't know how the number of these compares to the number of more left wing people so I couldn't guess what the average is.

Michael

325. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120010 by mmurray on February 1, 2008 at 5:06 am

You are right things are changing on the website. On the front page if you click `Latest News' it doesn't scroll down anymore but acts like a tab. Michael

326. Morality and the 'new atheism'

Comment #120009 by mmurray on February 1, 2008 at 5:05 am

Surely rational numbers represent a real thing. Fractions are real and dividing a quantity of something amongst a number of people must have been something we have been doing for a long time. As for irrationals what about the length of the hypotenuse of an isosceles right angle triangle of side length 1 (or square root of two for those who have forgotten Pythagoras theorem). Michael

327. Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights

Comment #119421 by mmurray on January 31, 2008 at 3:19 pm

However, the rulers should be reminded of the amount of effort and funding that is going on. If they still insist on their medieval laws then we should withdraw and let them sink back to a medieval society. No imports, no exports, no travel in or out.

Isn't the catch with the bearded guys in the hills who like to fly planes into skyscrapers? In fact I thought that was why we were in there not because we wanted to bring freedom to the Afghani's although that would be a good thing. I am not as confident as some here that they want it or even that the women are do desperate to get rid of their veils. In our own countries religious don't seem to be that keen to throw of their shackles. As for the diplomacy or gunboats approach I think the real question is what can we do in Afghanistan that can be effective ? The article reads to me as if there is a lot of politics going on here. To do something effective you have to understand all that. Just wading in and liberating everybody from Islam might not have the effect you hope for. In case anyone wants it the email for the Australian Foreign Minister is Stephen.Smith.MP@aph.gov.au Michael

328. What should a scientist think about religion?

Comment #118324 by mmurray on January 30, 2008 at 3:40 pm

If I had been brought up being taught "There is no god, there is no god!" without being exposed to the reasons behind that belief, then I would be no less guilty of holding prepositions on faith (in my programmer) than the average religious person.

I guess if that teaching was the only basis for your lack of belief in God you would be right but it wouldn't be. I have bought my kids up atheists which basically means I have left them alone. As Australia is a pretty secular society religion hardly impinges on them. I no more need to sit them down and explain why there is no God than I need to sit them down and explain why there is no Russell's teapot. There is no evidence for a God so the sensible and reasonable first position to take is that there is no God. I guess in a society where they were surrounded by religious nuts I would have to work harder.

The really good scientists I know take their jobs home with them... they think about science in their spare time. I find it difficult how someone could switch off that scientific mindset to go and kneel in Church on a Sunday.

Ah yes solved a few problems in the shower myself. I bet a lot of these people tune out of the sermon at Church and think about work!

Michael

329. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117391 by mmurray on January 28, 2008 at 6:16 pm

No more attacks on Dogmatix. Please.

Michael

330. Scientists want rewrite of Earth's time line

Comment #117390 by mmurray on January 28, 2008 at 6:14 pm

discovery of the New World.

Which one are you thinking of ? The crossing of the Bering Strait and migration into the Americas around the end of the last ice age ? The founding of Vinland by the Vikings. Or that spanish guy -- what was his name ? :-)

331. Math Religion Trouble

Comment #116853 by mmurray on January 27, 2008 at 3:56 pm

It's math in the US, Canada and maths in UK, Australia etc.

Michael

332. The real danger in Darwin is not evolution, but racism

Comment #115276 by mmurray on January 23, 2008 at 9:59 pm

Had they actually read Origin, they likely would be shocked to learn that among Darwin's scientifically based proposals was the elimination of "the negro and Australian peoples," which he considered savage races whose continued survival was hindering the progress of civilization.

If Darwin had this opinion he was in good company. Around that time the world probably divided roughly into two groups. Right wingers who that thought so-called inferior races should be hunted down, poisoned and generally eleminated and left-wingers who thought they should be looked after and their children removed and brought up by white people. Times have changed since Darwin's time and we know that there is not a great deal of difference between races and, in fact, it is not possible to define race like we do species in any sensible scientific manner. Campolo should read Gould's Mismeasure of Man for a more up to date point of view.

there is, nevertheless, a mystical quality in human beings that makes each of us sacred and of infinite worth.

What a load of rubbish. We are just the chimp with the most highly developed level of self-consciousness. It is an accident of history that none of the other near relatives survived or that the ones that did can't speak easily. I wonder what Campolo would say to a Neanderthal if he met one ?

Perhaps when he has finished Mismeasure of Man he could try The Third Chimpanzee by Diamond.

Michael

333. Banned From Church

Comment #115129 by mmurray on January 23, 2008 at 4:04 pm

After that, the county prosecutor dismissed the charge and told county law enforcement not to arrest her again unless she was creating a disturbance.

Well at least the county prosecutor in this town has some brains.

Michael

334. Vatican slams California firm's cloning experiments

Comment #114334 by mmurray on January 22, 2008 at 1:39 am

First cloned Pope by 2108?

Surely it will be Dalai Lama first. That would save having to hunt out the reincarnation in the back blocks of Tibet which is getting harder with the Chinese there.

Michael

335. Honour Killings

Comment #113947 by mmurray on January 21, 2008 at 4:18 am

Nevertheless the Onion continues to do good work

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28109

Michael

336. Honour Killings

Comment #113931 by mmurray on January 21, 2008 at 2:59 am

I can't find anything about this person on the internet except they have set up a web page with a discussion forum (thanks dlitt) and they like to advertise it every time they post an entry in some other forum.

Is there some reason we are bothering with them I don't know about as I am antipodal to the UK ? He seems to be getting well sorted out in his own discussion forum without our giving him free advertising here.

Michael

337. It was a bad year for God.

Comment #109301 by mmurray on January 8, 2008 at 7:40 pm

Atheism does not say "I don't believe in a personal omnipotent, benevolent God". Atheism says "I don't believe in ANY kind of God.

Therefore, the opposite of atheism is believing in SOME kind of God. It says nothing at all about the benevolence or potency of that God or Gods.

Thanks Steve for that nice example of how to negate an existential quantifier. It hadn't struck me before. I wonder if I will get in trouble if I use that on my first year class ... :-)

On the ad I wonder if it would be better not to say `It was a bad year for God' as it sounds like the person writing it believes in God. This makes us look like what seems to be the definition of atheist amongst some US theists: namely someone who rejects God (even though they know he exists) so they can behave badly.

Not sure what I would say instead though -- `It was a bad year for Gods' maybe???

That said next time I am going to use a hotel/motel maybe I will print off some copies small enough to slip into the Gideon bible and leave there. A few near the front door to exchange with the next religious visitor I get could be handy as well.

Michael

338. Changing my Mind

Comment #108453 by mmurray on January 7, 2008 at 12:01 am

to your fist question - yes, but I dont know exactly where yet...
I dont think that the universe is 'full' of intelligent life. But lets put it into perspective. As far as we know, the universe is infinite, therfore there are infinite possibilities existing.

The fact that the universe is infinite in extent allows the possibility of an number of infinite types of life but it doesn't mean they exist. There is nothing logically ruling out the possibility that we are it and we have no evidence to suggest otherwise.

I dont know how far we have been able to 'see' much less travel within space but to discount such options and to sit back and think "yeah, its 2008, I think we have it mostly covered now, probably not going to discover much more" is arrogance in the extreme.

No it isn't arrogance. We have a pretty good grasp of physics and faster than light travel (FLT) is not allowed under physics as we understand it. Maybe when we understand the last few bits we will discover FLT is possible but we see no evidence of it yet (ie visitors with FLT spaceships).

Regarding homeopathy, i refer you to a previous post where I propose that much alternative medicine is supressed by the medical establishment because there is very little money for them in such treatments. Are you aware of the amount of money injected that the main pharma companies make on their drugs. Who do you think funds the medical schools and training clinics, the doctors expensive trips away etc etc. It is very much in the interests of big pharma to ensure that every visit to the doctor ends with a prescription.

Can you give an example of suppressed treatments? I am well aware of the power and influence of Big Pharma but it doesn't mean the whole of conventional medicine is corrupt.

The only evidence that would be accepted by the establishment for the use of homoeopathy is that which would be sponsored by the pharma companies - is it likely to happen?

It wouldn't need Big Pharma approval. There are lots of governments only too happy to find ways of reducing the cost of treating their people. A decent clinical trial with positive outcomes would clinch it. There aren't any.

By the way, I dont believe that Homeopathy is a panacea either. Just another of many options.

One of the many options, like letting blood, prayer, drilling holes in skulls to let out evil spirits etc that doesn't work.

Michael

339. Changing my Mind

Comment #108414 by mmurray on January 6, 2008 at 7:56 pm

Hi qster,

You said:

The truth inevitably lies between the extremes (in my experience)

So the truth about God is somewhere between atheism and theism?

I read a reasonable amount of what now would be called New Age when I was a teenager -- convalescing from a catholic upbringing I guess. I also read Capra and Zhukov and it was all fun and I think the world would be really interesting if esp and future prediction worked but all the evidence we have is that they don't work. Not that they only work for some people but that they just don't.

I also read a lot of science fiction as a kid and I would really like to think that:

(a) the universe was full of intelligent life

(b) it was physically possible to travel to the stars and meet said life.

But the evidence for (a) is still zero and the evidence against (b) is very high. Wishing just won't make it true.

There is no evidence that homeopathy does anything that the placebo effect doesn't achieve. It does harm when people give up their so-called conventional medicine ( you know the one that we know works because we tested it). It does harm when much needed financial resourse are diverts (as in the UK) to homeopathy.

Michael

PS: I confess also (even ex-catholics do this) to reading a lot of this guys books as a teenager:

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

They were fun until the degenerated into repetition around the tenth book from memory.

Michael

340. Wisdom From The Founding Rationalists

Comment #104590 by mmurray on December 29, 2007 at 1:00 am

82abhilash Ah it's the pure mathematician in me I like the words to mean what they say :-)

I guess I don't understand this:

Social prejudices are much difficult to legalize in the US than other countries, especially today. It takes the concept of independence to a whole new level. That is what makes the US free.

I would have thought social prejudices are hard to legalize in most of what we regard as western countries. I can't think of an example of a social prejudice that has been legalized in Australia but not legalized in the US ? Or at least one that would have any great impact. What kind of social prejudice do you mean ?

If you step away from legal issues for a minute and look at the society as a whole the discussions I see on these forums of the attitude towards atheists makes me glad I don't live in the US -- at least in some states. It may not be illegal to be an atheist but the prejudice against us seems very high and quite effective.

Michael

341. Archbishop of Canterbury Praises Richard Dawkins

Comment #104561 by mmurray on December 28, 2007 at 6:51 pm

Surely, it is precisely those parts of the world which have the best attitude towards women, exercise the greatest levels of sexual freedom and make the most use of birth control and abortion that are using up disproportionately the most of the world's resources and emitting the greatest levels of pollution.

I agree. But if we had stabilized the world population at some much lower number it might have been feasible to share out that quality of life to everybody without destroying all the forests, primates, higher mammals etc. I am no demographic expert but I would have thought we have well past that point now in terms of population growth. When I was at school the `population explosion' was an urgent issue everybody worried about. It seemed to fall off the agenda driven by some new economic line that population growth was essential to economic progress aided and aided and abetted by the churches who would not support charities who handed out contraceptives or approved of abortions.

Michael

342. Wisdom From The Founding Rationalists

Comment #104532 by mmurray on December 28, 2007 at 5:47 pm

82abhilas

When I say the US is the most freest country in the world, I do not mean to boast. It is a fact.

[deleted]

There is lot of things possible there that are not possible in the US, but on an average the US is the freest country.

Hang on: first it is `a fact' that the US is the freest country in the world and then a paragraph later it is `on average' the freest country. What does that mean ? How do you average freedoms ?

Michael

(Posting from `not as free as the mighty US of A' -- Australia.)

343. Wisdom From The Founding Rationalists

Comment #104529 by mmurray on December 28, 2007 at 5:43 pm

In 200 years people may well look back with disgust and horror to the opening years of the 21st century, and wonder how billions could so blithely live lives of comfort and ease, while millions starved, were killed in wars or sold into sexual slavery.

Yes it is an interesting exercise to wonder what in 200 years people will regard with the revulsion we regard slavery. I suspect your call is correct.

I enjoyed your post on the religious blog.

Michael

(Posting from `not as free as the mighty US of A' -- Australia.)

344. Archbishop of Canterbury Praises Richard Dawkins

Comment #104494 by mmurray on December 28, 2007 at 4:28 pm

Even when I asked what the world would be like if everybody became an atheist, at best I got answers along the lines of , well there wouldn't be any religions and therefore no religious wars. So what is the positive answer?

No-one seems to have thought that out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEOkxRLzBf0

Michael

345. Archbishop of Canterbury Praises Richard Dawkins

Comment #104493 by mmurray on December 28, 2007 at 4:26 pm

The Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday blamed mankind's greed for endangering the environment.

Oh right. And there I was thinking it was all to do with the massive population growth of the last 50 years caused, in part, by Christianity's sick attitude to women and human sexuality and opposition to birth control and abortion. My mistake.

Michael

346. Wisdom From The Founding Rationalists

Comment #104134 by mmurray on December 28, 2007 at 1:08 am

I do not believe that the US is found on the highest ideals of democracy, yet it is the freest country in the world today.

So exactly how is it more free than Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK or any of the EC countries?

Or did you mean to say `one of the freest' ?

Michael

347. Man and God

Comment #103439 by mmurray on December 25, 2007 at 4:27 pm

Those modish atheists who claim to understand the panoply of religious experience, or myth as they would have it, are, in the words of a critic, like "someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject isThe Book of British Birds".

But surely a central tenet for many Christians is that you can hold forth on anything if you have read only The One Book?

Michael

348. Man and God

Comment #103438 by mmurray on December 25, 2007 at 4:24 pm

No one becomes an Atheist by accident.

It depends if you count having atheist parents an accident. I was born into a Catholic/Anglican family but got raised Catholic because that was the deal my mother (Anglican) had to do to be allowed to marry my father in a Catholic Church. I gave it all up mid teens because it conflicted too much with brains and hormones. It helped being in Australia where being religious (used to be?) weird. My wife was raised by atheist parents so religion just wasn't something that got mentioned. Our kids were raised by atheist parents of course so religion is a non topic. My son came home from school early on asking who `Gwod' (sic) was. He told us it seemed like a silly idea which, if your brain hasn't been prepared by childhood indoctrination, it is.

There are some amusing comments on the Times Online site. I liked the one about `atheists won't be celebrating in 2000 years time'. I think the person posting that thought it was very clever. Of course we won't be celebrating there won't be any atheists -- we will have won hundreds of years before Christmas 4007.

OK off to see The Golden Compass --- for some reason the release was delayed till Boxing Day in Australia.

Michael Murray

349. Blair converts to Catholicism

Comment #102777 by mmurray on December 23, 2007 at 4:00 pm

Some more. One of these has the title: `With religion I began to make sense of the world' !

Michael


http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tonyblair/story/0,,2231781,00.html

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tonyblair/story/0,,2231772,00.html

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tonyblair/story/0,,2231791,00.html

350. 'Atheistic fundamentalism' fears

Comment #102433 by mmurray on December 22, 2007 at 6:28 pm

I don't understand what the problem is finding evidence for God? If the skys are rent asunder with trumpet blasts and thunder and God appears and explains that the reason for the existence of the Universe is pretty much as the Christians have told us then I would have not choice but to believe. I wouldn't like it but I would have to believe.

This would really be no different to aliens landing tomorrow and saying that on the galactic scale we are a completely inferior species and they are going to take most of us away to use as slaves. I wouldn't like it but I would have to believe it.

Michael