401. Fleabytes

Comment #150837 by black wolf on March 27, 2008 at 1:11 pm

On to the Beer wars: Personally warm British beer just doest not do it for me, nor do many of the watered down American or Canadian brews. Ze only peeples who know how to make beer, are ze tchermans.. *clicks heels together*

Ssank you for ze kompliment. Reminds me of ze nice bottle of Warsteiner in my fridge. Now if I can find my spiked helmet to open it...

402. Police: Girl Dies After Parents Pray for Healing Instead of Seeking Medical Help

Comment #150789 by black wolf on March 27, 2008 at 12:23 pm

Tyler, it was last night, at least. I was actually kind of shocked to see it on one of the news channels. All of the other channels were covering the elections, however.

http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080327/WDH0101/80327065/1981
This is a transcript of the segment.

Several quotes from that report, by callers, the host, law experts, and a frigging spiritual healer:
"Look, I`m all for praying, you know? I`m praying right now.

...someone who`s trained to bring God in to perform a healing.

I`m all for spiritual healing...

I certainly believe in the power of prayer...

...it`s not that there isn`t a place for prayer. There is. However, you need to have some common sense.

I`m a Christian, and I prayed for my diabetes to go away, and I`m still on the insulin pump. Prayer did not help in this situation...

I`m all for staying deep in prayer...

Caller:...nobody could have prayed any harder than we prayed for our kids, you have children, you know how it hurts.
GRACE: Well, you -- don`t you see, Linda, you got an answer to your prayer?
Caller: Exactly, and that`s what I was going to say, the miracle these people were praying for is here, it`s called insulin.

Everybody has free will, God gave people free will."

Deluded morons. Every single one of them. They are the ones who state and multiply the idea - or meme - that prayers heal people in the first place. In my opinion, every single time someone states that as if it were a fact, they are guilty of inciting neglective behavior (not an offense, but still despicable). I think it's no better than making racist remarks, the only difference is that instead of slandering a skin color, you're slandering intellect and human dignity.

Defense attorney: "Nancy, the only defense I can see for them is whether or not they knew that this condition -- number one, did they know that the child had diabetes, and number two, did they know that this condition would lead to the child`s death?"

What kind of fucked up defense is that? As long as you stay willfully ignorant, you can get away with it?
'Uhhh, no judge, I ain't never seen no doctor in my whole life, so I wouldn't be able to tell athletes foot from skin cancer. I wouldn't even know what any of those words mean. Can I go home now?'
Please don't tell me the US law allows such a defense. In the report, someone actually says they'd have to prove that the parents ever took medicine or had medical treatment - otherwise they could claim innocence and get away with it. Again, please tell me you can't do that in America.

403. Police: Girl Dies After Parents Pray for Healing Instead of Seeking Medical Help

Comment #150641 by black wolf on March 27, 2008 at 7:55 am

...We know we did not do anything criminal. We know we did the best for our daughter we knew how to do."

This woman is lying. Lying Lying Lying.
The 911 calls from the aunt state clearly that the mother knew there was a coma, and she knew doctors exist, and she knew people could be brought to a doctor. She had days to figure this out. Days in which she presumably preferred to shop for groceries while her daughter was suffering, days in which she passed doctors' offices and ignored them.

404. Fossil find could be Europe's first humans

Comment #150620 by black wolf on March 27, 2008 at 7:27 am

I can picture the guy saying: "Will ya stop blabbering about creation already? We've got a bison to skin, I'm hungry dammit!"

405. Saudi Arabia Leader Calls for Interfaith Dialogue

Comment #149984 by black wolf on March 26, 2008 at 11:33 am

Hmmmm... a few years ago, theists ridiculed Dawkins (and decades of atheist writings before that), then they became annoyed and then angry when they saw the rise in atheism. Now they are afraid already. Thanks DDA for that Göring quote, I just hope that's not the way they're heading.
I have a little mind-film where a troop of priests and imams backed by police raid the RDF, confiscate the letter A buttons and then order all atheists to wear them in public...

406. Happy 66th Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #149702 by black wolf on March 26, 2008 at 6:37 am

Have a beautiful Birthday Richard, and every other birthdayist! What a refreshing time of the year to celebrate at, the spring blossoms are out there, the squirrels a-hop...

407. Fleabytes

Comment #149701 by black wolf on March 26, 2008 at 6:33 am

Happy Birthday from me to you too! :)

408. Religion 'linked to happy life'

Comment #146658 by black wolf on March 19, 2008 at 9:03 am

It's not surprising that Catholics and Protestants are most happy with their religiosity in Europe. I'd be very happy too if I had privileged access to potential job offers and if 'my people' had privileged influence on legislature and media; if every time I had a look at my Constitution, the first thing I'd read would mention my God, if I'd see politicians carrying my Holy Book, my masters of belief having hours of exclusive public tv coverage etc.

409. Two More Fleas

Comment #145895 by black wolf on March 18, 2008 at 9:28 am

clearmind, please answer the following question:
Grass grows green but not is made tree, how explain invisible air Darwin step in red paint 4 billion years?

410. Two More Fleas

Comment #145852 by black wolf on March 18, 2008 at 8:15 am

Is anyone else getting this image of a Neanderthal shoving a paintbrush up a cat's ass screaming, "YOU ARE MONA LISA! GOD PAINTED YOU!"

That one almost killed me. I know, I know, I'm primitive and anal jokes get me every time.

411. They prayed to cast Satan from my body

Comment #145799 by black wolf on March 18, 2008 at 6:41 am

Every time something like this comes up, I wonder why companies still support any group that claims to help people by applying religion. Every single time a religious organization has been active in 'treating' mentally unstable people in the past, cases of mistreatment and abuse have occurred sooner or later. It's always that same old meme of assuming them to be morally superior do-gooders with a divine calling. After centuries of proven fraudulence, sadism, sexual abuse and personal profiteering, generally removing the unwarranted presumption of respect for religious orgs is long overdue. From the ancient god-kings to medieval churches to modern ministries, when will humanity learn that they must be continually and rigorously investigated and supervised?

412. The atheist delusion

Comment #144111 by black wolf on March 15, 2008 at 5:41 am

The incomprehensibility of the divine ...
in spiritual matters truth is ineffable...

An idea that remains incomprehensibile and ineffable after millenia of pondering fits the definition of nonsense.
Nonsense: words or language having little or no sense or meaning; something absurd or fatuous; anything of trifling importance or of little or no use.

...and if religion is hardwired in the species, it is difficult to see how a different kind of education could alter this. Yet Dawkins seems convinced that if it were not inculcated in schools and families, religion would die out. This is a view that has more in common with a certain type of fundamentalist theology...

Repeat after me: Religion is not hardwired. Irrational faith based on pattern reckognition may be, but that does not make it religion. Religion fully depends on inculcation, preferably as early in life as possible. Nobody is born with God in his head, let alone Jesus or circumcision or praying. This is a straw man argument.

413. The atheist delusion

Comment #144104 by black wolf on March 15, 2008 at 5:26 am

But the idea of free will that informs liberal notions of personal autonomy is biblical in origin (think of the Genesis story). The belief that exercising free will is part of being human is a legacy of faith, and like most varieties of atheism today, Pullman's is a derivative of Christianity.

Bullshit. The idea goes back to pre-Christian Hellenistic philosophy, when nobody had heard of a story called 'Genesis'. There is plenty of evidence for that, and it is about time that this Judeo-Christian propaganda myth is done away with. Believers cling to this myth like a tick to its host, and it has been seeded into generations who never questioned it.

414. The atheist delusion

Comment #144100 by black wolf on March 15, 2008 at 5:17 am

The 9/11 hijackers saw themselves as martyrs in a religious tradition, and western opinion has accepted their self-image.

How do you discern whether someone's self-image is relevant or true? You can't. Someone who thinks they're religious and does things for religious reasons is religious. Period. What do you expect? Allah coming down from heaven and declaring 'I, Allah your God, hereby testify that these people didn't believe in my commands!'? When someone says he believes something, and all of his actions and statements fit that belief, it is logical and reasonable to assume that that is what he does believe. It doesn't make any sense to deny that.

415. Fleabytes

Comment #143817 by black wolf on March 14, 2008 at 1:16 pm

I read an interesting hypothesis or speculation from a Christian about the Resurrection. He pointed out that by looking at different possible translations or meanings of terms one could conclude that the Resurrection was originally a poetic description of a spiritual revival. Thereby the body would have remained and possibly been removed (the opening of the grave as post hoc fiction to justify physical resurrection), and all subsequent events were actually accounts of visions or introspective conversation by those who allegedly met Jesus. Seems quite plausible to me, as it agrees with modern knowledge of psychology about autosuggestion and false memory as well as fabrication of anecdotal evidence.

416. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #143648 by black wolf on March 14, 2008 at 9:09 am

What is 'Left' about atheism anyway? Theism isn't 'Right', so how does this ass-clown (thanks for the term) label atheism as 'left'? Unless he equates 'right' with irrational stagnation and 'left' with reasonable progress, his word salad is completely pointless.

417. I don't believe in atheists

Comment #143629 by black wolf on March 14, 2008 at 8:58 am

Having read the interview, I can find no point Hedges is actually making. He's basically saying that everything needs to be evaluated until you can't make a clear statement about it at all. To Hedges, everyone who takes a clear stance and voices his concerns is too radical. His endeavour is to find the exact compromise center of any possible position while constantly adapting to every change. He says he's an enemy of fundamentalism and simultaneously wants nobody to call others fundamentalists, while calling atheists fundamentalists. Apparently he is a very confused man. He doesn't understand that taking a moral stand without demonstrating the difference to other opinions is impossible and that it's not 'elevating yourself above others'. It seems he regards morality or ethics as some sort of independent force that develops independently of the people who hold it. I just can't see what he actually tries to say. His opinion is like stirring a pot of water while trying not to touch a single molecule.

418. Ban anti-Catholic books in schools, says bishop

Comment #143178 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 3:09 pm

They keep sputtering that condom nonsense because they think adequate=absolute. Just like the only adequate morality is absolute morality. I bet they would ban the theory of relativity too. In fact, they'd ban light. Light speed is just not absolute enough for them. On the other hand they are only relatively semi-intelligent themselves.

419. Fleabytes

Comment #143167 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 2:52 pm

You know I almost prefer the honesty of the creationists. You know what you are dealing with, and they recognise that NOMA is nonsense.

Could a NOMAist find so many things to lie about if his life depended on it?

420. Fleabytes

Comment #143164 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 2:49 pm

oh no, Xrglyuf was not crucified. He was devoured by the great Phari-swarm and excreted into 1,995 sacred pieces. One day, when all the pieces are re-united, Xrglyuf will arise once more and lay waste to the stars. Until then, would you like a copy of the sacred texts?

No no, it is you who doesn't understand. See how Phari-swarm has two parts? Two parts make a cross. And the sacred pieces are spiritual pieces of course, and as we all know, all pieces of a spiritual whole are always a whole, no matter how they are divided. On the rest we'll agree for now.

421. Two More Fleas

Comment #142995 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 10:16 am

How a minister became an atheist
from Psychology Today (excerpt)
An Atheist in the Pulpit

A year ago, frustrated with his denomination but by no means ready to bail out, he picked up Sam Harris's book The End of Faith. He found he "agreed with about 98 percent of it."

He picked up other books in the neo-atheist canon. He read Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, and then the one-two punch of Christopher Hitchens's mega-bestselling God Is Not Great and his earlier Letter to a Christian Nation. He closed the latter book and found himself saying, aloud, "Amen." He had to face his misgivings. "I realized, it isn't just that I'm hurt by the way I was treated at synod, and it isn't just that the senior pastor that I work with was an asshole. It's that I don't believe in this anymore. And that was terrifying."

So much for the New Atheists being unsuccessful. So David, when's your turn to come out?

422. Two More Fleas

Comment #142939 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 8:36 am

The guy I mentioned earlier has a blog here:
http://merelyadequate.net/
and here:
http://ex-christian-journey.blogspot.com/

his posts about his 'deconversion' are here:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5823596693953871104&postID=8393590160701792843

I've saved the discussion to a text file, but it's very long, so too much to repeat here. I might condense it, but until (and if at all) I do so, anyone interested can have a look at the above links.

423. Two More Fleas

Comment #142887 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 7:20 am

Adding to my above post: that is exactly why the very first thing religion does is destroy people's self respect by planting the idea of sin in their heads. Nothing destroys the mindfuck more thoroughly than an honest, self-respecting mind.
edit: I'll go and do the copy pasta here of a guy's posts I saw these days. I think it's a very important account for us to read.

424. Two More Fleas

Comment #142883 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 7:15 am

I'm not sure about the deconversion thing. I've read several accounts from former theists on various sites who needed several years to overcome their delusion, but it only happened because someone asked them the right questions. One of them used to go 'witnessing' on the streets and actually realized he was consciously telling the people lies. He had the self-respect to admit it to himself, started thinking about his faith more and finally dropped it - dicovering freedom and peace of mind for the first time in his life.
You can easily guess how the theists reacted when they'd read his account: 'you were never a christian, you didn't have true faith, you didn't really think it through, you must repent, etc.'. Not a single one of them realized that they thought exactly the things he had thought of unbelievers himself when he had been a faith-head. I'm sure some of them will come to their senses, even if it takes a few more years of doubt and growing pains.
Another great example is Matt Dillahunty of the Atheist Community of Austin. He was a fundamentalist Baptist preacher for 20 years until he realized how much bollocks it all was.

425. The ethics of mixing science and religion

Comment #142853 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 6:31 am

I've just read some more about Heller. He'll give the money to theology, so basically he's wasting it on manufacturing more imaginary clothes for the emperor. Apparently he's devoted his work to debunking the God of the Gaps by explaining how gaps are not gaps.
http://www.obi.opoka.org/heller/mhpubl/ lists 95 peer reviewed publications.
I find it sad that he thinks theology deserves the money more than his own field. As long as people respect theology, the idiocy won't end. I agree with you from that viewpoint. I really don't know what to think about him. He is a very deluded man in one half of his thinking and a productive scientist in the other.

426. Special Guest: Richard Dawkins

Comment #142831 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 6:07 am

It challenge any neutral to listen to Richard Dawkins, Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor and conclude that atheists are .... angry, militant, aggressive etc.

Have they changed the definition of 'militant' to: 'repeatedly saying things we don't like to hear' yet?

427. The ethics of mixing science and religion

Comment #142814 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 5:53 am

Those of you who wouldn't take the money, show some rationality and keep it real. As long as the recipient does proper science and gets scientific results, 'spiritual reality' remains an empty phrase. The emperor will still be naked. If that guy wants to see evidence where there is none, that's his problem, not ours. If he finds god somewhere in a singularity, he'll provide the evidence, and that's a good thing.

428. Two More Fleas

Comment #142780 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 5:13 am

Exactly, black wolf. I tend to think of the "new atheist" (not my phrase) books as being akin to the Olympic rings; they occasionally overlap, but largely stand on their own. Dawkins' argument would not be significantly diminished if he removed Hitchens, Dennett et al from within his book.

Correct. The 'fleas' use an argumentation that is by and large disingenuous. They try to impress readers by saying 'hey look, Dawkins ignored the following...', about something that has been covered by Hitchens for instance. Then, 'look how Hitchens didn't mention...', about something Dennett wrote about.
I think this comes from their attachment to scripture. They are accustomed to thinking all answers have to be in one book. They can't accept any arguments that are not from 'THE PRIMARY HOLY BOOK NR.1' or relate to it.
And that's exactly why people need to learn how to think independantly, how to come up with a worldview that does not rely on something ignoramuses wrote millenia ago. They are afraid of the disconnection from believing that humanity has been told absolute truths through an imaginary spiritual sense of desert people. There are no such truths.

429. Beauty ad banned after Christian outcry

Comment #142766 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 4:58 am

Once you've centered your life around something that has no impact on reality and does not work outside of your own mind, the only way left to interact with reality is to get offended.

430. Two More Fleas

Comment #142750 by black wolf on March 13, 2008 at 4:38 am

Yes, calling a book a 'flea' book is fair when it meets certain criteria, like having a big DAWKINS on the cover, or imitating the cover layout. The book may even have a few weak 'newish' arguments, so what, then it's still a flea, if even a not-all-bad one.
When asking, 'why are atheist books not being called flea books?', you are missing a very crucial point. The atheist books do not contain more than a few quotes from Dawkins, if any at all. They make their own arguments, and if those happen to be somewhat similar to those of Dawkins, it's because religionists haven't come up with any new arguments for decades. Placing God in a different gap than last time science made a discovery is not a new argument. Ignoring ancient pre-Christian moral philosophy is not a new argument. Rephrasing old strawmen is not a new argument. Yes, many of the points Dawkins made in his book have been around for a long time before that, and Dawkins acknowledges that fact by quoting and footnoting sources. The difference in the 'flea' books is that they quote old sources and imitate each other only to regurgitate arguments that have already been covered, debunked and refuted by the atheist books.

431. Lords Approve Abolition Of Blasphemy

Comment #139935 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 7:02 pm

Is the religious education in Deutschland done with a historical slant or with intent to make "believers" out of the children? I think more of a religious history approach to things may have some positive aspects... maybe that religious education is related someway to your society being highly secular?

It's supposed to be historical and give every major religion and several smaller ones equal representation. On the downside, the teachers get trained and selected by the churches in almost every case, but most of them are rather neutral. My wife told me how she once got a replacement teacher for RE who tried to implement an introductory prayer every period, but he got basically laughed out of the clasroom. I attended a bilingual school, and one of our American teachers very subtly worked at making us moderate Christians by giving out crosses as a prize for good participation, but he was really pleasant so I didn't think much of it then.

432. Hebrew University researcher: Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai

Comment #139906 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 4:58 pm

There was a study a while ago about how addictive incense really is. The amounts they spread in churches during mass can cause a light addiction.

433. Lords Approve Abolition Of Blasphemy

Comment #139905 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 4:55 pm

As we were on a bit abot Arabic, I might as well post this sad news here:
Eight killed at Jerusalem school
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7282269.stm
"School has played a major role in ideology and theology of Israeli religious settlement movement
Key figures linked to the school were strongly opposed to Israeli pull-out from Gaza"
"The Palestinian Islamist group, Hamas, praised the attack, calling it "heroic", but did not claim responsibility. There was also celebratory gunfire in Gaza."
"In the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, gunmen fired into the air after news broke about the attack. A loudspeaker in Gaza City reportedly broadcast the message: "This is God's vengeance"."

434. Fleabytes

Comment #139874 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 3:36 pm

Must have been YouTube or something, I heard a hippie stoner ramble on about how he'd just created himself...

435. Fleabytes

Comment #139865 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 3:27 pm

We need an acronym...

436. Fleabytes

Comment #139863 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 3:24 pm

Diacanu -

He got drunk the minute he realized what a blunder the quark-machine was, and hasn't sobered up since then, so he forgot how to take out the extra parts. Explains the Bible too.
The Previously Stoned and Shitty Then Drunk Compulsive Gambler Designer Theory
Just sayin'

437. Fleabytes

Comment #139860 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 3:19 pm

So the shitty designer theory is completely compatible with the bible and scientific evidence.

Absolutely. And isn't it very typical of shitty designers to boast around of it and demand respect and reverence? Methinks we found proof, George.

438. Lords Approve Abolition Of Blasphemy

Comment #139795 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 1:58 pm

I hear Wafa Sultan was a bit outspoken on Al Jazeera :-) Sounded good on the BBC World Service as I drove into work this morning. Made my day in fact and certainly made this sun shiney Friday a lot brighter!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lYB4pG3kHIY&feature=related

Is it just me, or does Arabic sound like a beautiful language when someone who's not an Islamist uses it?

And the guy debating against her actually uses the 'Hitler killed 50 million' argument against her! Hypocrisy isn't nearly strong enough to describe these Holocaust-denying scumbags. By his line of reasoning, it's just a matter of adding death tolls to wash Islam clean. In other words, he wants to wait until WWIII is over before deciding that Islam may not be the religion of peace.
Wow, that woman has her history down to the detail, amazing. The professor is on the verge of crying.
I retract the last statement. She says America is not to blame for the killing of natives after 1776, she's wrong there.

439. Lords Approve Abolition Of Blasphemy

Comment #139791 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 1:51 pm

Lady O'Cathain maintained that abolition of blasphemy would unleash a torrent of abuse towards Christians.

Wut? To paraphrase: "They're taking our second-best tool of blackmail away, WAAAAAAAHHH!"

LibDem PWNZ feudalism
about time^^

Now, on to the bishops. 3yrs2months to go by my calculation^^

By his words, Lord Elystan-Morgan is a very respectable person. A believer who puts his own opinion below popular opinion and the expressed will of the citizens, in spite of his own strong feelings but nevertheless acknowledging that his God must no be belittled to need human protection.
Lord Elton: A dishonest reactionary. Must he be reminded that the death penalty, laws outlawing homosexuality and the Norther Ireland Penal Law also used to 'clutter the statute book'?
Lord Neill: "Even the learned Professor Dawkins does not say what a scandal these laws are or that they must be repealed immediately." O RLY?

440. Crossing the Divide

Comment #139774 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 1:32 pm

This article is a great contribution to the site and the internet as a whole. It could help much if creationists who have even slight doubts read it. However, many would reject it as a full fabrication or a distortion of some unknown mysterious secret document, especially when they believe that rd.net is a complete deceit. I wouldn't put it beneath many of them to even spread that lie across the web, as that is a strategy they frequently follow, even regarding their own sources (see Wedge).

441. What's the Point of the Archbishop of Canterbury?

Comment #139578 by black wolf on March 6, 2008 at 6:10 am

I'm just writing up a simple summary of some thoughts and research here.
Authority by representation of a group is superficially a valid concept. However, secular democracies are not and never should be governed by a circle of authorities who enter the circle automatically, but by those who have been elected to perform this function. The key point is, generally anyone has the right to take part in the election process. In a democracy, it is consensus that political parties serve as an intermediate 'filter' to select those individuals who are most capable of representing the opinions of the people. When these representatives or the people change their minds, there
is always an opportunity to replace the representative. Members of religious groups have the right to vote just like anyone else. They can elect any individual directly or indirectly who represents their religious worldview. If their religious worldview is held by a minority which can't gather enough votes to put an individual into an authoritative position, they can (or should legally be entitled to) attempt that at the next election.
Many democracies have established a system to bypass the elective process by granting representative of different popular groups direct access to councils at different levels of the decision making process, from communal committees
to youth protection authority (Germany) to counseling ministers and secretaries and the head of government directly, or granting them parliamentary membership (UK). This means that members of certain religious groups may have additional representation, basically granting every single adherent of a certain religion a disproportionally strong voice in the decision making process. This overrepresentation may be relatively low in most systems, but as we know sometimes a few or even a single vote in a legislative process make a decisive difference.
Criticism of this system points to the fact that every person whose opinion counts directly in the legislative process, by presenting written statements and drafts, can and usually will be asked to present evidence supporting his opinion. These can be statistics or other scientific studies, historical examples, representative poll results etc. The democratic process does not accept holy scripture or divine revelation as evidence, but nevertheless reckognizes and selectively respects the opinion of people who form their view from non-evidence.
I understand how many view modern democracy as a direct result of Christianity, but the asserted causality escapes me. Christianity's clergy had supported authoritarian rule for centuries, stifled free speech, free opinion, even free thought by what we now reckognize as psychological blackmailing. They did their best to control scientific progress, accepting
what suited their needs, praising it as a result of 'God-given' thought as often as possible. Everything deemed unsuitable was either destroyed or taken to publicly unaccessible archives. Study of these materials was only allowed to monks and persons who were rigorously questioned about their conformity. Free publication of dissenting opinion and scientific papers became possible only after clerical power structures had been broken by brave individuals who succeeded in channeling subversive writings and printings to wider circles of readers, enlightening the public in small and precarious steps, constantly at risk of being prosecuted and punished, often their lives at stake (sic). Most of today's Christians like to believe that it was the Christian worldview and assertedly scriptural morality which encouraged these brave people of the past to overcome the threshold of putting thought into action, and present arbitrary cherry-picked verses and historical opinion pieces as evidence for the influence Christianity had on the Enlightenment.
But is this true? De Condorcet wrote in 1795: "Disdain for the humane sciences was one of the first characteristics of Christianity. It had to avenge itself against the outrages of philosophy, and it feared that spirit of doubt and inquiry, that confidence in one's own reason which is the bane of all religious beliefs." To the present day, many of Christianity's leading voices pour scorn on "secular humanism", asserting that it is the road to chaos and immorality, unadmittingly revealing that it is their own loss of authority that motivates their constant slander. Whether playing out clever semantic
'reasoning' (pope Benedict), or blunt mudslinging from the Christian Right of the United States, it is a self-centered desire for regaining the power that once held the western world in its mind-suffocating claws. The unwarranted
influence present day societies grant faith based opinions can never be enough to satisfy their lust for power. Proponents of the view that faith-based opinion must play a major role in modern society turn to scripture to give their voice a semblance of importance. "...we might do well to consider that our sense of disenchantment did not suddenly begin in the eighteenth century. Instead, its origin might arguably be found as far back as that moment when, according to the Book of Genesis, God gave Adam dominion over the earth. A world subject to human dominion was not just something to be wondered at and venerated as God's divine creation, but also to be understood and turned to human use. Therefore enchantment and disenchantment, religious belief and disenchantment, appear to have been simultaneously built into our perceptions of the world almost from the moment when our remote ancestors began reflecting about their place in
it."(When Science and Christianity Meet, Lindberg/Numbers 2003).
While it is true that most of the prominent figures of the accelerating enlightenment were Christians, it is a fallacious rationalization to assert that they were truly motivated by scriptural inspiration. Constructing this argument by asserting that holy scripture was a representation of deep insight into human nature, and that this insight was in turn a triggering factor for the beginning of scientific examination of nature, is a non sequitur. Remove scripture from this argument, and you reckognize natural human curiosity and the desire to communicate observations at the bottom of it all, which is fully explained by the process of biological evolution. The complete ignorance of this process that great minds like those of Voltaire and Newton were in does in no reasonable way invalidate its presence. In other words, had humanity never imagined a God-shaped hole to fill the abyss of ignorance, the desire for investigating the universe would not have been diminished one iota. Indeed the formulation of the principles behind observed reality would have been realized countless generations earlier. The widely propagated assertion that full reliance on critically examined opinion
and testable observation must lead to a chaos of relativism and amorality is completely baseless in its dependance on circular argumentation. Observed reality is naturally relative, and imposing imaginary concepts of logically
self-contradicting absolute standards personalized in divine intelligence as a simultaneously guiding influence and to-be understood destination point is nothing but unnecessary. It never was.

442. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #138962 by black wolf on March 5, 2008 at 1:49 am

...and will take comfort.

Would that be Ray?

443. God, power and money

Comment #138945 by black wolf on March 5, 2008 at 1:20 am

If she wanted to take it further, a letter to a newspaper would be more civil.

I agree. The public information media are more effective in the long run.

444. Bulldozers tear down giant religious teapot

Comment #138941 by black wolf on March 5, 2008 at 1:10 am

I just sent my embassy in Malysia and their representation in Germany a strong message.

445. God, power and money

Comment #138924 by black wolf on March 5, 2008 at 12:34 am

Does anyone know whether children under drinking age are allowed to drink communion wine?

They are allowed, as there is no other way and no exception for children from the communion.
- in New Zealand, the Catholic Church recently appealed to the government to allow the consumption of communion wine for jail inmates, where alcohol is otherwise strictly forbidden. the government ordered the jail direction to reconsider the ban. "after all our goal is a reintegration of inmates into society and Church", said state secretary O'Connor.
- during the prohibition, production and consumption of communion wine was exempt from the alcohol ban in the US
- the Mormons, through rigorous scientific research found out that Jesus had no alcohol in his blood, therefore they allow grape juice

446. God, power and money

Comment #138792 by black wolf on March 4, 2008 at 7:34 pm

This annoyed the minister and the other church-goers, so the minister decided to try again. This time he pushed much harder, and my friend once again tried to take a step back in order to avoid falling. But when she did so someone stuck out their leg and tripped her(!), so she had to fall.

I haven't studied law, but that's a physical attack, or harassment. I think she could have successfully sued. By stepping back the first time she clearly communicated that she didn't want to fall. Pushing harder and tripping her just because she didn't leave after the first time is no excuse.

447. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #138781 by black wolf on March 4, 2008 at 7:21 pm

Why fury? What would that be for?^^

Consider that all mass is energy, all thought and mind (and spirit) is energy and energy can neither be created or destroyed - what is to say that my energy is not recycled into another being?

It is correct that mass is energy, but the crucial point is that mass doesn't change from being mass by a destructive event such as death, just as an irrepairably damaged computer can't really be called a computer anymore. The energy that the brain uses to form a mind isn't a mass-independent 'substance', it requires hardware to process thoughts and emotions. Any type of reincarnation would require a medium to store information, and that doesn't happen if the hardware ceases to function. I do think it's theoretically posssible to discover a way to transfer these informations onto a 'blank' medium, such as a bio-engineered brain within a new body, but we don't know yet how dependant the information is upon the exact configuration of the medium, if we would need an exact copy of the hardware for that.

448. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #138768 by black wolf on March 4, 2008 at 7:11 pm

al-rawandi and P. Kelsey

I agree to both of you. (oh boy, we start sounding like people on a Ray Comfort blog^^).
Of course religion loves to take over existing conflicts, not as a conscious force, but carried by those who think it should spread its influence. Every conflict is slightly different, and changes over time. I have no doubt that some people involve in any conflict will have different reasons for participating from the people who originally startet the whole mess. Just like people will take or claim different degrees of responsibility when a conflict finally resolves. One guy will say, I protected my family and my homeland and I'm glad I can go home now. The other guy will be happy that he or his leaders have gained political power. Yet another will have been in it for his faith or religion all along. As we know, it's never enough for anyone except the first guy. Religions don't want to win, they want to win more. Sometimes they do their own thing, sometimes they use politicians, sometimes politicians think they can use them. That's a large part of religion's staying power. In peace it asserts to promote 'values' and 'morality'. But I think no religion can survive a long time free of conflict or in a desperation-free zone.

449. What's the Point of the Archbishop of Canterbury?

Comment #138739 by black wolf on March 4, 2008 at 6:36 pm

I don't actually think they're about money. They are afraid of death and punishment, it's all about guilt and sin, and they just can't shake it. They believe that they need authority and power to save humanity from an imaginary concept. They've implanted the meme that 'spiritual persons' need to be generally respected and listended to into society, that they have some mysterious access to truth and wisdom beyond the material, that children need to continue completely unsupported ideas generation by generation.
These people need to be confronted much more often and much more inquisitevely. Whenever a society runs into actual or perceived problems, it turns to these priests, bishops, reverends or whatever. And still nobody asks them why they should be the ones to communicate values or morality. I want to see them being asked, every single time they publicly make some statement, where do you get this wisdom from. Why are we supposed to accept that as wisdom at all if you can't give any evidence towards its truth value. Define spiritual knowledge. Do you hear a god speaking to you. Why do you hold titles and privileged positions when you're not more than any educated philosopher.
No matter of the answer (I expect those to be the usual nebulous obfuscation), these questions will sink in, and people will start thinking.

450. Hebrew University researcher: Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai

Comment #138729 by black wolf on March 4, 2008 at 6:28 pm

I think the most plausible way to explain the stories is that they convoluted different legends into a single epic one to make it more convincing, probrably not even deliberately. It's silly to pretend that any tall tale must be real when we know how even short term witness accounts get distorted in our memory. A charismatic slave here, a tribe leader there, rumours of a slave escape, and all that plus generations to retell the stories. This going on in a superstitious world where nomad tribes meet and exchange their myths.
Even more silly is the way of 'modern' theological thinking, knowing about cultural anthropology, psychology, neurology and then still claiming that all that exists but that your special myth is somehow different. As long as people can claim that there's a supernatural realm that somehow interacts with our minds, souls, spiritual knowledge, and these people don't get laughed out of the house right away but get respect instead, any uneducated irrational person can easily gain authority. We live in a world where religion and conspiracy theories run rampant; they're a political force unrivalled, repeatedly and relentlessly drawing humanity backwards over and over again. The deluded and insane people vote their politicians, and get their respect in return. That must end.