Comment #395352 by lordpasternack:

That's true, lp, it's kinda the "No True Christian" thing, with her. Cherry picking the bits she finds "convenient" to believe, as so many religios do.

Oh, and I just moved the right headphone earpiece off my ear... ;)

Thanks for those, Layla!


I've been having fun teasing my wife about Richard's trip, as she's both Brazilian and a Christian...

Saeed bumps!

There's an article of hers on the Grauniad site dated yesterday...

Someone should tell him that a string of weak ad hominems does not constitute a film review.

I hope they'll paint out the letter 't' before the cars are consigned to the scrap heap...

I thoroughly enjoyed that interview; refreshing to hear discussions about topics different from the usual ones we've been getting recently.

sbooder, I entirely agree with you; I've been having a similar discussion on the forum section where I've been arguing exactly that.

For a group to succeed, I feel, there has to a positive rather than a negative commonality.

We need to get as many Xtian organisations as possible to condemn or ban it. It would be good to get it banned in Turkey, too, if possible...

the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice

...says it all, really.

I've been on the fora, rather than here, recently, but just popping in to add my congratulations to Paula for yet another job well done!

28. Comment #213811 by Steve Zara

Hoho, masterly slap down there of Germaine "I'm an intellectual you know" Greer and British TV.

And a rather odd and inappropriate one. This is the same British TV that recently produced the wonderful "Live in Cold Blood" by David Attenborough, and which presents the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, and which had a recent documentary on the ideas of Stephen Hawking.

The entire intellectual output of British TV should not be judged by Celebrity Big Brother.

To be fair, Steve, Kate was only having a go at C4, and BB in particular, not British TV as a whole.

...especially when he shares a channel with Big Brother

I utterly despise Big Brother and I'm really sorry to be associated with it on Channel 4.

Here's mine, hard copy to follow:

FAO: President Robert H. Bruininks

Dear Sir,

I am writing this note in support of PZ Myers, in particular regarding the hate campaign that Bill Donohue is trying to whip up against him.

You will by now, no doubt, be aware of the difference between the methods of the "tolerant, loving, forgiving" Christians (and their associated death threats), and the methods of the "godless, heathen, bound-for-hell" atheists, so I don't think I need to elaborate.

Although not a regular reader of his weblog, I fully support his campaign to expose the irrationality of many, if not all, religions. The reaction of the Catholics (and other Christian sects) to his "cracker" story simply reinforces his and my belief that their only remaining weapon these days is hate - which surely should sit uncomfortably with their alleged beliefs.

Bill Donohue, of course, has made a career out of persecuting those who, allegedly, insult his faith. A noted racist, avowedly anti-Semitic, who has defended the numerous convictions of Catholic priests for sexual abuse of minors, Donohue clearly sees his position as equivalent to a modern day "Witchfinder-General".

Please treat his campaign with the contempt it so clearly deserves.

Regards,

Geoff Newman

I hope some of those comments have been forwarded to FSTDT.

Conclusion

Although it is considered unethical to destroy incipient life-forms, thereby causing them to go extinct, the experimenter was hungry, so he ate them anyway.

Brilliant.

It's worth noting here that Dr. Thomas D. Schneider is a real person, and a genuine research biologist too.

http://www-lmmb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/schneider.html

There's an ongoing "debate" in the fora with a cretinist who is misrepresenting Schneider's data from an earlier published paper:

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=50132&start=0

And Dr. Schneider has contributed to the thread.

25. Comment #201098 by rod-the-farmer

Here is a question I would like to hear answered by others on this site. I am trying to come up with the single most convincing evidence for an old Earth, in the sense that this one piece would have the most effect on YEC types. Something that would show that evolution by natural selection, while quite slow in some areas, has an enormous amount of time in which to operate. What I have come up with is the combination of plate tectonics and the matching coastlines of South America and Africa, particularly if you examine the continental shelf. We can already detect their on-going slow separation, and by extrapolation, they have been moving apart for much longer than 6,000 years or so.

We've all tried that, rod. Their latest idea is something they call the hydroplate theory, which actually does have the continents whizzing around at amazing speeds. I'm afraid their reality denial is such that no amount of real science will shake them.

Like others, I want to see the published paper first, before commenting. This is just a "teaser"; no substance.

Old news to most of us, I guess, but the more ways this gets publicised, the better.
They could have mentioned the wedge document, too.

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

I'm with rod-the-farmer on this one - the vast majority of the anti abortion lobby seem to think a fertilised ovum is an "unborn child" and quite deliberately use that emotive phrase in their propaganda.
As far as they're concerned, abortion is a sin right from day one.
The pro-choice lobby have their differences, true, but as rod says it's typically over the latest time it should be allowed.

Nothing in the ten commandments that suggests he did anything wrong.

Good job we get our morals from the bible really, otherwise people might think what he did was immoral.

But to bin what the Judeo-Christian tradition has bequeathed us in terms of responsibility for the stranger, care for the vulnerable, collective consciousness and our sense of what is right and wrong is utterly ludicrous.

That has to be satire, surely?

24. Comment #181312 by RightWingAtheist

In the future, please address your comments to ALL makers of dairy products.

Especially the cheesemakers...

33. Comment #181272 by Teratornis

This is an interesting story, but everyone is probably wondering: what does this story have to do with peak oil?

err....nope!

;)

35th post!

Ah, Harun Yahya!

Time to mention the "Atlas of Creation!" fishing lures again!



http://forbiddenmusic.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/yahya_lure.jpg"

anna, I suggest you start your new drug regime with caffeine and alcohol.

Have an Irish coffee.

47. Comment #179233 by AllanW

It's waaaaaay past time;

Teratornis! Paging Teratornis! Your prescence is requested on a thread to do with oil prices! Teratornis! Oh! wherefore art thou, Teratornis?

Has he run out of gas?

193. Comment #178914 by irate_atheist

'argumentum ad mistakum'

"argumentum ad erratum"?

94. Comment #178693 by Artful_Dodger on May 11, 2008


Popping briefly back to page 2...

Isn't that what the Jesuits used to say? Sounds like a very "rational" project! The premise of course is that atheism is the default "mechanism". Gradgrind would be proud of you. "Let's set up schools where children will be exposed to facts, pure and simple. We will have to careful of the reading material we admit onto the shelves! Encyclopedias and text-books with spadefuls of information. Fiction which depicts kids acceding to glory in sport and setting an example of achievement and supremacy. But at all costs we must keep them from reading the kind of fantasy that might encourage them to feel deep down that there might be more to existence than can be accounted for by the empirical sciences. No Lord of the Rings or anything of that ilk, unless it be heavily anotated by scholars who will be able to explain away any longings that such literature might awaken!

Not at all: quite the opposite in fact.

As long as they are taught to distinguish between fact and fiction.

I love LOTR, but I don't waste much time arguing that while Anduril, Lothlorien & Rivendell undoubtedly exist, the rings of power are metaphorical.

Your book is a poorly written collection of Bronze age myths, stories and superstitions, with less relevance to real life than Aesop's fables.

The usual garbage.

If he cannot make the distinction between false religion and true Christianity, it is possible that this is the fault of the Christian church more than his fault...

...He doesn't even deign to consider the Christian God...

and "fulfilled prophecies"? WTF? That guy is a danger to himself and others.

Thanks for that Paula; you just wasted 10 minutes of my time with it!

;)

I think something similar has already been proposed, but for Kent Hovind instead:

Hovind Factor = (X s i p) x (m 1)

where:

Belief in scripture - "X"
0 - No doctrinal belief required
1 - Metaphorical use of Biblical/Qu'ranic quotation
2 - Belief in scripture as the infallible word of God. Timeless, inerrant and absolute. (AiG/The flud etc.)

Scientific Illiteracy - "s"
0 - Full understanding of detailed, advanced scientific principles
1 - Overall grasp of principles with some understanding of specific area being discussed
2 - Vague understanding of general principle but with poor grasp of many details
3 - No understanding or knowledge of area being discussed
4 - Rejection of basic scientific facts/laws/robust theories and/or denial of any evidence that contradicts scripture
5 - Robert Byers (Extreme, moronic and puerile level of 4 above)

The idiocy scale - "i"
0 - no discernible stupidity
1 - slightly silly, but understandable
2 - foolish
3 - daft
4 - rather funny in a slightly worrying sort of way
5 - very funny in a very worrying way
6 - scary stuff
7 - very scary
8 - unlikely to be accepted by anyone with more than two functioning neurons
9 - Moronic. Stark-bollock-naked, off-the-wall, wing-nut
10 - Kirk Cameron or VenomFangX

Paradox - "p"
0 = Statement is logical and self-consistent
1 = Statement acknowledges slight flaw in internal logic but glosses over it with babble.
2 = Statement relies on an assumed divine intervention to explain self contradiction.
3 = Self contradiction invalidates statement completely, and is left unaddressed.

and

Mendacity - "m"
0 - Total honesty
1 - Statement maker knows they are telling enough of a porkie to try to mislead a generally credulous audience
2 - Statement maker knows they are lying enough to try to mislead an educated audience, or they are repeating a lie that they have previously been corrected on.
3 - Whopper! (including plagiarism)
4 - Complete, burn-in-Hell, perjury grade, super-lie - for example, one that is strategically designed to mislead authorities or the general public (e.g. as witnessed in the Dover trial and Expelled).

Using this formula, a completely honest statement of scientific merit would score a Hovind Factor of zero.

The maximum Hovind Factor, HFmax, is a completely insane statement which contradicts all scientific evidence but adheres totally to religious doctrine and which the person making the claim knows to be untrue - while at the same time the statement also completely contradicts itself - would score (2 5 10 3) x (4 1) = 100.


EDIT: formula should have "plus" signs inside the brackets!)