The Passionate Skeptic

I'm back

2009-01-27T23:10:00.001Z

...finally. I will try to make some posts if I can think of anything to say.

Apologies for the Hiatus

2008-10-06T13:57:00.001+01:00

I haven't got the internet at home at the moment, as well as that i have started fulltime work so havent had a lot of time to post. I will be back as soon as I can get the internet back.

OMG HOUSE PRICES!!!

2008-08-12T22:12:00.003+01:00

House prices are falling across Britain and the doommongers have come out of the woodwork.
The thing is house prices, and how much your house is supposedly worth, is fairly arbitrary. I mean, a luxury villa is always going to be more expensive than an average semi detatched, but the prices of these individual items are decided by the market, and what you paid for the house becomes irrelevant provided you can afford to pay for it. If the value of the house you bought goes up £20,000, you haven't made a profit. In the same way, if I buy a plasma screen telly for £2,000, if the price in the shop goes up to £2,250 I haven't made a profit either. (Not to mention the fact everyone else's house has gone up proportionally).
The problem is caused(and the argument about house prices is also caused) when the middle class begin to think they are wealthy because of their house prices and borrow money against their mortgage for whatever luxuries they want, when in reality the best thing to do is pay off a mortgage asap.
I also think low house prices are a good thing. It actaully gives first time buyers a chance to get on the market rather than screwing them over.

Random Politics

2008-08-02T18:30:00.003+01:00

Just a few brief opinions on recent pilitcal issues in Britain.

Domestic Violence Legislation: We are trying to get a law passed that will allow women who women who murder their abusive husbands to have their convictions reduced to manslaughter. This is a very good idea, espceiialy as men who see their wives commit adultery can also get a more lenient sentence.

Labour Welfare Reforms: Labour are trying to reform the welfare system to cut down on cheats. One of the proposed ideas of the government is to make the long-term unemployed to do community service work to earn their dole money. This would involve people who nhave been on jobseekers' allowance working full time. In my opinion, the scheme may have a point but I think it is unreasonable to get people to do this work for 46.00ish a week. Assuming that they work 35 hours a week, that's pay of £1.31 an hour. Even if they do the minimum to be regarded as full time, 16 hours, that is still only wages of £2.87 an hour(the minimum wage is about 5 quid). The most you could reasonably got someone to work for that money is about 1 seven-hour day, which I think would be a fairer idea.

Freethinkers' Convention

2008-07-22T19:51:00.001+01:00

A Letter To Rowan Williams(and John Sentamu)

2008-06-19T19:10:00.003+01:00

This is a copy of a letter I sent to Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, regarding his homophobic policies(see my last post.) I also sent a copy of the same letter(minus the bit about Sharia Law) to the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu. It probably won't do any good, but I sometimes have to let my feelings known about things. Rather than type it up I just scanned it in(minus my address, name et al of course.)

Homos Are Evil: We Get The Point Already!

2008-06-18T18:54:00.003+01:00

Shari'ah Law = Just dandy, but two men having a civil partnership ceremony in a church = EVIL!!! At least that's according to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. The Guardian (18/06/08) has the archbishop having a whine about queers, the main hobby of the religious. Here's a quote from him "Those clergy that disagree with the teaching [saying homos are evil!] are at liberty to seek to persuade others why they believe, in the light of scripture, tradition and reason, that it should be changed. But they are not at liberty simply to disregard it." (from the Guardian above).
This quote is just a load of bollocks, to put it lightly. Firstly, why should THEY have to convince YOU? Why don't YOU convince THEM, if your arguments against homosexuality are so watertight?(somehow I doubt it.) Secondly, love how "scripture" and "tradition" are above "reason" in that quote. What does scripture have to do with gays anyway? Where is the words "homosexuals/homosexuality" et al used in the Bible(and yes I mean the original Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew, not the English translations.) Besides, as was pointed out on the Guardian letters page, if it says that homosexuals are bad in Leviticus, it also says they should be put to death, so you better get the stones out, Mr. Williams. And thirdly, being as your religion is based on FAITH, they can say whatever the hell they like. You can say that "God hates queers" and them gays can say he loves them; niether position has any evidence to back it up so it's all just inane speculation anyway. Why any gay person would want to be associated with this piece of shit religion I have no idea.

The last point I'd like to make is that THIS IS THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. This is moderate faith. And it's still bigoted as, well, bigotry.

David Davis and 42 Days

2008-06-15T22:49:00.003+01:00

The British parliament recently voted to extend the time a possible terror suspect can be kept in jail without charge from 28 days to 42 days. Let me just say that I think this is ridiculous legislation and is completely unreasonable; because it's without charge anyone could declare anyone a "terror suspect" and lock 'em up for 42 days. Look a bit too Muslim in this country and that's what could happen.

Anyway, the Tory David Davis doesn't like this desision, and fair enough, totally agree with him on the principle that this is a violation of civil liberties. However, I disagree with the way he has chosen to express his opinion on this matter: by resigning. For a start, how are you going to change people's opinion or make any real difference at all by quitting your position of authority? It is completely nonsensical. Of course, he is standing again in the by-election, but of course there's no guarantee he'll get back in(though it's likely he will).

Here, however, is a quote from Mr. Davis: "I chose to spend my time as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, focussing on getting value for every pound of taxpayers' money spent, on the delivery of high quality public services - practical issues that people care about." (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/person/0,9290,-1329,00.html)
So, getting yourself(likely) re-elected in a pointless by-election is the best use you could think of taxpayers' money, when you could have just remained in your seat? My backside. Hypocrit.

Daily Mail and Drug Users: Article in Saturday's Mail

2008-06-15T22:22:00.003+01:00

This is an article in yesterday's Mail, called £833,000, the real cost of a drug addict. Just some points I'd like to make about the "How the money breaks down" box.

"Mortality: £262,049. Early death means years of lost earnings, productivity, spending and tax revenue."

But on the plus side, you don't have to pay them a state pension. Not to mention old people tend to use the NHS more than younger people, so that has to be taken into account as well.

"Lost earnings while alive: £209,786. Most are on very low wages or benefits."

I made the point in the last article I did on drugs that if you lock people up for using drugs, they may end up stuck on benefits.

"Criminal Justice: £213,200. Cost of arrests, court hearings, prison and probation."

Legalise it and you wouldn't have this problem.

"Social impact: £61,353. Around 31,000 children of drug addicts are in care."

I think it is a bit hypocritical for the Mail to argue this, in a sense. The Mail tends to be very anti-abortion(not unless it's a homosexual fetus) and is also pro-family values, anti-gay adoption. This, any way you want to slice it, is going to lead to more kids in the system, being cared for by the state. So to use this argument is a bit disingenuous.

Darwin's Angel: Part 1 of a Comprehensive Review

2008-06-08T17:00:00.000+01:00

Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Riposte to The God Delusion, is, funnily enough, a response to The God Delusion. It is written by a bloke called John Cornwell. I have not finished it yet, and indeed might not get around to finishing it for a while, but this is part 1 which will discuss the Preface and Chapers 1-4(of 21! yes, my discussion is on the long side).

I must say, that of the content I have read, I am not enjoying this book. Often I feel there isn't really enough meat to Cornwell's argument so it was hard to discuss. Sometimes, I did not understand what he was getting at. I feel like sometimes, Richard was quoted out of context, and because he does not give the page references to the quotes of Dawkins', it is difficult to check whether a quote is in or out of context. I cannot tell if this is sloppiness or intentional so Cornwell can misrepresent Richard without sneaky atheists being able to pin him down on it(I can, I believe, sometimes, but if I can't find the quote there's no way I can.) Whether or not is it is deliberate it leads the reader to think he's trying to misrepresent Dawkins on purpose.

Here's another oddity for you: the subtitle of the book is different on the front cover where it is "An Angelic Riposte To The God Delusion" than on the inside page, where it is "A Seraphic Response to The God Delusion."

A quick note on cites: the main books used are Darwin's Angel(Cornwell, J. Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Riposte To The God Delusion, Profile Books 2007) and The God Delusion (Dawkins, R. The God Delusion, Bantam Press 2006). Quotes from Darwin's Angel will be referred to in brackets after the quote as DA, p. 2, wheras The God Delusion quotes will be TGD, p. 2.

Main Review

Preface

I don't actaully have too much to say about the preface. The first point I would make is that Cornwell, rather than writing as himself, decides to write the book from the perspective of Dawkins' guardian angel. I'm not sure, to be honest, what this is supposed to achieve. Some of these are summary points and I will adress them in the course of the main book rather than repeating myself.

Misrepresentations of Dawkins in the Preface

"He has established his own "Ten Commandments"" (DA, p.16)

I'm not sure what Cornwell means. I think he is referring to a passage in TGD where RD cites an example of some "New Ten Commandments" he found on an atheist website. Dawkins then gives some examples of some of his own that he would consider including. This is hardly setting up moral rules in stone unlike the Bible and it is merely used as an example of the way mankind's morality changes and how it is not based on religion.

"He has un-faithed, or "outed" in eternity such as Jefferson, Dostoyevsky, and Einstein; he has even "outed" my former protege Father Mendel, who was so admirably a man of both sceinec and religion."(DA, p. 16)

Dawkins actually quotes Einstein(TGD, p. 15) as saying "I do not believe in a personal god." I think this is rather a case of Einstein outing himself than Dawkins doing it for him.

Regarding Jefferson. Dawkins does not outright say that "Jefferson was definetly an atheist." His comments are more along the lines of the fact that Jefferson's ideas were compatible with atheism, and he quotes Christopher Hitchens on the issue, who believes it was likely Jefferson was an atheist, although it cannot be proved because he could not declare it at the time. This can be found on pages 42-3 of TGD.

Dostoyevsky: There is only one reference to him in the index, pg. 227, which is mainly a quote from The Brothers Karamazov, in a section discussing whether we need God to be good. I do not see any reference to Dostoyevsky's opinions on atheism, only that of one of this characters.

Mendel: Richard on Mendel "Mendel, of course, was a religious man, an Augustinian monk; but that was in the nineteenth century, when becoming a monk was the easiest way to pursue his science."(TGD, p. 99). As far as I know, it is the only entry about Mendel in the book, and Dawkins specifically said he was a religious man! Cornwell quotes this passage from Dawkins, but curiously omits the "religious man" clause(DA, pg. 16).

I A Summary Of Your Argument

As this is just a summary, I will deal with it as the claims come up in the main book.

Misrepresentations of Dawkins in Chapter I

"In your mind there is essentially no difference between an Al Qaeda terrorist and your North Oxford neighbour who goes to church twice a year."

Richard does believe moderate faith can be dangerous but he would never make a comparison this ludicrous. Richard's argument is basically that the respect for moderate faith protects fanaticism, and that a lot of fanatics are actually not taught by other fanatics, they are taught by moderates. I'm going to use an analogy and compare this situation involving racism.

A fair good percentage of a society--Society A-- is white supremacist. Let's say 60% of the population is. The non-racist whites in this society do not in any way challenge the bigotry of these people. In effect, the point I'm getting at is white supremacy is pretty much tolerated in said society.

Now take Society B. Society B still contains a minority of white supremacists, but they are criticised heavily by everybody else in society. Their political influence is next to nothing as a group.

It would be of no surprise if I told you that Society A has much more hate crime against black and Asian people than Society B. Now, this would be so even if the majority of people in society A did not not commit hate crime, or encourage violence against these groups. You can call these the "moderate" white supremacists if you like. However, these white supremacists still teach that black and Asian people are genetically inferior and not to be trusted. This would lead some people to extemism - ie. hate crime, harrassment, violence et al. And because the majority share the view that people of another race are bad, it is harder to criticise the perpatrators. This demonstrates how a more moderate viewpoint, if dissipated in a society, can be a cause of more extremist views. The societies could have the same amount of white supremacists advocating violence, but society A would still have more violence that society B because of the general attitudes held.

Chapter II - Your Sources

Cornwell criticises Richard for citing his own works and own experiences with people and their experiences of his work. For a start, Richard is going to refer to his own personal experience in a book about religion and there is nothing wrong with using anecdotes to make a valid point. Religious writers refer to their own experience of the divine, don't they, and I'm sure Cornwell sees nothing wrong with that. Secondly, one does not have the space to rehash everything one may have already argued in other books. Other arguments in other books may be useful if you want to know more about a particular topic, for example, Richard's books on evolution would be relevant to chapers 5 and 6 of TGD. Thirdly, Richard is not the only person to refer to his own work in a new book. For example, Daniel Dennett, refers back to Darwin's Dangerous Idea in his book Freedom Evolves in the section about the Life game by John Conway. Victor Stenger, in his book God: The Failed Hypothesis lists several of his own books and articles in the Bibliography and refers to Has Science Found God? more than once in the main text, eg. pg. 95, 99. Steven Pinker does it in The Blank Slate, pg. 80, 393. It's not just Richard, then.

Misrepresentations of Richard Dawkins in Chapter II.

"Your book is an innocent of heavy scholarship as it is free of false modesty." (DA, pg. 29)
Okay, this is more of an ad hominem, but in my opinion you cannot assert(and assertion it is; he doesn't argue for it) this sort of thing in a book meant to be a scholarly rebuttal of Dawkins.

"You might have discussed at least in brief your intellectual antecedents: [...] Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud."
Is this passage trying to imply that Richard is a Social Darwinist(or, technically a Social Spencerist, as it was not Darwin's idea). I can assure you that this is not true. He has stated many times that he does not believe the theory of evolution should dictate our morality. And aren't Spencer and on the other hand Marx and Freud completely diferrent. Communism relied on the idea that people could me made to conform the the Communist ideal ie. blank slate theory. Freud believed that all mental problems were to do with upbringing and not genes. Spencer was the opposite, he appeared to be a genetic determinist, or at least somebody who believed that genes were very influental in determining personality. Although nature and nurture are in no way incompatible and both are needed and both affect each other, one cannot totally agree with the thoughts of all of these thinkers. Not to mention, where has Dawkins said he is a Freudian or Marxist theorist? Nowhere to my knowledge.

Chapter III - Imagination

To be honest, I'm not sure what Cornwell's point in this chapter is. He seems to criticising Richard's dismissal of theology and Richard's apparent disdain for the imaginiation. I'm tempted to just dismiss a lot of the chapter as just being straw mannery because Richard has nothing agianst the dimention of imagination. For a start, Richard is a scientist. Science is a wonderfully imaginative discipline. How imaginitive did Einstein have to be to come up with the theory of relativity for instance? Science combines this imagination with fact and observation. How could Richard dislike imagination when imagination is exactly what drives his dicipline? In a similar vein, he also portrays Richard as having something against literature, again, I don't really see how he does. Maybe Richard is more interested in scientific fact, but then again, I am very interested in scientific fact that doesn't mean I don't read any fiction, and that's his perogative anyway. Cornwell hasn't really demonstrated that Dawkins is against or dislikes either of those things. In his book Unweaving the Rainbow Dawkins maintains that science is poetic.

There were a couple of points in this chapter I found a little bit, well, stupid. For instance, he says, "but do you really wish your readers to accept that writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Dostoyevsky ... the entire canon of world literature ... is just so much untruth? Fiction?" (DA, p. 35.)

Well, isn't that the point? I'm not sure what he means, or what he's getting at. The only thing I can think of is that he thinks these books contains moral truth, which may or may not be true, but then later he says, "you no longer believe in the power of the imagination to impart literary, poetic, religious and moral truth either?"(DA, p. 36) which implies he considers the truth of literatute to be different from moral truth, so now I'm very confused. What exactly is "poetic truth"?

Misrepresentations of Dawkins in Chapter III

Already dealt with all of them above.

Chapter IV - Beauty

This is a discussion of the argument from beauty, which Dawkins rebuts in TGD. This chapter, again, seemed to be straw manning and didn't make a lot of sense in places. I think somehow he's just misread or misunderstood Dawkins, but I don't see how he's got the interpretation that he has.

For example, Cornwell says this: "You allow that art often prompts feelings of "sublimity" but then you make this curious statement: "[Shakespere's sonnets] ... are sublime if God is there and they are sublime if he isn't." Whose standpoint are you adopting? The poet's? The reader's? God's? Or Richard Dawkins, as an angel, surveying all three? I think you might mean that a poem can have sublimity --whether the poet believes in God or not." I don't thaink that's what Richard means at all. I think it is fairly obvious from the book that Richard means exactly what he is saying here. He means that a piece of art is sublime whether God exists or not. It is pretty obvious what he means.

Cornwell then mentions that a suspention of belief is not the same thing as faith, but this is another strawman because nowhere does Dawkins say that it is.

Richard said in TGD that the argument that beauty exists, thus god exists in not spelled out properly. So Cornwell attepts to rebut this point by citing an example of a theologian who explictly spells out this kind of argument.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Your average, run-of-the mill religious believer does not read theologians, does not care what they have to say, maybe doesn't even understand what they have to say most of the time. And I'm not sure I understand this theologian's argument either, at least not in the way that Cornwell describes it. I haven't read the book in question, but Cornwell quotes him as saying "I will put forward the argument that experience of aesthetic meaning in particular [...] infers the necarssary possibility of this real presence[ie. God.]"(Steiner, G. quoted in DA, p. 40)
To me that seems like it is saying effectively that aesthestics exist and this implies that God must exist, but Cornwell doesn't like this interpretation even though it seems the most obvious on a reading of the text. He says "'[N]ecarssary probability" of God's presence is not the same as requiring that God actually exists. Steiner [...] is arguing that there is a connection, by analogy, between authentic original artistic creativity and the idea of the sustaining creation of God in the world." But doesn't God need to exist for him to have a creation? How does the idea that an analogy works make God true? And why in the cited paragraph does he appear to be saying something totally different?

Misrepresentaions of Dawkins in Chapter IV.

Nothing else I want to deal with.

That's it for part one, people!

Pet Peeves #3

2008-06-05T22:57:00.003+01:00

Pet Peeves 3: The Best Cure For "Feral" Youth Is To Give 'Em Guns!

You know the sort of thing. "Teenagers today have no respect for their elders! A good stint in boot camp would sort 'em out!"

Firstly, making people go in the army is against their right to own personal choice. I suppose the case could be made if there was some sort of emergency, but otherwise? Hell no. Not only this, but we are talking about teens here who are portrayed as disaffected, violent, uneducated, disrespectful binge-drinkers, I'm sure making them take a career path they don't want is going to make them respect you. And I'm sure the way to lower the rates of violent crime among these youth is to teach them how to use weapons. I mean, is it opposite day again people?

Pet Peeves #2

2008-05-20T23:20:00.002+01:00

Pet Peeve #2: I Want Brilliant NHS Health Care And A Fantastic Police Force, But I Don't Want To Have To Pay For Any Of It!

You know the type. The people who always complain about how certain services they want aren't good enough, but whine when they are asked to pay tax. I'm sorry, but how else are we supposed to fund heathcare, the police force and education without tax money? This is not some magic fantasy land where everything is free.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for lowering taxes, if possible. If there is places where money is going to waste than this should be identified and changed. But I am much more in favour of making sure that every citizen has quality healthcare, a good education system and a well-run police force than I am making sure they have lower taxes(obviously within reason).

Drug Use As A Crime

2008-05-18T23:00:00.003+01:00

I, personally, think that making the use of drugs a crime is a bad idea. I think not only is it bad for the drug users themselves it is bad for society as a whole and it is also bad for the ever-sacred taxpayer.

Reasons it is bad for the drug users themselves is pretty obvious. If one buys drugs off the streets it is impossible to actually know the contents of the drug, meaning that the drug could be cut with anything including harmful substances. It creates a stigma in which it is harder to get help for a drug addiction. Putting drug addicts in prison is bad for them -- it is not the help that they need to recover from this. Not only this, but a prison sentence ruins further life chances, meaning that if an addict recovered and tried to live a normal life with a normal job, they would find employment difficult to find. Although former addicts may find it hard to do this anyway, a conviction makes it more difficult, and regarding the non-addicted drug users it would definitely have an impact as they could function normally in society prior to conviction.

Obviously the main negative impact on society is the crime factor. People often resort to crime to get another fix, and drugs are sold by the generally corrupt and the profits may go towards funding other illegal ventures.

I think it negatively affects the taxpayer. The first reason is that prison sentences are in the long run more expensive than rehabilitation for drug addicts. Rehabilitated drug addicts can then go on to lead a normal life meaning having a job and paying tax, thus less tax for the rest of us.
Locking people up in prison also effectively makes them unemployable, because very few people are prepared to employ an ex-con and they have also been out of the jobs market so to speak for the duration of their prison sentences. This means that a person locked up for a drug offense might end up stuck on benefits, costing the taxpayer money.
The other point is that if drugs were legal they could be taxed in a similar way to cigarettes or alcohol, again, making more money for the government meaning either taxes could be cut elsewhere or spending could be increased.

Do not get me wrong: I don't like drugs in general and I would never choose to do them. But other people will, no matter how illegal they are(indeed, perhaps because they are illegal). I think the best way is to make them legal and safer(ie. cut with less crap, in more controlled doses, etc) and set up programs for rehabilitation and better programs of education about drugs. At the end of the day, the best one can really do is to educate people and let them make their own choices, to draw an analogy re: sex education, the best we can do is to tell children about condoms and birth control and how effective they are, the negatives of STDs and the risk of pregnancy, oral and anal sex and how they can still spread disease et al. and then hope that they take this advice into account when they have sex.

NB: I think it is fairly clear, but some of these points apply only to people who actually suffer with addiction, and others apply to drug users in general. Of course, these two things are different, in fact, "drug use" is fairly heterogeneous a category but it tends to be all lumped in together.

Pet Peeves #1

2008-05-16T22:07:00.003+01:00

This will be a new section I'm adding to my blog to complain about things I find very annoying.

Pet Peeve #1: Natural Foods Are Good For You!

I loathe it when foods are advertised as being "100% Natural" or some such. This does not mean that they are better for you, although that is what is implied by such advertising. This is a blatant appeal to nature as the claim is not argued. More than being a fallacy, it is not even true, in fact it is more likely to be the opposite. People who argue natural food is good are forgetting their selfish genes. With the exception of fruits(who want to be eaten in order for the seeds to be excreted and thus spread) plants have no desire to be eaten. So they develop measures in order not to be eaten, ie. evolving toxins. It has been hypothesised and corroberated that this is the reason for morning sickness during pregnancy - to prevent the embryo being affected by these toxins.(see S. Pinker, How The Mind Works, The Penguin Press 1998, p.39-40).

4-1 To The Championship: Birmingham v Blackburn Rovers

2008-05-12T15:12:00.002+01:00

I confess I had a dilemma before this game started: it was rather hot yesterday and so i needed a hat. Unfortunately, the only two summer hats I have are an England hat and a "Birmingham City: Pride of the Midlands!" hat. The dilemma was thus: which hat was the least embarrassing? (Went with the England hat in the end.)
Basically, what had to happen was this: we had to get a better result than both Reading and Fulham. Reading had the incredibly difficult challenge of having to play Derby County at Pride Park, while Fulham had the "eyes of the F.A. Cup" Portsmouth side. Bugger!
In the end, all 3 of the above teams won, meaning that we were relegated to the Championship(which was de facto sealed at the Villa away game in my opinion.)
So what did I think of the general season performance? The defense is the main problem with the side, it is just poor, particularly centre defense. We are incapable of shutting up shop and defending out a game. We also play the long ball up too much, we don't pass the ball very well at all.

Moments of the Season(compiled from memory so if I've forgotten something please forgive me!)

This list is only compiled from matches I actually watched either at the ground(1/2 season ticket) or on Sky(excepting "Worst Moment of The Season".) Home matches unless otherwise specified.

Best Goal of the Season: Sebastian Larsson versus Tottenham Hotspur(away): an absolute beauty in the last seconds of the game to get us three points.

Almost Goal of The Season: Franck Queudrue versus Manchester City: an overhead kick from about 16 yards saved by the 'keeper.

Cock-up of the season: Joint award: Ridgewell back header versus Sunderland(away); Muamba back-pass versus Manchester City.

Lucky Decision Of The Season: penalty we got against Manchester City.

Funny cock-up of the season: Ridgewell versus Newcastle United. He expected a free-kick to be given, so he caught the ball, but because the free-kick wasn't given, Ridgewell was penalised for handball.

Lacklustre(ie. crap) performance of the season: versus Sunderland away.

Worst Away Kit of the season: Chelsea - ridiculously bright kit that was fluorescent yellow! I wonder if they were sponsoring campaigns to make sure you are seen by cars at night cos no driver could miss that kit!
Honourable mentions: Spurs - not quite as bad as Chelsea's, though; Manchester City - purple kit. Man. City are sky blue at home, purple away. Those colours are a bit too close really. It was actually a bit tricky to spot the difference between our blue and their purple on TV.

Goal-scoring performance of the season: Forssell hat-trick versus Tottenham.
Honourable mentions: Zarate v. Man City; Jerome v. Blackburn with a brace each.

Defender of the Season: Stephen Kelly. Played every minute of every game(I think). Is one of the few defenders we've got who can actually defend!

Midfielder of the Season: Sebastian Larsson.

Striker of the season: I'm not really sure who to pick. In the games he played(not loads admittedly) I'd be tempted to go for McFadden. Forssell has also had his moments though Forssell needs better service than what he gets. Zarate has got good skill but he is a bit too selfish; needs to pass a bit more.

Idiot of the season: Newcastle United's "Fat Bastard" who had his shirt off in a 7.45 kick off in March! Alternately, Liam Ridgewell for cocking up a lot.

Sam Harris' Research

2008-05-08T22:31:00.002+01:00

If you haven't already, you may like to take some internet surveys to help Sam Harris do studies on the brain and religious faith: check out this link.

Hypocrisy Meters Explode All Across Britain

2008-05-08T19:09:00.003+01:00

Birmingham, England - There has recently been a hypocrisy meter crisis across Britain, the repercussions still being felt in the most severely affected areas. "It was terrible." one affected woman said earlier today, "It was about 11.50 on Tuesday night and suddenly, that highly prized hypocrisy meter I'd bought just exploded." In a production plant in Aldershot, two workers were killed in a mass explosion of the latest shipment of meters.
The crisis has been linked to a showing on the British Channel 4 of the film Jesus Camp. One commentator said "My meter could take it when I read about Eliot Spitzer, but it just couldn't handle Haggard."

The Thrilling New Sequel To "Bend It Like Beckham" Finally Released!

2008-05-05T22:26:00.003+01:00

The classic DVD "Hoof It Like Birmingham" out now!

Watch in awe as long balls go straight through to the opposition 'keeper or defender!

Gasp as a pass goes all the way out of play for an opposition throw in!

Hold your head in your hands as another good chance for an attack goes begging!

See ya in the Championship next season!

Why Jude 7 Ain't About Queers

2008-04-25T15:29:00.001+01:00

Jude 7 is one of the verses in the Bible used by fundamentalists to condemn gays(less commonly, than, say Leviticus 18.22 but still used). However I aim to demonstrate that this interpretation fails by the fundamentalist's own logic - because it leads to a Biblical contradiction.

Jude 7 in the KJV: "Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." (emphasis added)

The highlighted bit seems to be the key to most fundamentalists' use of this verse. However, to interpret it to mean "they lusted after other men" directly contradicts with Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.39: "All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds."

So in other words, the men were going after strange flesh meaning gay sex(according to the fundamentalist interpretation of Jude) by going after flesh the same as theirs(according to Paul). As you can see, this makes no sense at all. It is in fact contradictory. Thus Jude 7 cannot be a reference to homosexuality, because as we all know, there are no contradictions in the Bible. ;)
A more consistent explanation would be that Jude is condemning the potential bestiality of the men of Sodom because this is consistent with Paul: angels could have different flesh to men, hence, "strange flesh".

NB. I read somewhere and corroborated that the Greek word translated "strange" in Jude is actually "(h)eteros" - yep, that sounds like a reference to gay action ;).

Another cartoon

2008-04-15T21:46:00.003+01:00

Hint: If you don't get it, try reading the opening few sentences of Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene.

Still doesn't make it funny, but alas...

Video Games Are Evil! Part 2

2008-04-10T22:58:00.003+01:00

Just a quick post with more on the video games make kids imitate them. I recently bought this game called Canis Canem Edit, otherwise known as Bully. This is a videogame that people who hate violent videogames dont like, because it is about a 15 year old boy at a rough school and you do things like beat people up and you can skip lessons and be impudent to teachers and so on, and missions in the game sometimes involve stuff like vandalism. Anyway, both me and my brother have been playing on this game(a LOT!) which, to be fair, contains some content my brother actually could transfer to a real-life scenario cos he's still at school, except for the part where he's considered to be pretty much a model pupil and is acually becoming a youth marshal next year. I was actually far more rebellious at school than my brother, and that was before this videogame came out. So it must be said I have an anti-video-games-make-you-psychotic anecdote, just to counter the ones thrown out there by whoever throws em out there.

Birmingham City vs. Manchester City

2008-03-30T13:38:00.002+01:00

A great 3 points this week for Birmingham City, and Bolton lost against Arsenal(just!) so we are in a good position - 4 points clear of the relegation zone. We truly deserved to win this game. Manchester City had very few chances - they hit the post right at the start of the first half, and the Benjani chance which resulted in the penalty, and that was about it. We were defininetly the better side and created more chances. McSheffrey shanked over the bar when the ball fell to him in the 18 yard box. Queudrue had an absolute stonker of a shot from about 16 yards - an overhead kick which was tipped over the bar. Jaidi had a header cleared off the line froma corner. The first 2 goals came from Zarate, in for McFadden who's hjad a knee operation. For the first goal, Dunne(?) failed to clear and it went into the path of Zarate and he put a wonderful chip in to score - although it looked like the defender may have gotten back as the shot felt like it went in in slow motion. The second goal was another great Zarate shot - he powered the ball into the bottom corner where no goalie was goalie was going to get to it.
And this is where it almost all goes wrong. Muamba does the worst backpass you've ever seen in your life and the ball falls to Benjani, who was fouled by Queudrue. Penalty! Queudrue got sent off as well, which could have been a bit harsh. Anyway, Man City score the penalty and get an undeserved goal. However, just a little bit later, we get a penalty - a penalty I was surprised to see given and that wasn't really a penalty, but McSheffrey scored it to make it 3-1 and de facto game over, what with Manchester City's toothlessness up front - all they managed were a lot of shots right into the arms of Taylor.

Spreading Democracy in The Middle East: Why It Won't Work

2008-03-21T21:34:00.003Z

More on the rather depressing situation across the other side of the world, I'm afraid. There was an article in The Guardian, going back about a month now, reporting on comments by Miliband the foreign secretary regarding the UK's moral duty to intervene to spread democracy in the Middle East(among other places).
I agree that we should try our hardest to improve the lot of people in other countries as I hjave already made clear in other posts, eg "Britain on Gay Executions in Iran" and "Do People Have The Right To Their Own Culture?". As I have already noted, to allow injustice just because it is happening in another country at the very least borders on xenophobia. "You were born gay in Iran, deal with it" is not a moral, nor fair attitude to have. And in a moral, fair world, the people would certianly have access to some sort of representative democracy where they can nominate a politician to represent them. Unfortunatly, I do not see how Western democracy can work in the Middle East at present.
Firstly, a little bit of history. Niether the UK nor Germany went from dictatorship to complete democracy. In the UK, historically only the rich men could vote, but in 1918 the Representation of The Peoples Act was passed which meant that men over 21 and women over 30 could vote also. In Germany, the structure of the government changed: in 1871 germany was unified and a parliament(Reichstag) was set up. However, although all men could vote, the Reichstag only had the power to veto legislation, it could not actually create it, and the Kaiser retained the true power. It was only after WWI that this changed.
What I am trying to say is that these western democracies were not established in their entirety overnight, and it is difficult to expect any different from the Middle East, particularly as the beliefs widespread there are much more conservative and fundamentalist than in 1900s Britain or Germany.

There are basically 4 ways that a country could become more democratic:
1. The leaders introduce it, usually under pressure from the populace;
2. The people overthrow the government and set up their own democracy;
3. International pressure, sanctions etc. force the leaders into introducing it;
4. War, overthrowing the previous government and instituting democracy.

Let us discuss each option in turn.
Option one I do not see as feasible. No dictator compltetly opts for democracy, there needs to be some sort of opposition from the people, and there just isn't over there.
As for option two, it also does not appear to be very likely. As in option one, there needs to be people(most likely organisations in this scenario) who want reform in the country in the first place. Let's think about what these people actually believe. the vast majority of them are fundamentalist Muslims, who completely and utterly believe in the words in the Koran. They believe in carrying out Allah's will and they believe that women should be subjugated, gays killed, apostates killed, etc.
Sam Harris has even more depressing news: "[M]any [...] have noted that as repressive as Arab dictators generally are, they tend to be more liberal than the people they oppress. The Saudi Prince Abdullah, for instance -- a man who has by no means distinguished himself as a liberal --recently proposed that women should be permitted to drive automobiles in his country. As it turns out, his greatly oppressed people would not stand for this degree of spiritual oppression, and the prince was forced to back down."(S. Harris, The End Of Faith p. 132 2005 The Free Press). No, I do not think Middle Eastern democracy will come from the people. Even if a group of people did manage to overthrow the govt and institute democracy they would struggle to hold power in such a fundamentalist environment, not to mention when people got to the polls they would just vote the despots beck into power.

That only leaves international interventionism.
Option 3: sanctions(such as economic isolation) imposed by other countries. This could improve the situation but it has its problems. One being that the despots are still in charge and thus can decide what democracy they institute, likely leading to sham democracy. It would probably be laborious to actually get fair representation. Becuase the despot still has power, they can manipulate their governemnt and it may well turn out corrupt. It's also possible that the dictator justignores the sanctions unless there is, again, pressure from the people to give into international demands due to their suffering.
Of course, there is always option four: War. ASnd this option would probably be the most successful one as we would be in control of the government and could institute proper democracy.

The main problem is actually with what happens after democracy, in my opinion. We have got to bear in mind what these people actually believe. If we open the polls to these people, who are they going to vote for? Some people appear to believe that if we open the polls to tyhese people, they will vote for the equivalent of secular Western liberals. It isn't going to happen. If we give these people freedom, they will vote to throw that freedom away. Think for a minute about the Christian Reconstructionists/Dominionists, the closest Christian equivalent Middle Eastern Islam. They have several freedoms -- free speech, abortion, the right to vote -- that they would get rid of in persuit of an American Theocracy. This is no different.

So if they vote, they will vote extremists back into power. This leaves us back where we started -- perhaps even worse off if we destroyed the country during a war as this would just make them loathe the West and western ideals even more.

So this is why I believe the ideal of democracy in the Middle East will not work at present.

But as I have already said, we should tryu and intervene to improve things -- and sadly I see only one long term solution: go to war with these countries, overthrow their governments, and institute some sort of liberal dictatorship enforced militarily. Only once we have shown them the benefits of freedom can we consider giving them any sort of democracy; only then would they vote to keep their freedom.

Pf course, there are other problems with these countries, notably human rights injustices which I believe can only be stopped in this manner. As I dscussed in a pervious post, the execution of gays in Iran for instance. Even if we put international pressure on the government to change this law, all that would happen would be a lot of DIY executions with the leaders turning a blind eye to it because they believe gay people should be killed. Of course, if we were in charge of their countries, we could prosecute anybody who murdered a gay person.

Obviously, this method would involve a lot of destruction. And obviously, it would not be as easy as I have portrayed here. I am not happy about this, but I see no other solution.

Today's News Stories

2008-03-17T00:02:00.003Z

The Daily Mail included a true piece of investigative, correct journalism.
Richard Dawkins converted to Fundamentalist Christianity.
And Emile Heskey scored a Premier League goal.

"The first 2 I might believe...but the last one? Come off it!"

In case you are wondering what I have against Emile Heskey, in the season we were relegated he missed craploads of good chances which was a major factor in our relegation...

Britain and Gay Executions In Iran...

2008-03-10T21:46:00.005Z

On Thursday, The Independent newspaper ran a story about a gay Iranian teenager, Medhi Kazemi, whom Britain refused to grant asylum to despite the fact that if he is sent home he will probably be executed. (link.) Obviously, if this is the case, it is terrible that Britain would allow such injustice.
But I want to talk about Britain's policy on these matters. According to the Independent again:
"The Home Office's own guidance issued to immigration officers concedes that Iran executes homosexual men but, unaccountably, rejects the claim that there is a systematic repression of gay men and lesbians." (see link above) and "In turning down Ms Emambakhsh [another similar case] and Mr Kazemi's asylum applications, the Home Office has said that, provided Iranians are discreet about their homosexuality, they will not be persecuted." (link)
That's absolutely awful, in my opinion. Translation: "Why can't you homos get back in the closet where you belong?!" I mean, are the Home Office incapable of understanding that homosexual people need love, intimacy and sex the same as everybody else or something? Very few people are able to remain completely celibate. This dictum has been proven again and again for gay people both throughout history and in the modern world, in the Middle East and in The West. Obviously, if gay people did not have this need, no-one would have gay sex in Iran in the first place due to the harsh punishments for it. And the social stigma and threat to their careers was not enough to deter neither Ted Haggard, nor Larry Craig, nor Bob Allen. I'm pretty sure forcing us to suppress this harmless part of our being counts as persecution in itself. Love and intimacy are supposed to be one of the most wonderful things that human beings can feel, to deny that to parts of the population for no reason other than disgust or religious dogma is a cruel punishment.

I think something needs to be done about these kinds of things that happen in other countries. We cannot just ignore it and say it's not our business because it's not our country. In a way, it is xenophobic to be isolationist - "you were born X in country Y, deal with your lot!". I appreciate that this is going to be difficult to achieve, but we have no other choice but to try. Unfortunatly, I have very few ideas about how we can make this work. I would rather avoid going to war for obvious reasons as well as the fact that forcing democracy on a country that doesn't appear to want it is going to end in either a religious fundamentalist being elected or somebody overthrowing the Constitution(more on this later in a post coming soon). "Liberating" Iraq didn't work and neither will this. Dialogue is always worth trying, but I cannot see them listening to us, especially as they are Islamic radicals who believe non-Muslims are the enemies of God. The only ideas I have are to impose sanctions on the countr(ies) responsible, or refusing to trade with them. Obviously, these will have their own implications that will need considering. Of course, even if we did get Iran and other countries like it to change their laws, we'd still have a big problem with people carrying out their own justice(particularly regarding anything like "honour" killings) and the government turing a blind eye to it because they agree with what they are doing. I fear it may be hopeless. Maybe someone else has some good ideas as to how to deal with this?

Why Do Tories Have A Hard-On For Low Inheritance Tax?

2008-03-07T21:52:00.002Z

Low inheritance tax - conservative voters love it. But why? I mean, isn't it pretty inconsistent with the conservative ethos? Let's face it, Daily Mail readers- THERE IS GOING TO HAVE TO BE SOME TAXES. Get over it. And inheritance tax is a logical place to put tax if you're of the Tory persuasion. Why? Because conservatives are always bitching about welfare, evil evil people who scrounge of welfare and are lazy buggers. "Get a job, yer Polish wanker!" they cry. But is scrounging off your parents' inheritance really that different from scrounging on welfare? Yes, I know you don't cost the taxpayer directly if you do it, but the ethos is pretty much the same. Particularly if you want "Brits to be able to keep their hard-earned money" you can jack up inheritance tax and then cut income tax instead, which actually allows Brits to keep their own hard-earned money rather than some wealthy guy keeping his parents'.
So there you have it.

Birmingham City Vs. Arsenal - Match Report

2008-03-04T22:05:00.022Z

I suppose I should explain what the premise of this whole thing is. One of my faviourite websites is a cartoon match report website called HTFC-World(www.htfc-world.com), which does match reports for Huddersfield Town. I have fancied having a bit of a go for a while(though mine will be nowhere NEAR as technical) and after the Arsenal match I thought that it would be the perfect match to do for reasons that will become apparent, as well as the reason that it was up first on Match of the Day so there was actually decent highlights for once. Oh, and when you have a guy with Sagna's haircut in the opposing team, there's endless oppotunities for comedy! :)
I'd just like to say that although for some of these incidents I had the benefit of match highlights, others I did not. I may be wrong about some of these incidents, but I'm just callin' em as I see em from where I sit in the ground...so don't kill me, Arsenal fans! I bet there's lots of errors in this too...you're just going to have to live with it, human memory is fallible...
The game starts off and Wenger settles in for a good afternoon...

...a perfectly logical and cogent explanation as to why Wenger actually saw the incidents this week!
He looks up just in time to see this, THE Martin Taylor tackle on Eduardo:

The ref reaches for his pocket...

Bugger!
Eduardo had to be substiuted, with what we later found out was a broken leg. Just another person who would like to wish a quick recovery to Eduardo here, it really was a sickening injury and they refused to show the replays on Sky Sports.
I think that everybody has been a bit quick to vilify Taylor over this tackle. It was bad, and mistimed, but people have been talking as if Taylor lunged in two-footed with the intent to injure Eduardo, which I can confirm he did not. The tackle did not look that bad in real-time at the ground and while I was there I was surprised to see a red, although I obviously could not see how badly Eduardo was injured. Taylor has also recieved death threats from Croatian fans annoyed at the fact Eduardo will be out for the Euro Championships...

Presumbaly that's what they looked like!
Some Craotian journalists also tried to get into Martin's car when he was leaving training. I mean, this chap has just seriously injured a fellow professional, are you SURE it's a good idea to be breaking into his car?!
Arsenal had a very lacklustre first half. They really did not look intent on having a go, even though we had ten men. We changed the formation to 4-4-1, taking off Forssell for Parnaby. McFadden looked a bit lonely up there but he was prepared to have a go, and wins a free kick on the edge of the area.
Can't score from here, surely?

Haha! One-nil up with 10 men against the Arsenal! Another McFadden chance...2-0?

...Guess not. We managed to keep it 1-0 until half time. Just one more notable incident from the half...

Same old Arsenal, always cheating! i think Senderos was going for a last minute nomination for the Oscars...

Second Half
Arsenal came out looking a lot better than before in the second half. Taylor was forced into 2 great saves from a couple of Arsenal shots:

From the resulting corner, Taylor comes off his line and...

Arse...nal! Ridgewell then makes an ass out of himself...chests the ball down from a wayward pass only to chest it into the path of Theo Walcott...

Then...

Adeboyor comes through on goal... pass to Bendtner for 3-1, surely? No, apparently not, as Adebayor takes the shot(and doesn't score).
Feud or just striking selfishness...you decide!

After a while, Arsenal rested on their laurels a bit at 2-1. It seems they flicked into, "It's only Birmingham with 10 men" mode, very similar to Birmingham's "It's only bloody Derby at home" mode. They could have come out and murdered us, if they had really wanted to, but near the end of the game it seemed like they had a lot of possession but couldn't quite be arsed. We, by this point, were looking very tired(pretty understandable). Then, in the last 5 mins of the game, we decide to go an the attack, and we discover that Gael Clichy definetly has gone into "it's only Birmingham with 10 men" mode, as well as "that chap I've been marking has disappeared off the face of the planet" mode...

Parnaby thinks, "well, I'll have that mate"...

Parnaby gets the ball and then Clichy sticks a foot out to try and get possession back...penalty given! McFadden steps up to take it...

2-2! In the last minute of the game! What a result!

(NB. I think the above diagram of the McFadden penalty is incorrectly drawn, but I'm lazy).

Not to mention Gallas, who'd stormed off after the penalty was given, presumably to chuck a few toys around. He sat on the pitch at the end of the game looking pissed off.

Arsene Wenger then made some comments at the end of the game which made him look like a complete arse...

Let's also bear in mind that Tiny Taylor, in his career previous to this match had only been sent off once before(and his tally of bookings was also very low especially for a centre defender)...he ain't a dirty player.
Fair enough, he later rescinded his comments, calling them "excessive". So what DO you actually think about Taylor(Tiny) then?

The rest of his match comments were a load of arse too. Whining about the ref? I can understand where Wenger is coming from, but BOTH sides could have grievances with the ref: although Wenger would argue that our set pieces shouldn't have been, I could say that Adebayor fouled the goalkeeper for Arsenal's first, and that Taylor shouldn't have been sent off because his tackle was only one footed and mistimed one footed challenges don't usually warrant a red.(For example in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy one Swansea player did one a bit similar to Taylor's(in fact the commentator referred to it as such, too) and only got booked. "One of the Swansea players" shows the high level of research I put into this, doesn't it?)

As for "To beat Arsenal, you have to kick Arsenal", let's have a look at some match stats:

So, Mr. Wenger, I vote you're talking crap.

In my humble opinion, Arsenal have themselves to blame that they didn't win. If they'd have wanted to, they could have slaughtered us second half. But they didn't. Maybe the ref didn't help much, but Arsenal are supposed to be top of the league!

A great point off Arsenal, then, and we were to play their Larrrndon rivals next...Tottenham Hotspur. We won that game 4-1 courtesy of a Forssell hattrick. That's the double we've done over Spurs, then. Cheers for the points, Londoners! See you in the Premier League again next season(I hope).

There were so many incidents in this match it would have taken an age to cover them all, and I actually wanted to get the report up sometime within remembering time of the match. Incidents no covered here included: Adebayor chance in the first half, some more Arsenal second half chances, one they had going just past the post, Nafti pulling Adebayor's shirt in the box, 2 other great saves by Not Tiny Taylor.

God Strikes Again!

2008-02-27T15:39:00.002Z

A rather crappy earthquake that occured in Britain last night has been linked with the omnipotent deity of all, God. Religious leaders have speculated that God sent the earthquake as a punishment for Britain's legalisation of same-sex civil unions. "God is annoyed at Britain's tolerance for the sodomites," said one religious preacher, "and I just know that this was a punishment. Yes, I know same sex civil perversions were legalised in 2004, but sometimes it takes God a while to catch up on current events, being as he's got to keep an eye on the whole world 'n' all."
Prominent atheists have criticised the religious rhetoric as being plain wrong at full of hot air. A spokesperson for the British Atheists said that "God is supposed to be omnipotent, and all he can do is send a pathetic little earthquake that didn't even wake me up in the night. Honestly, they criticise us for pigeonholing their God into big, bad vengeance man in the sky but do the same thing themselves. The hypocrisy is, as always, breathtaking."
The Anglican Church has been split into warring factions over the incident. Although the main group is convinced that this was God's punishment for homosexuals, a faction of Anglicans are convinced that the incident was related to God's dislike of equality between the different races on Earth. "White men are of God," said a prominent Anglican and B.N.P.* member, "but these depraved negroes can go back where they belong."

*British National[istic] Party, for any non-Brits who don't know what I'm on about.

Apologies For The Break In Posting

2008-02-24T20:34:00.001Z

...I've been channelling a lot of my efforts into musical leanings recently, as opposed to articles for this blog. I am, however, working on a couple of things: A match report of the Birmingham v Arsenal game(which had everything), hopefully, HTFC-World style if I can manage it, and an article on foreign policy and the potential for democracy in the Middle East.

Kansas Votes For Huckabee

2008-02-12T19:54:00.000Z

The Republicans of Kansas have come out with overwhelming support for the intolerant Baptist preacher candidate, Mike Huckabee. This has cemented fears among the slightly more reasonable Republican base that they believe McCain to be too liberal. "Seriously, he's not that liberal, folks." a McCain spokesman said today.
The populace of Kansas obviously disagree. "McCain is far too liberal. I mean, he only wants to stay in Iraq for a million years. That is just nowhere near conservative enough." Another Huckabee supporter had this to say: "Despite the fact that God's messenger on Earth Fred Phelps protested a recent speech by Huckabee, he is still by far the most Godly candidate on the ballot. I mean, who else wants to protect us from the AIDS menace by segregating the sodomites?!"
McCain has tried to beef up his conservative image by getting positive remarks from George "Dubya" Bush. "He stands for military intervention and action and admits he knows nothing about the economy. He is a true conservative." said Bush at a recent speech.

Video Games Are Evil!

2008-01-27T21:04:00.000Z

I'm sure you've heard it before: a violent video game caused some previously doe-eyed child to grow up to be a horribly violent, sadistic psychopath. Well, if video games generally considered to be violent can affect people's behaviour, why not ordinary video games, too?

Need For Speed - involves driving in illegal street races and trying to escape pursuits with the cops. Needless to say, I can't drive.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Nightmare Troubadour - involves saving the world by playing children's card games. Except I don't even own any yu-gi-oh cards in real life, let alone use them to save the world or anything heroic like that.

Final Fantasy Tactics - In this game, you move characters around a board and perform actions such as attack, magic, etc with them. Clearly a bad influence.

Guitar Hero series - Devil's music. Enough said.

And anyway, how broadly are we to define "violent video game"? Many video games are "violent" in the sense that they involve killing people, even if they're not gory. Eg:

Age of Empires - a historical game where you can be different civilisations who pillage other civilisations. Oh, wait, usually people who are againt violent video games want to drag us back through history and think imperialism is good. My bad.

In my view, even if there is a correlation between violent video games and violence, it's like saying there's a correlation between who plays FIFA and football fans. Well, you're less likely to want to play FIFA if you're a non-football fan!

Birmingham City vs. Chelsea - A Kind-Of Match Report

2008-01-20T22:43:00.000Z

Jammy ~~Villa~~ Chelsea Bastards!

The first thing I noticed about this match were the absolutely florescent Chelsea kits. They stood out a mile. Seriously, if you're ever worried about getting run over because somebody didn't see you at night, buy one of these kits. Picture at the Sky Sports match report.

In my view, we deserved to win this game. We definitely did not deserve to lose, but that's the way it usually goes against the big teams(exceptions: Arsenal last week; Liverpool a lot of the time we play them). We were terribly unlucky not to score through Jerome more than once. Chelsea didn't really do a lot. Even when they had possession they didn't really go anywhere. We played really well. Watch us play crap against Derby in the next home game now.

The Vegetarian Agenda

2008-01-17T22:42:00.000Z

The Vegetarian Agenda is incredibly pervasive in our society. They all hope to convince us that animals are equal to human beings - the ultimate in blasphemy against our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Bible tells us that we have utter dominion over the animal kingdom, in the same way a man has dominion over his helpmeet. Their agenda has never been more clear then in the recent spate of children's films containing anthropomorphic animals. Films such as this aim to present a misleading image of animals to children.
In these films, animals are able to talk and display rationality. Every adult knows that this view isn't true, but children are indoctrinated into this viewpoint by the pretty graphics and animation made possible by modern technology.
Their portrayal of human nature is also highly inaccurate. For example, in the film Open Season, which is about hunting of a bear released into the wild, a "hick" Southern American hunter was displayed as cruel and stupid when every good Christian knows that this man is a moral citizen upholding his right to bear arms. On the other hand, the bear's trainer, a woman who refused to submit to a man and wore ungodly shorts was portrayed as a moral person. This woman is obviously a tool--not just of the vegetarian agenda but of the lesbian agenda.
Another recent film with this kind of theme was Ratatouille, a movie about a rat who wanted to cook in exquisite kitchens. Firstly, to display mere animals as having any sort of thing called "desire" is absurd. What next, are the liberals going to tell us that machines can "want" to use the internet and run word programs? Secondly, everybody knows that rats are vile and carry germs --they're almost as disease-ridden as those depraved homosexuals are. Call me a speciesist, but I don't want either rats or AIDS-plagued homos anywhere near anything on my plate.
Another prominent example was the film Over The Hedge, an immoral flick which promotes stealing as a moral activity. I mean, it's not like the animals were televangelists providing a wonderful service to their flock! Over and over again, they ransack human dwellings. This film, as well as promoting the vegetarian agenda of equality for animals, also promotes the liberal agenda of the welfare state -- take what you want, we'll just tax hardworking American citizens to pay for your out-of-wedlock children. This film will lead to an increase in crime as children are taught that stealing things is just fine, when in reality they should be put to death for crimes against the Lord.

What can YOU do? Well, firstly, boycott these films and all cinemas that show them. Secondly, pass this article on to family and friends, but be careful - the liberals are watching you. Don't let your child see one of these films -- it may change them, not only into hippie do-gooder liberals, but into every parent's worst nightmare - a homosexual. Before you realise what's happened your kid will be taking it up the ass from dirty old men and going to anti-war and anti-vivisection rallies while living off the welfare state before finally dying of AIDS. Consider yourself warned, and make sure that your child sees not even a trailer of any debauched film like these.

This article has two comments:

Barbara, Texas
I'm a little worried -- once I let my child see Chicken Run. Is the decline into depravity inevitable?

Bob, Alabama
Preach on in the name of the LORD! you knows what's goin on. i think that the libbies have been watchin my house and monioring my foxnews watrching habits, theyre out dere alrite.

The Homosexual Recruitment Agency

2008-01-08T21:43:00.000Z

Santa Supports Middlesbrough, Apparently and Other Stories

2007-12-30T21:32:00.000Z

Birmingham City 3-0 Middlesbrough, 26th December 2007
Downing OG
Forssell
McSheffery(pen)

This match was a pretty decent performance from Blues. We started off well in the first half and looked threatening from setpieces and general play, We were prepared to attack them and Boro didn't get much of a look-in in the first half. The first goal came from a free kick at the side of the 18-yard box after a blatant foul by Arca(for which he was booked). FRom the cross, Downing ened up putting through his own net. Forssell had another good chance where he pulled a shot out of a tricky situation and then scored from a chance couple of minutes later; we went in at half-time 2-0 up.
As expected, Boro came out and did better in the second half. The defense played well as we managed to keep them at bay so they did not create too many chances. Taylor made 2 great saves, one from a long range shot, the other from a header and generally put in a good performance. In the last minute, we won--and scored--a penalty.
We deserved the win on this occasion, even if 3-0 was a bit harsh on Boro taking into account their decent second half performance.
Incase you hadn't figured it out, there was a guy dressed as Santa in the Boro end. We obliged with chants of "Santa, Santa whats the score?"

Birmingham City 1-1 Fulham, 29th December 2007

And then it all goes a bit wrong. We come out agianst Fulham uin the first half, playing exactly the same side, and we play badly. We could barely get hold of the ball and when we did we gave it away too cheaply. Unsurprisingly then, Fulham got a goal early on in the match through a corner which Bocanegra stuck in the net. Fulham aren't even any good away, usually, they haven't won away in a long time, I think over a year.
The second half was a little better and we got the equaliser due to a great pass from Muamba setting up Larsson for an admittedly slightly jammy finish. Why can't we pass like that the rest of the time? Nafti, the half time sub for Johnson, came really close with a shot from long range. We started off the second half well but as the game went on we faded and the game swung a bit more towards Fulham who had a few runs etc at goal though our defenders often intercepted or Taylor made the save. In the end the game petered out into a 1-1 draw.
We didn't deserve to win this game and if anything Fulham were the better side. We need to pass the ball better, hold on to it more, and stop lumping it up every time we get it. We really needed the 3 points from this game, because our next 3 games are Man U away, Arsenal away and Chelsea at home, which are pretty much guaranteed to be 3 straight losses.

The Anti-Smoking Brigade

2007-12-21T21:50:00.000Z

Okay, first of all I'd like to say that I don't smoke, I never have, and I'm not interested in taking up the habit. That out of the way, I'd like to go on to discuss some of the ideas of the very "anti-smoking" people.

In context: I recently downloaded the audio of the "Four Horsemen" discussion between Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris. This debate was actually set in Christopher Hitchens' house. Because Hitchens smokes, there was a lot of comments on the thread about smoking if rather off topic. There were a few people on this thread arguing that Hitch shouldn't be smoking in this video.
This was a completely over the top reaction. As I already said, this debate took place at Hitch's own house. I think the man is entitled to a quiet smoke in his own house. And the other people agreed to be there; if they didn't want to expose themselves to Hitch's smoke they could have just left.
One person on the thread even went as far to say that it should be banned, and even said that smokers should effectively be shamed and shunned until they give it up. In my opinion, people have the rights to their own bodies and thus the right to smoke cigs if they want to. I know that passive smoking happens(and you can make a good case for smoking not occurring around children) but if you're a rational adult you choose to be in the company of a smoker, especially in these days where smoking is banned in places like bars, restaurants etc.* Yes, I know one often inhales a little bit of passive smoke from walking by a smoker, but I really doubt that that little exposure is going to give you cancer. It seems many people are very "if i get exposed to the tineist bit, it's going to fuck me up!" Okay, it isn't going to do you much good, but you probably get exposed to more crap from exhaust engines than from that much fag smoke.

Complaint over for now. I'll definatly have more to say about the Four Horsemen debate as soon as I get a good piece done.

* As I've said in other blog entries, I'm British, and the smoking ban in public places came into forse on the 1st July 2007.

Daily Mail and/or Express Bingo

2007-12-19T19:07:00.001Z

THis is a Bingo chart to see how "mailesque" your Mail is today. (for the benefit of any readers from countries other than the UK, the Daily Mail is a right-wing paper that is constantly bitching about immigrants).

From left to right:
Row 1
Dead white woman corner
Destruction of Christian Values
Evils of smoking pot - even better if pot can be blamed for some horrible crime in some way
"And YOU'RE paying for it!" - the slogan of the Mail eg. "Gay Muslim Minority rapes children - and you're paying for it!"
Scare story eg Maddie McCann - basically this is any case where a innocent, cute white girl goes missing and that is constantly reported on by the media

Row 2
Video Games are evil - again, best if they can be blamed for a murder
Soft on crime
Free Shit - The Mail always has some DVD free with it
Taxes are too high
Jingoism

Row 3
Terrorists - particularly if they complain along the lines of "We let em into our country and how do they repay us?" type rant
Immigrants steal our jobs
Diana, Princess of Wales - some reason the Mail has a HUGE obsession with Diana, she's been dead 10 years, get over it.
Teens: binge drinking, ASBO teens etc, basically any "teens are evil" shtick, best if accompanied with a "Back in MY day..." rant.
Weather Scare

Row 4
Health Scare or NHS Mistake - eg. "Could eating too much fruit give you cancer" or anything like that.
Pic of good looking woman with cleavage(on the front cover) - more the domain of the Express, though the Mail does it on occasion.
Labour Are Evil
Evils of birth control and/or abortion - eg. recently there's been a "the pill allowed for teens!" sacre story
Gypsies

Row 5
Immigrants scrounge on welfare - yes this contradicts "immigrats here to steal our jobs!!" but the Mail does both
Health tips
PC Culture
Muslims are evil
Losing our freedoms.

It's Just Like Living In Kentucky

2007-12-16T21:30:00.000Z

A group in Britain is trying to get planning permission to build a creationist theme park bulit in Lancashire. http://richarddawkins.net/article,2029,Creationists-plan-British-theme-park,Observer-UK.

A few samples:

"Peter Jones, one of the Lancashire theme park's trustees, said the emphasis would be on multimedia rather than the costume re-enactments of famous biblical scenes favoured at Holy Land. 'It will be a halfway house for youngsters,' Jones said. 'Today all they do is binge drink. We will be able to offer them an alternative.' "

Excuse me? I'm still technically a teenager at 19 but I don't binge drink at all. And how is creationism an alternative to binge drinking? How is religion for that matter?

"The trust also says it plans to apply for government grants and European funding to help it realise its dream of turning the television studio into 'an international leader in promoting family-oriented Christian programmes'."

"Family-orientated" in this sentence being translated as patriarchal homophobic crap, most likely.

"'The church in this country is in crisis and many church leaders living in Australia, America and Canada have openly proclaimed that God has left the church in England,' the trust states on its website."

There's not much religion left in the UK? Well, brilliant! If there's not much religion why build this themepark here. If we're that EVILushynist, there obviously isn't a market for this thing.

"'Evolution has falsely become the foundation of our society and we need the television studio to advocate Genesis across this land in order to remove this falsehood, which presently is destroying the church foundation.'"

Evolution is not the foundation of society. I mean, many people couldn't really give that much of a toss about evolution and science. This makes it sound like we're all a load of evilushyn worshippers or something.

" 'Wigan council slammed the door in our faces. You mention the C [Christian] word, and people don't want to know,' Jones said."

Good on Wigan for trying to prevent these idiots from spreading their lies. It's not the "Christian" bit, it's the "we want to promote unscientific ideas as fact" that's the problem.

Truth For Youth Dissection: The Truth About Evolution

2007-12-15T21:28:00.000Z

This comic is just full of misinformation and lies, so here comes the rebuttal. This one is more a rebuttal of the misinformation rather than a jokey one, BTW, though if I think of any jokes I'll put them in.

"Man evolved from apes" -- okay this isn't true and is a common misconception of evolution. Humans and modern-day apes had a recent(evolutionarily speaking) common ancestor. Think of it like branching from a tree. There was a particular ancestor whose lineage split into 2 parts, one becoming the modern day man and one becoming modern-day apes(although of course this would involve extra divisions between species). I'll get onto the "racist evolutionists" in the next panel.

Okay, evolution does not teach that whites are more evolved than black people. Evolution is effectively the Red Queen phenomena -- it has to keep running to remain in the same place. Good example of this is the "arms race" between a predator and prey: prey gets faster, so does the predators etc with nobody actually "winning". Evolution actually teaches that nothing is "more evolved" than anything else, because evolution is all about adaptation to a particular environment: an amoeba is adapted well to its environment, so is a tiger. Neither is "better" than the other in any objective sense. So even if, say black people are slightly differently adapted then white people(which is of course true because black people need darker skin for the hotter climate) it doesn't mean either is objectively better. And as this kid points out: even if evolution was racist it wouldn't make it untrue.

I must confess that I'm not particularly well versed in the fossil history, but even if these things are hoaxes it 1) wouldn't disprove evolution as there is thousands and thousands of fossils as well as other evidence and 2) if it was a proven hoax it would not be in a museum(not unless for historical interest clearly stated that it was later discovered to be fake).

Since when is Homo erectus an "ordinary man"? It's a completely different species from Homo sapiens.

"Created by mere chance" Natural selection is NOT CHANCE. Mutation is random with respects to the benefits to the organism, but natural selection is actually the opposite of chance: the best organisms surviving to breed while others die is a perfectly ordered, non-random system even though there is no teleology to it. Besides "I can't see how evolution could have created these wonderful flowers" is an argument for personal incredulity. I might say that, well, I can't see how Quantum Mechanics works so it must be invalid. Not an argument.

"Why can't I look at the flowers and see a designer behind them". Short answer: There's no evidence for one. Long answer: any creator complicated enough to design the universe must be far more complicated than the universe is. At some point some sort of Darwinian process must have been in action--otherwise we merely end up asking "who created God?" and thus it extends back into an infinite regress of gods. Thus, the only way to explain complexity is its origin from non-complexity. To postulate God as the origin of the process is to postulate a skyhook--ie an impossible means of suspension.

"They weren't there to see it all" Well, neither were you. This "logic" could be applied to just about anything, for example: "I wasn't there to see the Spanish Inquisition, thus it never happened", "I wasn't there to see the Gunpowder plot unfold so that never happened either."

"Just because a lot of people..." Like fundies!! "Goddidit!" "Homosexuality is an abomination" etc - repeating them over and over again doesn't make them true.

Now he goes on about how much he's studied it, even though he's all "EXPERTS ARE WRONG!!" just above. Hmm...

Carbon dating: Hmm, well I don't really know a lot about this, but 1) there is other dating methods, 2) carbon dating only dates relatively recent phenomena, not in the "millions of years" range to my knowledge.

"Much of which contradicts other evidence" How can evidence "contradict" other evidence?!!

"and theories" well, yes new evidence is supposed to contradict theories, that's one of the ways we make progress in science. Then the theories are either modified or discarded, depending.

"trees crossection" well, earthquakes and other natural disasters mess up the layering.

Look, even if the layers didn't take millions of years to to form, it doesn't mean the earth isn't millions of years old. I'm kind of getting a very non-sequiturish feel out of the top two panels "trees intersected evolutionary layers, thus Noah's flood happened!" Er, no.

"Science isn't the ultimate source of truth! Book written by ignorant goatherders is!"

Yes, science changes when new evidence is given, that's one of the strengths of science: it's not dogmatic. I am aware of some philosophical problems with science, such as the problem of induction, inductivism v falsificationism, etc. Somehow I don't think this guy is intelligent enough to be talking about this here, though.

"not through human argument" Then stop using it.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics makes sense is not an argument against evolution. Yes, as a general trend entropy increases in a closed system but earth is not a closed system, and it is perfectly possible to have a temporal temporary bucking of the second law of thermodynamics trend, so long as entropy is increasing in the universe as a whole closed system.

Is a bacterium more complex than a bicycle? Well, to get a bicycle, you must first must have a bicycle maker, which is far more complicated than a bacterium. Thus in that sense, bicycles are more complicated than bacterium.

They're not teaching creationism in school because there's no evidence for it.

"religious belief of atheism" I'll put it in a way you fundies can understand: Atheism. Is. A. Religion. In. The. Same. Way. Abstinence. Is. A. Sex. Position.
And fundies don't let their preconceptions obscure the evidence?

Okay, counterpoint. I used to believe that gender roles were determined by society and weren't inherently genetic. Then, I read about the evidence for this claim and realised that it wasn't true, because it was not backed up by science. Preconceptions don't mean the evidence can't change your preconceptions.

"exact same evidence, opposite conclusion" Well, it depends on what is meant by "opposite" in this context. And also, one person may be looking at the evidence wrongly though a completely blinkered perspective. Doesn't per se mean all conclusions from the same evidence are valid, and even if there are 2 competing theories that both fit the evidence there are ways to distinguish between them and decide which one is more likely to be true until new evidence comes in eg "Which theory is less ad hoc?"

"It's hard to be truly objective" Well, okay, that may be true, especially if one holds dogmatically to particular tenets. But that doesn't mean "anything goes". That doesn't mean no rational enquiry.

Last panel is the typical "wow, how do I convert to this wonderful fact-denying fundamentalism" so I won't be dealing with it.

In conclusion, I was not convinced by this tract that evolution is untrue. I mean, as a evolutionist, and thus a racist as described in panel 2, what made them think I'd be convinced by a darkie?

PS. If anyone knows a lot about carbon dating and other ways of measuring the age of the earth, please comment and inform me :).

I joined the Atheist blogroll

2007-12-15T21:05:00.000Z

Finally got around to joining the atheist blogroll. If you're not already a member look into joining it here: http://mojoey.blogspot.com/2006/09/join-mojoeys-atheist-blogroll.html.

Some Thoughts on Punishment and Crime

2007-12-12T11:41:00.000Z

Introduction

Generally, there are four reasons why one might to set up a justice system and punish criminals for their crimes:
I) Retribution: basically the concept of punishment because one deserves it.
II) Deterrence: The threat of punishment prevents crime from being committed.
III) Protection of society: prevent the criminal from reoffending by locking him/her up or using capital punishment.
IV) Reform: Prevent the criminal from reoffending by reforming his/her behaviour and reintegrating them into normal society.

Risk and Reward

I think an important bearing on how to justify the justice system is the concept of risk and benefit. Your two main options to prevent reoffense at their most basic are locking people up for life, or reforming them and reintegrating them into society(I'm leaving capital punishment out of the debate atm). The main advantage of locking people up for life is that there is no chance for them to commit the same crime again(presuming they don't escape). The main disadvantages are that it is probably more expensive and some people might actually regret their actions and want to become law abiding members of society, but are not given the opportunity. The main advantages of reform are that it can rehabilitate the criminal and they can contribute to society, and it is probably less expensive. The main disadvantage is that it is possible to fake a reformation, get out, and commit the same crime over again.
In weighing up these risks one has got to consider the damage done by the crime itself. Although reform is good thing, there is a problem if its success rate is low and/or it is difficult to tell which criminals have reformed. However, with a crime like say shoplifting, it is acceptable to attempt reform and then release the criminals even if it is difficult to tell which criminals have reformed. This is because although shoplifting is a bad thing, the damage it does to people's lives is negligible. It is a tolerable risk that they will commit the crime again.
However, for violent crimes, particularly rape, murder, torture and child abuse, I would argue that the risk is not acceptable. If there is even a tiny chance that a criminal will commit the same crime again in this instance, he or she should be kept in jail for life. This is because these kinds of crimes are devastating to human life and human happiness. This is one reason I suggest life sentences without parole for these kinds of criminals.

Crime and Psychopathy

Success of reform is vital when taking it into account as a justification. If the success of reform is always 0% or its benefits are negligible it cannot be used as a justification.
This is partly why I believe that reform cannot always be considered important. For instance, many of the most violent criminals are psychopathic. Psychopathy is a condition in which one has an in-group containing only oneself and does not care about other human beings. One trait of the psychopath is that he/she cannot feel remorse, guilt or empathy. In my humble opinion there is no point trying to reform this kind of criminal. Why? Because reform has to start with convincing the criminal that what they did was wrong. If a criminal does not believe what they have done is wrong, they will just reoffend when let out of prison. Of course, psychopaths cannot or do not feel this remorse and guilt because they only care about themselves and as far as we know, there is no way to make them feel what they cannot.
Of course, psychopaths are often highly intelligent individual who could completely and convincingly pretend to reform without any moral remorse.
These arguments add to the weight of the ones above to suggest a harsh punishment for violent criminals.
(Admittedly not all individuals who commit a violent act are psychopathic, but in these most horrifying of cases, they mostly are. Even if they aren't, they have shown themself capable of committing these horrible acts when normal people would have been restrained by guilt or empathy.)

Deterrence and Human Nature

Human nature is not always a moral or wonderful thing. There are natural feelings we all(well mostly) have, moral or not. Unfortunately, elements of that human nature involve violence. If violence is a part of human nature, we need deterrents based on this.
It may seem counter intuitive to insist on harsh deterrents based on nature. We are often used to the idea of lesser punishments based on things that "aren't our fault" so to speak. (Many people try to exonerate others by appealing to the traumas etc in their childhood or whatever, although whatever you do you can't escape determinism.) But of course in this instance it should be the opposite: if something comes naturally to us, we need a threat of harsher punishment in order to abstain from doing it.

Reform and Deterrence as Joint Justifications

Even with crimes where there is a tolerable risk of reoffense, we need a deterrent to prevent the crime from happening in the first place, as well as reform system. As far as I can think of, the best system would be based partly on both these options for dealing with petty crimes. For the first offense, a limited sentence should be brought in, alongside a reform program. The criminals that are reformed are fine; but for the criminals that reoffend there should be a escalating system of deterrence, say the prison sentence for the second offense is double of that of the first offense, etc. This will make sure, not only that many criminals are reformed, but that even for criminals we cannot reform that they will eventually reach a deterrence level high enough for them to stop committing the crime.

For example, say for most want-to-be criminals a 3 month sentence for crime Y is a large enough deterrent, so that is put into practise. However, person X is an exception who only a sentence of 1 year or higher is enough to deter them. If we attempt to reform them after the first offense and it fails, next time they commit the same offense there will be a punishment of 6 months. The criminal X is now at a level where he/she is deterred, because a further crime would put them in prison for a year which is at a high enough level to be a deterrent.

Reform and Human Nature

Ideas on reform also need to take into account human nature. We cannot expect magical changes in somebody's fundamental psychological makeup, and to hope for it is wishful thinking and dangerous nonsense(see the psychopathy thing above, for instance.) However, facets of somebody's human nature may be able to be channelled into other activities more beneficial than crime.
Here is an example based on evolutionary psychology:
Men in general, complete for status. This is observed when we see people buying the latest phones and other gadgets to keep up with the Jones'. This is because, evolutionarily, a man at the top of the status heap would get more women and thus father more children than other men. A 17-year-old may compete for status by shoplifting so he can own the latest things. It may be possible to reform this criminal by channelling the evolutionary desire into a more productive hobby like sport.
Although this is oversimplified I think it demonstrates the ideas behind what would be good reform. It is more realistic than actually changing human nature and thus more likely to be effective.

Conclusion

Overall, the more violent and damaging the crime is, the more protection of society becomes important, and for the most violent crimes it outweighs the benefits of potential reform. Deterrence is required to help control our human nature, and good reform will work to channel it.

NB: I did not use retribution as a reason for a few reasons. Firstly, it is not a particularly moral justification and only satisfies our base desires, rather than being productive. It is also harder to justify than the other three on philosophical determinism.

NB2 - Capital Punishment: From a purely retributionist standpoint, I would say that capital punishment isn't harsh enough. capital punishment is however, the most effective way of protecting society(if they were locked up they could still technically escape.) Many people also think that it is a powerful deterrent but I personally disagree as I believe that death is the end of all sensation(as a materialist) and many criminals are religious(eg. Paul Hill wanted to be killed so he could get to heaven--no real deterrent there.) As a deterrent it is easier to argue that capital punishment isn't harsh enough, as torture would be more effective if unethical.

Secular Humanist Utopia?! SECULAR HUMANIST UTOPIA?!

2007-12-11T16:00:00.000Z

Last Sunday, Richard Dawkins featured on a BBC programme called "Have Your Say". They had many callers phone in, mostly to disagree with Professor Dawkins. Anyway, one of the people they had on air was this guy called Father Jonathan Morris, and he was talking somewhat about the Pope's encyclical about atheism among other things. I'd just like to address some of the things that he happened to argue in this recording.

He firstly says that religion does not have a monopoly on fanaticism, which is a fair statement; there is/has been fanaticism in the name of certain political movements, most famously Nazism and Communism. However, he then compares fanaticism in the name of religion to fanaticism in the name of atheism, which is just stupid. Why? Because I don't think there exists such a thing as fanaticism in the name of atheism.
The only thing necessary to be an atheist is a lack of belief in God. I cannot see how this belief inspires a fanatical approach. There is no other tenets, there is no dogma, there is no doctrine.

Admittedly, many atheists believe that the world would be a better place without religion. But does this belief (of a better world without religion) stem directly from atheism itself? I can kind of see how they would use the logic, however the problem is that premiss 2 cannot be derived from atheism.

(1) Atheism is true and thus religions are false.
(2) The world is better off without false beliefs.
(3)Thus the world is better off without religion.

This also does not seem to tie in with what many atheists actually believe about religion. For instance, many atheists believe the world would be a better place without religion because they have seen the damage religion can do to people's lives, either first-hand or through the news media. This does not stem from atheism, but experience.

I also doubt if every atheist would agree with premise 2, at least not in several situations. For example, a good false belief might be "this medicine will stop me feeling ill" when in fact it is a placebo.

Even if most atheists believe the world is better without religion, that is not fanatical not unless it involves things like destroying religious buildings and killing religious people.

Of course, there is a much easier way to get to fanaticism through either religion or other totalitarian authority. For example:

(1) God says I should kill gay people in the Bible(Lev. 20.13)
(2) God is an unquestionable authority.
(3) Thus I should kill gay people.
These assumptions all stem from the religious dogma --god is right, you should obey god.

Onto Hitler and Stalin. As Professor Dawkins points out in the recording, both of these men did evil in the name of political ideology rather than any religious(or non-religious) belief. But anyway, this was the bit where he really annoyed me, he called the aim of Hitler and Stalin a "utopia of secular humanism." At least that's what I think I heard on the tape, because I could barely believe that he would say something THAT stupid! Oh please, Mr. Morris, tell me where it says in secular humanism to kill gay people a la Hitler, if I knew that was in it I would never have signed up!

He talks about the evils in the name of religion as if he's going "Oh, well that's not my kind of religion" and "they got the Bible wrong because Jesus doesn't condone violence" etc. Eternal Hell anybody? Sigh. *Directs Mr. Morris to the Old Testament, while she's at it*.

[warning:rant] A few other notes on the encyclical. Mostly just one, where he says that the Pope Ratpoison IV is extending a hand to atheists to help stop fanaticism both religious and atheistic? Oh, it's extending a hand now is it Mr. Rat-needs-his-balls-put-through-a-meat-grinder-zinger is it? What happened to "Homosexuality is tendency towards moral evil"? You know me, I'm about as straight as your average San Francisco Pride parade, are you sure the Pope wants to touch me, he might get teh gay disease? Oh wait, the gay disease is the AIDS, which so many Catholics have by this point due to his doctrines he's bound to have caught it anyway. The Catholic Church trying to stop fanaticism is so fucking ironic, the Catholic Church practically is fanaticism with its holier-than-thou, ban-abortion, chain-women-to-the-kitchen-sink, if-you-say-celibate-queer-we-might-just-let-you-live attitude. [/rant]

Yes, I'm aware this started off rather intelligent and degenerated into adhoms at the Catholics, but they just tick me off so much. Possibly even more that the Baptist types, merely cos the Catholic Church has way more influence in Britain than the fundie Baptists.

In short: This Mr. Morris is an idiot, and he talks way too damn loud.

NB: get recording @ http://richarddawkins.net/article,1983,Richard-Dawkins-on-Have-Your-Say,BBC

A Game Moral Enough For Fundies!

2007-12-09T20:47:00.000Z

I(ndependent)F(undamentalist)B(aptist)opoly! IFBopoly is a game where you go around the squares and buy up all the "immoral" places like the ACLU, gay bars and Walmart so you can bulldose them and make them into houses of the Lord! Amen!

Start Path To Godliness!
£400 - Local Gay Bar
£2,000 - Utility Company That Panders to The Gay Community
£500 - The Shrine to Cthulhu
£900 - Satanic Record Companies(1)
£1,200 - Porn Producers
£1,000 - Alcohol Companies
Lose a Turn...But Not Your Soul!
£1,400 - Walmart
£1,500 - Hollywood Cinema(2)
£1,700 - Violent Video Games Producers
£1,800 - Librul "Christian" Churches
£1,900 - Schools that don't teach Creationism
£2,000 - The Carbon Trust
Time For Prayer(Free Space)
£2,100 - EVILushyn Supporters(3)
£2,300 - Harry Potter's Publishers(4)
£2,500 - Wizards Of The Coast Company(D&D)
£2,600 - Abortion Clinic
£2,700 - Feminist Activists HQ
£2,800 - Gay Rights Activists HQ(5)
£2,900 - The Catholic "Harlot"
£3,100 - Islam
£3,200 - The LIEberal Media
£3,600 - The A(nti) C(hristian) L(ibrul) U(nion).
£2,000 - Planned Parenthood
£4,000 - The DEMONcrat Party

Here are the Good News cards and the Bad News ones. Enjoy --and watch out for Satan!

NB: I got the software to do this from a make-your-own-opoly disc I got for Christmas one year.

Pic Sources
(1) I scanned this pic in
(2) Pic from here NB: It's from the film "Transamerica" which fundies would no doubt consider immoral, as the two main characters are a transsexual woman and a gay prostitute.
(3) I got the picture from someone's av on richarddawkins.net Robert Maynard I believe. I thought it was pretty cool.
(4) pic from here
(5) pic from here

Replies to the God Delusion

2007-12-02T21:40:00.001Z

Tottenham Hotspur 2:3 Birmingham City

2007-12-02T19:23:00.000Z

This game was certainly tense! I wasn't expecting to win aganst Spurs away so I'm very pleased with the result. We managed to go ahead in the first half through a McSheffery penalty after he was tacked in the box. The first half was nervy because Spurs had plenty of freekicks and corners which they put to decent use. We were holding on a little bit, but we got to half time.

The introduction to the second half was very disappointing, as we conceded twice - Robbie keane with a penalty and then with another goal. Berbatov just after this missed a chance and hit the post--if they'd have scored at that point we probably would've lost the game. Fortunatly, Cameron Jerome managed to equalise with a great shot, although the Spurs defense were poor. Robbie Keane went on to be sent off, although he didn't deserve to be, and the desision had an important effect on the game. We managed to dominate the last 10-15 minutes of play and although Forssell missed a shot after a great cross from sub Kapo, Larsson fired in an absolutely brilliant goal to win us the game.

Overall, this was a good first game for the new manager although the passing could be better and we needed to get Jerome into the game a bit more.

Stranger At The Gate

2007-11-28T18:38:00.000Z

I didn't write this, it's a book review by my mother(from a Christian perspective.) I decided to post it up because 1) I love the book that this is a review of; 2) it makes some valid points.

Book Review by Kay Allen
‘Stranger at the Gate’ by Mel White. ISBN: 0-671-88407-7
Can be obtained from http://www.soulforce.org/

‘Who is my neighbour?’

An expert in the law once asked Jesus this question. The reason he asked it was that he had understood what Jesus meant him to do, and he knew the law alright, but he was hoping that there might be some limit on the kind of person he was being asked to love.

‘Who is my neighbour?’

The question is equally relevant to us today, and we might still have the same reservations as the original enquirer: What if my neighbour is not easy to love? What if I don’t understand my neighbour? What if my neighbour is not like me?

It is not so long ago that black people in America were denied their civil rights; they were considered inferior to their white neighbours until Martin Luther King introduced his special blend of peaceful activism, and the injustice of that situation was rectified. Before that, black people were not allowed to worship in churches with their white brothers and sisters. The religious right, spearheaded by Jerry Falwell, were firm in their white supremacy stance.
However, Falwell was challenged by the black man who shone his shoes every day, who remarked that he so enjoyed the religious broadcasts that the preacher put out, that he would love to be able to hear them in person for himself. At that point Falwell was convicted of his error and black people were allowed to join his church.

From today’s enlightened standpoint, it seems incredible that we could have considered anyone to be inferior to us and fair game for prejudice because of their skin colour! How illogical and ridiculous it would all seem, if not for the fact that hate crimes and prejudice destroyed the lives of so many innocent black people. There are still incidences of racism today, but enlightened people would not allow or condone it, and laws are in place to ensure that those who will not change their attitudes can at least be made to change their behaviour.

Falwell and the religious right thus learnt to accept black people, who had been set apart from others by the colour of their skin, something which they had been born with, could not change, and which did not make them any less valuable than white people. To quote Christopher Hitchens in ‘God is Not Great’: ‘One of the great emancipating results of genomics is to show that all ‘racial’ and colour differences are recent, superficial and misleading.’

Unfortunately, this new-found tolerance did not extend to another group of people similarly disadvantaged within society. These people were homosexual. Rather than promote tolerance, the religious right in America did all they could to promote intolerance and hatred of homosexuals, and even used this stance to generate funds for their campaigns.
Convinced that homosexuality was a sin, based on six biblical verses ambiguously translated, Falwell and his ilk whipped up a fever of anti-gay feeling, and as a result hate crimes and suicide claimed the lives of many gay people. ‘Hate the sin and love the sinner’ became a cop out via which prejudice could be fostered without question. Hatred of the sin without hatred of the sinner is in fact not possible in the case of homosexuality because the inborn sexual orientation of a person is integral to (whilst not comprising the whole) of their personality. You would thus be rejecting part of who they are by rejecting their sexuality. Like skin colour, sexual orientation is encoded into who we are.

Who is my neighbour?

In essence this is the question posed by Mel White’s book, ‘Stranger at the Gate’. As Christians we are asked to show love to other people without discrimination. In his story of the Good Samaritan, in his meeting with the woman at the well, in his healing of lepers, Jesus himself issued a challenge to his followers in word and action to demonstrate the love of God to others – all others.

Martin Luther King taught the world that people of other races are our neighbours. Mel White’s book should teach us that gays and lesbians can also be our brothers and sisters in Christ. In this respect, for many, it will be a challenging read.

Brought up in 1950s California by strict Evangelical parents and grandparents, Mel was encouraged from an early age to witness to his school friends. Winning others to Christ was for him a personal responsibility, and he was terrified that he was responsible for the eternal souls of those who failed to convert to Christianity. Thus much of his early life was spent in guilt and fear; only in retrospect was he able to realise that as long as he had ‘sown the seed’ the spiritual growth of another was the work of God.

However, Mel had another compelling reason to witness so enthusiastically. Not only did he feel burdened towards others, he was desperately trying to earn his own salvation. Early in his life, Mel realised that he was different, but at the time he did not have a word for what he felt. In fact, he came slowly to the realisation that he was homosexual. His autobiography is the story of Mel’s struggle to come to terms with his sexuality, and the torture he endured as he tried to overcome what he had been taught was a sin incompatible with the Christian faith. If only he believed strongly enough and fought hard enough he would be healed.

It is testament to Mel’s faith in God that although occasionally he felt that God had abandoned him, and more than once he contemplated suicide, Mel never considered an alternative route – to abandon Christianity as incompatible with his sexual orientation.

Who is my neighbour?

Like other Christian Fundamentalists, Mel was initially convinced that homosexuality was a sin – a case of sexual preference rather than sexual orientation. In fact, in America, homosexuality was considered a mental disorder until 1973 – the implication being that it was something unnatural that could be ‘cured’.

Consider this – would you subject the neighbour whom you are encouraged to love to electric shock therapy, isolation therapy and other types of aversion therapy? All this and more Mel willingly submitted to in a valiant effort to subdue his natural inclinations. Would Mel, a kind and gentle man, have wanted anyone else to endure such torture? No, but he subjected himself to these ‘cures’ in the vain hope that he could change. He allowed himself to be mistreated in ways that he would never have inflicted on his neighbour because he could not love himself.

Ironically, Mel was employed during this time by Jerry Falwell and others of the religious right as a ‘ghost writer’ and film maker. Even Liberal Christians have always believed that homosexuality is wrong, and this general acceptance fostered a climate in which the religious right could promote intolerance as there was an underlying agreement with their beliefs, if not with the various reparative therapies they espoused. The political atmosphere at the time was not conducive to a challenge to the homophobic obsessions of the religious right.

Even today, extremist groups like Fred Phelps’s Westboro Baptists base most of their preaching around their hatred of homosexuals, to the point where they stand with placards proclaiming God’s hatred of America at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. Their twisted reasoning is that God hates homosexuality and thus punishes Americans by killing their troops, since there is a certain amount of tolerance to homosexuality in the United States.

Who is my neighbour?

I wonder if we would have stood shoulder to shoulder with Dr Martin Luther King in his fight for Equal Rights for black people? It was when speaking with Dr King that Mel experienced a revelation that Christianity was not only about saving souls, but about making life better for those marginalised here and now. Later Mel would attribute his desire to be an activist to that meeting. Throughout the book he writes of meetings with various people who wrought changes in his life, and I think we can all relate to such meetings in our own lives.

I wonder if we have the courage to stand shoulder to shoulder with gays and lesbians today in order to demonstrate a belief that they too should have equal rights? I believe that God gave us a brain and that we should use it to examine our own thoughts and feelings in order to challenge prejudice and intolerance within ourselves. Do we have that courage? And once we have challenged ourselves, can we go on and challenge others?

Who is my neighbour?

Jesus gave us an example of speaking out for the oppressed in the parable of the unjust judge (sometimes called the parable of the persistent widow). A widow has been wronged and appeals to an uncaring judge for justice in the matter.

Let us be clear here that although the parable is often used to encourage persistence in prayer, the judge does not represent God. We are told that he fears not God or man and does not really seem to care about right and wrong at all. It is not because of any sense of pity or justice that he gives in to the widow’s request; rather he is just fed up with her! If the judge is meant to reflect God in any way it is as a direct contrast. The judge is a symbol of corrupt power.

However, in the widow, who represents the poor and marginalised, we see a reflection of God. She is the one who peacefully (if irritatingly!) persists in her protest against the injustice done to her. She is both a symbol of God’s justice and the ‘voice of the poor’. The power of what is right eventually wins through. The widow, though apparently helpless, obtains the justice that is the will of God through her constant plea. Her victory is perhaps a minor one, but if we all stood up for what we believed to be right, intolerance and injustice would eventually cease. We are not told that the judge changes his opinion in any away on the matter brought to him, and indeed we cannot change attitudes in every circumstance – that is why we have laws pertaining to tolerance and equality.

In this story the Bible itself has given us a perfect model for Martin Luther King’s peaceful protest and resistance to injustice. For the above explanation I am indebted to Reg Bott, Curate of Saint Faith and St Lawrence Church, Harborne, who spoke on this theme on 21st October 2007.

The book of James also tells us that faith without works is useless.

Who is my neighbour?

It was many years before Mel White was able to accept his homosexuality. He was in fact married with children, trying desperately to overcome his sexual orientation. However, it was with great regret towards his wife and family that he came to realise that he could not experience true partnership with a woman. Eventually came the realisation that his sexuality, far from being a disorder, could be viewed as a God-given source of joy.

Part of the change in Mel’s vision occurred because scientific explanations of homosexuality now indicate that rather than being a wayward choice that can be tamed by prayer or will, homosexuality is possibly genetic and certainly intrinsic to the nature of a person. Mel postulates that just as our understanding of creation has been informed by Darwin’s theory of evolution, so our ideas about homosexuality should be informed and advanced by psychological and scientific knowledge.

In addition, his study in translation of the six Biblical verses generally cited as forbidding homosexuality, led Mel to conclude that other interpretations are possible, given the cultural context of their origin.

Final acceptance of self, and the conviction that he could not live a lie, meant that Mel saw no alternative but to ‘come out’ and live his life honestly and productively as a gay Christian. Integrity was not without cost, as the work Mel was engaged in with the religious right came to an end, as did many of his Christian friendships. Although his marriage also ended, his friendship with his wife Lyla, an extraordinarily understanding partner and friend, did not come to a close. His children also were able to accept and love their father unreservedly.

Thankfully, Mel was able to continue his lifelong call to Christian ministry within a gay and lesbian church which provided him with new employment and livelihood. Thinking back to the meeting with Martin Luther King, Mel also felt called to become a peaceful activist for the equal rights cause.

Mel White really interprets his own story so well that there is not much more I can do than to urge you to read his book and allow yourself to be challenged prayerfully by it.
Who is my neighbour?

Your neighbour is the stranger at the gate. How will you respond?

Kay Allen

One probably very blasphemous cartoon

2007-11-27T18:42:00.000Z

As a response to this story, Muhammad Teddy teacher arrested which states:

"A British schoolteacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of insulting Islam's Prophet, after she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, said she made an "innocent mistake" by letting the six and seven-year-olds choose the name.

Ms Gibbons was arrested after several parents made complaints.

The BBC has learned the charge could lead to six months in jail, 40 lashes or a fine. "

I drew this cartoon:

Two Things That Poison Everything

2007-11-16T22:37:00.000Z

There are two worldviews that I believe are in general bad for humanity. Obviously, one of those things is "religion" as you could probably tell from the allusion to Christopher Hitchens' book God Is Not Great. But there is another worldview that permeates through society and that is a very bad thing: this view is called "postmodernism".

These two viewpoints are in many ways opposites. religion --or at least fundamentalist religion-- states that we already know the absolute truth. Postmodernism states that there is in fact, no truth at all, and that all "truths" are equally valid, inc. moral truth. Religion induces by its nature disdain for those infidels that will burn in hell, whereas postmodernism is a misguided attempt to include everyone. Fundamentalist religion is the rallying cry of the relatively uneducated right; postmodernism that of the academic left(of course, I generalise).

Why do people embrace postmodernism? It probably stems from the liberal belief that all people should be seen as equals. Unfortunately embracing all cultures as equal means that one cannot embrace all people as equal(by definition)--for example a society where women are treated awfully(eg, Saudi Arabia) is equal to a modern democracy where they have equal rights. (This argument would apply even if the misogynistic cultures were fictitious.) Of course, this is a big problem because it prevents people distinguishing between moral action and immoral action, and it encourages people not to criticise bad culture. It also promotes the idea that if something is cultural it's somehow sacred.

Postmodernists also often criticise Western culture. Of course, there are flaws in Western culture, but for a pomo to criticise it is hypocritical(if all culture is equal that includes the West.) They often talk favourably of more tribal cultures, even though to be frank they are much more immoral than Western culture in many ways. For example, in the Jivaro tribe up to 60% of the males die in warfare; it is about 40% for the Yanamamo. For Britain and Europe 20C it's about 2 percent, and that includes WWI and WWII!*

As for more general truth, well, let's face it, science works. Yes, I am perfectly aware of things like the problem of induction, but philosophical problems with science do not suddenly make all truth equal. I mean, even if there is no way we can get at absolute truth, that doesn't mean that absolute truth doesn't exist, and scientific evidence suggests that there is truth, eg gravity hasn't been proven wrong yet. And some "truths"(in the pomo sense) are backed up by evidence, and some are not. If truth was relative, why isn't there some evidence for every hypothesis?(Okay, you might want to say that we might not be able to always get at that truth. But science seems highly successful as demonstrating at least some "truths"(eg gravity) and not others...why would the scientific method only work for one type of "truth" and not others?)

Even pomos do accept science, even if they don't want to admit it. Pomos don't jump out of a window because the belief that they may fly like superman is not equal to the belief that they will go splat. Pomos don't attend a shamanic healing because the belief that shamanic healing works in not equal to the belief that scientific medicine(generally) works. Etcetera.

I believe religion and pomo to be both views that are too extreme: religion's claim that we know all the (important) truth is too strong, but pomo's claim that there is no truth is far too strongly in the opposite direction. In truth, our position is more in the middle. We know a lot, and we don't know a lot, also. I'm aware that all the truths we have now may turn out to be wrong, but this does not, of course, validate postmodernism.

* Statistics from Pinker, S. The Blank Slate, Penguin Books 2002, p. 57 (it's a bar graph, thus readings may not be 100% accurate).

The New Muslim Automobile

2007-11-13T22:09:00.000Z

This is based on this thread and comments: http://richarddawkins.net/article,1872,Malaysia-firms-Muslim-car-plan,BBC

NB: Perfectly aware that this doesn't represent all Muslims and is based on stereotyping, though stereotypes that are pretty much true for a lot of Muslims in the Middle East...Did it anyway.

Do People Have The Right To Their Own Culture?

2007-11-01T20:20:00.000Z

Many people would answer this question with a "yes". Of course people have the right to their own culture. But I'm not so sure. There are two reasons:

1) Their culture is ignorant;

2) Their culture is immoral.

First, ignorance. This applies mostly to indigious/tribal cultures. For example, many of them die of diseases that are easily curable in the modern world. Should we let them die when we can easily solve the problem with a vaccination or some medicine?

Secondly, immorality. Places like Iran are full of human rights abuses such as oppression of women and execution of homosexuals. Can we let them perpatrate this injustice merely because it is done in the name of their particular cultural beliefs? Why should these people suffer because they were born in the wrong country? One could even be so bold to call our unwillingness to help these people a form of racism: you were born in a bad country, get used to it.

I know that there are many people who think that all cultures are equal ie cultural relativism, the rallying cry of the pomos. But for me this simply isn't true. There are things we recognise as inherently bad. So why do people do them, the reply goes. Perhaps because of ethnocentrism--people in your in-group are fine; people in your out group are just another thing to be exploited.

So if people don't have a right to do these things, how do we stop them? It's difficult. Is dialogue possible? Who knows. War? Probably be more of a disaster than Iraq. I don't really know what the answers are, to be honest.

Sky Sports Letters Crisis

2007-10-29T23:52:00.000Z

Last season on Sky Sports, there always used to be three letters representing any team that was on the telly in the top score box, for example something like AST 1 - POR 2. This was pretty good, as it was easy to tell at a glance what teams are playing. However, this season, it's been rationed down to two. The problem with this is many teams have the same initials. eg.
* BC could be Birmingham City or Bristol City; or
* SU Could be Scunthorpe, Sunderland, or even Southampton.

Often, now, I sit there for five minutes trying to figure out what teams are playing if I'm just flicking or whatever. This is highly irritating. Sky: bring back the extra letter. It was so much easier that way.

Computer's been a bit broken

2007-10-25T19:36:00.000+01:00

My computer has been a bit crap recently, to say the least. It only appears to be working in fits and starts. I am working on some articles to post, but I don't know when I'll be able to get them up.

I'm not an artist, but...

2007-10-12T21:50:00.000+01:00

...I drew a little cartoon for you people. Here it is:

This Just In: Diana wore a nice dress to a party 12 years ago(rant on the "news"paper Daily Mail)

2007-10-12T20:04:00.000+01:00

Okay, what is it with the British obsession with Princess Diana? I mean, 10 years later and there's still bloody headlines about her in the Daily Mail and Daily Express, at least once a week. Yes, I appreciate that Diana did some good in the world, but seriously? Who gives a shit about what dress she wore to a party some years ago or whatever? I mean, at least with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton there might be a new story(though I really don't care about what they are up to, either.) Sigh. Guess I don't understand the mentalilty of the average Daily Mail reader. I'm so depressed. I mean, I wanted to know all about how immigrants were destroying the country and about how gay gypsies were ruining it all--and Britain(YOUR TAXES!!!) is paying for it. Gotta love right-wing scaremongerers. Though yesterday my mother bought the Mail and there was actually a sensible article (about snake oil scammers) in it! I was shocked.

Here's a taste of what was in it yesterday(admittedly this is a cherrypick):

How much nicer JK Rowling looks than 7 years ago, yep, that's news. Guess they ran out of Diana stuff to print;
Madeleine;
The Godly David Cameron(conservative candidate) commenting on how Gordon Brown was a sellout by copying Tory inheritance tax policy, and how this is a good thing because there's no longer a "tax on aspiration" and "allows good Britons to keep their hard earned money"(which is reasonable to some extent, I'm not really far left or anything, but for fuck's sake there's got to be taxes on something...)
Conflicting advice over whether pregnant women can have a drink; title kinda implies scientists dunno what they're on about;
Diana;
Muslim terrorist;
Immigrants - this time Polish people.
An article about some apparently evil librul academic who slags off everyone.

Of course, at the moment, the story that is running constantly is the Madeleine disappearance. Over and over and over. Sigh. I mean, yes, it is depressing that a girl has disappeared, but 1) it's been overreported on even when there's no developments; 2) lots of other abductions have occured without much mention in the media(oh, but those were immigrants going missing, right?!) Apparently they also ran a creationist article too, recently(it was on Richarddawkins.net at some point, I think).

There is also, always, some CD or DVD free with the Mail, every week. Like Learn Italian in a week or Diana commemorative DVD. Maybe if it's a good one it's the only reason to buy it?

In short: avoid the Daily Mail.

More on The Gop Logo

2007-10-12T16:52:00.000+01:00

Sums up what the GOP members have been up to recently, at least.

(Yes. Yes, I know. It's an insult to the rainbow flag.)

Lost In Translation?

2007-10-08T23:34:00.000+01:00

Recently, the good ol' GOP unveiled their new logo...

http://www.gopconvention2008.com/media/logo/logo_600.jpg

Hilarity ensues on liberal blogs after this, of course. Top 10 Conservative Idiots points out that although this logo has some rather amusing connotations, it was perhaps better than "the Vitter" or "the Craig".

Me? I reckon they made a mistake. I think the message was supposed to read Minneapolis Bathroom Stall, rather than Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Kind of like this(edited version of "the Craig" from above link):

Easy to get those two mixed up, isn't it?

Richard Cohen's book Coming Out Straight

2007-09-29T12:40:00.000+01:00

Richard Cohen has a book called Coming out Straight about his methods of therapy. On his website, there is an excerpt from this book on what causes homosexaulity. So I'm going to look at the factors, and see how many fit:

HEREDITY

Inherited Wounds: Okay, this idea is just plain kooky. It seems to be the idea that we inherit problems from our ancestors. Being as I don't believe we do, I don't think this idea applies.

TEMPRAMENT

Hypersensitive: I don't think that this one applies, either.

High-Maintenance: Nope.

Artistic Nature: Kind of. I write music and lyrics and am imaginative though I struggle to put stories into words. I'm not particularly good at drawing either, though I like to doodle and design things.

Gender Nonconforming Behaviours: Some when I was younger, although I also played with stereotypically "girly" toys too. Never been very sporty, though.

HETERO EMOTIONAL WOUNDS

Apparently this means being too close to the opposite sex parent. Because apparently, a parent being too loving or nurturing exists. Thus, I don't reckon this applies.

HOMO EMOTIONAL WOUNDS

I don't have these. At all. I think Richard Cohen was just making shit up.

SIBLING WOUNDS/FAMILY DYNAMICS

Put-downs and name calling: Okay, I admit I have suffered from these, but let's be honest, what person hasn't?

BODY IMAGE WOUNDS

Admittedly, I did get a bit teased because I didn't have breasts and everyone else did. I also happen to be really skinny, apparently that can make you gay.

SEXUAL ABUSE

Nope.

SOCIAL OR PEER WOUNDS

Okay I have had some of these things happen, but I think everybody has suffered from name-calling somewhat as a child.

CULTURAL WOUNDS

Apparently, learning that homosexaulity is a normal natural behaviour constitutes "cultural wounds". News to me. I dunno, I'd have thought learining homosexaulity is evil, demonic, unnatural, and caused by poor parenting is more damaging to someone. Apparently, pornography can corrupt someone's mind. Look, obviously it is inappropriate for children, but I don't think it is going to make most children mentally disturbed.(I've never watched any porn, btw, so this one doesn't apply.)

OTHER FACTORS

Divorce: Parents still happily married, so no.

Intrauterine experiences: The idea that things can be remembered in the womb is sheer hocus pocus bunkum.

Adoption: Nope.

Religion: Well, yes, I rejected my parents religious beliefs, but not because I rejected my parents.

Also, masturbation apparently is done by a gay person to try and fix their supposed brokenness. I dunno, I just thought people masturbated because it was fun ;).

According to Mr. Cohen, pretty much anyone could be gay. I mean, name calling leads to homosexuality? In other words, either the whole planet is gay, or Ricahrd Cohen's ideas are just wrong. It's your choice folks!

BTW link: http://www.gaytostraight.org/cos-chapter2.htm

Why do people become Religious Fundamentalists?

2007-09-12T22:30:00.000+01:00

Recently, I've been thinking about why people might go from relatively uncommitted religious believers or atheists to hardline religious fundamentalists. Here are a few ideas:

Some sort of personal revelation could make someone a more devout religious believer.
People who come to fundmentalism may be uncertain about their lives and accepting some sort of certainty may make them come to fundamentalism, becuase it makes them feel that everything is already explained and they don't need to worry so much about their personal lives.
Some people who come to fundamentalist religion may have some sort of addiction that fundamentalism, essentially, replaces.
Some people are incredibly reckless and struggle with handling resposibility, and cannot deal with life without a strong set of rules which fundamentalism provides.

Obviously, these ideas don't represent all fundamentalists. Most fundamentalists are so because of upbringing. This list probably doesn't represent all people who came to fundamentalism late in life, either, just some ideas as to why people might.

PFOX Lies(Lies From The Religious Right? Say It Ain't So!)

2007-09-06T21:48:00.000+01:00

Recently, PFOX[Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays] have recently claimed that they were attacked by some gay activists at an Arlington County Fair, and one of their claims was that a gay activist hit one of their "ex-gay" people. Fair enough that they should be upset about it, right?
...Well, actually, no, because the incident never happened! It was a complete fabrication. The police didn't remember such an incident(despite the fact PFOX said they removed a gay man from the premises), and the organisers said that the only thing that happened was a few raised voices between an "ex-gay" and a female fairgoer.
These lies from PFOX have been spread around on many Religious Right websites eg. CitizenLink. So, what's the odds the Right will recall this story, and apologise to their readers and the gay community?
...about as likely as someone in these "Ex-gay" ministries going totally straight is my guess.

http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2007/09/05/741
http://www.truthwinsout.org/news/truth-wins-out-calls-for-the-resignation-of-pfox-executive-director-regina-griggs-after-group-fabricates-hate-crime/
http://www.exgaywatch.com/wp/2007/09/arlington-fair-officials-eyewitness-contradict-pfox-claims-of-assault/

Tinky Winky Goes Ex-Gay; Supports Religious Right's Agenda

2007-09-05T17:44:00.000+01:00

Famous gay icon Tinky Winky has renounced his former "gay lifestyle" and thrown away his handbag, according to prominent anti-gay activists. "Tinky Winky has abandoned his abominable lifestyle," said a spokesman for Focus on the Family. "He has come to repentance and finally come to the side of God."

Tinky Winky himself was asked to comment on the issue. "Ever since the death of Reverend Falwell, I have been wondering about the truth of his comments about me. I did not like to think as myself as an awful influence on children, but after thinking about the issue, I realised that Rev. Jerry was right all along. As soon as I realised, I went to the nearest church and repented. I'm sure Jerry is smiling upon my change of heart in heaven."

Gay activists have criticised the move. One spokesperson for a pro-gay group commented, "Let's be honest here, Tinky Winky is about as straight as John Paulk in a gay bar or Senator Larry Craig in a men's toilet."

Tinky Winky will now be available to speak at ex-gay events across the nation under the slogan "How One Teletubby Threw His Handbag Away." Gay activists have approached Spongebob Squarepants as a replacement speaker for gay events.

The Homosexual Agenda

2007-09-02T15:25:00.000+01:00

Our favourite factmine, Conservapedia(which really is very liberal...with its bullshit ;)) identifies 6 things proponents of the "Homosexual Agenda" supposedly do.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexual_agenda

1. "Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible."

Yep, I'm gay. Did you get that the first time?! I'm GAY. Maybe I should put it in pretty colours. I am a L-E-S-B-I-A-N. And i talk about how gay I am all the time. Me and my queer friends just sit there talking about our latest motorbikes and how many sports matches we've watched recently.

Seriously though, I think I've had at least one blog post where I haven't mentioned my sexual orientation. I can't be that obsessed with it can I?

2. "Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers."

Perhaps that's because a lot of gays are victims, idiot.

3. "Give homosexual protectors a just cause."

"Homosexual protectors"?

4. "Make gays look good."

I don't want to make all gays unquestionably look good. Some gays are assholes. But some gays are also great people, and most features of gays don't have anything to do with their "gayness" anyway.

5. "Make the victimizers look bad."

I don't need to make them look bad, they do a good enough job of that by themselves. Though admittedly I do join in with mockery and fact correction. They actually refer to themselves as "victimisers". Love it.

6. "Get funds from corporate America."

Well, that would be nice.

Here's our evil, Satanic aims...

"censoring biblical condemnations of homosexuality"

Actually, no. You're wrong. Say what you want about gays. I don't want to censor you.

"establishing affirmative action for homosexuals"

If it is nesarcary, fine. If it's not, not.

"expand hate crimes legislation to include sexual orientation"

Well, yes. But you can disagree with homosexuality without wanting to kill "them thar queers".

"ending the military's and Boy Scout's restrictions on homosexuality"

Again, yeah. Why shouldn't gays serve in the military? It's a waste of time and money attempting to discharge gay soldiers, for a start. I bet Conservapedia is all up its own ass about "supporting the troops" but obviously this means support our heterosexual troops.

"promote homosexuality in schools"

Define "promote homosexuality".

"in places like Massachusetts and California — where the gay lobby is the strongest — it starts as early as pre-school. They tell seven- or eight-year-old boys — "If you only like boys, there's a chance you may be homosexual." Or — "If you only like girls, maybe you are lesbian." Well, at that age, all members of the opposite sex "have cooties.""

Pre-school and 7/8 year olds aren't really the same thing, now are they?

"You're planting a seed that can totally mess up the normal development process later, when at 12 or 14, kids enter the age of sexual confusion and discovering the opposite sex."

Oh no! some gay kid might actually accept themselves as normal now! What a tragedy![/sarcasm]

"promote science that legitimizes homosexuality, such as claims of a never-identified gay gene"

Most gay activists, if they did comment on this, would say something like "Well, we don't know for sure what causes homosexuality, but the evidence suggests that thee may be some biological factors involved." It's the fundies who bring up the dumbass argument of "they can change, thus they don't need rights". Gay activists don't argue from the premise that "it's genetic, thus it's good" because we're(on the whole) not as stupid as fundies.

"force businesses to accommodate their lifestyle "

What the hell does this mean? If it means "get rid of discrimination in the workplace" than I totally agree.

"Suing an online dating website for discrimination"

Look, that might be an aside, but it's not part of the main agenda. Get with the program.

"getting more rights in prison"

If you mean "getting the same rights as straights" here, then yeah.

"Ex-Gay" Fundamentalist Comic

2007-08-31T10:27:00.000+01:00

Just discovered The "Truth" For Youth comics that promote Biblical Fundamentalism. One of these comics was a dumb "ex-gay" promoting one, where some guy claims to have "left homosexuality"(whatever that means) 30 years ago. It has strawman gays, as per usual. When I saw this, I just couldn't resist making a parody of it. (Probably any of them are asking to be mocked--they look about as smart(and as realistic) as Jack T. Chick's comics.)
My advice is read the original first. The plot in my version's kinda similar, I just messed with the wording to make it more realistic ;). Click the links to open them bigger. All original images copyright of course.

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee218/queerfreethinker/xgaycomicpanel1parody.jpg

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee218/queerfreethinker/exgayparodypanel2.jpg

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee218/queerfreethinker/exgaycomicpanel3.jpg

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee218/queerfreethinker/EXGAYPARODY4.jpg

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee218/queerfreethinker/exgaycomic5.jpg

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee218/queerfreethinker/xgaycomicafaparody.jpg

Enjoy! PS. apologies that the text size is so shitty. Blame the original writers.

I Went Cruising In D.C. And All I Picked Up Was This Lousy Republican Senator!

2007-08-30T23:46:00.000+01:00

Okay, update on the Republican scene: Sen. Craig been caught up to not very "family-values" activities, looking for gay sex in bathroom stalls.

I guess what I really want to know is: just how many of the Republican Party are secretly in the Log Cabin, so to speak?

Dawkins' God by Alister McGrath: A Critical Look

2007-08-29T23:36:00.000+01:00

This essay is a critical look at the ideas of Alister McGrath, who argues against some of Richard Dawkins' ideas. I will deal with the arguments that he uses agaisnt RD.

Chapter Two: The Blind Watchmaker

McGrath portrays Dawkins' ideas as being:
--Darwinism is necassarily atheistic
--Darwinism is the only way to explain the world because as God and other explanations(like Lamarckism) fail as explanatory principles. [Dawkins' reasoning goes along these lines: It either came about by "creation" or it came about by some form of "evolution". The mind first view(the creator) explains nothing, because it leaves us with the bigger problem of who created the craetor. Thus, we end up in an infinite regress of gods if we do not postulate some way of getting complexity from non-complexity, hence evolution.(see Dennett 1995;Dawkins 2006)]

McGrath has three objections to Dawkins' positions:
1. The Scientific method is incapable of proving or disproving God's existence. Science only deals with naturalistic explanations. If we are to answer the question of whether God exists, we cannot decide by science.
2. Just because God need not be invoked in the explanatory process of evolution doesn't mean he doesn't exist.
3. The "God as watchmaker" idea is an outdated view of God's creation and not typical of the Christian tradition.

Objection One
Dawkins would agree that one cannot prove/disprove the existence of God. But that does not mean that we cannot say anything about God by using science. If one wanted to be philosophical, one could argue that "we can't prove anything", or that we haven't proved any of our scientific theories correct, only that they are not false based on the evidence. As I argued in my article "Propositions and The Existence of God" the God Hypothesis makes predictions about reality, and thus can be tested using science. Withdrawing it form rational enquiry effectively makes God a meaningless idea. Thus, science can comment on the supernatural.
McGrath cites an example where 2 theores in science are equal, and we don't know which one is correct, but people decide which one is right. Firstly, they don't dogmatically assert which one is right, and the evidence will eventually be king when it comes in. Secondly, scientifically, theism and athiesm are not on the same footing; atheism is more parsimonious. It fits with more facts(eg. problem of evil, callousness of the universe, etc) and is less ad hoc than theism. If one is an atheist, a lot of facts are already explained.
Also, what other grounds are there to decide other than science? Personal experience? But we know people's personal experiences can contradict science. People can appear to percieve ESP or spirits even though there's no evidence those things are real.

Objection Two
If we don't need to invoke God as an explanatory principle for anything, and we have no evidence for his existence, it's pretty likely he doesn't exist. It is again, more parsimonius to postuate atheism.

Objection Three
I think that Mr McGrath has failed to note the millions of Christians who do believe in a creator who craeted the world instantaneously in 6 days. Besides, The Blind Watchmaker book is about evolution, at least for the most part. Most bits have very little to do with god(eg. his chapter on Steve Jay Gould's punctuated equilibria.)

Chapter Three: Proof And Faith

--Dawkins defines faith as belief without evidence.
--McGrath doesn't agree with this definition, and says that faith is based on the evidence, and cites and metions Christian Theologians to make his points.

The problem with this is that if faith was based on evidence, it would be called knowledge! McGrath doesn't even try to argue that belief in God is based on evidence. I mean, this is the point where you would expect the typical theistic arguments to come out, eg. Argument from Design or Anthropic Coinicidences, Dembski's Information Theory, Moral Arguments, Arguement from Beauty etc etc. And he makes none of these! I was a little surprised at that, because he has made the assertion that belief in God is based on evidence, without attempting to present any evidence.
Another problem with his arguments is that he does what he accuses Dawkins of doing in Chapter 2: picking a group unreperaentaive of Christians. Christian Theologians, in general, only speak to intelligent, well educated, moderate[in Biblical interpretation] Christians. They do not encompass the views of eg. your average Bible Belt fundamentalist.

--God could have designed the universe to be self sustaining.

I'll just hand over to the master Sam Harris on this point: "The fact that a bowdlerized evangelical Christianity can still be rendered compatible with science (because of the gaps in science and the elasticity of religious thinking) does not mean that there are scientific reasons for being an evangelical Christian."

--God doesn't need to be explained as he could just be a brute fact.

Occam's Razor. If God supposedly just exists, why can't the universe/multiverse/matter/energy just exist?

--Dawkins' atheism is overconfident and too brashly concluded, and he is too ferocious in promoting atheism.

So it isn't reasonable to believe that God doesn't exist becaus ethere's no evidence for it? Dawkins would change his mind if you gave him evidence(unlike a lot of believers.) And as for Dawkins promoting atheism, that's just the pot telling the kettle it's black. Yes, Dawkins promotes atheism as a rational worldview. But it often seems like if any atheist says "I don't believe in your delusions." they are a "militant atheist", which is just rubbish.

--RD doesn't know anything about Christian theology, so he shouldn't talk about it so rashly and openly.

Christian theology is not the same thing as the God Question. One can have read quite a lot on the existence of God and know jack all about Christian theology and its history(ie. Me.)

--radical theory change in science, one day the scientific ideas we believe to be true may turn out not to be so.

True. But variation, selection, reproduction = evolution.

--Dawkins is wrong to call religion a source of human misery. Athough religious people do evil, they also do good.
--Science has been used to research bombs and other ethically dubious things. Dawkins would say this is an abuse of science, so why can't evils commited in religion's name be abuses of religion?

Is it immoral to know how to manufacture a bomb? Technically, if you gave me the right equipment and chemicals, I could make TNT. It's immoral to drop a bomb(in most circumstances at least) but that's a different question.
Evils commited in the name of religion aren't abuses in the name of religion, because most of them are imbedded in the tenets of religion. eg. Islam says it is for the glory of Allah to kill unbelievers. How can it be an abuse of religion to follow this command? Jesus says you can cure people by exorcising demons. How can it be an abuse of religion to do this? Judaism says its just dandy to mutilate your kid's genitals. How is it an abuse of religion to do this? Immorality has nothing to do with the tenets of science, which is/should be (ethical as in not involving human rights abuses)research.

--"Stalin was an atheist"

Yeh, so? The Communists had dogma of their own.

Chaper Four: Cultural Darwinism

--Memetics is the theory of a cultural replicator that ispassed on by imitation.
--McGrath has some objectiosn to the theory of memetics:
1. There is nor reason to assume that cultural evolution is Darwinian, or that evolution has anything to do with culture. There is telelogy in memetics and some of it is Lamarckian.
2. There is no direct evidence for the existence of memes
3. the analogy between the meme and the gene is flawed
4. The meme is not needed as an explanatory hypothesis.

Objection One
There are some reasons to suggest a memetic view of culture. Blackmore's The Meme Machine has some interesting information on memetics, and some suggestions as to why it is a useful concept. It does explain some things not accounted for on other views, like a purely sociobiological one.(eg why do we have big brains? Why do we do so many things our genes "dislike" eg. Birth Control? Why is it so hard for us to stop thinking? Why do we talk constantly? etc)
Admittedly there is some telelogy in cultural evolution. But is this really any different from human breeders selecting the features that they like in an animal and breeding for it, ie "artificial selection"? Artifical selection doesn't invalidate evolution.
As for the Lamarckian charge, yes some cultural evolution could be described as Lamarckian or "copy-the-product". But this doesn't really matter, because the real idea behind the meme is that of a replicator. How that replicator does it is not relevant to whether memetics is valid.

Objection Two
Admittedly we don't know how memes are stored in the brain. But Darwin never knew how heredity worked, as he never read the works of Mendel. We someday may know where memes are stored. The evidence is not in on this one.
Besides, cultural replication by imitation exists. Thus memes exist.

Objection Three
There is no real problem of a false analogy. The idea is the idea of a replicator. It does not have to be a replicator analogous to the gene in every single way. In fact, everything else could be different. Provided memes are replicators, the analogy is fair.

Objection Four
As I mentioned above, Blackmore's book has some interseting work on how memetics explains things better than rival theories appear to.

Also, at one point, McGrath suggests that atheism and theism are both memes and thus both equally valid. This isn't nesacarily true. Athesim nor theism have to be memes. Memes are spread by imitation. I did not become an atheist by imitating other atheists, thus my athiesm is not a meme. The same could occur for theism. Religion is a meme, but "theism" merely most likely is. Of course, them both being memes doesn't put them both on the same footing. "The Earth is billions of years old" and "The Earth is 6,000 years old" are both memes that are obviously not equally valid.

Chapter Five: Science And Religion

--RD says Religion is a medieval and uninspiring way of looking at the universe, wheras science is a wonderful way of looking at everything.
--McGrath disagrees because he believs that religion can inspire awe and reverence of nature and creation.

This criteria is fairly subjective. Being as it is mainly aesthetics, it is down somewhat to opinion what a view inspires. I do agree with Dawkins somewhat on this point, because "because God" is not an inspiring answer to anything at all, wheras science is an interesting journey of discovery about the universe we live in. I don't believe I have grounds to say that my aesthetic opinion is "right" or better than anybody else's however.

I'm done with this. This does not critique every position put forward in Dawkins' God, just the main points. There were some things about this book that irritated me:
--It has some comments I would consider unnecassary that lowered the tone eg "Now perhaps Dawkins is too busy writing books agaisnt religion to allow him time to read works of religion."(pg.99) merely beacuse Dawkins isn't particularly well versed in the history of theology. I thought this comment was uncomfortably snarky. [yes, I know the "New Atheists" make snarky remarks, but they are usually aimed at people who deserve it and they are actually funny ;)] Also, he constantly uses words like "polemical", "rhetoric" to describe some of Dawkins' work. I just found it annoying, because Dawkins' work isn't rhetoric.
--A lot of his comments are hypocritical. He goes on about evidence based reasoning, and how great he thinks it is, but presents no evidence for God's Existence. He also says how Dawkins' arguments lead only to agnosticism. Fine, if you think that, but then why are you a Christian Theist? It's perhaps a reasonable comment for an agnostic to make, but he's a thesit.

I read this stuff so you don't have to, folks. :)

Works Referenced/mentioned:
McGrath, Alister. Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes and The Meaning Of Life, Blackwell Publishing 2005.(obviously!)
Blackmore, Susan. The Meme Machine, Oxford University Press 1999.
Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion, Bantam Press 2006.
Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker, Penguin Press 1986.
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Penguin Press 1995.

Sam Harris quotation comes from this address: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060815_sam_harris_language_ignorance/

The Rights Of Children, Or Why Christian Science Is Immoral

2007-08-28T21:31:00.000+01:00

Christian Science is a strange sect of Christianity that foregoes all medical intervention, relying instead on faith to cure illnesses. Many children have been harmed by this, as parents have refused to give their children treatment, and this has often led to death or disability. CHILD, Inc., a charity to combat this element of Christian Science(and other neglect), has examples on its website of harms done by the religion.

Obviously, attempting to heal your children with "faith healing" is wrong. For a start, there is no evidence to suggest that faith healing works at a level better than chance or placebo effect. One would think if it was effective we would use it is medicine, for a start.
Secondly, the people are responsible for their children. They are their guardians, and are supposed to do what is in their child's best interests. Obviously, this would be taking them to hospital when required.
Thirdly, the child is not rational enough to decide what its religious beliefs are. Forcing a religious belief on a child by making that decision for them is wrong.

If an adult decides to snub medicine in favour of faith, that's their decision. It may be an idiotic decision, but it is up to them. But people should never do these kinds of things to their children. It truly is one of the worst sins of omission.

A Plea For Support

2007-08-28T20:39:00.000+01:00

Hello, and FSM Bless you loyal readers of the Passionate Skeptic. I have recently decided that I am going to spread the wonderful Atheist Word among the uneducated in places like Texas and the Vatican. This will involve passing out athest tracts and preaching the wonderful Theory of Evolution. For this, I am going to need your continued support. I, and the New Atheists, would greatly appreciate it if you could send all that you can afford to support our wonderful cause.

Much love,

The Passionate Skeptic.

(Did it work?)

Richard Cohen's "Alfie's Home"

2007-08-20T22:56:00.000+01:00

Richard Cohen is an ex-gay leader, and he has some very strange ideas, to say the least. He believes that homosexuality can be cured by smashing stuff with tennis rackets and "remembering" suppressed childhood abuse. Well, one time, this guy wrote a book...a book for children.

http://dormitem.com/blog/193 <--are the rather creepy pictures. It is illustrated as if for very young children, people around the age of 5 or so. But the themes are totally, totally inappropriate. It discusses child molestation, ex-gay therapy and even contains the word "faggot." Definitely NOT suitable for any child. What sort of 5-year old thinks about their sexual orientation anyway?

[originally saw this linked on Box Turtle Bulletin--hat tip]

The "Homosexual Agenda" Isn't Destroying Anything...Except For The Republican Party!

2007-08-19T16:56:00.000+01:00

[Note: A little late doing this, but still...]

Seriously, what is it with closeted Republicans? I mean, Bob Allen and then this case, Reps are outdoing everyone else at hypocrisy. (Again.) I mean, maybe people were beginning to forget about Haggard... Not to mention the non-homosexuality related scandals recently(David Vitter).

I suggest that the poor old GOP has been infiltrated by the "Homosexual Agenda" operation. These men who have recently fallen off the GOP perch are some of the infiltrators. It was all a plan to make the GOP look bad. Maybe. :)

The Authoritarians

2007-08-17T18:02:00.000+01:00

I stumbled across this online book entitled The Authoritarians the other day. I read it, and found to be a very interesting read. Here's where to find it if you haven't already seen it. It discusses some very interested research on the group known as Right Wing Authoritarians(high RWAs) and why they think the way that they do. High RWAs are likely to be submissive to traditional authority(eg government, churches), and want everyone to live in the same way that they do. These people are politically conservative in the United States.
These people are very likely to have poor reasoning faculties, discard reasoning if they agree with the conclusion, discard ulterior motive if they agree with the conclusion, have double standards, be hypocritical, hold contradictory beliefs without realising it, be self-righteous, blame the victim rather than authority, be aggressive to out groups especially if an authority they trust says they should be eliminated, and be more fearful than average.
High RWAs are very likely to be religious fundamentalists so if you're interested in insight into the fundamentalist mindset this is definitely worth a look.

It also contains information on the Social Dominance Scale, which defines how much power people want to have(often just for the sake of power). Although there is often not much crossover between high RWAs and high social dominance(as most high RWAs want to be led, not lead) there is a crossover of about 5-10%. People high on the social dominance scale manipulate people, have very few scruples, will break the law if they think they can get away with it, lack empathy and are prejudiced and bigoted.
People who score highly on both scales are the most bigoted of all and they actually believe their own rhetoric. A lot of these people appear to be in the Republican party.

That's an incredibly brief summary of the kinds of things discussed in The Authoritarians. Studies on these people are discussed in detail within, as well as more examples and explanations of their behaviour. If it sounds like something you'd be interested in, take a look!

Chick Dissection: Who Cares?

2007-08-15T22:19:00.000+01:00

Being as Jabberwock and now Jr. dissect Chick Tracts, I decided that I would try doing one, just for fun. I decided to mock a tract about some Muslims living somewhere in what looks like the South after 9/11. It's called Who Cares? and the front cover just gives the complete wrong idea.

Link: All images copyright Jack T. Chick 2002.

They're in the middle of nowhere? Two tower looking things...floating in mid-air? What's up with that? And where the hell is the rest of the damned skyline? From the looks of it the plane has a laser beam, but for some reason it fired it behind the two levitating tower-looking things. With laser destructive power, why fly the plane into the building?

Yeh, WHO CARES? Who cares that people flew some damn planes into some buildings? Them buildings just totally wrecked the fabulous view ANYWAY!

I dunno, the smoke in this panel just doesn't look that convincing. Why the hell do the towers look 2D? LIVE on Completely Nondescript News Network, smoke comes down to engulf some middle-of-nowhere blocks!

"What happens if they're Muslims? The kind of people that read these tracts will all hate us as they think all Muslims are the same!"

What the hell sort of an angle is that meant to be? The smoke has a voice. OBEY THE SMOKE. "I'm afraid of what will happen, because some of those Christian fundamentalist types think Muslim equals terrorist!"

Who is that on the television? Is it meant to be God with a really big beard or something? In that case, God, I'm not so keen on the new look. I preferred faceless God.
She goes from creepily wide eyed to creepily slitty-eyed in the space of just one panel. Good work, Chick.
Hang on...I've just realised he's a grown man with a job still living with his mother. Why is that?

"He's one of them thar Muzzies, maw!" "Shame on you, you terror-lovin' towelhead!" [/redneckdeepsouthfundie]

His mother is obviously psychic who saw the potential evils in a vision from Allah or something. Either that, or the plot's a bit too convenient. And beating him up in a shop just seems like a bad idea. Shops...have CCTV cameras. Morons.
"Batteries"? Why batteries?...odd. Maybe it's a joke: the guy needs batteries and there's been a crime that could be described as assault and battery...haw haw. You're just too clever, Jack. And his speech is so contrived here. "I've got to get some batteries...look, JUST AS I SAY THAT a place where I can buy them comes into view!" Maybe he has the psychic power of Allah as well...
Remember kids, it's bad to beat up Muslims, but it's alright to beat up homos a la that homo in Wounded Children.
[soapbox] I assume the people who beat him up are meant to be villains. Well, the thing is the fundamentalists are opposing the Matthew Shepard Act/H.R. 1592 because it supposedly "takes away their right to beliefs and values".[/soapbox]

Why the hell did he pick him up and try to help him there? Surely, anyone with any kind of sense would, y'know, call an ambulance or something.
Ah, this guy definitely has the psychic power of Allah! He can tell which people are infidels just by looking at them! ALLAH AHKBAR!!
"Real Christians wouldn't let the Jews get away with corrupting society and the Aryan race!" said Adolf Hitler. Sorry. but he does look a bit like Hitler.

Cos obviously no Muslims ever have compassion or anything. "A true prophet cannot LIE." I see where this is going. "And Jesus said he was God and he cannot lie. Haw haw. I win."

The guy nearly died, and now he's being driven somewhere happy as larry? Wouldn't he stay in hospital for a while first? Gah.
Cos Muslims address people by their full names. EVERYONE knows that.

You know what the Modern Version of The Good Samaritan parable would look like, fundie types? It would look like this:

One day, a poor young man was beaten by some thugs and left for dead somewhere. Pat Robertson walks by, thinking, "I could help him, but nah, I gotta get to the studio to do the 700 Club." A while later, Jim Dobson walks by, deciding, " I'm not gonna help this young man. I got America's family values to reclaim!" Next, a hated gay activist and atheist walks past and decides to call an ambulance to get this poor man to hospital, and remains by his bedside until he regains consciousness.

And yet Chick appears to believe that if you commit a murder but repent, you get to heaven, but if you dedicate your lives to helping poor people in Africa but don't accept Christ you get an eternity in hell, a la Flight 144.

Dude, this guy is setting up a false dichotomy. Either Jesus lied about being God, in which case Islam is false as it says prophets don't lie, or Jesus was telling the truth and Islam is thus false. Cos people attributing words to him that he never said is impossible.

"Might believe ON him?" The blond guy looks a bit like he's thinking, "I couldn't see before but now I can see you, YOU'RE HOT!"

And he got ready to suck the other guy off by getting down on his knees.
"God(Not Allah)" My skyfairy is better than your skyfairy!!

"God's Love Gift" sounds a little creepy to say the least. God's into sadomasochism, ain't he?
"He doesn't, Omar. But I do." *Censored panel with kissing scene*

How does rising from the dead prove you are God? Are people who are resuscitated using CPR also God?

What's with the silhouettes? They are just totally random and contribute nothing to the plotline at all.
My paradise is better than your paradise! I dunno about that claim really. Islam's paradise at least has some sex going on, 72 virgins and all that.

HIS HEAD IS SQUARE! It's like they crossed Hitler with Kryten from Red Dwarf or something...

The "Allah doesn't care about any Muslim" bit implies that Allah is real, just that he couldn't give a crap.
Despite the fact the fundie provided absolutely no evidence for his beliefs, the guy went ahead and believed anyway. Like you do.
He went home and told him mother he'd become a Christian. Then she went wide-eyed like in the first panel.

BibleGod didn't show you what he thought of Islam. Last time I checked the Bible was written BEFORE the Qu'ran. Not unless Chick has some serious delusions of grandeur, and thinks he's God or something.
Read your Bible (KJV) --Because ALL other versions are translated by sodomites!!! Wait a minute...

--------------------------------------------------------------
There you have it, folks. How to use 9/11 as a plot device.

And The Catholic Church Calls ME Tendency Towards Moral Evil?

2007-08-13T14:21:00.000+01:00

Just seen this article about the Catholic Church opposing Amnesty International because, horror of horrors, they support rape victims having access to abortions. As we all know, The Catholic Church is a fountain of intolerance. It cares NOTHING for people; all it cares about is its doctrine. What does the Church give a shit if women are ostracised from their communities because of a rape pregnancy? "Doesn't affect me, in my damn ivory tower, does it?" Why should the Church give a damn if millions of people die of HIV/AIDS due to their point of view on condoms? "It's what God wants, after all!" Cos I'm totally sure that a compassionate God hates homosexuals and wants people to die unnecessarily.

The Catholic Church is the one that is suffering from a lack of morality, not Amnesty International, who should continue to stand up against these abhorrent men of "holiness".

Hate Speech Is Not The Same As Hate Violence

2007-08-13T11:25:00.000+01:00

For some strange reason, fundamentalist Christians often seem to think that they are one and the same thing. Yep, the fundies are still whinging about this bill known as HR1592 or the Matthew Shepard Act/Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act 2007, which passed the House early in May.

OneNewsNow has this article about the act. Steve Cohen(D-Tennessee) rightly pointed out that the bill has nothing to do with speech and that the Religious Right was distorting the bill by claiming it affects their right to free speech. The fundies got on their soapbox by saying that:

"But Congressman Tim Walberg (R-Michigan) says the bill does indeed threaten the First Amendment rights of pastors and churches.
"He [Cohen] said it was a lie -- when, in fact, if you read the legislation it doesn't go any further than what we have presently in place as far as actual murders and mayhem and assaults; but it moves into the thought police side in saying you can't talk about beliefs and values that you've long held. The fact of the matter is that if you do, we may indeed be able to pull you in as an incentive to hate violence. That's a chilling effect," says Walberg."

This claim from the Right is just plain false. The bill covers violence, not speech. Anyone who actually reads the text of the bill would find that damn obvious. Besides, the Bill cannot overturn the First Amendment anyway, and if it genuinely did conflict with the first amendment, it wouldn't be allowed to be made law.

Although hate speech can often help to lead to hate violence by creating an intolerant environment, it is quite clearly not the same thing, and people shouldn't be punished for their views and should have the right to express those views. Hate violence, on the other hand is quite clearly unacceptable.

These fundamentalists should learn that you can object to someone's opinion without wanting to beat them up.

Football Season 07/08 - First Weekend

2007-08-12T17:53:00.000+01:00

Another one of my interests is the English football season(soccer to Americans out there...). So, even though it has nothing to do with skepticism, I'm going to sporadically update this blog with football stuff. Feel free to skip :).
First of all, personal reporting bias. I am a supporter of Birmingham City, my second team is West Bromwich Albion. I also like Walsall. Thus, I don't like either Aston Villa or Wolverhampton Wanderers. I also don't like West Ham United. Or Portsmouth.

Our result today was: Chelsea 3-2 Birmingham City
Chelsea: Pizarro, Malouda, Essien
Birmingham: Forssell, Kapo

First of all, we gave Chelsea a damn good game today. We did not look like a bad side at all. The defence, however, needs to work on its game. Shaun Wright-Phillips teared us to shreds down the wing, we definetly needed to mark him better. We marked him a little better as the game went on, but there were still moments where he got in behind us. Then again, Chelsea's defense wasn't exactly brilliant at times either--they failed to pick up Forssell for the first goal. The midfield got stuck in and battled very hard and I'm pleased with the effort from the team. Forssell came back and looked sharp although we needed to get the ball into his feet more. Some of the passing from people like Larsson was a little lax and we didn't get enough good crosses into the box. Kapo looked like he has got some skill and will turn out to be a good signing--the goal from him was an absolute belter! McSheffery, however, was hardly in the game, he's a great player but today was anonymous. Two of the goals we conceded could also have been saved by the goalkeeper Doyle--he needs to try and do as well as he did last season when he played very well.
Although we lost, it was to one of the best teams in the league, and there were more positives in the game itself than negatives.

Other Results Of Interest To Me This Week

Aston Villa 1-2 Liverpool
Burnley 2-1 West Bromwich Albion
Wolverhampton 1-2 Watford
Walsall 1-1 Carlisle

"Militant" Atheists

2007-08-12T10:13:00.000+01:00

Recently, on Richard Dawkins' website, there have been a lot of articles posted(as it is a fairly balanced website that posts different points of view) arguing for the idea that the current crop of atheist writers are "militant" and encouraging an vehemently anti-religion point of view, as well as promoting and overly dogmatic view of certainty. Here are a few examples of this kind of thing: One, Two.

This criticism of the "New Atheists" as vehement and nasty is ridiculous. I have read Dawkins' The God Delusion, Harris' The End Of Faith and Letter To A Christian Nation, Hitchens' God Is Not Great, and Dennett's Breaking The Spell. I guess if you wanted to define "militant" as "feels strongly about something" you could make Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris look militant. But the word "militant" implies a much more aggressive, hateful attitude, possibly involving inciting violence against people. The "New Atheists" do no such thing. Dennett actually bends over backwards to be fair to religion, and its point of view is philosophical, rather than arguing against the existence of God or arguing from a political/religious harm standpoint. Hitchens' book is fairly confrontational, but that is not the same as being militant.

So why do the religious keep bringing up this point? Bear in mind it's not just the fundamentalists that make this kind of arguments(who often believe that they are being "persecuted" because gays can get married in Massachusetts) but also more liberal religious people. It may be down to the fact that religion appears to have gone uncriticised in the public sphere for so long and it has got used to its position as untouchable. I don't know what these people want the "New Atheists" to say. "Excuse me...but I think...that your god possibly isn't real, maybe?"

And to criticise the dogmatism of the New Atheists is even stupider. This is a simple case of projecting onto the opposition what one does yourself--in this case certainty on whether God exists. Based on the evidence we have(and don't have that we would expect if God existed), atheism is the most reliable current position. Dawkins specifically says his argument doesn't disprove God, only makes him incredibly unlikely. Hitchens' book deals more with the atrocities of religion, although he does make some arguments against the existence of God by criticising eg. the argument from design. Harris' books are based on current affairs as well as arguing for atheism. So they are anything but dogmatic, and they admire skepticism greatly.

The Enemies Of Reason

2007-08-11T22:51:00.000+01:00

Richard Dawkins has a new two-part programme, due to be shown on the 13th and 20th August on Channel 4(UK). It's called The Enemies Of Reason, and it is about the claims of New Age healer types, faith healers, dowsers, mediums etc and about how it's all bunk. Should definitely be worth watching, so here's a reminder to watch it if you have the chance to!

The Meaning Of Propositions and The Existence of God

2007-08-05T18:45:00.000+01:00

Meaningful propositions claim to say something about the way the world is. They make predictions about how things are. Take the proposition "I own a guitar." That proposition suggests that you could find a guitar in my house, perhaps a receipt for one or tablature or chord books, you could ask the guy in the music shop and he would tell you I'd bought one, etc. These pieces of evidence would suggest that the proposition "I own a guitar" is true. On the contrary, if you failed to find any evidence for the fact that I owned a guitar, you'd probably conclude the proposition to be false.

What of meaningless propositions? A meaningless proposition is a proposition that does not make a prediction about the way things are. If there is no way at all to provide any evidence for or against a proposition, then it is effectively a meaningless one, because it makes no difference whether it is true or false. A famous philosophical example of this is the "parable", if you like, of the "Invisible Gardener." It goes rather like this:
Two men are sitting, watching a garden. They have been watching it for a while, and have seen no gardener tending the plants. One man says to the other, "That would suggest that there is no gardener who tends this garden." The other man replies, "Ah, but it could be an invisible, intangible gardener."
The point of this demonstration is to show that the idea of an invisible, intangible gardener is not any different from no gardener at all, because the idea of an invisible gardener fails to make any predictions about reality. Thus, it doesn't actually matter if there is no gardener or an invisible one, because there is no difference.

What then, of God? The proposition "God Exists", what does that predict about reality? Here are some things that one would expect to observe if theism was true:

Miracles happening only to believers that cannot be explained in any other manner, like amputees regrowing limbs, or Mount Everest moving 2000 miles away spontaneously, "Jesus lives" or "Muhammad is the true prophet" written in the sky, nonburnable or undefacable Bibles or Torahs etc.
Prayer being effective.
Good things happening to good people; bad things happening to bad people(ie. accurate smiting, rather than just indiscriminate viruses or natural disasters).
No unnecessary suffering.
An anthropocentric universe, with a spontaneous creation.
Perfect and wonderfully inspiring holy book(s).

These are just a few things we might expect to see if God(in any theistic sense, at least) exists.

However, we actually see:

The only miracles that happen are ambiguous, rare and can be accounted for my nature.
Prayer doesn't work unless it is a coincidence.
So-called examples of God's wrath are indiscriminate, and many good people suffer horribly.
Unnecessary suffering occurs, such as victims of an incurable disease, or children dying because there wasn't enough water in a village etc.
The universe is huge and has very little to do with humanity, who came about through the messy process of evolution over millions of years.
Holy books are often littered with things like racism and violence. It would be unfair to say there is nothing good or inspiring in them(eg. Ecclesiastes is a great Biblical book) but one gets the impression that an omnipotent deity could have done better. Not to mention the factual inaccuracy of certain claims made in holy books.

This lack of evidence for God's existence suggests that he doesn't exist. It leads many religious people to either:

1. Say that science can say nothing about the divine; or

2. That, in fact, we don't have to observe any of those things to believe God exists; or

3. Define God in some Theological way, such as "God is the power of all Being", or "God is the spirit of love" or something equally vague.

But don't all these "options" lead into the trap of claiming that God is a meaningless proposition? 1, otherwise known as N[on]O[verlapping]MA[gisteria], claims that we can never say anything about God's exists using science. I believe this to be misguided, because if we can ask questions about what we would expect to observe if something is true that is some form of science. And obviously, with the existence of the theistic God, we can do this. I just did it above. Of course, you may want to claim that science cannot prove or disprove the divine--but that is a different claim altogether from the claim that science can say nothing about the existence of God. I would agree with the person who says science cannot disprove the divine. This is because the next observation we make on any scientific theory could technically disprove the theory--the next ball we drop could refuse to fall to the ground. The same with God; the next observation we make could be a Bible that refuses to be defaced when some atheist tries to write sarcastic comments in the margins. Moving back to the idea of a meaningless proposition, if no evidence can be used either way to decide the question of God, if the idea of a God can make no predictions about the universe, as NOMA would have it, "God exists" doesn't mean anything.

2 is better known as the method of faith. Of course, the method of believing without evidence is not considered to be a good idea. Believing with evidence to the contrary, like the observations I made above, is even worse. It may be acceptable to tentatively accept a scientific claim over another before the evidence is completely in. But when the evidence has ruled against you, it is irrational to continue to hold to that position. 2 is saying that observations about the universe aren't important in deciding what is true. But if we cannot observe effects of something, it may as well not exist.

3 is the obfuscations of theologians, rather than a claim made by average religious believers. This is just a way of accounting for the observations I made above. How exactly, though, to we show that "the power of being" exists? What effects does that have on reality, and how can we observe them?

Thus, my conclusion is thus: either you refuse to let your proposition of "God exists" make predictions about reality, and thus make it rather meaningless to believe; or you are open to evidence and let your proposition be confirmed or disconfirmed by the evidence.

KJV Idalotry

2007-08-05T18:27:00.000+01:00

You know the people. Those people who insist that the KJV is the Only True Translation(TM) of the Bible and that all others are wrong, wrong, wrong, and most likely of the Devil.

I mean, for a start, the KJV isn't even a good translation, particularly in the New Testament, as it was based off very late manuscripts. Another problem with using the KJV as a translation is that it is very literal, and translates the (often!) euphemisms rather than the meaning. For instance, that famous "know" in Genesis 19, or "touch a woman" in 1 Corinthians 7--Paul probably means "touch" in the sense of sex or marriage rather than "touch" in the normal sense. Yet another problem with the KJV is you need to know old English to understand some of it. Obviously, some words don't mean the same now as they did in 1611. You'd think that would be obvious.

And another thing--you'd think the fundamentalists would like to use a Bible that translates "malakoi arsenokoitai" as "homosexuals"(1 Corinthians 6.9).(Although it does use "sodomite" in a few random places in the OT.) Of course, using the KJV to bash gays is a bit problematic--just leaves the annoying person in the thread to point out that King James was gay.

Often it gets the the point where it's just KJV worship. KJVOers, remember that second commandment!

Those Immoral Atheists!

2007-07-27T22:34:00.000+01:00

Why Do Religious People Often Call Atheists Immoral?

1. You Have No Absolute Standards of Morality!

I think this is not true. There are some things, in my opinion, that are always wrong, regardless of the consequences. Adultery is one example. Although it is possible for there to be a gain in happiness if the other partner didn't find out and the adulterer had fun doing it, it would still be wrong. This is because of the betrayal of trust in the relationship. So it is quite possible for an atheist to have an absolute moral rule.

And of course, there are problems with the "It's moral because God" argument anyway, the most obvious being the Euthyphro Dilemma: Is it good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good?
On one, torturing a baby could be moral if god said so, and on two, the atheist can derive the same moral conventions without God.

Also, absolute morality can be used to argue against God anyway, on the following:
(1) There are some things that it is always wrong to do.
(2) God, in the Old Testament, has done, or commanded that you do some of these absolutely immoral things.
(3) Thus God cannot be moral.

2. You Have No Reason To Be Moral!

"So, you may know what morality is, but why should you be moral all the time, as no-one is watching you!"

Here are some reasons for an atheist to be moral:

a) Duty as a reason to be moral - If you believe it is your moral duty to do something, you will believe it right to do it regardless of whether God is watching or not.
b) Compassion as a reason to be moral
c) Self-interest as a reason to be moral - Even if you break a moral conviction you have, your consciousness will haunt you about it and make you miserable. Thus, self interest can be a reason for morality.

3. The Liberal/Conservative Divide

Atheists, as a general rule, tend to be more politically liberal than theists. And atheism is often associated with liberalism by religious groups. This is one reason I believe theists may see atheists as immoral.

There is no particular justification on an atheistic worldview to argue that, say, homosexuality or premarital sex are wrong. Whereas theists often hold this conviction very strongly, due to duty to God's ethics. This leads to theists thinking that atheists are immoral, because they do not have these convictions, even though the theist thinks that they are important moral commandments.
This is just an idea of mine; it may not be correct, but it seems rather reasonable, judging on what i know of fundamentalists.

Thus concludes this discussion of atheistic ethics.

The Ethics Of Abortion

2007-07-11T22:26:00.000+01:00

This article is written to defend the view that abortion should be legal and a morally acceptable choice. This argument is meant convince pro-lifers that abortion is acceptable by a comparison to something that the vast majority of people see as wrong, and the underlying ethical principle behind this.

Basic Argument

One of the most important ethical principles is the one that states that all people should have sole rights over their own body. Nobody should be allowed to infringe on that right by forcing someone to compromise that integrity-- a prominent example of this kind of violation being rape. This principle of bodily domain is the reason we think rape is morally wrong and abhorrent--it is forcing someone to compromise that bodily domain against their will. And also, we think that if a man is trying to rape a woman, she is justified in killing him to protect herself--the principle of self-defence.
In the same way, an unwanted fetus is infringing on the woman's right to her bodily domain, and for her to kill the fetus is self-defense. To decry abortion, then, is to say that women should no longer have control over their own bodies. If you deny this ethical principle of bodily domain, however, then many more things become morally permissible, including rape and domestic violence.

In other words, my main argument is:
(1) The principle of bodily integrity allows people to have control over their own bodies, and allows them to use force to protect their domain.
(2) Rape is morally wrong because it is a violation of bodily integrity.
(3) To reject the principle of bodily integrity is to allow rape. (From 1)
(4) We should uphold the principle. (From 2&3)
(5) Abortion is a use of this ethical principle, and thus acceptable. (From 1)

Objections to My Argument

I will now deal with some anticipated objections.

Possible Objections to Premise 1
One could reject premise one by saying that force should not be used in any circumstance. ie. pacifism. However, there are many scenarios where it is acceptable to use force. For instance, you have a man with no ethical scruples invading and killing innocent civilians--to be a pacifist in that situation is merely a willingness to let other people suffer and die.

Possible Objections to Premises 2 and 3
I would assume, or at least hope, that nobody wants to argue that rape is acceptable. But are there other grounds from which to conclude that rape is wrong without invoking the fact that rape is a violation of the victim's body and is thus wrong--in other words to reject premise 2? I personally don't think there is another ground to reject rape as immoral. One could argue that rape contributes negatively to human happiness, but it contributes negatively to human happiness precisely because it is such a violation.

Possible Objections to Premise 4
The person may argue back here that we don't allow people complete control over their bodies, but I would just respond, "Perhaps we should, at least so long as they are given the information to make an informed decision, and so long as they don't infringe the rights of anyone else."

Possible Objections to Premise 5
This is the one where there is most likely to be objections: that abortion is to protect the woman's bodily integrity. I shall deal with some typical objections here.

One objection to this argument is fault, or responsibility. ie. It's the woman's fault she's pregnant arguments, but it is not her fault she was raped. But this is irrelevant. If I am having sex with a man of my own free choosing, and tell him to withdraw from me, if he doesn't immediately, it's rape. Consent by its nature is ongoing. The same thing applies to the fetus, if I have it in my body and I withdraw my consent to have it there, it's a violation.

One common objection to abortion is the potential argument. But this is even more irrelevant here. The rapist is an actual human being, yet to protect myself against him by killing him is acceptable.

The next line taken would be intent. The fetus is innocent and it is wrong to kill something innocent, whereas the rapist is evil or malevolent. The objection to this argument is that a fetus cannot be innocent when it is not even conscious. To be innocent one by nature has to be conscious. Otherwise one could say that taking antibiotics is killing all the poor innocent bacteria in a body. In other words, the intent of the fetus is irrelevant because there can be no such intent. One could also postulate scenarios where the rapist was not responsible for his actions, say, if he was mentally ill or insane. That would not make a woman' self-defense less important, and his lack of intent doesn't infringe on her right to protect herself.

Finally, harm. The rapist is causing harm to the woman, where the fetus is merely an "inconvenience". But this is simply factually inaccurate. Carrying to term permanently alters a woman's body and can lead to death--and is certainly more likely to lead to death than abortion.

Conclusion

Pro-life advocates are thus forced into a dilemma: to either reject the ethical principle of bodily integrity and thus permit rape, or to support the ethical principle of bodily integrity and thus support the legality of abortion.

World Net Daily and "Quitting" Homosexuality

2007-07-04T20:06:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I discovered this World Net Daily article when somebody on a message board I sometimes use brought the topic up.
If you don't want your eyes to get polluted by the WND website, the article basically talks about a man, Mike Glatze, who claims that he has left the gay lifestyle and is no longer a homosexual. I felt obliged to tell the people in this debate that the evidence suggests you can't change your sexual oreintation, though some of them seemed to think testimony was more reliable than scientific evidence(not that surprising, sadly).

Here's a few comments on the article:

"In his column, Glatze doesn't mince words, calling homosexual sex purely "lust-based," meaning it can never fully satisfy.
"It's a neurotic process rather than a natural, normal one," he writes. "Normal is normal – and has been called normal for a reason.""

Firstly, how does he know all homosexual sex is lust based? Just because HIS gay sex was, does not mean everyone else's it. "Normal", well depends on how you want to define it.

"Just before leaving, not fully realizing what he was doing, he wrote on his office computer his thoughts, ending with the declaration: "Homosexuality is death, and I choose life.""

Cos Gays hve teh AIDS, lolz!!!111!
Seriously, I don't understand. Homosexuality is death? Last time I checked, I still have a pulse.

"Glatze said he thought opponents of homosexual activism were "mean and crazy, and they wanted to hurt me.""

THAT makes more sense, judging on a lot of rabid fundies.

It almost seems from the article that he had some underlying issues, like he's been raised in a religious manner and couldn't quite get over it.

Mike, after you get over that initial euphoria of God supposedly healing you only to realise you're still gay, don't make the mistake other people have made. Don't continue to pretend. It's not worth it.

So, Is It All Meaningless?

2007-07-03T20:04:00.000+01:00

One of the most well-known criticisms of atheism by theists is that atheism makes life meaningless. If atheism(naturalistic atheism, I should say) is true, there is no purpose, and when we die we merely cease to exist, it's all for nothing. But is this point against atheism defensible?

Temporary Life

So if life is only a brief interlude in between eras of non-existence, does that make life worthless? To me, the answer seems to be obviously "no". Most positive experiences that we have are only temporary. Love fades and good feelings die, friendships fall apart, but that doesn't mean that love or friendship are meaningless.
In a way, atheism makes life more meaningful. This is all you are going to get, so you'd better make sure you enjoy it! Whereas for religious people it is often a chore to be endured until you meet your creator.

A Lack Of Purpose

"That may be so, but isn't the fact that your life is ultimately meaningless make it not worth living? What purpose can an atheist have?"-- a hear the theist say.

Many things are ultimately meaningless. Many things theists do are ultimately meaningless, regardless of whether God exists or not. A theist reading this blog right now would be an ultimately meaningless activity.
My life is indeed ultimately meaningless. Five billion years from now, the sun will explode and any life left on the planet will be wiped out(of course, the possibility that Homo sapiens is long dead before then is high.) But that doesn't mean that it can't have meaning to me, or to people who know me.

I'd also like to say that if God exists and that my purpose is to worship him, that is a purpose pushed upon me, not freely chosen. Whereas if the atheist chooses his own path, that is free, and ultimately far more fulfilling, as only following our own choices can be.

Spice Girls: Cause Of Britain's Flood!

2007-07-03T19:04:00.000+01:00

Birmingham, England--Church people say that the recent flooding in Britain has been due to the fact that the Spice Girls had been planning to return there for a gig in London.

"The abysmal quality of the so-called "music" is definatly responsible," said Reverend Michael, a spokesperson for the Church of Godly Minor Keys, "the catawalling of the CDs dug out by fans for that 90's nostalgia directly caused the wrath of our Lord."

"The Almighty Lord always hated the Spice Girls," he continued, "as they represent all that is wrong with modern society--the immorality and debauchery that they embrace, but most importantly the way they sing. Have you HEARD it? God was always more of a classic rock fan."

Another spokesman, Rev. Hurst said, "If you want the flooding to stop, destroy your Spice Girls nostalgia, boycott the gig and rock out to some Zeppelin."

Forecasters predict an increase in sales of Led Zeppelin IV.

(Reply to Bishops blame gays for floods)

Theism and Darwinian Evolution

2007-06-24T17:52:00.000+01:00

Are theism and Darwinian evolution(hence ToE) compatible? This is a discussion of the problems involved in accepting a "theistic evolutionist" worldview(where God is defined typically as he is by most theists.)Personally, I believe that God's omnipotence suggests better methods could have been used than the theory of evolution.

First of all, religious people believe that there is some sort of "higher purpose" for man; the ToE suggests just the opposite--man is just another creature among many and is in no way "better" than any other. If man was so important to a god as end product, why did he not create man outright? Of course, in evolution there is no final goal, no "aim" to be consiously worked towards.(1) It is likely that man(or even intelligent beings) may not have existed at all had a slightly different evolutionary pathway been taken.(2)
As Sam Harris writes, "Over 99 percent of the species that ever walked, flew, or slithered upon this earth are now extinct. This fact alone appears to rule out intelligent design."(3) This seems incredibly wasteful for a so called omnipotent deity.
Also, the time period taken for evolution to evolve anything interesting on this planet was very long, are we expected to believe God sat there twiddling his thumbs(watching the brutality of the natural world) waiting for something halfway interesting to evolve?

Evolution is also a far from perfect process, in terms of a "good of the individual" view(which one presumes God would be interested in, he is interested in our eternal fate after all). Yet the human body is riddled with imperfections and useless bits, puzzling if God so badly wanted to create us in his image. This raises the question of why God would implement evolution to make these supposedly special beings.

The idea of a soul is also one that, to me, does not make any sense in terms of evolutionary theory. It is difficult to see how such a notion evolved, and being as evolution is a continuous process it raises the question of when God would have drawn the line between human and non-human, and given us souls. The only idea of consiousness that makes sense when we look at evolutionary theory is a naturalistic one.

Notes
(1) "Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan conseqences, has no purpose in view." --Dawkins, Richard The Blind Watchmaker (Penguin 1986 (Appendix 1991)) p. 21
(2) Chris Hitchens argues this in his recently published book God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion. He cites Stephen Jay Gould as saying that without an ancestor of ours known as Pikaia gracilens all of the modern vertebrates would not exist. (pg.92-93)
(3) Harris, Sam Letter To A Christian Nation, (Bantam Press 2006, this version 2007) pg. 75.

Only 71 People Are Going To Heaven!

2007-06-22T16:30:00.000+01:00

[Note: This was originally written after the airing in Britain of Louis Theroux' documentary The Most Hated Family In America. It was on my original (now deleted) blog, but I decided to give it a re-airing here.]

There was a programme on this week in Britain about Fred Phelps' infamous cult, the Westboro Baptist Church. I, of course, watched this programme. In it, Louis Theroux spent three weeks with them in order to attempt to find out why they would do the things that they are infamous for.
The Rev. Fred himself was rude, nasty and insulting, surprisingly enough, as well as appearing to have the "don't-question-me" cult attitude. He seemed to be in the background but in control, sitting in his room(stroking a white cat--that's a given) letting everyone else get their hands dirty holding his hateful little protest signs. While he thinks about anal sex. Because seriously, there isn't a gay man who's ever lived that thinks about anal sex as much as these people.
Not to mention his batshit insane conspiracy theories. Because I'm sure that a so-called loving God goes around letting terrorists fly planes into stuff. And yes, I'm sure 9/11 was punishment to a nation that allows homosexuals--we'll just ignore the fact that there were sodomy laws in 14 states at the time, shall we? And I'm also dead sure that only Phelps himself has the right interpretation---as they all seem to believe--and the other thousands of churches are all just plain wrong. Because they say so.
I personally don't understand why we are supposed to worship this petty sex obsessed God, maybe it's just me but I don't see the appeal in it.
Shirley Phelps was the one who was actually doing the protesting malarkey. And she was absolutely crazy. Batshit insane. She and her little cult following--mostly children--stood at the side of the road with their signs. To a certain extent, they just look sad and pathetic. I mean, only three or so adults protesting?
Of course the fact that they want to go around protesting people's funerals is pretty sick, offensive, and disrespectful.
The main problem I have with their little church is what they are doing to their children, though. I mean, children that could have been no older than ten holding hate signs that they don't even understand what they mean: to me that is wrong. These poor children are going to grow up with a very skewed perception of reality: they are going to feel like everybody hates them. And because the outside world is so hostile, the only place they are going to belong is the Westboro cult. Which will only mean that the world hates them more...and the cycle goes on.
You could see the result of this in their teenage daughters and the woman in her early 20's: in general they seemed like nice people, but the force of this hateful religious indoctrination was so strong that they couldn't see that maybe they were wrong...I think they struggled aswell to see the true hatefulness of many of the things that their church preaches. Their minds have been severly damaged by this, and I personally think it is a very sad thing. I hope that there is some way that the other children can escape before they end up like this.

So, What Exactly ARE Family Values?

2007-06-17T12:34:00.000+01:00

What are "family values"? Well, it depends on who you'd like to listen to. The Religious Right likes to claim to have the monopoly on "family values". According to James C. Dobson and others like him, you're not a "proper" family if you don't conform to his ideas. And let's not forget that everybody who isn't heterosexual, or is divorced or a single parent, or supports the legality of stuff like gay marriage, they are "anti-family". This is nothing more than a cheap strawman. Nobody is "anti-family". Everyone accepts that the "one-man-one-woman-with-kids-married-for-life" formula is just fine and dandy if that's what you want to do with your life. We just appreciate that that formula is not suitable for everyone. So what exactly are my "family values"? My family values are understanding people's needs. My family values, in short, are love, tolerance and monogamy.
So don't let anyone ever tell you (if you are indeed a liberal on matters like this) that you are "anti-family". having a broader definition of something does not make you against it.

On Moderation In Religion

2007-06-16T13:38:00.000+01:00

Today's topic is: Should atheists, skeptics, brights team up with moderate religious believers to get rid of fundamentalist or extremist religion, or should atheists scorn religion altogether and attempt to get rid of faith(when I say this I don't mean forcibly.)

I'd like to start by saying that there are a lot of nice, reasonable, caring, and liberal people of faith. I even know some of them. Many religionists have contributed a lot to society. Many religious people have changed the world and fought hard to make it a better place. Alas, often against other people of faith with a different interpretation of the same book. I don't even think that most (American) fundamentalists intend to do harm, although they often do. Many of these liberal religionists decry extremism as well, and stand firm against the Pat Robertsons and Osama Bin Ladens of this world. Being as we both understand the dangers of fundamentalism, it would perhaps be best if we all opposed it as a group, and certainly we would be a lot more numerable if we did so.

However, is religion by nature "fundamentalist"? I would have to say yes. By the nature of it, everything that doesn't agree with the truth is wrong, and most religious people, even religious moderates, claim to have the truth. This sets religion up in a way so it is a very us-v-them mentality that cannot be proven wrong as such(because they will just say that they have faith.) (For an similar scenario, nationalism does the same thing: "my country right or wrong".) And of course, if you are wrong, you go to hell. Many communities define themselves in religious terms and this leads to war. And I'd imagine that even if one is a liberal religionist, it would not be difficult to slip into the fundamentalist mentality, due to this exclusive truth claim. God certainly does not seem like a moderate. Being as he orders death for those who don't worship him in many places(1). This leads us onto the fact that many people do not see the conflict as extremism-v-everybody-else, but see religion as a whole as dangerous. Being as these religious claims are false, we should use our reason to come to that conclusion.

It is definitely in our best interests to communicate with and listen to people of faith. For the mean time, it also may be best if we at least temporarily ally with like minded believers--atheists tend to have little political power, not very many numbers(in places like America) and it may be more tolerable to religious groups if their faith becomes more liberal from the inside. I think partly it depends on the issues involved aswell--regarding science and rationalism I think atheism and science must fight unreason fairly isolated; as reason and faith are opposites. On other, more societal issues contested by the religious right like abortion and gay marriage, anybody who fights for justice should join together, atheist or not.
Eventually, I feel that a world without religion would be much to our advantage and eventually, even if not at the moment, reason will have to stand alone.

(1) Bible: Deuteronomy 13.12-16, the Qu'ran 2.190-93 for examples. Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan debate this here: http://richarddawkins.net/article,536,God-Is-Not-a-Moderate,Sam-Harris-and-Andrew-Sullivan-Beliefnetcom

Skepticism

2007-06-16T13:33:00.000+01:00

On what exactly, am I a skeptic?
I am a skeptic of the notion that any religious claims are true, and I am a skeptic of the notion that religion is good thing for society.

I am against the notion that one should believe without evidence, that one should believe solely on faith. It is self-perpetuating; just go on having "faith" anyway, even if you're wrong, even if the pillars of logic behind your arguments have been knocked away. Failing that, redefine "God" in such a vague way that one cannot refute it. These type of mental gymnastics allow for even intelligent people to believe ridiculous things.
Religion is not a good thing for society. In fact, it is one of the main things that is ripping our societies apart. We end up with ridiculous laws and pointless deaths because of religious hatred. You may like to claim that this is a "perversion" of religion, but often the fundamentalists are on the winning side of the argument theologically. Religions, with their exclusivist truth claims, may never be able to co-exist.