h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>non sequiturs and nonsense<<
Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb!

Can we see some content in the posts, other than 'just a bit of fun'? Ha, ha.
There's nothing amusing about blasphemy or mockery about a superior being that created life on earth.
Even if you thought it only 1% likely, what's funny? Ha ha.

FOR THE FINAL TIME....

Evolution explains bio-diversity *not* the origin of life.

Ergo

>>Darwin [...] pointed out that his whole argument began with a being which already possessed reproductive powers. This is the creature the evolution of which a truly comprehensive theory of evolution must give some account.<<

is a toothless criticism. Where evolution and natural selection kick in is when the first replicating cell-like structure appears. Now how that happened is a good question. But invoking a complex designer to explain the very simple is an intellectually bankrupt idea.


>>It now seems to me that the finding of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.<<

Really. Human Chromosome number 2. Go look it up. The Wikipedia your so fond of quoting has the story. See most thinking people who can engage their intellects see human chromosome number 2 as an excellent example of and proof of evolution. It is exactly the kind of molecular biological result that is predicted if evolution (and not design) were true. I'm not sure which DNA studies Flew has been familiarising himself with but the new and enormously powerful argument for design is I'm afraid the product of his delusion and not of the science

Oh I think blasphemy can be hilarious. Take Jerry Springer The Opera for example.

I until I ; then I bought the dvd.....

We are no more than an expression of the collective sum of derivatives that superseded that which mutated before.

>>See, most thinking people who can engage their intellects<<

That's what's the matter with "you lot". You get into a gang and make insults about people who've reached a different conclusion to yourselves. If I hear theists do that, I criticise them as well (unless it's about blasphemy and stupidity).

How can anybody have a constructive debate with people like that. You can't!
Concluding, I'd rather stick with sensible debate, and take the matter seriously. I very much respect "Flew" who's obviously being ridiculed because of changing his opinion about the existence of a Creator, after holding an atheist position for so long.

Clive! when you become Professor of Philosophy and seriously debate the issues, I might be more inclined to listen to you.
(Yes, God made roses too!)

In fairness, warner, you do make it hard for people to engage with what you say. The last post I made, for instance, you responded to with a quotation and a link which didn't seem to have anything to do with what I said.

Perhaps I'm being a bit dim, but play along and make it easy for me. Try to hop around less and explain why you're giving the quotation and why it's relevent. Otherwise I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. Sorry.

I didn't necessarily exclude you from that group Warner.

However, I'm just a little sick of having to explain time and again the difference between reality and fantasy.

It's not (in this case) the forming of an opinion that's contrary to my own that I find peculiar and insulting, it's the abrogation of evidence which you and Flew then cite. Complexity generally, and DNA in particular, is not evidence for design.

You're complaining about the lack of constructive debate when too often your contribution is a non sequitur citation from the Koran. That's a bit rich. I mean I'll withdraw my insult, if that's what you think it was, and apologise but you are the most frustrating person to talk to, because all attempts at constructive debate usually end in failure with you.

I don't ridicule Flew for changing his mind, I just don't respect his reasons for doing so.

I find it amusing you think you'd listen to me if I were a professor!
I mean, you don't listen to other professors, so it'd be a change!

Dawkins said recently, that "people who reject science have lost in the courts of law, long ago lost in the halls of science and they continue to loose with every new piece of evidence in support of evolution. Taking offence is all they've got left."

Faith is not reasoned argument, it is more often emotively charged, I am not from a scientific background and will often use poetic means to discharge my reason, so can be equally ambiguous as charged. I enjoy debate and equally enjoy reading response from more learned fellows.

Warner > Hmm,
"Antony Flew was a lecturer at the Universities of Oxford and Aberdeen, before posts as Professor of Philosophy at the Universities of Keele and of Reading." <

Do you put that info on who Flew is to give info about the link or do you think that his status as as former lecturer gives his opinion some authority?
Often theists like to use the argument from authority. Quite how they think that a *philosopher's* opinion on the origin of the universe is meant to carry authority is beyond me.

But really I s'pose it's about being able to crow that a once prominent atheist has changed his mind about God...

Only he *hasn't*!
Flew is now a deist. He has gone from being an agnostic atheist to... Deism. A belief in a divine first cause, not as that website put it "Creator God". He does not accept the truth of the biblical god. The god of Islam, Christianity or Judaism.
And even he did this 85 year old man in a increasing state of mental confusion and physical decline does not prove anything. He could be 23 and fit as fiddle and in would not make his change of view any more compelling, but perhaps less tragic.
And it is tragic. This man has been jumped upon by the likes of Lee Strobel, Gerald Schroeder and others in his decline. It is sickeningly unethical the way they have inveigled this poor chap.

"It's all too clear that Dawkins is not interested in the "TRUTH" as such but is primarily concerned to discredit an ideological opponent by any available means."

Really? Who is that is less concerned with truth and sinks to any means to do it?

Do change the average atheist's mind is very easy, all that is required is either a logical proof for that show the necessary existence of the divine or some solid observational evidence.
Abusing old men won't cut it. Theists may need to feel comfortable with their delusions, but Flew changing his mind does undermine our position in any way, it only goes to show the slimy depths to which those who claim the moral authority of a sky fairy will sink in their the desperation caused by the dearth of anything to satisfy the meagre requirements to change an atheist of sound mind and body's mind.

Even this video on Lee Strobel's site is pretty suggestive of how Flew has inveigled:
http://www.leestrobel.com/videos/Christ/strobelT2037.htm

A brief account this affair.
"Mark Oppenheimer of the Times went to Reading to interview Flew. Oppenheimer found that he was polite and agreeable, but suffering from serious memory gaps. Flew could not define terms like "abiogenesis" and was unfamiliar with the arguments advanced in the book."
http://www.daylightatheism.org/2007/11/the-exploitation-of-antony-flew.html

A long account by someone who had been in direct contact with Flew. Cites some of his letters and articles. Number of interesting links.
http://secweb.infidels.org/?kiosk=articles&id=369

warner >"It seems to me that Richard Dawkins constantly overlooks the fact that Darwin himself, in the fourteenth chapter of The Origin of Species, pointed out that his whole argument began with a being which already possessed reproductive powers. This is the creature the evolution of which a truly comprehensive theory of evolution must give some account. Darwin himself was well aware that he had not produced such an account. It now seems to me that the finding of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design."
Antony Flew<

I don't know that Flew still stands by that. He did distance himself from ID. Perhaps he has been wooed back to the woo-woo.
If so...
He is in error.
It is the field of chemistry to which the origin of that singularity belongs.
Evolution theory covers the mechanism that took a simple replicating organism to it's diverse heirs alive today.
It's all Darwin was trying to do and he did it pretty damned well. Since then the theory has been adapted as science has advanced in understanding.

I know of nothing in DNA research that argues to design. I know that evolution by mutation and natural selection has taken place in the lab:
http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2008/06/02/a_new_step_in_evolution.php

And that the double helix looks kinda pretty and that it's still obscure just how DNA came to be the standard means of transmitting information down the germ line.
But design? Ha. Tosh.

Youtube parody:

Atheist now accepts Intelligent Design
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irVqVKdiohE

Seems like relevant comic relief.

'There's nothing amusing about blasphemy '


what is blasphemy?

If I say 'Zeus is a w****r', is it blasphemy? If I say the god of the Mormon's is a w****r', is that blasphemy? Does it matter whether or not I believe in the w****r' god? Is it blasphemy if there are no believers around when I call a god a w****r'? What about saying Jesus isn't god, would that be blasphemy in some people's eyes? (I seem to remember you did that one, warner.)

Is it just saying nasties about gods that is blasphemy? What about prophets? Is insulting Mohammed blasphemy? What about making fun of Joseph Smith?

What about doctrines, beliefs, dogma? Is it blasphemy to make a cartoon about Muslim washing rituals? Can we make fun of Mormon underwear? Would anyone consider it blasphemous to -- oh, I don't know -- claim to be a Jew, a Muslim, and a Christian? Can we imagine any Jews being offended by such an idea? Christians? Muslims?

Must we bow down in respect to all religious beliefs that have ever been held? Must we respect the Classic Maya practice of penis perforation? Mormon polygamy? Animal sacrifice? The Scapegoat? The Inquistition? Suicide bombing?

Could it be possible to construe loudly clinging to discredited ideas about the physical world in the face of overwhelming evidence as something like blasphemy?

.. the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.

>> ...loudly clinging to discredited ideas about the physical world in the face of overwhelming evidence... <<

Just trying to imagine staring into the face of overwhelming evidence while loudly clinging to discredited ideas. Sounds like a good old hymn sing to me. Or maybe a chant. Or a responsive reading. Or a voodoo ritual.

They all work; it's sympathetic magic based on harmonics and rhythmically induces trances. Shame we can't have that Koran stuff read out loud. It loses so much without the patina of 1400 years of vocalised ritual.

The King James was designed after the advent of print and meant to be widely distributed to the newly literate who might well read it in privacy and silence. This allowed people the freedom to decide based on their own neuroses not mob-induced sentimentalities.


~jwf~

Hey!


Who's the w****r that took all my 'anke's out of my 'w****r's?

I certainly did not use a row of asterisks in place of perfectly good letters.




That's kind of funny: I can use the phrases 'Jesus isn't God', 'Mormon underwear', and 'penis perforation' but 'w****r' has to be hidden.

I wonder if you're allowed to say 't****r'?

"In 206 B.C. the sacred stone which embodied Cybele at Pessinus was taken to Rome, by command of the Sibylline Books, to reinforce the arms of that city against Hannibal. Thereafter her priests became a familiar sight in the capital city; clad in female garb, wearing their hair long and fragrant with ointment, they moved through the streets to the accompaniment of flutes, cymbals, tambourines and castanets, while the people showered the image of the goddess with roses. In the spring a freshly cut pine tree was brought to the sanctuary, its trunk swathed like a corpse and decked with violets (which were said to have sprung from the blood of Attis as anemones had sprung from the blood of Adonis), and an effigy was tied to the middle of the stem in dramatization of the god's death. On the next day the chief ceremony seems to have been the blowing of trumpets, but the third day was devoted to animal sacrifices and to the emasculation of the novices who were being inducted into the priesthood. While the high priest and the lesser clergy worked themselves into a mad frenzy with wild music, gashing their bodies and spattering the altar and sacred tree with flowing blood, the novices, wrought up to the highest pitch of excitement by self-scourging and laceration, castrated themselves and dashed the severed organs against the image of the goddess. Later the instruments of fertility were reverently wrapped up and buried in the earth. The blood sacrifice, the self-mutilation, the burial of the phalli, all aided to recall the dead Attis to life, while a sacramental meal of flesh and blood effected a mystic union between the god and his worshipers. On the fourth day the divine resurrection was celebrated with a ceremonial purification of the image and other sacred objects, and on the last day the people gave themselves over to a licentious carnival called the Hilaria."

From H. Smith's, 'Man and His Gods'

Now *that's* what I call an entertaining religion

'clad in female garb'


Interestingly, the Maya w****r priests who did the penis perforation thing dressed up in women's clothes. I've long suspected that the root of all religions is the latent desire men have to be women and menstruate. I mean, circumcision, penis perforation, the whole Cybelean thing, women's clothing -- there's a pattern here -- *men bleeding from the genitals while wearing women's clothing*. How bloody obvious does it have to be?




Is this blasphemy?

and 't****r' seems to be allowed.