Found these through Pahryngula, they're on New Humanist.
I have to say that the Scientologist is my favorite ^^ Loving the 'MIB' look XD I so want these!
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
Top Trumps Religion
Found these through Pahryngula, they're on New Humanist.
I have to say that the Scientologist is my favorite ^^ Loving the 'MIB' look XD I so want these!
Monday, 17 November 2008
Book Meme
Ganked off a friend on LiveJournal.
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
"There are many languages among the Sidhe," Spart said. "Some are very ancient, some are more recent. Nearly all the Sidhe speak Cascar. It would be an advantage to learn as much Cascar as you can - and you need all of the advantages that you can get."
"Some speak English," Micheal said.
"Most speak it because it is in your mind. In-speaking...
Songs Of Earth And Power. Book 01: The Infinity Concerto - Greg Bear
I'm reading an old favorite again, and it is literally sitting by my left hand - so closest it is!
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
"There are many languages among the Sidhe," Spart said. "Some are very ancient, some are more recent. Nearly all the Sidhe speak Cascar. It would be an advantage to learn as much Cascar as you can - and you need all of the advantages that you can get."
"Some speak English," Micheal said.
"Most speak it because it is in your mind. In-speaking...
Songs Of Earth And Power. Book 01: The Infinity Concerto - Greg Bear
I'm reading an old favorite again, and it is literally sitting by my left hand - so closest it is!
A Little Music...
I found this on Whisky Before Breakfast while catching up on various Blogs. I thought it was rather good - though I'm posting it a bit late ^^
Sunday, 16 November 2008
Expelled: No Intelligence At All
I just finished watching 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed'.
My initial response?
Gods that was BORING. Seriously! Ben Stein has the most monotonous voice in the world, devoid of any emotion or even inflection. Gods. Couldn't they have found someone else to do the voice-over parts? Ugh. I literally was on the verge of sleep throughout this 'movie'.
Now. Seriously. I'm not going to talk about the validity of the 'expulsion' claims, because other people have done that already, so we all know they're crap. I'll just talk about the film itself.
To put it bluntly, this film is the biggest piece of biased, unintelligent, misdirecting pieces of crap I've ever seen. It's also badly written and incredibly boring. The only 'good' things about it were the cinematography, digital animation and the sound-track (which included one of my old favorites, 'Spirit In The Sky') so kudos to the people involved in those parts of the film.
The film consists of badly edited conversations with talking-heads, video clips from black-and-white films about World War 2 and the Berlin Wall, unfounded claims with no back-up evidence, attempts to debunk evolution, plenty use of the term 'Darwinism' or 'Darwinists', wilful misunderstanding of really rather easy to understand theories, equating 'Big Science' to Communism, stupid questions and equating Darwinism to Eugenics and the Holocaust.
Stein went through the whole film trying to exude an air of confused amiability and a truthfully questioning nature. But he doesn't really pull it off, first because he is an incredibly bad actor, with one of the most monotonous and apathetic voices ever and secondly, because he kept asking the most ridiculously stupid questions about subjects even a ten year old understands at a basic level.
The 'expelled' people Stein spoke to never once offered any real evidence for their supposed expulsions, and certainly never showed anything more than tenuous connections between their expulsions and their belief in ID. Toward the end of the program, they did try to talk to a few of the employers - but it was quite evident that they only managed to get three or four of them to talk to them (one of which did say that ID played a part in the expulsion - but understandably so in that case!)
For some reason, a whole five minutes was spent in following Stein around as he tried to find the Discovery Institute, with Stein being constantly surprised that A: it was hard to find, B: it was only on one floor of a multi-story building and C: that it was actually only one suite on the one floor.
Why? I honestly don't know - was he trying to show them as the Underdog perhaps? But they try to claim that the 'ID/Evolution debate' is not a religious debate! Apparently they want to have all the available evidence made clear in science classes, so the debate can be made. (Which is patently stupid, as we all know, because the only evidence for ID is religious and religion should not be taught in the science classes.)
He then went on to ask if the people working at some Bible college, or whatever it was, were Ministers, Priests etc, seemingly amazed when they said they weren't. Then he went on to ask if various famous Creationists had given them money and again was surprised when told 'no'.
Throughout the film, the ID people he speaks to, every last one of them talks about 'other theories' or 'lack of evidence' to prove evolution, without offering any evidence to back up these claims. They even at one point talk about the whole theory itself being 'cloudy' and 'distorted' - one proponent of ID mentions evolution as 'misinterpreted' - that as 'Change Over Time' it can be believed, but as 'change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species' it cannot!
*facepalm*
For some reason, one of the people Stein talks to is a Journalist! They talk about Dawkins not having the credentials to talk about ID, but for some reason, it's perfectly fine for Stein to get a Journalist's thoughts on the subject matter? Even if she was fired for writing about ID in a favorable light, it still doesn't make her qualified to talk about this subject. Now, either they stop using this woman as one of their spokespeople, or they stop claiming Dawkins et al don't have the credentials.
There is an awful lot of Argument From Authority in this film - a lot of the talking heads make mention of the various Science Greats from the past, the ones who were Christian. They were careful to gloss over the fact that these people tended to live in periods where there really was no other option, happily harping on that if these people, who were great scientists, were still Christian - why should scientists now ignore any other scientist who is?
The most annoying part of the whole film, to me at least, was Stein's ridiculous and wilful misunderstanding of one of the theories of the origin of life. The theory that life may have started out piggy-backing on the backs of crystals - a sound and interesting theory. Stein just goes on and on, refusing to see what he's being told: 'I don't get how you go from muuuud to a living cell'.
My disgust in that particular scene, is closely followed by my disgust in the little cartoon 'The Casino Of Life' which features a small cameo that I think is supposed to be Professor Richard Dawkins. It's just so stupid!
However, trumping everything else in the film that disgusts me, is the section where Stein et al start making allusions to Hitler and Eugenics, as if these two things tarnish the whole Field of evolutionary biology as immoral. Now Ben, really, as a Jew, you aught to know better than to use your own peoples history like that. Not only was that a despicable thing to do, it also proved nothing!
Now, the final conversation, between Stein and Dawkins was horrendous. Stein was again playing the idiot, asking really rather stupid questions, positing Pascal's Wager and all around getting on both my and Dawkins' nerves. The opening shots of the conversation, of course, tried to show Dawkins in a bad light, with people fussing around him, applying make-up and so on, while Stein simply stepped out of his car and straight (my arse) onto the set.
Over all - it was an incredibly bad, incredible boring, incredibly badly thought out and badly researched, incredibly biased film. I pretty much spent the entire film wanting to slap Stein upside the head for being a complete twat.
My initial response?
Gods that was BORING. Seriously! Ben Stein has the most monotonous voice in the world, devoid of any emotion or even inflection. Gods. Couldn't they have found someone else to do the voice-over parts? Ugh. I literally was on the verge of sleep throughout this 'movie'.
Now. Seriously. I'm not going to talk about the validity of the 'expulsion' claims, because other people have done that already, so we all know they're crap. I'll just talk about the film itself.
To put it bluntly, this film is the biggest piece of biased, unintelligent, misdirecting pieces of crap I've ever seen. It's also badly written and incredibly boring. The only 'good' things about it were the cinematography, digital animation and the sound-track (which included one of my old favorites, 'Spirit In The Sky') so kudos to the people involved in those parts of the film.
The film consists of badly edited conversations with talking-heads, video clips from black-and-white films about World War 2 and the Berlin Wall, unfounded claims with no back-up evidence, attempts to debunk evolution, plenty use of the term 'Darwinism' or 'Darwinists', wilful misunderstanding of really rather easy to understand theories, equating 'Big Science' to Communism, stupid questions and equating Darwinism to Eugenics and the Holocaust.
Stein went through the whole film trying to exude an air of confused amiability and a truthfully questioning nature. But he doesn't really pull it off, first because he is an incredibly bad actor, with one of the most monotonous and apathetic voices ever and secondly, because he kept asking the most ridiculously stupid questions about subjects even a ten year old understands at a basic level.
The 'expelled' people Stein spoke to never once offered any real evidence for their supposed expulsions, and certainly never showed anything more than tenuous connections between their expulsions and their belief in ID. Toward the end of the program, they did try to talk to a few of the employers - but it was quite evident that they only managed to get three or four of them to talk to them (one of which did say that ID played a part in the expulsion - but understandably so in that case!)
For some reason, a whole five minutes was spent in following Stein around as he tried to find the Discovery Institute, with Stein being constantly surprised that A: it was hard to find, B: it was only on one floor of a multi-story building and C: that it was actually only one suite on the one floor.
Why? I honestly don't know - was he trying to show them as the Underdog perhaps? But they try to claim that the 'ID/Evolution debate' is not a religious debate! Apparently they want to have all the available evidence made clear in science classes, so the debate can be made. (Which is patently stupid, as we all know, because the only evidence for ID is religious and religion should not be taught in the science classes.)
He then went on to ask if the people working at some Bible college, or whatever it was, were Ministers, Priests etc, seemingly amazed when they said they weren't. Then he went on to ask if various famous Creationists had given them money and again was surprised when told 'no'.
Throughout the film, the ID people he speaks to, every last one of them talks about 'other theories' or 'lack of evidence' to prove evolution, without offering any evidence to back up these claims. They even at one point talk about the whole theory itself being 'cloudy' and 'distorted' - one proponent of ID mentions evolution as 'misinterpreted' - that as 'Change Over Time' it can be believed, but as 'change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species' it cannot!
*facepalm*
For some reason, one of the people Stein talks to is a Journalist! They talk about Dawkins not having the credentials to talk about ID, but for some reason, it's perfectly fine for Stein to get a Journalist's thoughts on the subject matter? Even if she was fired for writing about ID in a favorable light, it still doesn't make her qualified to talk about this subject. Now, either they stop using this woman as one of their spokespeople, or they stop claiming Dawkins et al don't have the credentials.
There is an awful lot of Argument From Authority in this film - a lot of the talking heads make mention of the various Science Greats from the past, the ones who were Christian. They were careful to gloss over the fact that these people tended to live in periods where there really was no other option, happily harping on that if these people, who were great scientists, were still Christian - why should scientists now ignore any other scientist who is?
The most annoying part of the whole film, to me at least, was Stein's ridiculous and wilful misunderstanding of one of the theories of the origin of life. The theory that life may have started out piggy-backing on the backs of crystals - a sound and interesting theory. Stein just goes on and on, refusing to see what he's being told: 'I don't get how you go from muuuud to a living cell'.
My disgust in that particular scene, is closely followed by my disgust in the little cartoon 'The Casino Of Life' which features a small cameo that I think is supposed to be Professor Richard Dawkins. It's just so stupid!
However, trumping everything else in the film that disgusts me, is the section where Stein et al start making allusions to Hitler and Eugenics, as if these two things tarnish the whole Field of evolutionary biology as immoral. Now Ben, really, as a Jew, you aught to know better than to use your own peoples history like that. Not only was that a despicable thing to do, it also proved nothing!
Now, the final conversation, between Stein and Dawkins was horrendous. Stein was again playing the idiot, asking really rather stupid questions, positing Pascal's Wager and all around getting on both my and Dawkins' nerves. The opening shots of the conversation, of course, tried to show Dawkins in a bad light, with people fussing around him, applying make-up and so on, while Stein simply stepped out of his car and straight (my arse) onto the set.
Over all - it was an incredibly bad, incredible boring, incredibly badly thought out and badly researched, incredibly biased film. I pretty much spent the entire film wanting to slap Stein upside the head for being a complete twat.
Friday, 14 November 2008
Waterstones vs Christian Voice
To whomever it may concern,
I am writing to voice my disgust at your company's inability to stand up against Christian Voice. There is no concievable reason to cancel a simple poetry reading, even if a small group of right wing Christian lobyists do complain. Do you plan to react like this to every single lobyist group that pipes up? If not, why now, for this particular group?
It is obvious that this was religiously motivated; the poet wrote about religion and sex in ways that this particular group disliked. So, a few emails were sent - in this day and age, this is nothing new. Arm-chair lobyists now have desk-chairs instead. This does not make the cancellation appropriate.
Will you cancel a poetry reading, featuring the hollocaust, if the hollocaust deniers write in to complain? Will you cancel a poetry reading by a black poet, if racists write in to complain? How about if a female poet takes the stand and you receive complaints from Muslims?
Christian Voice has already caused too much havoc for you to bow down to them over such a small, yet important thing. Freedom of speech should not be regulated by the religious, it should not be regulated by anyone. This poet was causing no problems - so what if his words offended a few? Art in all it's forms is there to create debate. Cancelling this reading stifled any such thing.
And to blame the cancellation on a fear of 'disruption'? That simply lends fuel to their fire. Let them turn up, let them protest. In the long run, they are more likely to be arrested than to cause any actual harm. And on the upside - plenty of free advertising for your store. Instead, you have simply handed them a 'victory' on a platter.
I am afraid to say that this reaction has ensured that I will not be purchasing from your stores again. Your company's actions have severely disappointed me, and until I see something towards a proper appology and perhaps another poetry reading evening, where Patrick Jones is actually able to read his work, I will not be returning.
Sincerely,
Hannah King
Calne
In response to this article: Writer shocked as Christian group forces cancellation of poetry event
Read the poems that so offended Christian Voice here: Patrick Jones
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
Discussing things with a Christian
From an impromptu discussion held in the DeviantArt Forums.
Is it me - or did that end as expected?
the-universal-studio: what tends to throw me off is when someone will quote a part from the old testament, and automatically apply it to Christianity. Much of the rules set out in the old testament are overruled by Jesus, taking up forgiveness and love in the place of mass executions.
whisperelmwood: Yet 'Hell', one of the worst things described in the Bible, is something Jesus came up with. Lovely man.
the-universal-studio: well, you can't have good without bad, otherwise there would be no good because there is nothing to challenge it.
whisperelmwood: That's rather bad apologetics, really.
'You need the stick as well as the carrot, otherwise they won't do as they're told!'
Nope. Doesn't work for me, I'm afraid. I don't believe in Heaven or Hell, I'm about as Atheist as it gets. Yet, I live a good life; I don't hurt people, I don't steal, I don't knowingly break the law. Anyone who does good things only because they think they'll go to Hell if they don't, is not a nice person.
I'm good because I know that's the right thing to be, not because I'm scared some beard in the sky will send me to Hell for eternity if I'm not.
the-universal-studio: well, I wasn't exactly debating the issue. but since we're on the topic, I'll throw out my thoughts on the matter.
It is not whether or not someone is a good person or not that determines if someone goes to hell or heaven, rather, it's a belief in Jesus Christ, while being a good person adds favor towards going to heaven. Of course, you don't believe in such a notion so it doesn't matter to you and you try to be a good person (from what I've perceived) for the sake of you and those around you. While I myself do this as well, there is that extra motivation to do good and to remain so. Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, and those happen to be mine.
whisperelmwood: No, I suppose my original point was to say that people may paint Jesus as all goodness and light, but on an awful lot of topics, he really wasn't. Same goes for a lot of 'holy' people (Muhammed for instance married a child - and you don't have a platonic relationship when you're married, espescially not in those days) up to and including Mother Teresa and Ghandi.
However, what you've said brings up another point. If it really is only a belief in Jesus that gets you into heaven - there are going to be an awful lot of pedophiles, murderers, rapists etc in heaven. The Westboros - some of the most repugnant people around - in my eyes commit child abuse as well as harrasment, stalking, mental turture and so on, on a daily basis - yet they beleive so damn strongly in the Bible and all that it teaches. So according to the 'belief' rule, they'll go straight to heaven, because, again according to the Bible, they are not committing any acts that will send them to hell.
There's my main problem. Religion is pick and choose. You can pick any of the holy books (except maybe for whatever book the Jainits use) and you can cherry pick them to suit whatever you want.
Want to vilify homosexuals? Got a tonne of scripture for that.
Want to make women into second class citizens? Same.
Want to keep slaves? Again, a tonne of scripture (Jesus himself even tells you how to mark them as your own.)
It goes on and on. This is why I mistrust people who cite holy scripture as their moral basis and is also why I prefer to use my own morals - which happen to coincide with socities morals as a whole (less those few who enjoy killing, raping etc).
(On a side note - if Jesus over-ruled th OT, why do people still adhere so rigorously to the Ten Commandments as written by Moses? The first couple of which clearly point towards a rather juvenile, egotistical, man-made diety.)
the-universal-studio: I'm not debating this. Any attempt on my part to convince you otherwise of something you believe in will be overturned by your belief system, and anything you say to me will be overturned by my belief system. I have several points I can bring up but it's futile to debate about religion with someone who has opposite viewpoints.
whisperelmwood:Uh - that's kind of the whole point of 'debate' - but never mind.
Is it me - or did that end as expected?
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Monday, 10 November 2008
Fighting Monks
I've decided this is brilliant!
Armenians on one side and Greek Orthodox on the other - both Monks, of course.
Isn't it great how, despite believing in the same book, they can't settle their disputes like adults?
'Teaching The Debate'?
Spotted this article over at Why Don't You Blog? talking about this article in the Times Online.
Seems a neat 29% of UK teachers think Creationism should be taught in school, in science classes.
(These numbers may be skewed, however, because the poll was online and open to anyone who had access to the website - it also didn't exclusively ask Sceince Teachers.)
Now, as I think I have said before, I have no problem whatsoever with this, just so long as they teach every creationist theory there is, and not just the Abrahamic version.
Of course, I would prefer they teach them all in the RE classes, but if it has to go in the science classes, lets just make pretty damn fucking sure they teach ALL OF THEM.
And, if they do this, the fucking Christian's are not allowed to complain. Because, y'know what? You pushed for it in the first place! And it's only fair that they ALL get equal footing, not just the Abrahamic ones, because again, y'know what?
THEY ARE ALL EQUALLY FUCKING STUPID.
I hate creationists. And yes, I do tarnish you all with the same fucking brush. A creationist is a creationist, no matter which theory he believes - wise old men singing the world into existence or a beard in the sky breathing life into clay.
I don't give a shit how pretty any of the stories are - they're all fucking wrong and not a single one of them should be let anywhere near a science class.
Back it up with peer reviewed, empirical evidence, and then we'll talk. Until then, STFU and GTFO.
Seems a neat 29% of UK teachers think Creationism should be taught in school, in science classes.
(These numbers may be skewed, however, because the poll was online and open to anyone who had access to the website - it also didn't exclusively ask Sceince Teachers.)
Now, as I think I have said before, I have no problem whatsoever with this, just so long as they teach every creationist theory there is, and not just the Abrahamic version.
Of course, I would prefer they teach them all in the RE classes, but if it has to go in the science classes, lets just make pretty damn fucking sure they teach ALL OF THEM.
And, if they do this, the fucking Christian's are not allowed to complain. Because, y'know what? You pushed for it in the first place! And it's only fair that they ALL get equal footing, not just the Abrahamic ones, because again, y'know what?
THEY ARE ALL EQUALLY FUCKING STUPID.
I hate creationists. And yes, I do tarnish you all with the same fucking brush. A creationist is a creationist, no matter which theory he believes - wise old men singing the world into existence or a beard in the sky breathing life into clay.
I don't give a shit how pretty any of the stories are - they're all fucking wrong and not a single one of them should be let anywhere near a science class.
Back it up with peer reviewed, empirical evidence, and then we'll talk. Until then, STFU and GTFO.
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