Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

In case I forget – Faux News has reported that the world will end tomorrow. I will ask Alexa to use her skills to pray it does not happen.

A young boy confused by the God delusion is further confused by the Cuddly One. I was trying to phone the Church about it but the phone lines have been busy all week.

Can you spot what is wrong with these arguments by apologist Anthony DeStefano.

Jesus kicked them out but the FFRF is trying to put tax collectors back into Church. OK, but when is a Church not a Church?

Muslims are thriving in America. Atheists in Egypt are not. Fundamentalists in Congress are.

What can you buy for ten bucks these days? Not a cure for the cognitive dissonance crippling the GOP at any rate.

This weeks’ Woo: There is no such thing as an addictive personality.

Climate Change: It will be catastrophic if the Gulf Stream collapses.

What is Logic and will Quantum anomalies make us rethink Reality?

A look at human adaptation to our environments and in our workshops. I would like to talk to the Evangelicals about Evolution and I will tweet more about it later, once I get a new hashtag.

As I mentioned at the top, the world might end tomorrow but how will the Universe end?

On escaping the Echo Chamber (see last video too).

What are the odds you understand statistics?

Some photographs taken last week.

This week I am reading this book: The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil…..

Coffee Break Video:  This should be an interesting conversation between Sam Harris and Sean Carroll. Why not some Hitchens as it was his birthday this week. Even if you disagree with people it is often worth listening to them.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Have a great week everyone!!

Public policy must put “respect for the law” before “respect for the values of others”.

British House of Lords Committee.

[Strega]

Thanks, Reg!

[Old Account]

Thanks for a nice list of links as usual, Reg!

I wondered about sputnik as a source.  I guess for an article about the gulf stream collapsing, it would be ok.  Will Nibiru change the intensity or direction of the gulf stream?

[David Boots]

To the muslim in the Nat Geo article who said ‘Why do I have to prove to you that I’m a good guy?’

The answer is simple – your religion has lost the benefit of the doubt and you have failed to distance yourself from those who bring shame to your theocratic cult.

And you might find non muslims a little more sympathetic if you took a strong unequivocal stance against violence in the name of your faith.

This is the sort of theocratic woo that really makes the jaw drop – ‘Only the copper domes and marble slabs carved with quotations from the Muslim holy book, the Quran, would survive.’

[Noel]

Thanks for the Sunday School Reg!

“As I mentioned at the top, the world might end tomorrow but how will the Universe end?”

LOL! I still giggle my ass off every time some yahoo comes out with one of these “The worlds ending tomorrow” pronouncements. It’s as if, to them, science don’t exist.

But I’ve always been intrigued by the theory of the end of the universe blinking out in a fizzle. Expending all energy until there is nothing except total darkness in the universe.

I actually grow melancholy when ever I think that the planet has only several billion years before our dying Sun engulfs it’s orbit and renders it no more. Why? Why do i become so sad? I won’t even be a footnote in the history of man so why so sad? Guess I always view the planet as a constant.

 

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

@Noel – I was once at a Lawrence Krauss talk where he relayed this story:

“I was once asked by a member of the audience whether or not I had said that the end of the Universe was at least 5 billion or 5 million years away. I said “5 billion” to which came the reply, “phew, well that’s ok then””.

[tom sarbeck]

After so many years, have those Faux Noise people still not read Douglas Adams? Sad.

 

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

@Tom, I told them the answer was 42 but they did not even know what the question was.

[Davis]

A fine Sunday school indeed.

[Simon Paynton]

The thing is with logic is that each system has its own logic – those principles that determine what happens to the system, either internally, or as a whole.

I would say that physical logic and numerical logic are one and the same.  I think that mathematics can produce logical systems analogous to these, but with their own individual rules.

Living things have their own logical rules: they seek to thrive, survive and reproduce.  Religion and spirituality carries this logic within it, but organised religion has other rules or goals, other logics: such as, do what we say or else you’re going to hell.  These seem like artificial perversions of the original “living things” logic.

I also agree with the position that logic and rationality are social: we make sense for the purpose of telling others about it, as well as for individual problem solving.

[Simon Paynton]

“apologist Anthony DeStefano”

– “since [Christopher Hitchens] died, I think there hasn’t been a trace of wit or cleverness to come out of the mouths of any of the new atheists.”

– ouch.  Has he not missed the boat, though?  Has not the landscape changed?  What is the state of New Atheism now?  Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett are surely the only ones flying any kind of flag now, and they seem a bit dated to me.

I would have thought we’ve moved on a bit from “religion-bashing” and have become more sophisticated.  Atheist Ireland is working towards a tolerant secularism in Ireland, I’m doing a philosophical alternative to religion (morality, ethics, spirituality based on evolution and science), other people are doing I don’t know what, we’re having quiet civilised discussions, we don’t get those loud strident voices any more.  Even though I didn’t really like them, I have to say they’ve been effective at shaking religion’s foundations.

Anyway, I have to say I like the guy (DeStefano) even if I don’t agree with everything he says.  It’s quite refreshing to hear Christians getting muscular and annoyed, since in the UK they tend to be a bit wimpy and passive-aggressive.

He says that Christian values and atheist values are different.  How so?  Only in cultural ways, which are (or should be) superficial.  Presumably both believe in helping in response to need, and fairness, for example, but they will interpret these differently.

He is however a little bit daft (also, true?), which I find endearing:

I think most of the atheists writing their books and blogs today are not sincere. Rather, I think they are practicing their own religion — a religion of unbelief — and I think they wish to spread this religion of nothingness to the whole world. In fact, their dogmas are so powerful that their whole thinking process is overwhelmed, and it’s extraordinarily difficult for them to be humble. That’s why I’m not worried about it at all. As I say on the very first page of Inside the Atheist Mind, this book is not for atheists, it’s about them.

[Simon Paynton]

“addictive personality”

– all I know is there are certain people who feel compelled to self-medicate with whatever they can get their hands on to make themselves feel better.

I think it makes sense that if someone spent a formative phase in their life wanting and never getting, then they are stuck with a lot of feelings of “want” or “need” that they have a hard time fulfilling.

[Author]

Posts