chrisrussell

Strega,

I am no Prohibitionist and make fun of them frequently, but having to drink alcohol as a necessity is not appealing, and minor children doing it is not a good thing either. And remember alcohol is brewed with water, so there shouldn’t be anything in water that could kill yeast culture.

Ancient peoples associating alcohol use with health…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
Tribes and clans can be and were dismantled by travel and trade between different peoples.

Travel and trade come into the story.  But in the first place, if family, clan and tribe ties are dissolved to a great extent, then people become individuals.  And religion provided the trust necessary for individuals to trade, o…[Read more]

I think Holy Water is meant to have some spirit in it? And 10 year old scotch is no longer for 10 years olds.

“Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore, always carry a small snake.…..W.C. Fields.

Ha! Enco, the Church guided water ignorance had a strange but happy side effect. It turns out that the locals (in the uk) discovered that people who drunk wine, gin or beer did not get sick, whereas those drinking water were keeling over everywhere.  As a result, adults and children alike were swigging back the alcohol, giving gentle rise to the…[Read more]

Reg,

I misspelled and couldn’t edit in time.

Diogenes wouldn’t care whether his lantern put him out of the Net Zero Club.

Was Diogenes Woke?

We agree. He was not! 🙂

Jake,

All very well put! Attributing the progress we take for granted to religion and in particular Christianity and Islam is often a Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc Fallacy. Proximity in time is only one element of causation. David Hume listed a bunch of other elements of causation, but I’ll have to look that up.

You’re right also about the…[Read more]

Reg,

Was Diogenes Woke?

Where does one get that?

Diogenes wouldn’t want the “Free Palestine” crowd pitching tents next to his Grecian Urn home and possibly using it as a public toilet in his absence.

And Diogenes would care whether his lantern put him out of the Net Zero club.

And Diogenes sure wouldn’t want anyone of any identity getting in…[Read more]

Christianity back in the day and Islam in any islamic nation today is the death of individuality and individual rights. The regulation of life is all encompassing and it swallows up all that is decent and desirable in life. Listen to any honest Muslims who have forsaken their cults and you will see i know of what i speak. And everything i have…[Read more]

Simon,

I’ve got a book that says just that, and they make a good point. The Western Church, in the medieval period (500 – 1500 AD), dismantled the tribe/clan system of family favouritism, and this led to people becoming more individualist and also promoted the idea of free will (so that people could be judged, presumably). So, Christianity was…

[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
I think the writer is “tilting at windmills” and is arguing a point that does not need to be made. It could even be deemed a “strawman argument”. Her critique seems aimed more at an imagined “scientific arrogance” than at how science is genuinely practiced.

I think she’s right that science has had ideological…[Read more]

TheEncogitationer wrote:
* (That Christian Apologist Gish Galloping Galoot I once told you about one time even went so far as to claim that the entire Enlightenment experiment and even Atheism were the product of Christianity! That takes some real mental gymnastics!)

I’ve got a book that says just that, and they make a good point.  The Western…[Read more]

Yeah Enco, I don’t recall exactly when Americans started loading themselves onto the short busses because I spent my working years with teams of engineers and scientists. I generally thought the average among us had a lick of sense. My grandparents understood that vaccines do save lives and authoritarianism is bad. They knew not to eat so much…[Read more]

Robert,

Yeah, I know, it’s just a false allegory, like most of bible but it gets a point across. Plus, I think any frogs swimming in our little pond will get eaten by a largemouth bass almost immediately. There are a few very large (~10 lbs) channel catfish in there as well. I stocked the pond eight years ago.

Frogs are definitely smarter than m…

[Read more]

Burst into bull frog? There are a few known cases of it happening.

Frog log.

There i was. There i was. Northern Maine beside the lake beneath the trees fluttering and dancing in the breeze. GF sitting peacefully alongside ingesting the tranquil scene and the din of nature. Well don’t ya know i burst into bullfrog. I am a passable mimic. Even so am to this day unsure what caused me to break into bullfrog. Don’t…[Read more]

Reg and Simon,

Scientific objectivity is a myth but not every idea deserves equal time.

Just because science is practiced in the context of a particular society, culture, or time period doesn’t mean science is bound to that context and not objective.

Something is objective when it’s there when you sleep and there when you wake or when you turn…[Read more]

I think the writer is “tilting at windmills” and is arguing a point that does not need to be made. It could even be deemed a “strawman argument”. Her critique seems aimed more at an imagined “scientific arrogance” than at how science is genuinely practiced. Very few scientists claim perfect objectivity; rather, they emphasize the method as t…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
Scientific objectivity is a myth

I argue a more accurate view of science is that pure objectivity is impossible. Once you leave the myth of objectivity behind, though, the way forward is not simple. Instead of a belief in an all-knowing science, we are faced with the reality that humans are responsible for what is…

[Read more]

Thanks Reg 🙂