Simon Paynton

You’re right, it’s criminal that a medical practitioner tried to force a woman to either have an abortion, or a baby, against her will.

In this case, it’s the dishonesty and lack of integrity I can’t stand.  I can accept that other people have different views about contraception than me, but it’s up to the individual to make their choice in what they lawfully do.  Don’t want to use emergency contraception: don’t use it.  Just don’t dishonestly force others into the same po…[Read more]

Gender Justice sues rural pharmacies for refusing to dispense emergency contraception

I feel bad for the lady who was denied emergency contraception, and it’s shocking that the pharmacist lied about its availability.  Corruption is always shocking.  It seems to be true that when someone does wrong, they ground their justification in shared norms o…[Read more]

On working with Alex Jones of Infowars.

Sounds like a classic “dark traits”, “me first” personality.

We may have domesticated ourselves once we split from our extinct relatives.

We must have domesticated, i.e. removed the dominance hierarchy of traditional great apes, but I think it happened by 2 million years ago, along with the rise of stone tools, pair bonding and cooperative breeding.  This means that Neanderthals, and every human species,…[Read more]

How to change the course of human history.

About the history of human equality and inequality.  I’m not sure what it’s saying, apart from that some of the assertions given about it might be faulty, which I agree with.  It’s likely that by 400,000 years ago, we were living in large tribes rather than bands, split up into small camps.  This is wh…[Read more]

Therefore you “do buy the argument”, do you not?

I was taking the point of view of the other side, which believes in God-given morality.  But I don’t agree with that side.  I just think that Pearce’s argument was incoherent.  If God makes some laws, then they would have to be “absolute” – but what does that mean exactly?  People are vague or ques…[Read more]

The morals of gods are subjective and therefore so are the morals of any theist.

This seems like an interesting free-ranging discussion of morality in general, and I disagree with most of it.

I don’t buy the argument that if morals come from God, they’re subjective as they exist in His mind and are therefore not mind-independent.  But the mind…[Read more]

Dogs are cooperative breeders like humans are.  So, a human baby will look around at all the people in the vicinity, as if soliciting care, and is normally cared for by multiple people.  In contrast, an ape or monkey baby clings tight to its mother for the first six months or so of its life.

avid jihadists

It wouldn’t surprise me if the majority of terrorists, of every stripe, have personality disorders of the de Sade type.

Where is his proof?

I have to say, I agree with “Roderic” that Dawkins and Dennett sometimes sound pretty ignorant when it comes to making pronouncements about religion.  As an ex-Catholic, you’re more qualified to speak about it than many.

_Robert_ wrote:

Just silliness.

I think he comes across as a bit of a dick – blaming atheism for increased political polarisation, for example, or calling us “deviants” – but I have to say I agree with a lot of his general points, mainly, that atheists often don’t have a good “insider’s” view of religion.

He also has an overly-pessimistic view…[Read more]