Lars

@tomsarbeck I think it’s the guilt. When those trying to shed the chains of Catholicism feel guilty about something, it drags them back to the confessional as they have not learned how to process guilt in a secular way.

Simon Paynton wrote:
I just think that insulting someone’s religion can be like insulting their mother: for a lot of people, it’s not nothing.

Yes. For sure. There is nothing virtuous about insulting a religion. However, it isn’t inherently wrong. The  “mother” example is relatable with religion in this sense:

Someone’s mother is spouting raci…[Read more]

re: rights of belief

Cheat sheet:

The four rights (holding beliefs, expressing beliefs, acting on beliefs, imposing beliefs) are separate and are not interchangeable nor does having one right guarantee another right. One of these rights does not exist:

• Right to hold a belief = unquestionable. No one can take that away from you.
• Right to…

[Read more]

The man, a University of Auckland academic who has not been named, was fired after he was found trying to make a Muslim woman shake his hand before making the complaint according to an email from vice-chancellor Stuart McCutcheon.

Mr McCutcheon said the man did it intentionally knowing it was culturally and religiously inappropriate to ask the…

[Read more]

@regthefronkeyfarmer I think he’s on the bus again 🙂

The article nuance is that the academic who was fired was well aware of the custom of not shaking hands with females of Muslim religion, and attempted to provoke a discrimination charge.  I somehow doubt that hand shaking is an integral part of the schools education process, and it would appear, from the article, that the academic was trying to…[Read more]

michael17 wrote:
Reg: ”What you are telling me Michael, or at least what I am hearing, is that you believe that it is possible that you will exist in some form in 20 billion years time as an immortal. Is that a correct assessment of your belief?” Science’s answer to the anthropic principle is the Mult-verse which is unfalsiable. I choose God,…

[Read more]

@Michael

Okay. Thanks for the clarification. I take it then that you use metaphors a lot, which is one way of saying: you don’t really mean a lot of things that you say. It’s difficult to take someone seriously when their text is littered with possible metaphors. I recommend using them VERY sparringly. In my hunble opinion.

“No one created our universe, and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization; There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that I am extremely grateful.”

Stephen Hawking

How sad, and yet how amazing his life was.  Born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo’s death, the news of Stephens death reaches us on Albert Einstein’s birthday. He was proud of the Galileo connection, so I imagine the Einstein birthday thing would have pleased him too.

He inspired so many people.

Would you like me to list some authors who have written about a pink unicorn?

Hi @Michael17 you’ll have to be specific about the source and what it specifies.  Well your several repuditable independent sources, actually.

@michael17 it’s as if I announced that I was in search of a pink unicorn, I’d read about it from many sources, even seen pictures, but I’d yet to find it.  It would trigger incredulous responses and I wouldn’t be taken seriously. What is the difference?

@regthefronkeyfarmer good luck with the horses!