Daily Archives: Sat, 19 May, 2007

Capricious Pedantry

Posted on by

I know I should have learned my lesson long ago and I promise to stop responding to Parabiodox’s baiting after this post… (At least I will try).

Previously, I made a post about Christian humour in which I commented that the expected answer to a ranting comment would be “Atheists (agnostics etc)” rather than the Abrahamic religions I previously claimed. Now, I never meant this to imply Atheists were the same as agnostics, and if anyone did take away that impression from my (lengthy) post than I apologise wholeheartedly.

I am fully aware Atheism is not Agnosticism, and personally I do not find “agnosticism” a reasonable viewpoint which can be counted as an opinion. Agnosticism is (remember this is my personal viewpoint!) a good point of view for something about which you have no opinion. I am agnostic as to the existence of life on a planet orbiting Beta Canis Major for example. I am not agnostic about the existence of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Leprechauns, Pixies, Elves, Orcs, Gobilins, Demons, pink Unicorns or all manner of imaginary nonsense. What on Earth gives a particular religion special privileges about it’s claims to the existence of one (or more) deities? I will return to this.

Continue reading →

Dr Who – Alien meets 24

Posted on by

Another pretty good Dr Who episode tonight.

Visually, Dr Who is getting better and better. There was better rendering (a good space ship and a bubbling sun) and more interesting lighting (red and blue on the face close-ups) than we’d expect from normally cash-short British tv.

Altogether, it had the look and feel of “proper” sci-fi. Racing headlong into the sun is par for the course. (Solaris, and the film where Bruce Willis has to destroy an asteroid.) So is being trapped on a space ship with an unknown evil entity. (Alien, 2001.) As well as being stalked by a mechanical humanoid figure. (Predator, Terminator, Judge Dredd.) The computer female voice that keeps giving out unemotional messages of the pressure of time (can’t think of a reference sorry, but it seems standard…)

The main visual influence seemed to be the Alien movies (with a nod to Das Boot, but maybe that’s just me.) Both male and female technicians looked like the crew of Alien (vests, combat suits, artfully arranged sweat) . The ship also had the same sort of look and there was an intense claustrophobic feel to the plot, as well as to the sets.

This episode was called “42”, with a nod to Douglas Adams (the “answer to the universe”) and to “24” (the episode was supposed to be in real-time and there was a 42 minute timer countdown providing constant pressure).

So, a bit of an art-house-for-nerds episode. This series is shaping up to be the best one ever. Although this is from someone who loves sci-fi clich̩s. And who thinks that the very first Dr Who series Рwith that weird Quatermassy feel and the old man with long white hair Рand the mainly-played for laughs Tom Baker Dr Who were the only really good bits, out of what was often dire.

[tags]42, dr-who, episode, rave, sci-fi, sci-fi-cliches, television, tv, BBC, Douglas Adams[/tags]

Dishonour killing

Posted on by

There’s an interesting site, though it’s such a depressing topic, called Gendercide that has some intelligent discussion of so-called honour killings, as well as a fair amount of other information about killings where the gender of the murdered person is a main factor.

Sometimes, men are also killed for being men, as in Iraq under Saddam, where Kurdish men were seen as potential future fighters and killed.

In fact, whether you are male or female, Iraq must have been close to the worst place to live on the face of the earth for a couple of decades now. (This appears to go double if you are Kurdish.)

Two Quick Follow Ups

Posted on by

First off, Parabiodox has responded to my “Do Christians Have a Sense of Humour” post and it seems the answer is “yes, just a bad one 🙂 .” When I asked “Do Christians have a sense of humour? … or was he just all cut up over the death of Jerry Fallwell…“” the response was:

No. It means I can go back to watching Teletubbies again with a clear conscience.

Can’t say fairer than that, can I?

On a more serious note, following up on the sad story of the crazy “honour” killing, there is a post on anthropology.net which examines some of the issues from an anthropological view point (Heather, Take note). For the stronger viewer, the video footage is available from that site, although I have not watched it my self and can not comment. As an aside, if you had asked me a few years ago I would have been stunned to even think of considering Anthropology (or any social science) as a science, but I am learning to change my ways.

[tags]Yazidi, Murder, Death, Kill, Religious Intolerance, Christianity, Humour, Evil, Barbaric, Parabiodox, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Insane, Cruel, Anthropology[/tags]

Perils of Faith

Posted on by

Well it seems Toutatis does indeed work in mysterious ways. After reading, and responding to a post which chastised this blog and Atheists in general, for concentrating on attacking Christianity, I stumbled upon an article in the Daily Mail which managed to shock even my jaded mindset.

On the off chance some of you are faint hearted, I should warn you the original article has a some pictures which could be construed as quite shocking although given the subject matter they could be worse. If you visit the Mail article please be aware of this and don’t come crying to me afterwards.

The Daily Mail carries an item about a 17 year old girl who was beaten to death (in Northern Iraq) by her family, while “hundreds” [according to the Mail] of onlookers cheered and shouted support of the murderers. In typical Daily Mail writing style the article begins:

Continue reading →