New enemy of reason?

Melanie Phillips discusses Dawkin’s new series in the Daily Mail, today. She starts by agreeing with Dawkins about New Age woo, but, then, oddly argues that this has become popular because reason-based Christian faith (no, really) has declined. The title:

Arrogance, dogma and why science – not faith – is the new enemy of reason

If you’ve ever read the G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown books, this was a constant theme. Ironic, when the voice of reason was a fictional Catholic priest invented by an extreme right-winger. Bizarre when the voice of reason is a Daily Mail columnist.

Echoing my thoughts about where she got the idea from, Mel P refers to Father Brown:

It was GK Chesterton who famously quipped that “when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing – they believe in anything.” So it has proved. But how did it happen?

So, her argument here is believe in the biggest myth so you don’t believe in the little myths, like aromatherapy? In that case, so far, the little myths have much less blood on their hands. So, in soem ways, New Age nonsense might be a slight improvement – if equally as absurd and even more self-obsessed than traditional religions.

No, as it turns out, for Melanie Phillips, it’s non-believers who are irrational.

The big mistake is to see religion and reason as polar opposites. They are not. In fact, reason is intrinsic to the Judeo-Christian tradition

Ranting about Dawkin’s opposition to belief in miracles leads her down some wierd logically inconsistent alleyways.

E.g. The Judeo-Christian churches are based on truth. However, the Biblical miracles are just metaphor or misunderstanding…. Oh, so not actually truth, as such, then?

The culmination seems to be that science can’t tell us anything because it leads to “scientism” a dubious “ism” that may have been invented for the purpses of the column.

The most conspicuous example of this is provided by Dawkins himself, who breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin’s theory of evolution – which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection – also accounts for the origin of life itself.

OK, my level of science knowledge is rudimentary, at best, but I am pretty certain that the Big Bang doesn’t feature in any consideration of the theory of evolution.

The BBC’s fascinating new Atoms series mentioned last week that Fred Hoyle disliked the Big Bang Theory on the grounds that to him, as an atheist, the idea smacked too much of the Hand of God.

Dare I suggest that Mel P watched the same programme? And understood even less of the physics than I did? So the mention of atheism and Big Bang in the same sentence got them confused in her mind? So she assumed that physicist was approximately equal to biologist? And that Dawkins was somehow involved in promoting the Big Bang theory?

Wait, here’s the punchline. From the flawlessly logical mental processes of Mel P, here comes Intelligent Design, the REAL SCIENCE..

Moreover, since science essentially takes us wherever the evidence leads, {My intrusive comment= does anyone else get a whiff of CSI dialogue here?} the findings of more than 50 years of DNA research – which have revealed the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life – have thrown into doubt the theory that life emerged spontaneously in a random universe.

These findings have given rise to a school of scientists promoting the theory of Intelligent Design, which suggests that some force embodying purpose and foresight lay behind the origin of the universe.

And blimey, those brave truth-seekers are being hounded for their beliefs….

……people such as Prof Dawkins and others have gone to great lengths to stop it being advanced at all, on the grounds that it denies scientific evidence such as the fossil record and is therefore worthless.
Yet distinguished scientists have been hounded and their careers jeopardised for arguing that the fossil record has got a giant hole in it. …

Oh, this magical power of Dawkins to say who gets academic jobs everywhere …. There’s no point in discussing the ins and outs of this stuff in detail. Let me just say “Distinguished scientists stifled for speaking the truth, my arse” and leave it at that.

their scientific argument about the absence of evidence to support the claim that life spontaneously created itself is being stifled – on the totally perverse grounds that this argument does not conform to the rules of science which require evidence{my emphasis} to support a theory.
As a result of such arrogance, the West – the crucible of reason – is turning the clock back to a pre-modern age of obscurantism, dogma and secular witch-hunts.

Irony laid upon irony, to form a pretty solid mattress of irony that even the most sensitive princess could get a good night’s sleep on.

Secular witch-hunts? As opposed to the real witch-hunts that ended up with people dead. And were definitely not secular. Hmm, what’s the opposite of secular?

Dogma? Hmm, if I could be bothered to look in a dictionary, I’m pretty certain it would define dogma as a set of prescribed beliefs that are part of a religion. Religion, please note.

OK, maybe she’s doing the metaphorical thing she talked about. She does say that believers don’t have to actually believe the stuff. They can treat metaphor as truth and it’s still true. But, isn’t that treating a Holy Book as just another work of fiction? Which makes perfect sense to me. Though, I somehow suspect that really isn’t what she wants to say.

All the same, it’s pretty priceless that the metaphors she has to use when she wants to talk about intolerance and blindness and stifling independent thought are all straight from the history of religion?


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Posted in Rants, Science, Society | Tagged , , , , , , ,

Christian Confusions

Now the ongoing (eternal?) debate between Christians and Atheists is somewhat repetitive and some of the common arguments work along the lines that apparently Richard Dawkins (or Sam Harris et al.) are not Professors of Divinity so they can have no opinion on theology. Atheists quite rightly respond that most atheists know the holy scriptures of several religions better than that religion’s adherents. Another of my favourite arguments is that Atheists take the bible too literally and Christians know it is all allegory. I suspect, again, the Atheists are correct on this one…

With all that in mind, thanks to the wonders of Stumble! I came across some brain numbing posts on the eternally entertaining Rapture Ready bulletin board. Now, I know that I shouldn’t expect anything resembling intelligence on Rapture Ready, but this made me laugh out loud — it was part of a discussion about Mother Teresa, and followed a post saying she was a Catholic Nun: (post link — Emphasis mine)

Wow, I’m suprised and sorry to hear that. I thought she was a Christian. Look at all the things she did that the world would consider good and saintly. Yet, if she truely was not converted (I hope she was!), her good works were dead and ultimately filthy menstration rags before God.

Seriously. So it seems Catholics are not Christians. Some one really needs to let the Hitler Youth Pagan High Priest Pope know.

The rest of the thread is equally entertaining and well worth reading but I suggest you don’t have any hot drinks in your mouth at the time. It degenerates a little bit as more and more of the evangelicals start to declare Mother Teresa a “non-Christian” because she did not force conversions onto those she saved. Saved by Grace (author of previous bit of hilarity) posts:

I took a qick read at the article and it seemed that she isn’t in a very good place. But, I agree with you, only God knows if she truly repented and trusted Jesus. If she did not however, but believed in her own goodness, however many “good” deeds she did in peoples estimation, she could not have been saved.

To God be the praise and glory. If trusting in Jesus alone isnt enough for God, I’m going to hell faster than Hitler and Husine and the Anti Christ put together.

Which was quite funny, but not in the same league as this snipped from Eve_ann_Gelical (the clue is in the name methinks):

What good does it profit it a man if he is given a piece of bread for his stomach and to have his brow wiped ? Mother Theresa did not share the “gospel” of Jesus Christ with those she “served”, her own words declare she believed that there are many paths to God. You can feed a man a piece of bread but let his eternal soul headed for an eternity seperated form God by not telling him the Truth. She fed the flesh not the spirit. The flesh dies the spirit will not. Can you imagine the scene when those Mother Theresa “feed and cared for” meet her in eternity as they are seperated from God, they may ask her why she did not share the Truth with them that could have brougfht them knowledge of salvation of the soul, not merely the caring for thier since dead body. Heavy.

As for those who say she may have had a personal relationship with Jesus, which Jesus is that ? The Bible says there are counterfeit Jesus’…
As for good works, there are many Mormons, JW’s, Muslims and even atheists who do “good works”.

God Himself knows where Mother Thersa is and I am not the judge. But what I can judge is that the “gospel” she believed in was not the saving gospel from God’s Word. She left these people to their false gods, and hoped they would become “better” Hindi’s or Buddists etc. She was allowed a place in history in the lives of thousands and thousands and she wasted that gift by not seeking to share the salvation that is through Jesus Christ alone with those who crossed her path. I believe the Enemy of men’s souls was quite pleased that she fed the poor and left them to starve to death spiritually. And he may find it humourous that mankind finds her such a hero.

You know, if this is the standard of person who gets into Heaven, I am really glad to be an atheist. I can think of no worse hell than an eternity listening to brain dead, obsessive, nasty, simpletons like this. I wonder what these people, who seemingly spend their entire lives devoted to minute study as to what is required for entry into Heaven, will actually do if they get there? What will their eternity be spent doing when they can no longer preach and convert (or irritate, as I suspect is really the case) others to their crackpot cause?

Entertainingly, the crackpots Christians on Rapture Ready often quote scripture to prove their point. Out of curiosity I followed some of the quotes and found out they were completely irrelevant to the point being made. Try it yourself, it is really funny. In one bit Saved By Grace is trying to point to a quote which says that unless people are saved by Jesus their works are “unclean” to God and he links to a book of the Old Testament. Sadly, I suspect the true irony of his quotes are missed by Saved By Grace… (I suspect “Saved By Grace” is quite young)

Anyway, Rapture Ready almost pales in insignificance compared to the crackpot, obsessive contradictory nonsense spewed out in a web page titled ‘“Mother” Teresa – General Teachings/Activities.’ As an example of the things this site states:

She was instructing these staunch Hindus to pray sincerely to their own Hindu idols and she felt that if they did this, God would certainly not judge them! No matter how plausible from man’s earthly vantage point, when good works are conducted by unregenerate religious people, what is promoted is a cursed false gospel, encouraging the lost heathen to have hope in their false gods, even as they lay upon their death beds. In God’s eyes, therefore, the entire endeavor was a cursed one, and no Christian should have supported, assisted, or praised a work cursed by God!

While this may well be technically true, it seems to miss the whole point of “Christian goodness”…

[tags]Christian,Nutcases,Nonsense,Stupidity,Old Testament, Christ, Mother Teresa, Catholics, Evangelicals, Born Again, Rapture, Religion, Belief, Religious Idiots, Crackpots, Hatred, Philosophy, Society, Culture,Idiocy[/tags]


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Posted in Philosophy, Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Scientific Vigilante

In the course of commenting on each post I read, I have come across a problem very early on. I don’t have, and don’t want, a blogger account which makes it impossible for me to comment on some blogs hosted by blogspot / blogger (see how many times you can engineer the word blog into a sentence…). To work around this, I am going to have to make my comments here instead.

On the plus side, this has the added advantage of giving the recipient blog a technorati backlink if they are interested in that sort of thing.

Anyway, the Biologists Helping Bookstores blog is hilarious. It is a shame I never came across it before. Basically, this person goes round bookstores and re-categorises the woo-books into more appropriate places, mainly moving non-science back into religion where it belongs.

My favourite post though is La Jolla Bookstar, 7/20/2007 one. Not only did it generate the comment which inspired the title for this post, but it includes the blog author moving Behe’s book to the New Age section:

Six copies of Behe’s new non-science book are relocated to their rightful place next to Everyday Magic, The Love Spell, and Grimoire for the Green Witch (what is “grimoire” anyway?).

Perfect! It is accompanied by photos as well… What more could you ask for? Although I have never done this myself, it seems lots of people have – well done to them all.

[tags]Blog, Comment Week, Biology, Behe, Evolution, Non-Science, New Age,grimoire, technorati, religion, science, society[/tags]


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Posted in Science, Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Fundamentalist Newton?

The Boston Globe has an article purporting to show that Newton believed in Intelligent design so he couldn’t possibly get a decent post in a modern university.

They reach this conclusion via a mode of rhetoric that makes you want to chew your own arm off. It’s like one of those long drawn out jokes in which the punchline is supposed to come as shock.

That is, they characterise the beliefs of an unknown professor in a succession of paragraphs that are supposed to make you think he’s a real extremist fundamentalist.

Not many modern universities are prepared to employ a science professor who espouses not merely “intelligent design” but out-and-out divine creation.

Of course, Dawkins’s name gets drawn in, Dawkins somehow having the ultimate say over all academic appointments in the fundy worldview. Continue reading


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Posted in History, Philosophy, Science, Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

BBC ethics forum

Mildly ironically, in a week in which the BBC stands accused of doing some serious blagging, there is a discussion forum on the BBC website about Ethics and freethought. OK, ethics= a Good Thing; freethought = a Good Thing. But, how will they fare under a combined onslaught from possibly the madder reaches of the commenting community? (The sort of people who populate some of the BBC comments pages)

Picking a few topics at random:

The latest discussion is called BULLMUCK and has some posts on the Hindu holy bull, Shambo, which is about to face being killed as a supposed TB danger. (Welcome to the badgers’ world.) Continue reading


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Posted in Philosophy, Society | Tagged , , ,

Cartoon capers

It beggars belief that the population of London, let alone Islamabad, is reading Danish cartoons as a matter of course. I bet the Danish speaking population of London can be numbered in the hundreds and, in Pakistan, I’d be surprised if there are more than a handful of speakers of Danish as a second language. So, the whole furore was blatantly manufactured.

All the same, to be honest, I am a bit ambivalent about this. Today, four people were jailed for 6 years each for their parts in an anti-Danish-cartoon demo. The serious response strikes me as a little like the cartoon fury in the first place.

I would never possibly condone mad anti-infidel ranting. I find the content of what teh men said deeply disturbing and even sufficient to drive me to rage. All the same, people often shout rubbish on demonstrations, carried away by the atmosphere and the pleasure of getting their rhetoric listened to. (Or you can probably replace “often” by “always”.) Who is listening except the other demonstrators? Continue reading


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Posted in Rants, Society | Tagged , , , , , ,

Religious geography

In case you ever wonder about how far people’s beliefs affect the rest of society, (Well, alright, the advent of suicide bombing probably means you have an idea that there may some connection – Look, I’m just trying to introduce the blog, OK?) piece in the Times that compares a USA map of religious adherents as a percentage of all residents, with another map showing whether each state voted Democrat or Republican in the 2004 elections.

There is a broad (but moderately convincing) similarity between the map of the densest areas of god-adherents and the map locations of Republican states.

This reinforces an impression that the Republicans have pretty well hijacked Christian “belief” across swathes of the USA.

If you keep repeating over and over that Christianity = “traditional values” = Republican, some of it is bound to stick.

I always wonder how the uncomfortable bits of Christian writings – like the Sermon on the Mount – are so easily reconciled with the social policies of the Republican right, but I assume that the religious have to get well used to picking and choosing what to actually follow in their “unerring” texts.

Otherwise, the bizarre prohibitions and injunctions in Leviticus would have to be a daily guide for Christian fundamentalists. Which would be a moderately good grin for the rest of us.

As it is, US religion-in-politics seems to relate to just being anti-abortion and anti-gay – neither of which I can remember as having been big concerns of Jesus, from my school RE lessons. In fact, I thought “Render unto Caesar” was about as overtly “political” as the New Testament got.

But, then, I have to admit to having paid minimal attention, so these may indeed have been hot political issues in ca. 0 AD Palestine.


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Posted in Philosophy, Rants, Society | Tagged , , , ,

Nonsensapedia

Once again, I am trusting that something isn’t a spoof site. I am none too confident but conservapedia seems authentic. I mean it’s not THAT funny, if it’s a joke.

“A conservative encyclopedia you can trust. The truth shall set you free.”

Well, OK, that bit’s funny. It suggests legions of dodgy door-to-door salesmen trying to flog “untrustworthy” conservative encyclopaedias.

I have to share some of the gems, starting with its atheism entry:

Atheists often equivocate that they actually have a lack of belief in any God, as opposed to having the positive belief that there is no God. This equivocation stems from the fact that if they hold positive beliefs, then their worldview can be categorized as a religion.

(As I suspected, my standard Chambers dictionary defines equivocate as “to use doubtful words to avoid answering a question.” I am lost as to why they use the word here but I guess there is not yet a working conservictionary.)

See what I mean? It’s not really funny. But it can hardly be serious.

Don’t make me spell this out AGAIN….. (Bah, too late, I am wound up and impelled to do it.)

I am pretty positive that the coffee cup I am drinking from is not embedded in my PC’s hard drive (although the PC’s random behaviour might raise this as an acceptable explanation).
In fact, I could admit to being fully positive about this belief. But I am not going to build a religion round it.

I tried to find a topic to look. I was distracted by the debate over the front page Bible quote. It is indeed quite hard to understand why “Conservative” necessarily equals “Christian”. I guess Liberation Theology never made much headway in the MidWest.

It is interesting that the christian right seem able to hijack both Christianity and political conservatism to create a truly mind-numbing worldview. I would have to question my own bigotry if I found myself seeing all Christians as right-wing bigots and all political conservatives as fundamentalist nutters. But these people just seem to want to lie invitations to kneejerk bigotry on a plate. (Labelling theory in action, for any sociologists?)

When I say “mind-numbing worldview,” I am confessing my own inability to even focus on the rest of this stuff for more than a minute or two. Otherwise it brings on almost a panic attack relating to the future of the survival of the human race.

I can handle argument with people who disagree with me. That’s how we learn, surely, by questioning our assumptions. The Socratic dialogue, and so on. I would welcome reading arguments that were coherent and thought out and might make me reconsider my kneejerk “progressive” assumptions.

But there seems to be nothing there except repeating ideas that have handed down from one set of bigots to another, without any brain tissue being engaged at all, and with the folly getting concentrated over time.

There was supposed to be some sort of progression for our species, by the 21st century, surely? “Surely?”, she rages incoherently, shaking her fist at non-existent deity, in a Homer Simpsonesque way. Bah.

[tags]atheism, conservapedia, learning, logic, religion, religious-right, right-wing, society[/tags]


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Posted in Philosophy, Rants, Society, Technology | Tagged , , , , ,

Wow – Crazy Christian Woman

In case you were in any doubt about how religion can breed some major league nutcases, then you need to see:

Crazy Christian Fat Woman

Amazing. I love the way she starts off really sad and shocked, then her righteous anger comes to the surface and she becomes a “Christian Warrior.” She is absolutely insane.

I feel sorry for her family more than anything else.

[tags]Religion, Society, Culture, Nutcases, Religious Lunatic, God Delusion, Belief, Catholic, Anti-Atheist, Weird, Woo, Christian[/tags]


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Posted in Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

More atheist footstamping

For those who do not have the regular, erm, pleasure of reading through the Comment is Free blogs on the Guardian websites, there is an interesting one there from yesterday by AC Grayling titled “A force for evil.”

The post makes interesting reading, but as you can imagine the most humour can be found in the comments. Most are pretty unoriginal and just what you expect when ever someone says religion is bad. You can largely group the comments into categories: (with kudos to jackoba who did this before me!)

  1. The ones that say religion is not all bad, look at all the good things it has done.
  2. The ones that say Atheism is worse than religion and point to Hitler (a catholic), Stalin, Pol Pot et al. as examples of evil atheists. (Prime example is the comment by powerday with an ironic twist by longsword later on where he seems to be saying Hitler was an Atheist because he seems to have believed in a Teutonic god rather than the current mainstream Christian god…)
  3. The atheists who complain about atheists criticising theists and suggest we all go back to hiding under the table. (waltzingmatilda1 provides an example of this – and without wishing to be rude, I find this sort of argument very weak and almost cowardly, basically this comment says that because “outspoken” atheists draw negative comments from theists, they should shut up and behave themselves… Blimey…)
  4. People who have no idea what they are talking about, but need to talk (often conflating atheism with a religion or making massive logical fallacy leaps – sadly there are lots of examples of this, but for now I will leave it with mckgus)
  5. People who like to post about how repetitive the argument is. ( 🙂 )

I am teetering towards the last group at the moment. Sadly, even though there are some intelligent, educated, people writing articles about atheism now, there is a strong sense of repetition there. It is a good sign of the times that so many news portals carry atheist posts now, and this probably reflects the greater divide between theists and atheists. In the UK at least, a generation ago most people were apathetic enough towards religion as to make the distinction meaningless – even the faithful over here were not rabid enough to get worked up about. Now, though, things are quite different. It is interesting that an apparent British person writes this at the end of their comment:

Also, since humanism tends towards strict individualism, autonomy of the self, reason, independent thought etc, on its own grounds, it features a very spurious supernatural being (in the way he can escape from nature), the human of humanism, the self. Not only this, but the underlying liberalistic logic of evolutionary psychology and humanism (competing individuals where co-operation is a secondary and indeed undergirded by self-interest) is doubtless an easy way at an ideological level inwhich to further shure up capitalism, and I cannot help but think that this logic (though not humanism solely, but capitalism) will ulitimately kill more than ‘religion’ ever has, once the seas begin to boil and the world begins to throw out its selfish stewards.

Heavy on the big, long words but light on the sense and logic. (He began his comment with “Where to to begin with the stupidity of what AC Grayling is saying here?” so you got a sign it was going to be good!)

The problem is, as is often the case where something is either right or wrong, the argument eventually gets bogged down. It has been some time since I read a properly “new” article on the topic. Theists as normal, are often the worst spewing out the same tired, boring, reasons why people should believe in god. Graylings article in the Comment is Free, while interesting and well written does not really open any new ground and is unlikely to convert any theists.

With this in mind, I will endeavour to find some examples of mainstream media which has “new” arguments on the pro-/anti- invisible people debate. Personally, I cant think of any new arguments so finding them will be exciting and interesting (and therefore they will get looked at here!).

Looking for a silver lining on the Comment is Free, there are very good comments from olching. F101voodoo and especially jonwaring, but my personal favourite came from sidc:

The only interesting thing about these religion/atheism threads is that the atheists can spell better than the religious nutters.

Well said! 🙂

(footnote: the title comes from a comment, not something I thought up myself! )

[tags]Atheism, Theism, Religion, AC Grayling, Belief, Religious Nutters, Beliefs, Belief, Nutcases, Fundamentalist, Society, Culture, Logic, Understanding, Guardian, Nazi, God Delusion[/tags]


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Posted in Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Anglican Church

Sadly, I am quite short of time to blog at the moment because I have just come across a priceless news item on the BBC.

Headlined “Nervous support for Church rules,” the BBC have examined the early signs of the Anglican Church’s move away from their founding principles – all because of the “risk” of Gay Bishops. I dont have time to dissect this properly, but to give you a flavour, the article begins:

The Church of England’s ruling body, the general synod, is backing a set of rules – or covenant – aimed at resolving disagreements in the Anglican Communion, such as that over the ordination of gay bishops.

While some see the move as a necessity, others believe it goes against the traditions of the Church.

Strange how a religion which is supposed to teach love, compassion and forgiveness can get its cassocks in such a twist over gay people.

[tags]Religion, Philosophy, Society, Anglican, Church, Christians, CofE, Nutters, Bigots, Discrimination, Culture, Synod[/tags]


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Posted in Philosophy, Society | Tagged , , , , , , ,

Disconnected from society

I will keep it short for now because it is late and I am tired having covered what feels like the entire length of the United Kingdom today (in a traffic jam).

The BBC have reported, in a news item titled “‘Islamic duty’ to help UK police” that:

Muslims have been told it is their “Islamic duty” to co-operate with the police to ensure Britain’s safety.

This blog has previously been accused of concentrating its attacks on Christianity, and often Atheism in general is accused of being “anti-Christian” rather than “anti-Deity” largely because it concentrates on the dominant religions in the English speaking world. There is no reason, however, why Islam should get off lightly and this brings to mind a startling example of what is really, really wrong with both the religion and how its adherents see themselves within the UK. (I can only assume this is valid elsewhere).

Basically, this statement (is it an edict?) from the Muslim Council of Britain (*) admits that “Muslims” within the United Kingdom see themselves as separate from society. The MCB are basically saying that unless told to do so by authority figures within Islam, Muslims living here will not function as members of the “British” society.

For centuries the “British” (OK, mainly the English) have been worried about Catholics coming to power here, as it was assumed they would place the authority of Rome over the needs, wants and laws of the People of Britain. While this is still a real concern (try to become king if you are Catholic for example), it seems no where near as much of a problem as this portrayal of Islam.

It is sad that a large segment of people born and bred in the United Kingdom feel patriotic towards another nation and will only behave as citizens of their homeland when ordered to do so by their Church. I am constantly amazed that so many people who dislike the lifestyles and behaviours of this (or any country) continue to live here, maybe they are some variation on the flagellants… 🙂

Isn’t the 21st century wonderful.

(*) Does Northern Ireland have its own? Do people forget that the UK is not just Britain? Does the MCB not like Northern Ireland – you could hardly blame them… 🙂 (and it would explain the B rather than MCUK…)


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Posted in Philosophy, Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Mental riff – special project

Hat tip to Black Sun Journal for sparking this off with his comment on the last post, in which he suggested searching out El Morya

(Mea culpa, I would have to say that I was only vaguely aware of Black Sun’s back story though I’d sort of picked up bits of it from the personal bits of his posts. His parents were pretty well-known leaders of a Blavatsky influenced cult. Really.)

First shock is how often El Morya pops up on web pages. “1 – 10 of about 125,000 for el morya.” Not quite a household word but probably more than you’d get for a fair number of other topics. I was going to see how many hits some science and social science phrases got but,no, it’s not like anyone would thank me.) Continue reading


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Posted in Philosophy, Rants, Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

ID proponents are theosophists

In your face, creationists. Here’s some old school stuff about Intelligent Design from Blavatsky net – amazing that Mme Blavatsky can blog from beyond the grave. Pretty well proves the survival of the soul all by itself doesn’t it? 🙂

(It’s also mildly amazing that she somehow managed to get the French form of Mrs into her name. (Like Lord Lucan. Or President Bush. It’s only us lesser folks that have to use our first names.) But I digress.)

Helena Blavatsky, in 1888, was the first person to use the phrase “intelligent design” to convey her understanding of evolution.

Continue reading


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Posted in Philosophy, Rants | Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Most viewed posts

Just out of interest, I thought I would take a look at the most popular posts on the blog and see if it gave an insight into visitors here.

The top three most viewed articles on WhyDontYou (at the time of writing this post) are:

  1. How to Defend Religion? with 2411 direct views (it even has 14 comments and over 1000 home page views).
  2. One Person’s Take On Christianity has managed a total of 2332 direct views, although it only generated three comments and 14 home page views.
  3. Content Negotiation – Mirrored Post, which despite being a blast from the past still gets 10 – 15 hits a day and has amassed a total of 1979 direct hits but in languishing in the comments stakes.

Alternatively, using Feed views you get this picture:

  1. Rapture with 5197 feed views (a paltry 106 direct views of the URL though)
  2. Faith in its death throes? with 5150 feed views but only 114 direct views
  3. Computers aren’t doctors with 5119 feed views but only 126 visits to it’s URL.

This produces some interesting assumptions about people who come here. It seems (and this correlates for more than just the top three) that a post is either popular with people coming to visit the site (direct URL views) or popular with people reading it on the feeds, but never both. For example, One Person’s Take On Christianity has amassed exactly ZERO feed views.

The most popular category is Bad Shops with almost twice as many views this year as the second most popular which is Television (13598 views vs 7278), which, given the high quality philosophical content here, speaks volumes about what people are really interested in 😀 .

Now, my original aim was to see if I could get an insight into visitors here. I am not sure the stats are really successful.  The preponderance of Religious related posts in the “most popular” lists makes sense, but I have no idea why “Content Negotiation” has become a run away success. How to defend religion has a constant stream of visitors since Ruth Gledhill linked to it in her article for the Times Online but why the others are popular currently escapes me.

From a technological point, I have no idea why the decisions between reading post / viewing feed seems so heavily polarised. There are no posts I can find which have a similar number of both, it seems very much an either/or thing.

Lastly, I wonder if, by highlighting the most popular, will this make them even more popular? I often see blogs with sidebars proclaiming the “most viewed” posts – surely this will have the effect of making those even more viewed and, as such, increasing the distance between them and others to the point at which it can never be crossed.

Comments welcome 😀

[tags]Technology, Feedburner, Feeds, RSS, Content, Blog, Philosophy, Society, Content Negotiation, Religion, Ruth Gledhill, Times, Firestats, Statistics[/tags]


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Posted in Philosophy, Society, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,