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"We live in a fascinating, beautiful and, let's face it, dangerous enough universe without complicating matters with gobbledegook."
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THE VIEW FROM
NUMBER 80 |
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Old issues of the original newsletter, Past Views, are archived in the sidebar and run from December 1999 to May 2005. Below you will find the current content which is also archived in the sidebar under, unsurprisingly, Number 80 Archive. The email link at the bottom of the page is for feedback and comment if you think it may help. Please note correspondence may be published on this site unless you stipulate otherwise. Should correspondence be deemed abusive or threatening, any such stipulation will be ignored. If you place a link to Number 80 on your own website could you please link to this homepage - thanks. Faith-Based News - check out Faith-Based News, a collection of links to news and comment reflecting the influence of religion/superstition/pseudoscience/irrational beliefs (this now includes so-called "alternative medicine") around the globe, with some occasional observations and asides.
The situation in Pakistan is
grave. The UN estimates that 20 million people have been affected by the
worst monsoon-related floods in living memory, with tens of thousands of
villages entirely under water. 8 million people are in need of immediate
assistance, including food and medical aid, and 4.6m of these have been
left without shelter. Hawking Hasn't Changed His Mind About God - Roger Highfield, editor of New Scientist sets things straight.
UFOs And An Enigmalith
- here is an interesting
article from Air & Space Magazine on the subject of UFOs although it
is not without its faults. One such is the statement "The first
flying saucer sighting is generally credited to a hobbyist pilot in
Washington state, who reported seeing a fleet of nine in 1947, ..."
The pilot, one Kenneth Arnold,
reported seeing a
formation of crescent-shaped objects that "...moved like saucers
skipping across the water." The public and the press seized on the
name "flying saucer" and that's what other observers started to report,
not crescents. The flying saucer became an iconic symbol of 1950's
paranoia (but see Saucers Go Triangular).
In his book Can You Speak Venusian? astronomer Patrick Moore, who like
most astronomers is less than impressed by UFO reports, charmingly
described the "phenomenon" as "crockery from the void". The A & S
Magazine article refreshingly looks at the French experience of
investigating sightings rather just the US/USA accounts that abound
elsewhere. This amazing artifact is pictured and appears to be a fairly non-descript piece of rock about the size and general shape of a large potato with a very terrestrial looking 3-pin plug inserted into a round depression. Williams appears somewhat bitter that others are not convinced by his "enigmalith", as he terms it. He moans "Shame on the New Mexico Politically-Correct driven "scientific community" and phony skeptics for not showing any interest in evaluating and analyzing my rock even years after it has received global exposure! They are all nothing but a bunch of intellectual cowards with zero credibility." Whereas Williams' credibility is limitless... If you are interested in acquiring the rock for yourself it is now on sale for a mere $500,000. If you have any change after the transaction 80 would like to offer you the Brooklyn Bridge at a knockdown price.... Ghosted - a story in the Telegraph tells us of the bizarre case of the man who, while hunting for a ghost train, was killed by a real one. It may just be the beginning of a recursive ghost story - all it needs is for someone looking for the ghost of the man looking for the ghost train to be killed by a real train. Then someone looking for his ghost .....you get the picture. Perhaps the deceased and his fellow ghost hunters (the cops described them as "amateur" ghost hunters as if there were any other kind) should have stumped up for one of these little rascals and looked for locomotive ectoplasm from a safe distance. Radical Islam's Fellow-Travellers - is the title of an excellent piece by Nick Cohen which looks at the craven behavior of many on the left in the face of radical Islam and their willingness to listen to the likes of the snake-tongued Tariq Ramadan (see The Ethical Islamist) while condemning a voice of sanity, that of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Highly recommended. Strange Charlie - a New Zealand politician is quoted in the Telegraph describing Charles Windsor as "strange". That's not the half of it - how about dangerously irresponsible and arrogant? The clown prince recently got up on his hind legs to address an audience of 200 healthcare professionals and plugged a quack cancer treatment, the Gerson Therapy, "...which eschews chemotherapy in favour of 13 fruit juices a day, coffee enemas and weekly injections of vitamins." Why does Windsor think this treatment is worthwhile? Does he have proof of the treatment's efficacy? No, but he does have a heart-warming story about a woman "...who turned to Gerson Therapy having been told she was suffering from terminal cancer and would not survive another course of chemotherapy. Happily, seven years later, she is alive and well. So it is vital that, rather than dismissing such experiences, we should further investigate the beneficial nature of these treatments.' " Someone should gently explain to the clod in as simple language as possible that anecdotes do not equal data. How firm was the original diagnosis? Is the woman in remission, unconnected with Gerson's treatment? Could her survival be attributed to the conventional treatments she'd already had? Note that Windsor begs the question by asking for an investigation and then prejudges any outcome by referring to the treatment as "beneficial". See here for story of Gerson Therapy. Gerson Therapy - "Available scientific evidence does not support claims that Gerson therapy is effective in treating cancer, and the principles behind it are not widely accepted by the medical community. It is not approved for use in the United States. Gerson therapy can be dangerous. Coffee enemas have been associated with serious infections, dehydration, constipation, colitis (inflammation of the colon), electrolyte imbalances, and even death." American Cancer Society Quote - "If the price of being an atheist is to carry a kicking, squalling Theology out to my backyard altar, stick a knife through it's rancid little heart, and burn its noisome fat and bones in an offering to Science, I'm willing. It's hardly necessary; I think we can just watch it fade away into irrelevancy, like the long-faded scholarly traditions of haruspication and ornithomancy. As an atheist, telling me that I'll lose schools of theology is no deterrence at all — he might as well tell me that practicing regular bathing will cause me to lose the comforting company of lice." P Z Myers, Pharyngula demonstrating that a little cardiac trouble has not dulled his edge. Bad Faith At Ground Zero - is Pat Condell's latest video, the second on the so-called Ground Zero mosque. He is passionate about what he sees as a great wrong but must be careful not to lose his sense of humor, his most devastating weapon. Often mockery works better than anger. As Christopher Hitchens and Irshad Manji have indicated the past and present beliefs of Imam Rauf need scrutiny, as does the actual purpose and management of the projected building - much more than most of the media have applied. The imam may well be a "moderate" Muslim, whatever that means, but some of his past statements are evasive and weaselish.
5 Questions - Irshad Manji in a piece about the "Ground Zero mosque" (now called Park 51) row has some interesting questions for the Imam Rauf about how the mosque/community center, if built, will be managed. The questions include May women lead congregational prayers any day of the week? and What will be taught about homosexuals? About agnostics? About atheists? About apostasy? also Where does one sign up for advance tickets to Salman Rushdie's lecture at Park51? Read the rest of Manji's piece here. (thanks to Butterflies and Wheels) Chardors For Men? - this video makes a powerful case for men to wear chardors. ATHEIST!!!!! - is a little gem from NonStampCollector.
The Ground Zero Mosque - appears to be neither. It is blocks away from Ground Zero and is a cultural center with praying facilities. It is perfectly legal if somewhat insensitive but then it will share space with the New York Dolls Gentlemen’s Club and the Pussycat Lounge and "...assorted shops, bars, liquor stores". It would have been better if it was recognized that religion is a poisonous view of the world, one that led to mass murder by Muslim fanatics, but this is unlikely to happen. One could always build a charcuterie next door - then we would see who is truly tolerant. A short while back Pat Condell made his views known on the subject and Sam Harris has also weighed in with a piece called What Obama Got Wrong About The Mosque. Neither of these think it should be built, seeing it as acknowledgement of victory for the Islamists. Such an opinion has to be stated carefully in order to avoid being seen to agree with xenophobic loons like Sarah Palin - a similar problem to anti-Islamists in the UK being confused with violent thugs such as the so-called English Defence League. A far more nuanced and thoughtful opinion comes from Christopher Hitchens in Mau-Mauing the Mosque - The dispute over the "Ground Zero mosque" is an object lesson in how not to resist intolerance in which he says that what is needed is "critical scrutiny and engagement" and warns against "...cheap appeals to parochialism, victimology, and unreason." although he is unlikely to be thinking of Harris or Condell when he writes that. Update - Hitchens revisits the subject here and scrutinises the record of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Rauf does not fare well. Charlie Brooker in the Guardian describes the furor over the plans in his own way, "Things seem awfully heated in America right now; so heated you could probably toast a marshmallow by jabbing it on a stick and holding it toward the Atlantic. Millions are hopping mad over the news that a bunch of triumphalist Muslim extremists are about to build a "victory mosque" slap bang in the middle of Ground Zero." He then continues to use comic exaggeration to great effect in order to show the absurdity of the current situation. 80's view, for what it's worth, is that the last thing the world needs is another bloody building for people who seem able only to define themselves by their supernatural beliefs. (Also see this on a politician who has found a bandwagon) Update - Now Dutch politician Geert Wilders is to travel "...to New York to take part in protests on 11 September against the proposed Muslim community centre near Ground Zero." Suffice it to say he will not be defending the proposal... See this by Frank Rich for the background to the row. Update - this sort of anti-Muslim mob reaction is disgusting and shameful. Quote - "As for the gorgeous mosaic of religious pluralism, it's easy enough to find mosque Web sites and DVDs that peddle the most disgusting attacks on Jews, Hindus, Christians, unbelievers, and other Muslims—to say nothing of insane diatribes about women and homosexuals. This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be "phobic." A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational." Christopher Hitchens writing in Slate. The Mutating Mars
Hoax - NASA kills a particularly silly email hoax - again.
"For the seventh year in a row, the Mars Hoax is infecting email boxes
around the world. Passed from one reader to another, the message states
that on August 27th Mars will approach Earth and swell to the size of a
full Moon. "NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN," the email
declares--always in caps. News flash: It's not true"
Read on...
A Surfeit of Loons - peak oil, failed crops, no drinking water - the world is full of shortages, apart from loons, that is. Richard Adams writing in the Guardian looks at The American far-right's top 10 paranoid conspiracy theories including Chemtrails, HAARP, 9/11 Truthers, and the North American Union. It is a short piece but for those that crave more the web is awash with this and similar dreck. The planet Mars has long attracted theories that are, to steal a line from New Scientist's Feedback, fruit-loopery de luxe. Think Richard Hoagland and his followers for one, and now we have Psychics Claim Evidence of Life on Mars. Happily this report is written by Benjamin Radford, a name familiar to readers of Skeptical Inquiry, and he gives the story just as much scrutiny as it deserves. We learn "In a recent video presentation titled, "Evidence of Artificiality on Mars," researcher Courtney Brown, founder of an organization of psychics called the Farsight Institute, claimed to have found mysterious features in a photograph of Mars." How was this feat pulled off? By that tired old piece of crap called "remote viewing" (although our grandparents would have said clairvoyance). In all the years that various loons have been plugging remote viewing have they ever found anything remotely (sorry) useful? Of course not. The Farsight Institute web site is here - the very appearance of which carries its own unmistakable warning - Beware Loons. Then there is the 83-year old
Scottish
I'm An Atheist But - is an essay written some time ago (Sept 2006) by Richard Dawkins in which he details "...five variants of I'm-an-atheist-buttery" and asks for further examples. Now Padraig Reidy, writing in the Guardian, steps up to the plate and without a trace of irony calls his piece I'm an atheist but this anti-Catholic rhetoric is making me nervous. Reidy, one time deputy editor of New Humanist magazine is worried about protests against the hugely expensive Pope Ratzinger jamboree turning into an anti-Catholic free-for-all. He really should read a speech by National Secular Society president, Terry Sanderson, entitled Protest the Pope is not anti-Catholic, it is anti-Pope – this pope. from a Protest the Pope public meeting at Richmond, 12 August 2010. Perhaps then Reidy can stop his worrying - anyway, let's face it "...taunts over buggery and the sneering at transubstantiation" hardly amount to persecution. Reframing Gaza - a different and in 80's view somewhat more accurate appraisal of the situation in blockaded Gaza. Sobering Surveys - brought to 80's attention by LibertyPhile Research. This first highlights the seemingly incompatible goals of Pakistanis. We learn "More than four-in-ten Pakistanis see a struggle taking place between Islamic fundamentalists and groups that want to modernize the country; and the vast majority of those who do see a struggle identify with the modernizers. Nonetheless, many Pakistanis endorse extreme views about law, religion and society. More than eight-in-ten support segregating men and women in the workplace, stoning adulterers, and whipping and cutting off the hands of thieves. Roughly three-in-four endorse the death penalty for those who leave Islam." Hardly consistent but then Islam and rationality are not even the merest of nodding acquaintances. In the second survey the LibertyPhile gives much needed critical attention to a survey whose findings were misreported, most likely deliberately, by the Islamic Education and Research Agency (iERA) and then echoed by the Guardian. There is a perception with groups like this that Britons would be more favorably inclined toward Islam if they knew more about it. This is hogwash - the citizens of the UK have seen Islam in action and no amount of deceitful and mealy-mouthed cherry picking from the Quran is going to make any difference. See This is Why, again from the LibertyPhile. Excess Baggage
- Sophia Deboick
writing in the Guardian makes the extraordinary claim that theology
is a "...crucial to large areas of academic study and has an
important role to play in the arts provision of our universities."
When one reads on it becomes clear that it is not theology that she is
writing about but an array of other subjects linked to university
theology courses, subjects covered by the history of religion. Rather
than theology standing as a subject on its own it could and should be
subsumed into religious history. 80's dictionary gives its primary
definition of theology thus "The rational and systematic study of
religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truth."
Quite what religious truth is supposed to be is something of a puzzle as
most religions claim sole custody of the truth - and yet none of them
agree with one another as to what that truth is. There is an element of
begging the question in theology in that it appears to assume that there
exists a god (or gods) to study in the first place. Remove this element
and one is back to religious and cultural history. Far from theology
being "crucial to large areas of academic study" its abolition as
a main subject would have little effect. There is no reason for
dwindling education budgets to support theology whatsoever. One
comment on the competition for academic funding posted on Deboick's
piece is priceless if not original "What do you mean [the engineering
department] needs £5M for test equipment and a new computer network,
just look at maths - all they want is paper, pencils and erasers. And
Theology don't even need the erasers!" A Loving God?
- "Sudan's state news agency
says
lightning has struck a religious school in the country's western Darfur
region, killing seven children. The report quoted a local official as
saying the children, between the ages of 10 and 13, were attending a
Quranic school in the remote village of Sarguilla in southern Darfur."
Protest the Pope
is not anti-Catholic, it is anti-Pope – this pope - "The first
thing I want to say is that the Protest the Pope campaign is not
anti-Catholic. Some Catholic bloggers have tried to portray us as some
kind of off-shoot of the Orange order, but this simply isn’t true. And In Happy News - Johann Hari regales us with what he reckons is the slow, whiny death of British Christianity. Iranian Diplomacy
- 80 wrote recently about the Iranian theocracy's attempt at improving
its severely tarnished image with a trendy new embassy in London - see
It's Called Gilding A Turd. It is now going to have
to redouble its efforts after an outburst by Iran's vice It's A Man's World - this is certainly true in Aghanistan. A recent news story tells us "The Taliban publicly flogged and then executed a pregnant Afghan widow by shooting her three times in the head for alleged adultery, police said. Bibi Sanubar, 35, was kept in captivity for three days before she was shot dead in a public trial on Sunday by a local Taliban commander in the Qadis district of the rural western province of Badghis. The Taliban accused her of having an "illicit affair" that left her pregnant. She was first punished with 200 lashes in public before being shot..." The report then notes "The man who allegedly had an affair with Ms Sanubar has not been punished." A man's world indeed. Is NATO going to negotiate with such murderous, inhuman scum? Is NATO going to pull out and leave other women like Bibi Sanubar to the "justice" of the Taliban? These big Islamic warriors show by their vile treatment of women that they are actually frightened of them. Educated and empowered women, in control of their lives (and their reproductive systems) will sound the death knell for the patriarchal and violent "culture" of these oh so brave Taliban. The Initiative To Educate Afghan Women have the right idea. You can also make a financial contribution through Global Giving to the Afghan Institute of Learning and help empower Afghan women. Meanwhile, this report tells us that in Iran "At least 20 Iranians, mostly women, are believed to be under sentence of stoning to death. About one or two cases are thought to be carried out each year." Read this on the plight of Muslim women elsewhere in the world. Also see How settling with the Taliban puts women at risk by Tom Malinowski writing in the Washington Post. Islamism, In Any Form, Is A Threat - George Readings of thinktank Quilliam brings some rare common sense to the Guardian's Comment Is Free. "It is "logically false" to suggest that Islamist extremism causes Islamist terrorism. Bizarre as this statement may sound, it is increasingly becoming dogma within certain circles. Some are even taking it to its (illogical) extreme by proposing that non-violent Islamists should be empowered to challenge violent Islamists. But it is a worryingly naive viewpoint." Read on ... Silly Season Shit
Stirring - the Daily Mail has
a story (slavishly
copied by the Telegraph) with the headline "Fury over Richard
Dawkins's burka jibe as atheist tells of his 'visceral revulsion' at
Muslim dress" which bears closer inspection. Dawkins merely
expressed an opinion held by many people in the UK that burkas are ugly
and that they represent the oppression of women. His remarks were made
in a Radio Times interview with Edward Stourton (who used to be "Ed" but
perhaps he feels he needs more gravitas befitting his age) on so-called
faith schools - properly sectarian schools. Most of the article is about
Christian schools and the disastrous experience of sectarian schooling
in Northern Ireland. Towards the end of the piece Muslim schools are
also discussed. Dawkins describes the full Islamic shroud, the burka, as
"one of the full bin-liner things" the sight of which elicits in
him "visceral revulsion". That's it - two short quotes in a two
page interview and yet this is made into a "Muslim fury" piece by the
Mail (and copycat Telegraph). The Mail tells us "His comments
prompted fury among Muslim groups who accused him of being ‘ignorant’
and ‘Islamophobic'" but only mentions one group, the Muslim
Association of Britain (MAB). Who are they? The Mail and Telegraph don't
say, displaying the quality of their journalism. This
article brings some enlightenment. The MAB is the "British
franchise of Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood. It is a nasty organisation, which
publishes “blood libel” stories about Jews murdering Algerian children
for their organs. One of its prominent members – Ahmed Al Rawi –
supports jihadist attacks on British troops. Another, Said Ferjani,
defended the publication of the blood libel. He has been convicted of
several terrorism offences in Tunisia and believes “Zionists” manipulate
the media." The Faith Of Idiots - Pat Condell's latest piece reports from the faith/stupidity interface. His subject matter fits in rather nicely with the quote below.
Public meeting to Protest the Pope - "A public meeting has been organised in Richmond to propose a protest against the Pope's visit to St Mary's University College in Twickenham, where the pontiff is slated to talk about his views on education. The meeting will be on Thursday 12 August at Richmond Library, Old Town Hall, Whittaker Ave, Richmond, TW9 1TP at 7.30pm. Among the speakers will be Terry Sanderson and Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society, (NSS) and Peter Tatchell of the Protest the Pope campaign." The above notice is from Newsline, the free weekly email newsletter from the NSS. The speakers and attendees are unlikely to heed the advice in the Telegraph - advice which broke 80's irony meter. "This state invitation does not require Anglicans and other Christians to recognise papal authority. But, as the Archbishop of Canterbury recognises, if Benedict XVI is greeted with hostility and manufactured scandals, then British Christianity as a whole will be weakened." No manufactured scandals are necessary - there are enough real ones - the widespread rape of children and the subsequent cover-up and denial being the most obvious. Hypocrisy - we learn from the Telegraph that TV celebrity Carol Vorderman "...will introduce a series of 'warm-up acts' prior to the Pope's appearance at a prayer vigil in Hyde Park. An old girl of the Blessed Edward Jones Catholic School in Rhyl, Carol Vorderman will be introducing performances of music, dance and drama before Pope Benedict XVI takes to the stage at a prayer vigil in Hyde Park next month." So far so unremarkable. Then we are told "Although twice divorced, Miss Vorderman has always taken her faith seriously and regards it as one of the greatest honours of her professional career to be doing what amounts to a "warm-up act" for the Pope." Surely she cannot take her Roman Catholic faith seriously if she is a divorcee? That is definitely verboten in Ratzinger's church. It seems that Vorderman is like so many Catholics today, happy to cherrypick which part of her faith she will adhere to and rejecting those parts that are not acceptable or just plain inconvenient. Large numbers of people claim to be Roman Catholics but are at odds with the church over gays, contraception, condoms to combat the spread of HIV AIDS and yes, divorce. The upshot is that the church, when pushing governments for privileges, something it does all the time, uses the number of its adherents as a bargaining counter. A significant number, especially in Europe and the US, are cherrypickers who strictly speaking should not be in the church at all. Perhaps there should be a new sub-denomination. Roman Catholic Lite, anyone? Not Even Wrong - "Not even wrong (or the full version "That's not right - that's not even wrong") refers to any statement, argument or explanation that is so at odds with reality that it is considered uncorrectable. The phrase implies that not only is someone not making a valid point in a discussion, but they don't even seem to understand the nature of the discussion itself, or the things that need to be understood in order to participate." A short while ago 80
wrote dismissively of independent researcher Susan
Maureen Brandt's conspiracy theory which, as described in the press
release 80 saw, "...has uncovered evidence that Cleopatra and the
Virgin Mary are fictionalized versions of the same woman, Julius
Caesar's daughter, Julia." Furthermore Brandt "...theorizes that
a highly-organized cult is behind the global fraud, consisting of
devoted members who believe they are the direct descendants of nobility
who survived the 10,000 B.C.E. destruction of the lost continent of
Atlantis..." 80 has since received an email from Brandt accusing him
of "false criticism". Appended to this email is a reply to
another correspondent which apparently shows how 80 has "aided" Brandt
in her work. The full text of the email is
here. Thus "One well-known author told me that common sense should guide me to stop my work immediately and find a new area of study. When I politely asked why I should stop when I was finding so much evidence of a hidden truth.... he told me that he knew of no scholar, contemporary or historical, that had ever come to the conclusion that Jesus was based on Lucius Caesar. Hmm. Funny, but that could also be evidence that a cult trying to conceal that fact has simply and effectively controlled the media and publishing and academia for a very long time." Despite this laughable justification Brandt's theory falls into the category defined in the first paragraph above - not even wrong. If 80 is at fault for not making the above points in the first mention of Brandt it is because if one has been reading and writing about such "alternative" histories for long enough one becomes jaded and exasperated - and occasionally lazy. Independent researchers such as Brandt can throw out a long chain of so-called evidence. It is not necessary to refute all the links in that chain, one is enough. In Brandt's press release there are two of them, Atlantis and Mary. That's the problem with conspiracy theories of this sort, they are chains of supposition and nothing more. (Brandt's web site is here. If 80 had seen the site before reading Brandt's press release and email it would have been easy to take it for a spoof.) Update - Brandt's response to the above can be seen here. Meanwhile 80 is sneaking off to report to his Atlantean masters. Unreliable Relic - the standards of archaeological evidence would appear to be different in Bulgaria and much less constricting than elsewhere. A short piece in the Telegraph tells us "The remains of St John the Baptist have been found in an ancient reliquary in a 5th century monastery on Sveti Ivan Island in Bulgaria, archaeologists have claimed." No archaeologists are actually quoted on the discovery but a politician is. We are further informed "The remains – small fragments of a skull, bones from a jaw and an arm, and a tooth – were discovered embedded in an altar in the ruins of the ancient monastery, on the island in the Black Sea. A Greek inscription on the stone casque contains a reference to June 24 – the date on which John the Baptist is believed to have been born." This is an unusual use of the word "casque" which 80's dictionary defines as "(15-16th century) any armour for the head; usually ornate without a visor". Also, who says J the B's birthday is June 24th? No reference is given. The politician quoted, Bozhidar Dimitrov, Bulgaria's minister without portfolio and a former director of the country's National History Museum said "We found the relics of St John the Baptist - exactly what the archaeologists had expected. It has been confirmed that these are parts of his skeleton." How this confirmation was achieved is not said - nor are any of the archaeologists involved named or quoted. We are also told Dimitrov was present "...when the stone urn was opened." So, the casque is an urn apparently. At least we are also told "Many countries around the Mediterranean claim to have remains of St John, including Turkey, Montenegro, Greece, Italy and Egypt." Given that there was quite an industry in the middle ages churning out pious frauds, ie saintly relics, this is hardly surprising - just look at Christ's foreskin/s. John the Baptist was likely an historical figure who seems to have been added to the Jesus gospel tales by the writers for two reasons. One, to lend verisimilitude and two, as a Christian counter to followers of John by making their prophet a mere subservient, forerunner of Jesus. (Also see Cave Of The Baptist) Update - archaeologists, as opposed to politicians, have expressed doubts on the bones authenticity without tests. 80's verdict? Nothing will be provable one way or another. Update - Minister Bozhidar Dimitrov apologizes for his big mouth.
Quote - "Did the flood really happen? Yes. Jesus said in Matt. 24:37-39 that the flood happened. If you can't trust Jesus, you can't trust anyone." Case closed then. This example of endorsing a tale in a magic book by referring to another tale in the same book surfaced in reader's comments on the Noah story over at the Skeptic's Dictionary.
UFO Delusions
- another tranche of UFO sightings released by the National Archive has
set off a flood of articles about these strangely elusive phenomena -
although they are only strangely elusive if you think there was anything
there in the first place. This Guardian
report tells us of the incident that enthusiasts apparently call the
Welsh Roswell. This is unfortunate as the minimum of research will show
that nothing involving aliens or UFOs ever happened at
Roswell - but why let facts get in the way of a catchy name? The
story certainly has echoes of the Roswell myth "The documents
describe how residents of Llandrillo in Merionethshire, near the Berwyn
mountains, first reported strange lights streaking across the sky. Then
as the night wore on the villagers heard a colossal explosion and felt a
tremor ripple through their homes. Later ufologists claimed roads were
sealed off and people kept away from the site after the incident on 23
January 1974. Alien bodies were then taken to Porton Down biological
warfare centre for analysis, it was claimed..." Competent
investigators from the RAF and MoD (Ministry of Defence) found nothing.
A charitable interpretation is that eyewitnesses are likely to have seen
a meteor burning up in the atmosphere. Naturally this wasn't enough for
the mystery peddlers who claim, as they always do, that there has been a
cover-up. Faith and Foolishness: When Religious Beliefs Become Dangerous - is an article in Scientific American by physicist Lawrence M Krauss drawing attention to, and criticizing the lack of scientific literacy among his fellow citizens. He tells us "Every two years the National Science Foundation produces a report, Science and Engineering Indicators, designed to probe the public’s understanding of science concepts. And every two years we relearn the sad fact that U.S. adults are less willing to accept evolution and the big bang as factual than adults in other industrial countries." The latest report is different - but not in a good way. "Rather the National Science Board, which oversees the foundation, chose to leave the section that discussed these issues out of the 2010 edition, claiming the questions were “flawed indicators of scientific knowledge because responses conflated knowledge and beliefs.” In short, if their religious beliefs require respondents to discard scientific facts, the board doesn’t think it appropriate to expose that truth." That is dismaying enough but even more so are by the mainly abysmal comments on the article - and this from Scientific American readers. Disgusting - contrast and compare firstly Sir Fred Goodwin, disgraced banker whose house and car were vandalized over the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Following that debacle he left the firm with a £342,500 a year pension and an estimated £2.7m tax-free lump sum. Now look at Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass) an anti-Jewish pogrom that took place 9th until the 10th November 1938 in Nazi Germany - an attack which heralded even worse to come. On Kristallnacht "In a coordinated attack on Jewish people and their property, 91 Jews were murdered and 25,000 to 30,000 were arrested and placed in concentration camps. 267 synagogues were destroyed, and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked." See any similarities? Of course not. Yet the Guardian carried this news item "A senior banker has compared the public condemnation of Sir Fred Goodwin (above), the disgraced former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, with the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Sir Angus Grossart said that the attacks on his "good friend" bore "shades of Kristallnacht", a 1938 anti-Jewish pogrom." One is led to conclude Grossart has absolutely no sense of proportionality or that he is deliberately belittling and downplaying the fate of German and Austrian Jews. Either conclusion does him no credit whatsoever and brings to mind such words as callous and ignorant.
Freedom Is My Religion - is the latest video from Pat Condell in which looks at his own religion of freedom and tears into the accommodationist nitwits who are so politically correct and in thrall to the failed experiment of multiculturalism that they are effectively encouraging the creeping Islamisation of our culture. He pours contempt on those who attack Christianity but give Islam a free ride for fear of appearing intolerant or racist. Pat is fast becoming a national treasure.
Papal Trinkets - the marketing of gewgaws commemorating Pope Ratzinger's upcoming and costly trip to Britain has begun. The only things missing from the official online store are a glow-in-the-dark pedophile priest statue, a pope on a rope and some vuvuzelas to give the old boy a cacophonous and fitting welcome to this scepter'd isle. Happily Amazon can supply the last item. (See here for details of a protest march on Saturday 18 September – the day that the Pope will be holding his outdoor mass in Hyde Park.)
What, no noose? St Anthony Of Baghdad: A Homily - "Let me show you how my faith inspires me. This was the challenge that my Faith Foundation recently set young people from across the world in our first film competition, Faith Shorts. Faith is an incredibly powerful force and as globalisation pushes us closer together, it is more important than ever. It is the lens through which many hundreds of millions of people view our complex and diverse world. Technology and modern media are bringing those from other faiths and cultures together faster than ever before. Too often, young people hear a distorted view of other faith traditions. To be religiously illiterate in this world is foolish and dangerous." Oh great, an ignorant lecture from an unctuous and odious war criminal who did so much bring eternal peace to many Iraqis and coalition troops. Just helping them to get to heaven, no doubt. Is it just 80 or does "Faith Shorts" sound like religious underwear? Here is the creepy St Anthony in a video plugging his (selective) memoirs. Pass the sick bag, this one's full already. On Faith - "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." Mark Twain Mask Of Oppression - we learn that "British women have the right to chose whether they wore a burka in public, Baroness Warsi, the country’s first female Muslim cabinet minister has said." In 80's view no one should have the right to go masked in a public place. The majority of women who end up wearing a burka are unlikely to have had a free choice in the matter.
It's Called
Gilding A Turd -
according to the Guardian "Iran is attempting to reinvent its
reputation in the UK by building an embassy building in central London
featuring a contemporary art gallery and cultural centre. The Iranian
foreign ministry has submitted a planning application for the six-storey
building on a South Kensington street corner, featuring a dramatic
cantilevered arch, acutely-angled walls and irregularly punched-out
windows, a recent architectural vogue. Its architect believes the
building, which will cost at least £100m and is sited in a sensitive
area of historic buildings, will embody "Iran's public image in London".
Will the art gallery feature women and men being
stoned and young gay men
lynched from cranes? That is Iran's public image. Update - Iran's
The Flintstone
Gambit - Some things are just wrong. The current obsession with
"balance" is meaningless when you compare, say, evolution by means of
natural selection and Christian creationist reworking of old myths. One
is supported by masses of evidence accumulated over many years, the
other by none - bar the belief that the bible is unfailingly correct
having been inspired by, if not actually written by, a deity. Even a
cursory examination of the subject confirms that this is so but in a
mistaken attempt to be "even-handed" fundamentalists are permitted
access to children in order to, not to put too fine a point on it, lie
to them. This is happening in Queensland, Australia
right now. We are told "Primary school students are being taught
that man and dinosaurs walked the Earth together and that there's fossil
evidence to prove it. Students have been told Noah collected dinosaur
eggs to bring on the Ark, and Adam and Eve were not eaten by dinosaurs
because they were under a protective spell." Dinosaurs have proved
to be something of a problem for creationists as they are so much a part
of our popular culture (thanks in large part to Spielberg's movies) that
a flat denial of their existence would not go down very well. So these
days, perhaps influenced by the Flintstones, they now posit that
humankind and dinosaurs co-existed. The fact that 65 million years
separates us from these beasties is dismissed - these creationist saps
have only 6000 years to play with in their sad and restricted view of
the world. The Flintstones Are Historically Accurate! (can't see the video? Click here)
Christopher Hitchens - see here a lengthy and fascinating interview with Hitch conducted by Hugh Hewitt. He talks about his illness, his latest book and answers questions such as "You’ve shaken hands with Oswald Mosley, and General Videla of Argentina, and Abu Nidal, and a whole bunch of other people. Who’s the most evil person you’ve met...?" A God Of Life - is Pat Condell's latest piece to camera in which he takes a positive attitude toward organized religion and looks on the sunny side of things.
Oh, The Irony - Damon Albarn and his band Gorillaz pulled out of a Tel Aviv music festival apparently in protest over the Hamas publicity coup otherwise known as the Gaza flotilla incident. So where do these conscience-struck liberals play next? Syria. So they will not play in a democratic state but are happy to play in a fascist one - oh sorry, that should be "republic under an authoritarian military-dominated regime". A little consistency from these pop stars would be welcome. If this wasn't enough this week we have the British prime minister, David Cameron, praising Turkey, a country with an increasingly Islamist government, and backing the country's EU bid. Cameron, when in Ankara ingratiatingly referred to Gaza as a "prison camp" but failed to identify the real jailers of the Palestinians, Hamas. (Here is more on David "Call Me Dave" Cameron, Turkey and terrorism from Harry's Place Also read the Heresiarch on Turkey's EU membership) Odds and Sods - from the serious to the barking bloody mad. The Guardian has an editorial on the disgusting and barbaric practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). It is estimated that up to 2,000 British schoolgirls will be abused and assaulted in this way over the summer holidays and yet there have been no prosecutions. Perhaps the parents who torture their daughters in this fashion, if found culpable, would like to take up permanent residence in the country where the assault took place. The damage to these girls and the subsequent effect on their physical and mental health is incalculable. The sensitive multicultural approach to stopping this hideous practice is obviously not working - parents need to be prosecuted and publically shamed. This would be an answer to people who see it as a rite of passage and part of their community's culture. If a "community" believes that FGM is essential to its wellbeing then that community should seriously think about re-locating outside Britain. And those who use the weasel words "female circumcision" need a damn' good slapping.
Exercising their civil liberties The always amusing David Mitchell writes "If Britain decides to ban the burqa I might just start wearing one". He takes this view from a civil liberties standpoint and cannot believe we are even having a debate about a ban but he fails to address some serious points. There is the social pressure from within a family or religious group to wear face coverings - coercion is not the same as exercising freedom of dress. How about the liberty of not having to cover your face? Then there are security implications as noted by several commentators. Try going into a bank or any public building wearing a mask - and that's just what these things are, masks - and see what happens if you refuse to doff it when asked. Any legislation should not explicitly refer to burkas or any other Islamic/cultural means of removing women's individuality but to the serious security implications of people going masked in public places. See here, here and here. Also see A Pig In A Poke.
That idiotic Poison Dwarf,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran,
takes on a foe of his own size for once instead of the Great Satan.
The tiny but deranged politician has attacked the World Cup pundit, Paul
the octopus. The Iranian
The Wages Of Faith - the BBC tells us "The Roman Catholic Church has defended asking parishioners to make a contribution to the cost of going to see the Pope on his visit to Glasgow. Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate a public mass for 100,000 people at Bellahouston Park on 16 September. Anyone who wants access to the mass will need a Pilgrim Pass and the church suggested a donation of £20 per pass." £2000000? For that kind of ticket price perhaps the old boy will do a few tricks. Mind you, this is a drop in the bucket compared to the overall cost of this Catholic jamboree - see Protest the Pope. In defence of secularism - is a piece by Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society in the New Statesman. The Enemy Within - is the name of the latest video from Pat Condell. 80 has not read the book he plugs but there are some reviews here.
What isn't wrong with Sharia law? - asks Maryam Namazie in this article from the Guardian. She says, "...a report, Sharia Law in Britain: A Threat to One Law for All and Equal Rights, reveals the adverse effect of sharia courts on family law. Under sharia's civil code, a woman's testimony is worth half of a man's. A man can divorce his wife by repudiation, whereas a woman must give justifications, some of which are difficult to prove. Child custody reverts to the father at a preset age; women who remarry lose custody of their children even before then; and sons inherit twice the share of daughters." This is an example of creeping Islamisation and should be rejected. There should be no separate religious courts or tribunals (Muslim or Jewish) - all British citizens should be subject to the same law. If people find that they cannot live without sharia then the obvious option is to move to a country where it is the legal system. It's as simple as that. I Know That Face - the Daily Mail carries a page devoted to apparitions of Jesus that appear to publicity-seekers and the gullible. The latest "sighting" is in a field in a Google Earth image. The Mail uses this an excuse to look at other recent manifestations of the Christian godman such as a stain on a drainpipe, a smear of Marmite and, in a form that would shocked a good Jewish boy, as burnt bacon in a frying pan. As no image exists from Jesus' supposed time on earth how come all these people know what he looks like? See here for a fascinating and well-researched page on how JC has been portrayed over the years, from beardless youth to togaed philosopher to emaciated martyr - also check out the rest of the site. By the way, the human propensity for seeing images in random markings is called pareidolia. Quote - "The internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it. The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you." So says Prince, one time pop star. I suppose we should now get rid of our computers, MP3 players and other digital toys and acknowledge that they were all just a passing fad on a par with say, hula-hoops and Rubik cubes - or the Purple One himself. The Deluded Left - is an article on Comment Is Free by Peter Bracken. By some of the outraged squealing in the comments from the Guardanistas he would appear to be spot on. Homeopathy Made Clear - courtesy of Darryl Cunningham's excellent comic strip. (Thanks to Pharyngula for the heads-up) Quote - "A degree is a degree! Whether fake or genuine, it's a degree! It makes no difference!" So says irate Pakistani politician, Nawab Aslam Raisani over a scandal involving fake degrees. Apparently the supreme court has ordered the election commission to check the degrees of over a thousand politicians after at least a dozen were found to have cheated. Sense About Science - 2010 lecture Standing Up For Science delivered by Fiona Godlee editor of the BMJ (British Medical Journal) is available to stream or download from the Guardian here. Recommended.
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