Archive for the ‘Random’ Category

The Good and The Hatred

Dean

Thu Dec 15, 2011 11:02 pm by Dean

Just recently I discovered various videos of Dawkins, Hitchens and Dennett on YouTube (surrounding the AAI). They echoed opinions that are similar to mine and are quite harsh in their views on religion. I rediscovered this stance for me just recently again after a long time on hiatus. Now my experience is this: arguments on the ‘crimes’ of religions and their negative views are often met with justifications and relativizations; It is suggested that a position as mine is driven by hatred and intolerance.

There is the old question: How much tolerance for the enemies of tolerance?

Also recently, I found a documentary on the German church-critic Karlheinz Deschner (unfortunately not in English yet). It was titled: “the Hatefilled Eyes of Karlheinz Deschner”. The documentary is some kind of meta-discussion on his body of work which is, alas, not yet available in english, either. He basically wrote for 30 years, alone, on the “Criminal History of Christianity” in 10 Volumes (!) — currently writing the tenth and last one. Hopefull the whole is translated when he is done.

The title “the Hatefilled …” is a quote of one of the Christian interviewees, who also appears in regular public TV sometimes. It reflects how some of the other Christian participants think. They are quite obsessed in trying to find a reason for Deschners engagement, trying to pull Ad Hominem Arguments against him. Deschner on the other hand is a rather gentle (very) old man, speaking softly and supports his work with tons of supportive evidence. He will probably not witness how his work is received and it may appear to him that it happens what the other side wants: that his book just collects dust (one of the christian interviewee says so).

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Discussion (4) • Add Comment Tags: Christianity, Church, ethics, History, politics, Reason, Religion, Science
Posted in Culture, Events, History, Literature, Politics, Random, Reason, Religion

I have a few Questions about arguing with idiots

theyounghistorian77

Thu Mar 10, 2011 1:11 am by theyounghistorian77

Ladies and Gentlemen: Let me introduce you to “Onefodderunit” [I'll call him OFU for short]. He is by far and away the most Batshit crazy person i and my friends have ever had the displeasure of arguing with [the debate in the comments section of the video]. He’s a 9/11 truther. He’s a Creationist who regards atheism [and presumably Darwin's ideas] itself as a “belief in Coincidental Chemical Creationism.” [Im not kidding] even though he also claims “Im not religious”. He’s a Holocaust denier. He regards the Nazis as Socialist [A silly piece of anti intelectual history revisionism in and of itself that i can deal with] and clearly regards himself given his “Anti left” rhetoric as something of a right winger. I regard him as a Neo-Nazi lunatic due to the clear and deep anti-semitism he displays though he denies he is a Neo-Nazi. Well at least to me he proves his type belong on the Far Right.

But in Short, He’s all my Nightmares wrapped up in one disgusting cowardly person who’se level of insanity approaches and possibly exceeds that of a “Nephilimfree” or “VenomFangX”

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Discussion (10) • Add Comment Posted in Events, History, Random, Reason, YouTube

Experiment time again

rabbitpirate

Sun Sep 26, 2010 4:22 pm by rabbitpirate

Yes, it is time for another ill-conceived and most likely fundamentally flawed online experiment to test something that in all likelihood no one else is remotely interested in other than me and which is presented with all the get up and go of a dead camel stung by a poisonous grave scorpion. Oh the fun. This time around we will be testing the pseudoscientific claim that by recording what we say and playing those messages backwards we can tell if someone is lying or not.

This strange claim is put forward by David Oates who runs an organisation called Reverse Speech Technologies. Reverse Speech is the idea that when we talk normally our subconscious minds encode messages into the words we choose that can only be identified by recording what we say and playing it backwards. These backwards messages are said to contain the true meaning of what we said as well as always speak the truth. Amongst the various uses for Reverse Speech Oates claims that Reverse Speech can be used to detect lies. Well them sound like fighting words to me and so I have put together a very simple experiment to test that claim. And that’s where you guys come in.

In order to test this claim I have put together a video, well technically two videos but who’s counting, that contains five statements, four of which are factual and one of which is a complete fabrication. After each statement is played you will hear it again only this time in reverse. If the claims of David Oates are accurate then you should be able to hear in the reverse versions of the five statements clues as to whether they are truthful or not. Once you have decided which of the five statements you believe is the false one then all you need to do is vote for that statement in the poll that you can access from a link in the information box below the second part of the video. Unlike my pervious experiment the results of how people have voted and the details of which statement is in fact the false one will be accessable immediately so you don’t have to sit around for ages waiting for me to make another video explaining how everything went.

Ok so it is not as sexy as testing psychic powers or debunking homeopathy, however as far as I can tell this is the very first time this specific pseudoscientific claim has been tested which means you will be a part of something no one has ever done before. To get involved, and I hope you will, go watch this video and simply follow the instructions you will find there. Sorry my video presentation is somewhat less than dynamic, that is really something I have to work on.

Discussion (3) • Add Comment Posted in Random, Reason, Research, Science

There’s A Reason The Metro Is Free

Th1sWasATriumph

Tue Jun 01, 2010 5:55 pm by Th1sWasATriumph

Most of you will have realised that I get the vast majority of my newsing from free London rag The Metro, distributed around the Underground every morning in order to allow bleary-eyed businessmen to further realise that the world is falling gracelessly towards the sun. I don’t think the Metro is a bad little paper, really; the quality of writing is generally good, and it catches stories earlier than other papers you might come across in the day. And you’ll find articles of comparable quality on the same subjects in “real” newspapers.

However, you develop an unfair bias of a newspaper when you peruse it mainly to find new nonsense to write about in your blog. You ignore all rational articles about politics\current affairs\crossbows to the face and concentrate only on articles that guarantee a spout of vitriol frothy enough to incur a transparent sense of self-righteousness. And as a result, your perception is that the chosen paper exists only to print stories about religion, druids and the supernatural. Unfair, since the Metro regularly dishes out reasonably informative articles about modern science and astronomy.

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Discussion (7) • Add Comment Tags: astronomer, bad, crater, god, horseballs, lunar, metro, moon, phil, Plait
Posted in Astronomy, Entertainment, Events, News, Random, Reason, Science

Lisa, I Would Like To Buy Your Rock

Th1sWasATriumph

Tue May 25, 2010 5:35 pm by Th1sWasATriumph

It goes like this:

[Item] or [practice] nullifies or negates the effects, presence, activity or consequences of [entity], [energy], or [phenomenon]. How can you tell? Because absolutely nothing is happening, and so the [item] or [practice] is a legitimate success. This stone keeps away bears. You can tell because you don’t see any bears around here . . . yes, this stone IS for sale. How expensive? Completely. (more…)

Discussion (7) • Add Comment Posted in Culture, Events, News, Random, Reason, Science

A Hitherto Unheeded Level Of Tact

Th1sWasATriumph

Tue Mar 09, 2010 6:40 pm by Th1sWasATriumph

Usually I refrain from pouncing on superstitious or irrational beliefs for entirely selfish reason. If a woman mentions an interest in astrology, I’m more than likely to tone down or censor entirely any strident protests along the lines of ”You what? ” unless I have no superficial manly interest in her at all. For the record, it would take a brick wall in a dress before I stopped wanting to make with the penis.

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Discussion (6) • Add Comment Tags: altruism, bereavement, rebuttal, tact
Posted in Philosophy, Random, Reason, Religion

Another pointless evolution program

rabbitpirate

Sun Jan 17, 2010 2:12 pm by rabbitpirate

So I get bored easily and seeing I have no life to speak of I end up writing pointless programs that demonstrate arbitrary points of evolutionary theory that only people who don’t understand it actually argue with in the first place. The first program I wrote, which attempted to show how mutation and natural selection could make a “bug” better suited to its environment, garnered a number of great comments as well as some helpful constructive criticism and as such my initial plan was to go back and rewrite that program taking those issues into account. However I ended up doing away with that idea and starting completely from scratch.

The most common complaint about the original program was that it took too long to run. Even sped up to run at around a generation a second it could still take a number of minutes to get anything approaching a definitive result. As such when I started writing this new program I put considerable thought into this issue and, well how can I put this, decided to ignore it completely. This new program is, I am afraid to say, a good bit slower than the last one. In fact it can at times take several hours to run, which believe me makes bug testing it a real pain. On top of that both selection and reproduction work differently in this program and as such there is no simulated predation or mating in this one. Yes people that’s right. I have written a sequel that is vastly longer than the original and which contains no sex or violence. Clearly I must be mad!

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Discussion (18) • Add Comment Posted in Random, Science

Panspermia, Which Is Sperm In A Pan

Th1sWasATriumph

Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:19 pm by Th1sWasATriumph

I’m a great fan of sperm in a pan. However, I’m also a fan of panspermia, if you can be a “fan” of a scientific hypothesis. I suppose I like the additional romantic element that panspermia brings to hypothetical speculation on abiogenesis and the origin of life. If that makes me unscientific, well, that’s because I’m not a scientist and took my degree in Wordification and Filmazement.

Panspermia describes the possibility that life on Earth was seeded, catalysed or in some way influenced by material entering its ecosystem from space. And what with various organic compounds being discovered in the chilly depths of space, far beyond the reach of human hands, it’s a hypothesis that is, at the very least, plausible.

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Discussion (6) • Add Comment Posted in Astronomy, News, Philosophy, Random, Reason