You are looking at posts that were written in the month of August in the year 2008.
Posted on August 31st, 2008 by admin.
Categories: Ranting.
On Aug 31, 1:13 am, Observer wrote:
> On Aug 30, 2:44 pm, religionvirus wrote:
>
>
>
> > From my blog today:http://religionvirus.blogspot.com. This is a
> > perfect example of why religious irrationality is damaging the
> > world… Here’s an excerpt of today’s blog.
>
> > I applaud McCain’s VP choice, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, as his
> > choice for vice president, because she is going guarantee McCain’s
> > defeat! Nice work, Senator McCain!
>
> > Sarah Palin is the worst vice president candidate in recent memory. We
> > can ignore her utter lack of relevant experience – that’s like
> > shooting fish in a barrel. No, the real issues are her opposition to
> > virtually every ethical advance we’ve made as a society over the last
> > few decades. She opposes gay/lesbian rights, opposes abortion rights,
> > and in spite of heart-wrenching stories last week of starving polar
> > bears swimming 25 miles in the open ocean looking desperately for
> > food, she opposes adding them to the endangered-species list, and
> > instead wants to drill, drill, drill for more of Alaska’s oil, so we
> > can melt more polar ice and kill the rest of the bears.
>
> > As if that’s not enough, Gov. Palin has advocated teaching creationism
> > alongside evolution! George Bush … well, his IQ is somewhere in the
> > modest double digits, so maybe a basic understanding of obvious
> > scientific facts is just too much for the poor man. But Sarah Palin
> > appears to be an otherwise intelligent woman, in spite of her
> > conservative agenda.
>
> > … read the rest onhttp://religionvirus.blogspot.com.
>
> > Craig
>
> Observer
> Oh Ya but I got a hard on watching her shoot that ak47 at the range.
>
> I have been a life long Republican like some people have been life
> long Christians. What I did not realize was that the Republican party
> died with Thomas Jefferson. I have been attached to a ghost of what
> once was. Unlike Christians who are attached to a ghost of what never
> was.
>
> I have to admit that I can not see into the heart or mind of Barack
> Obama . I am however persuaded to abandon my hard headed republican
> back ground and take a sharp left turn.
>
> Psychonomist
I’m actually with you on that one, my friend. I used to be a
Republican because I’m a fiscal conservative, and then in the mid-90’s
the whole party went to seed when the Newt Gingrich and neo-con morons
took over, and then I realized that the Democrats are more Republican
than the Republicans these days, and the Republicans are being run by
oil tycoons who pretend they give a shit about abortion (which they
don’t). Then the Dem’s actually turn out to be the fiscally
conservative ones, and so I switched sides. :)
Posted on August 31st, 2008 by admin.
Categories: Ranting.
Yeah, unfortunately there are enough delusional and dysfunctional
people in the US that take pride in their ignorance that she actually
has a chance.
On Aug 31, 12:59 am, Dev wrote:
> See my thread “Keeping Up With The Enemy”. It’s worse than we thought.
> Naturally, Palin was just what McCain needed to make nice with the
> religious right. It may turn out to be the best strategic decision
> he’s made.
>
> On Aug 30, 10:41 pm, rappoccio wrote:
>
> > On Aug 30, 5:44 pm, religionvirus wrote:
>
> > > As if that’s not enough, Gov. Palin has advocated teaching creationism
> > > alongside evolution!
>
> > Sadly, while this should clinch the votes against her in unison, it
> > unfortunately doesn’t and may actually garner support.
>
> > So much for supporting the constitution and not being a delirious
> > fucking lunatic.
>
> > I can’t imagine what’s going to happen to the US if this shit-team
> > gets elected. I’m afraid. I’m very afraid.
Posted on August 31st, 2008 by admin.
Categories: Ranting.
On Aug 29, 7:21 am, Vaarsuvius wrote:
> On Aug 29, 1:04 am, rappoccio wrote:
>
> > On Aug 28, 1:42 pm, Vaarsuvius wrote:
>
> > > On Aug 27, 10:26 pm, rappoccio wrote:
> > > > I told you. When I could verify it. Otherwise I would not believe her
> > > > and would probably consider her to be mentally ill. If you have a
> > > > lower standard for proof, that’s your prerogative.
>
> > > And what would you be “verifiying”, and how do you propose to do so?
>
> > You’re studying to become a scientist, aren’t you? This should be
> > totally obvious. She makes predictions about the future. A child of
> > twelve can figure out how to test this, Allan, it’s not rocket
> > science.
>
> So why don’t you, who is clearly older than twelve I assume, provide
> some precise details on how you’d go about trying to test this?
You know what, Allan? You’re not even reading my posts, because I
answered this in the very next paragraph.
If you’re not interested in even ATTEMPTING to read what I write and
discuss this intelligently, I can’t really help you out of the mental
shithole you’ve dug yourself into.
> You have not in any way provided anything that relates at all to
> reality, or the the example given. All you’ve done is talk endlessly
> about probabilities, but given NO — and I mean NO — examples of how
> to establish what the probability is in this case, or what evidence
> would be required in the specific case given that would allow you to
> reach that probability. How many times do her visions have to work
> out before you start to consider that they might be real?
Like here, where I gave you ballpark estimates later in the post.
Read.
Think
THEN respond.
>
> > Now,
> > if we want to discuss something actually improbable (like, say,
> > exactly predicting the winning 32-number lottery sequence six weeks in
> > a row), that would be something to take note of and give some assent
> > to their ability and consider her to be something *more* than a nutjob
> > who threw her children off a bridge.
>
> How many events, and how improbable do they have to be, before you’d
> accept that there might be something there to investigate?
Do you EVER read what I write?
Five.
Sigma.
Discrepancy.
Learn what it is, and it’ll be apparent to you what I’m talking about,
but honestly, I’m not wasting the time to respond in detail any more,
since you don’t actually read it anyway.
> > Now stop dodging the question: Would the woman be insane if she threw
> > her children off a bridge?
>
> As I have pointed out, the question is pointless.
> Assuming that you
> have a criteria by which you would believe that she was having
> visions, we can safely assume that I would as well based on that
> evidence (unless mine is more stringent, which seems unlikely, to say
> the least). Assuming that that criteria is not certainty, then there
> is still a case where we could rationally believe that she was having
> visions, and yet she could still go through with the action. This
> means that we’d both have to deal with that specific issue: believed
> to be real visions, heinous action. So it doesn’t matter; that action
> would have to be reconciled by both of us, with some different beliefs
> thrown in the mix (as I stated in my first response). If, however,
> you insist that you would require certainty and so couldn’t be wrong,
> then you really are saying “Never”, since we will not have certainty
> about this case. So, it’s irrelevant to the entire debate. My answer
> matters not one bit, and your question here is actually close to
> becoming loaded, since the example from watts includes “considering
> that you believe that she was having visions in the first place”, and
> since I have already stated that with his clarification that his
> example is utterly vague on how much evidence there is my answer to
> that has to be “I don’t know”. Thus, the final question cannot be
> answered in the context of the example.
Bullshit. You’re just bullshitting, Allan. You’re projecting your own
lack of consistent standards on us (me specifically).
-I’ve given you definitive criteria for how I would decide whether or
not her predictions were statistically significant and inconsistent
with the “lucky guess” hypothesis.
-I’ve told you again and again what those criteria are.
-Yet you don’t give the same criteria and pretend that it’s not
actually relevant.
However you’ve missed the entire point of the post. You (and other
theists) only believe in magic-like happenings when it happens to
agree with what you’ve already decided to be “correctly magical”, and
then instead ascribe “other magical things” to “oh, they’re just nuts,
that’s why they killed their kids”.
The point is, the OUTCOME should not influence the decision of whether
or not it has merit. However, with theists (such as yourself), this is
always the case.
Which just means you don’t have any consistent standards when
discerning which magic things you’re going to pretend are real, and
which magic things you’re not going to pretend are real. Yet you still
cling to this delusion that it’s rational.
I can’t fathom why.
>
> Note that in other posts — and this one, actually — I have noted
> that even if we could verify that she was indeed having visions, in
> the case of the children being tossed off the bridge we have no reason
> to necessarily accept that she did it because of a vision at all,
> since she could be lying. In addition, she might well have gone
> insane, even though her visions were real, and hallucinated it in that
> case only. Ultimately, we’d have to evaluate it based on the
> consequences, and there are no testable consequences to the last
> actions based on watts’ example.
>
> That’s as much of an answer as you are going to get. I hope you enjoy
> it.
Oh, it’s abundantly clear that this is the best theists like yourself
can come up with. Doesn’t mean it’s worth a damn.