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I do feel sorry for Denyse O'Leary.
She writes over and over again about how scientism and "Darwinism" are about to fall apart around us, and gets little in return but mean people pointing out how silly she sounds.
Now she's moved on to that favourite fundamentalist canard, "If man arose by chance, life would have no purpose or meaning". (CA620 in the Index of Creationist Claims).
Over at Uncommonly Dense (where dissenting opinions are banninated), she writes:-"The Darwinian view is, as I have noted before, that our minds are illusions created by our neurons - which are in turn under the control of our selfish genes. These systems did not originate in order to discover truth but to enable us to leave offspring...
Denyse supposedly doesn't think that the use of "intellect" has benefited human genes in any way. It hasn't helped us live longer, or survive childbirth, or take over the planet. It hasn't let us visit the moon. It hasn't given us the capacity to to feed or destroy all of mankind. It hasn't given us the power to take responsibility for our own destinies. No siree.
But producing... infants... is not an intellectual enterprise. So whatever is going on with the intellect, and therefore about philosophy of science, is not Darwinian, apparently."
What did "intellect" ever do for us? For Denyse, it seems, not so much.
Update: The Barefoot Bum has made the last line of this post his "Quotation Of the Day".
Check out the list. I am deeply honored.
Far from becoming extinct 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs actually co-existed with early humans, and even helped in the construction of the pyramids.
This is the word of Vince Fenech, Evangelist pastor and director of a fully licensed, State-approved Creationist institution which admits children aged between four and 18.
“Of course the ‘dinoceros’ existed (as Fenech pronounces the word). It is mentioned in the Book of Job. They were used to help build the pyramids,” he says, adding that this latter observation is only “his personal belief”, and that it does not form part of the school’s curriculum.
From Malta Today, October 2007, via Fark today. Pic courtesy Monty Propps. Heaven knows how I missed this story before.
Jesus Christ on a frikkin' bike.
I try to avoid Theologyweb. Its high-school-debate mentality and preponderance of born-again home-schoolers mean discussions there invariably come to resemble school girls scratching each other eyes out over some "High School Musical" plot point. Let's say more heat is generated than light. That, and I end up losing my temper and not wishing loving kindness and compassion on my "opponents".
Case in point, I ended up posting in a thread absurdly titled "Atheism: A faith based religion", which threw up this gem:
My point, is to show that atheism, or the belief that there is no God, is just as guilty of having "faith" in the supernatural where cosmology is concerned. That is to say, that either they must believe in a universe that is created by supernatural means (even if they believe that science will progress to a point where it is no longer supernatural, it is still supernatural now).Did you get that? Anything science cannot explain is "supernatural". Thus it takes "faith" to believe that anything which science cannot currently explain actually does exist. Like, say, the universe and everything in it.
As Voltaire did not say but might have:
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."Freedom of speech is an issue close to my heart. The very concept is under threat, from religious fundamentalists, right-on-do-gooders, humourless bureaucrats, spineless corporations, sycophantic media-whores and a largely indifferent public.
 "I could cope,I could cope with all the stupidity, the cruelty, the ugly things that happen - it it wasn't for the fact that once in a while you'll do something that's so beautiful that it gives me hope for us all, for a moment..." Anonymous street poem, found in the West End of Glasgow. | ||
 Is this new at Nice'n'Sleazy or had I just missed it? | ||
 Aaaah, the Glasgae banter... | ||
 King Robert of Sicilyabout 1927 George Henry Paulin (1888-1962) Marble The tale of King Robert comes from a poem by H.W.Longfellow (1807-1882). He was an arrogant king who was deposed by an angel, stripped of his robes, and forced to asume the role of a jester, with only a monkey for a friend. (From the Kibble Palace) | ||
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Glasgow is a post-industrial city. Its murder, unemployment and heart-disease rates are amongst the highest in the Western World. It is not in Kentucky.
Grantura are mates from my London days. Here's their latest single, as played by Terry Wogan yesterday morning. Hooray! For all you colonials and foreigners out there, this is a "big thing" :)
Way to go guys!
Back in the old days, before Denyse O'Leary started persecuting me for my lack of beliefs (and presumably marked me as beyond redemption), I used to get concerned Christians writing to me regularly, trying to save my soul.
Invariably they'd put me on to C.S. Lewis. I guess they thought that if one old smart guy was able to convince himself to believe in fairy tales, then I should too. I'm sure it was meant as flattery.
Sadly, they'd then try to convince me that all of modern science was a conspiracy against Jebus, and we'd quickly fall out. Such is the way of things.
This was all brought back to mind when Gmail threw a Lewis quote at me quite by accident yesterday:-
"We are what we believe we are."I don't think that's quite true. But it's interesting to think about what Christianity says we are...
But if Christianity does say that, then what does that say about its God, who made us in his image?
Thanks again to Notes From Off Centre for being the sanest, sensiblist, and salubriousest Christian Blog on the Net... and for bringing Rexella into my life. Make sure you stick around for Jack's breakdown at 3:42.
And Rexella, if you're reading this... I'm always there for you if things don't work out with Jack. No pressure. As a friend.
I lived in central London for almost six years. I mean central. I could roll out of bed and stagger across the road for cocktails in Soho or shopping in Covent Garden. I walked twenty minutes across the Thames to work each day. My corporate life was pretty good too. I didn't have to wear a suit. I hung out with z-list celebrities and could choose to answer or delegate whacked-out complaints from the public as I liked. I was circling near the top of my career path, and my exposure to assholery was surprisingly limited.
But after a while, I was surprised to find that I wasn't happy. Most of my energy - and all my creative energy - was going into other people's work. Worse, it was work I didn't care for. I tried to make things better. I did change some things. But all in all, the corporation was happy with the gunk it was producing, and terrified it'd lose money if anything changed.
I looked for other jobs, doing similar things, making stuff I thought I might be proud of... But everywhere the corporate "thing" seemed to loom larger. If I was going to advance, it was going to be in a suit-and-tie, with increased seriousity, less levity, and a damn site less free reign.
It was time for a change.
And so, I packed up my stuff and moved back to Glasgow, where I'd spent most of my life before. Sure, I'll probably end up back on the corporate trail... But it was time to try some other things first, and to see what would stick.
But what to do first? I needed a break. I needed to get fit, to clear my head, to break bad habits, to get back the soul that London had squeezed out of - that I had let it suck away...
And so, gentle reader, I found myself heading to a Buddhist Retreat, to the Holy Island, off Arran on the West Coast of Scotland, for a week long program of meditation and yoga, booked pretty much at random and very much at the last minute.
I knew people who had been there before, as well as to Samye Ling and to Plum Village. But the Holy Island sounded quieter, smaller, more isolated and relaxed. It was a good choice.
There were around thirty of us on the course. I expected lycra-clad, po-faced new agers, all slender muscle tone and hostile to humour. Instead, they were lovely, a great mix of people and abilities. The teachers were superb. We learned various yoga styles and techniques throughout the week, and by the end I felt fit, fabulous and healthy. It cost bugger all. The food was stunning. There was no booze, no fags, no TV, no internet, and not a bad word said all week.
After my staggeringly unhealthy London lifestyle, it was a joy to get up at seven each day, to breath the morning air, to hear the seagulls and smell the sea. Everything was optional, but I tried to make the most of it. Most mornings I joined the island volunteers (some Buddhist, some not) for prayers and meditation. After breakfast, there were usually two yoga classes before the high point of everyone's day. Lunch. Did I mention the food? It was all vegetarian of course, and truly legendary. Then we'd have one or two more classes in the afternoon, and usually a talk in the evening, before soup, a walk, and an early night.
The main theme of the week was mindfulness, a central teaching in Buddhism, but now getting a lot of press as a stress-free, drug-less alternative to pretty much all of the ills, travails and horrors of modern life.
A small few of the talks were a bit new-agey for my tastes, but hey, there's wisdom everywhere if you're open to it, and I was certainly in the mode for learning lots.
A true high-point was the visit of two High Lamas to the Island. Even the long-term-island volunteers were impressed. Taking questions from all-comers, they answered in Tibetan.
"Is there truth in all religions" asked a friend.
"There is only one path" came the answer through the translator.
"So Buddhism is the only true religion?"
"Attachment to the path is not the path".
Put that on a t-shirt.
One lovely girl asked about anger she felt when reading news stories about places such as Zimbabwe and Burma.
"Anger hurts only yourself... When you are in a position to change something, you should do what you can to change it... Anger only leads to more anger..."
Another question asked whether the monks felt that there was a growing understanding of the need for peace and love worldwide. Were things getting better? The answer was just brilliant...
"In my experience, I find where loving kindness and compassion is practiced, we find more loving kindness and compassion. Where it is not, we do not".
Wowser.
And so, I returned to the real world, refreshed, healthier, and with a million more stories to tell :)
Notes from Off Centre has a hilarious parody of Jack Van Impe, a whack-job Americanian TV preacher with a kind of Bible-verse-Tourettes. Here he is, getting all hot and bothered about The Da Vinci Code...
I know how he feels. It was a terrible book. (And that Rexella chick is hawt).
In any event, reading up on Bible Jack led me to Stuff Christians Like, a great blog with great stuff - like this truly awesome "You Suck" Jesus t-shirt. As they say:
"Perhaps if the pilgrims had keychains, we could have avoided the whole Witch Trial thing."Testify!
Sometimes the words just flow out. Sometimes I write things I wouldn't normally say. Dagnabit, sometimes I've been a bit rude. Juvenile, even.
And so it's been with Canadian grandmother Denyse O'Leary. I've been rude towards her. And you know what? There's no excuse for that. Other than, I guess, that I'm human and I make mistakes.
Why did I get upset at Denyse? Well, it's a long story. If you know Denyse through her writing, you'll have you own opinion about her. She positions herself at the sharp end of the debate, so supposedly she expects a bit of flack. But juvenilia? Rudeness? Well.
Although O'Leary calls herself a "blogger", she doesn't allow open comments about what she writes. And so, it seems to me, she never has to address facts she doesn't like. She writes the same thing over and over again, making the same mistakes, ignoring the same problems.
You might think Denyse is just jam-packed full of wisdom. To me, her championing of "Intelligent Design" is based on a jumble of logical fallacies, factual inaccuracies and wishful thinking. To each his or her own, I guess.
What's that you say? Get to the point? That I can do.
Denyse O'Leary didn't ignore me entirely. She called my blog "the low end" of the debate. She said I portray myself as "incapable of a civilized argument". And, apparently, she spread the word. Over at the very laudable Free Mark Steyn blog, I came across this:
"...look at the kind of juvenalia Denyse has to put up with for defending her ideas. Look at the url, for example..."Juvenalia? O noes!!!!!11eleventyone!!1!!!!
In short, it's OK for Denyse O'Leary to defame, misrepresent and damn everyone who disagrees with her... Yup, Denyse can do all of these things to "defend her ideas".
I don't want to blog about Denyse O'Leary, I really don't.
I could be writing about my niece's first day of pre-school, or the Brits' success in the Olympics, or how impressed I was with the Apple Store in Glasgow's swapping out my Macbook screen in only an hour. I could be enthusing about Debunking Christianity or Cute Overload...
But Denyse keeps writing, and I keep reading.
Today, she tells us "Darwinian evolution" is about to collapse. Again. Her reasons this time:-
(a) Scientific understanding keeps advancing in the light of new evidence
and
(b) Lots of people prefer to believe in young earth creationism
Wow.
Does she give us any evidence whatsoever in favour of Intelligent Design? Does she "fudge".
She does give us one pearl of wisdom:-
"...one should not write about big topics without basic research..."I'll bear that in mind.
A while back I posted ReligionIsACrutch's great parody video of the movie Expelled. Electro-whiz Al Watt of MaxPlanck sent on this funky remix for your listening pleasure. Enjoy :)
For all their pops at "Darwinism", Intelligent Design Creationists see the world as a cruel and vicious place. Dissenters from the "given wisdom" are cast off, thrown to the wolves, expelled from all good society. Some, especially respected and respectful, will be allowed a voice for a time... But in the end, all opposition is silenced, airbrushed from history, with only ghostly echoes remaining to show that they had ever existed.
And, since IDers think that's the way the world treats them, that's the way they treat the world. Most ID websites refuse any opposing commentary. Those that do - like Uncommon Descent - ban visitors so fast it'd make your head spin. They threw me out almost instantly.
So, like many before and after, I created a sock-puppet - a character with a plausible back story who could throw in occasional comments at Uncommon Descent, to prod discussions, prompt debate, and perhaps poke gentle fun at the more inane posters and commentators. What else is a man to do in the face of censorship? Give up? Go away? Stop being Jewish? (Not that I am Jewish, but you get the point...) 
Watching from the peanut gallery was all very well - but I wanted to be close to the action. I wanted to smell the greasepaint. I wanted being With The Banned to mean something...
Bililiad was born. One indistinguishable-from-parody-posting to Underwhelming Evidence later, and I was all set to go.
At the start it was easy. Beginning my first UD comment with "DaveScot as always you are absolutely right" got me out of moderation and into straight-posting before I could say "Jack Robinson". For a while, I took things fairly easy. Sure, my comments were dumb, some immensely so, but Intelligent Design Creationism is a big tent, and at the start no-one seemed to notice just one more slightly unhinged visitor to UD. Eventually though, as so often in life, I got just too smart for my own good. No-one, surely, could be that enthusiastic about Denyse O'Leary's senseless wittering. As with all good things, my sock-puppetry came to an end. After six months of occasional posting, DaveScot's genius-level IQ spluttered into action. With a firm thump to the side, his nixplanatory filter managed a rare true-positive. Credit where credit is due, Dave played his cards with good humour:-Dear bililiad,
And so, gentle readers, Bililiad's comments passed on into oblivion, and sadly his wit and wisdom (and/or lack thereof) is lost to the world almost, but not quite, entirely...
I installed a WordPress upgrade that included a beta test version of something called Troll Filter v1.0. Upon activation all your comments disappeared. Sorry about that. We’re working with wordpress to determine the root cause of the problem.
For, like the legendary pagan Celsus, known only through the words of the early Christian apologist (but teacher of reincarnation) Origen, Bililiad does live on, somewhat, in answers to the questions he'd posed. Search Uncommon Descent for bililiad, and his voice can still be heard, a phantom, from beyond the ban-osphere...
Take his penultimate post, from yet-another-thread where Denyse O'Leary took a whack-the-piñata strike at "Darwinism", predicting its imminent demise without offering anything pro-ID in its place... Bililiad wrote: “What the materialists can’t get their head around is that if “Darwinism” loses, ID wins by default..."
DaveScot may have smelled a rat... But commentator CannuckianYankee took the bait, answering:-"Yes, because the materialists have clung to the only scenario that could be true under materialist assumptions: Neo-Darwinism.
And there, my friends, is the problem with ID laid bare, naked for all to see.
It means that methodological naturalism as the driving method behind doing science also loses.
Going wherever the evidence leads transcends all assumptions, materialist and non-materialist. Flew got it right."
Can ID supporters offer any advance in science or technology whatsoever in the entire history of the world that was not based on materialistic assumptions? Do they use non-materialist assumptions in their engineering, or mathematics, or when they are putting up shelves or driving their cars? Would they trust the health of their children to non-materialistic medicine? And if they would, would you?
R.I.P Bililiad. It was fun while it lasted.
I'm not a regular blogger. I have little bursts here and there, but following the supposed "culture wars" as I do from time to time exposes me to so much stupid that after only a little while I feel like I'm going to assplode. I get all hot and botherered, angry and grumpy. Like a ginger in the sun, I can only take so much.
Case in point, Uncommon Descent, the home blog of Intelligent Design Creationism. Today we have Denyse O'Leary continuing her series on why "Intelligent Design Is Winning", explaining that science is too hard, and that means people can't understand it, and some things might not be explainable and that means God Did It.
Then Granville Sewell weighs in, with a post explaining that anyone who does not see the validity of ID must by have lost their minds. Immune to irony, logic and even apparently self-awareness, he opines:
"However strong may be the philosophical, psychological and religious reasons why many of our greatest minds reject ID, the argument for ID is still crystal clear to the unindoctrinated mind."In short: Thinking is too hard. Therefore God Did It.
Elsewhere in Fundy Fantasy Land, my new favourite nutter-blog is the fabulously named The Moral Collapse Of America. It has just the right mix of whacko bizareness, breathtaking bigotry and unintentional(?) insights to make it indispensable reading.
Consider, for example, the recent Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life finding that 57 percent of "evangelical" Christians in the United States believe that "many religions can lead to eternal life".
That statistic may give your average foaming fundamentalist a clutcher, but it fills this particular atheist with something of a warm glow, even if these believers tend to still think that their understandings and petty rituals are still miraculously closer to "God" than everyone elses'...
In that spirit of equanimity and brotherly love, is also fair to say that unlike some non-believers, I can see plenty of benefits of at least some type of religion and religious belief. Hey, we all like a good party, and though I've never been to a humanist "union", it's a dead cert that your typical Hindu or Muslim wedding is going to have way better food.
In fact, I'm so certain of my own wisdom on this point that I'm going to state categorically, here and now and without fear of contradiction, that not all religions are as wrong as each other too.
Let's take, for example, Buddhism. Strip away unprovable reincarnation and the ancestor-worship-esque guru veneration, and you are left with a simple set of rules which are eminently sensible. You should be nice to other people no matter who they are and what they do to you... Life is a struggle between understandable human desires, and the pain we face in gaining and losing these things we desire... We should live in the now - not in the past or in the future... And so on.
And with that as a background, it's time for me to blog at last about my recent stay at the Buddhist Retreat on the windswept and very beautiful Holy Island, off the Isle of Arran in Scotland.
Having decided at last that the corporate world could live without me for a little while at least, I was looking for an excuse to get into some good habits - to lay off my usual atheistic-hobbies of murder, whoring and crack-dealing (well, smoking cigarettes anyway...) and to get fit.
And so, I ended up at a week-long "meditation and yoga" course, booked last minute and pretty much at random. It was great. There was no meat, no booze, no fags, no television, no internet, and jeez louise, no DaveScot or Denyse O'Leary to distract me from the pure joy of wishing loving kindness and compassion to all living beings...
I should write about it more :)
Denyse O'Leary is a very strange individual.
To the rest of the world, "intelligent design" (ID) is deader than disco. For years, its supporters pretended "evolutionism" was on the verge of collapse, and that ID was about to overturn "Darwinism" and revolutionize science. Now, even Michael Medved, long term scourge of liberalism and newly minted Discovery Institute fellow, admits:-
"the important thing about Intelligent Design is that it is not a theory - which is something I think they [its supporters] need to make more clear. Nor is Intelligent Design an explanation. Intelligent Design is a challenge. It’s a challenge to evolution. It does not replace evolution with something else."Indeed. Despite over a decade of hype, ID has produced no research, no discoveries and no science...
"I put New Scientist at the high end. For the low end, try this stuff. These people sesem, for the most part, incapable of a civilized argument - or at least that is how they choose to represent themselves. That can’t be good news for their cause."
Huh? Has Denyse actually read this blog? I very much doubt it. I myself was banned from Uncommon Descent long ago - like anyone else who dares ask questions which embarrass O'Leary and her idiot colleagues.
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