Comments for The Centre Cannot Hold

Comment on A Question of Semantics by Loki

Loki — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:34:58 +0000

Art: I would argue that, for the purposes of this argument, the actual value of God does not matter, so long as it remains a consistent value throughout the argument.

Comment on Bill and Ted’s Heaven by Recent Faves Tagged With "billandted" : MyNetFaves

Recent Faves Tagged With "billandted" : MyNetFaves — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:05:58 +0000

[...] public links >> billandted Bill and Ted’s Heaven First saved by kalay650 | 1 days ago links for 2008-05-19 First saved by stefaantje | 1 days [...]

Comment on “The Time Warp” from ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ by Loki

Loki — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:58:06 +0000

Sometimes, yes. But rarely. Not every time, which is what the lyric implies

Comment on “The Time Warp” from ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ by Jess C.

Jess C. — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:17:23 +0000

Sometimes people DO have a weird opposite reaction to sedatives, and actually get seriously hyped up on them. (Apparently morphine hypes up cats, too… hmmm.)

Then again, whether you’re hyped up and free of all sensation or hyped up and getting overload from everything is a whole other question…

Comment on “Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears by Jess C.

Jess C. — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:04:49 +0000

THANKYOU!

I remember ranting about this to colleagues when this song first came out… which was– oh gawd, when I was about 16. I said it was either TMI S&M or romanticising relationship violence.

I mean, when it’s combined with “My loneliness is killing me,” and all that stuff about still believing, it strikes me as classic “ZOMG abusive relationship” stuff. Like, “I’d rather be with an abusive creep than alone, blah blah blah.”

And even if it WAS “consensual adult S&M,” Britney was like, 15 when she did that song, so, EW. Consensual and adult was NOT what she was marketed as.

Comment on “Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears by Tole

Tole — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:52:19 +0000

Jai was quite disturbed by a kid singing kareoke to my sherona at the shopping centre today….

“Never gonna stop, give it up.
Such a dirty mind. Always get it up for the touch
of the younger kind. My my my i yi woo. M M M My Sharona…”

Comment on Despatches and Updates by Tim Hamilton

Tim Hamilton — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 08:46:30 +0000

When you find that add-on, let me know

Comment on A Question of Semantics by Art

Art — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 05:14:33 +0000

Loki,
I don’t know if you are being semantically rigorous enough. Before one can affirm or deny statements like “I believe in God” or “I do not know if there is a God” one must first satisfactorily define the term “God.”

Comment on A Question of Semantics by insomnius

insomnius — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 06:42:24 +0000

I don’t think I can agree that those two statements are functionally equivalent, unless there are only two possible states (believing and disbelieving).

“I do not believe in God”, or “It is not the case that I believe God exists” only excludes the possibilty of a belief in God. Any absence of belief in God’s existence, including but not limited to outright disbelief, can be described this way.

“I believe there is no God”, or “I believe that it is not the case that there is a God”, only allows for disbelief in God. It excludes belief in God and also excludes non-belief of the agnostic variety.

Different things are being denied in the two statements: in one, it’s God; in the other, it’s belief in God.

So, unless there are no options other than outright belief and outright disbelief, the two statements can be usefully used to communicate different things.

On the other hand, I certainly agree that many atheists’ blind worship of science is more than a little hypocritical (as well as often being grossly uninformed).

Comment on A Question of Semantics by Yak Boy

Yak Boy — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:30:21 +0000

But the issue, as I see it, is that the onus of proof is not on the atheist to prove that there is no god, but on the believer to prove that there is a god. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

It’s somehow “disrespectful” to couch the belief in a god in these terms, but really it’s no different to, say, the belief in fairies. You wouldn’t deride someone who says “fairies don’t really exist”, would you? In the absence of any real evidence of the existence of fairies, it’s safe to assume (until such evidence presents itself) that there is no such thing as fairies.

And that’s really the way “scientific” atheism works. In scientific thinking you make certain assumptions - assumptions that are based on repeated observations. For instance, if I am dropping objects out of a window to test the effect of impact on them, I don’t spend all my time observing whether or not gravity actually pulls them towards the ground or not. It’s perfectly reasonable for me to assume, from the outset, that gravity will continue to do what it has done every single time anyone has ever dropped an object out of a window.

And so it is with god. Whilst I concede that the possibility of a god cannot be entirely discounted, it is not particularly useful, in the face of all known scientific observation, to walk around wondering if, maybe this time, god will show himself.

Saying “I believe there is no god” is, therefore, about as safe a statement as “I believe that when I drop this object out of this window, it will fall to the ground below”.

In fact more so, because I have heard of more objects flying unexpectedly back into a window, than I have heard of any real proof of god.