Why do people get surprised when men lock their sons up for years at a time because they're possessed by a genie?
Why is this newsworthy? Why isn't it in the news that the same man believes a huge powerful genie lives in the sky and made the universe and listens to his thoughts?
Because we are numb to it, that's why, but this type of thing drills home a point; there is no 'rational' high ground with religion.
The logical error between a man who believes in Jesus and a man who believes his son is possessed by an evil genie (djinn probably sounded like too much of a respectable term for the mail) is EXACTLY the same; it just so happens that, by blind luck, the man who just believes jesus doesn't have such a destructive influence on the life of his children in such a specific way.
Society needs to stop trying to have its cake and eat it when it comes to religion; this is precisely what you'd expect when you defend its right to exist free of criticism. Religion literally hurts people, directly, because the things it teaches are randomly good or bad, but currently society is incapable of treating it as though it is anything but good.
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Saturday, 17 July 2010
Race Bullshit: Rape
In this article we are treated to a story about a woman getting raped.
All well and good so far.
The thing that annoys me is the description that is given by the paper:
'It was very dark at the time of the attack but the victim believes one of the men may have short, dark, curly hair.'
Race is suspiciously absent from that description isn't it? This is a recurring theme on the daily mail.
Now, the reader may not know this, but most gang rapes in the UK are perpetrated by black people. The second biggest group of offenders are asians, and the smallest significant offender group is white people.
This is really all I had to say; I wish the media wouldn't leave out the race of rape attackers. Yeah, they'll almost always be black or asian, but this is only a problem if you can't see a rapist without having to check his skin color first.
60%-80% of gun criminals and rapists are black people, but 100% of gun criminals and rapists are gun criminals and rapists. That's the real correlate; it may seem hard, but part of racism is treating non-white people the same as everyone else when it comes to bad things too.
All well and good so far.
The thing that annoys me is the description that is given by the paper:
'It was very dark at the time of the attack but the victim believes one of the men may have short, dark, curly hair.'
Race is suspiciously absent from that description isn't it? This is a recurring theme on the daily mail.
Now, the reader may not know this, but most gang rapes in the UK are perpetrated by black people. The second biggest group of offenders are asians, and the smallest significant offender group is white people.
This is really all I had to say; I wish the media wouldn't leave out the race of rape attackers. Yeah, they'll almost always be black or asian, but this is only a problem if you can't see a rapist without having to check his skin color first.
60%-80% of gun criminals and rapists are black people, but 100% of gun criminals and rapists are gun criminals and rapists. That's the real correlate; it may seem hard, but part of racism is treating non-white people the same as everyone else when it comes to bad things too.
Friday, 16 July 2010
Dumb (almost) Live!
I am writing this as I read it. I just signed into msn and they have a news piece pop-up called "Leaving her: 8 rules".
Now I have NEVER read a "rules" for relationships that wasn't complete bullshit, and I am so confident that it is that I'm going to write this as I read them. Ok, rule 1:
1. Make sure you want to.
"FUCK. That was lucky. I was about to break up with her, I had got all my reasons clear in my head and was preparing to deliver them to her in an emotionally charged finale to our relationship, but then I realized that I don't want to break up with her at all, in fact I want to get married and be with her forever!
Lucky I read that fucking article."
What kind of man starts breaking up with a woman and forgets to check if he actually wants to do it? Is this the same guy who watches 5 hours of football before remembering that he hates football?
Christ.
2. But if it's over, it's over: "When you've made up your mind to do it, do it."
Again, what kind of fucking man is this? He makes up his mind to break up with her and then doesn't do it?
Same guy who decides to go to work at 9, checks his watch at the end of the work day and realizes he forgot to go in?
3. Remember, you loved her
This is turning into a serious, serious mental problem.
4. Remember the ground
"If you don't plan ahead, you may be in for a long night of tears, tantrums and smashed gadgetry. Preparing for the moment of separation is key to a smooth break up."
Well, I hope so. Is this really something to be avoided? Anyway, not too goofy. It just seems that if she is that upset and you ever cared about her maybe it wouldn't be so terrible to not just go "You're dumped, bye!". Of course the guy this article is taking about has probably forgotten who he is 5 times by this point.
5. Do it!
Again; what kind of man is this? He needs to be reminded to actually do things. Also on this page;
"Use conciliatory language, and don't always say exactly what you mean. So, "your friends are a bunch of toxic harpies," becomes, "I just couldn't click with Cath and Sal"."
This is actually terrible advice. It's excuse-making, and this would lead to a "Well I can change that!" scenario which is very hard to deal with.
Again, has the writer even been in a relationship? If so they clearly didn't have the gall and sense of self-worth to just state "I don't want to do it anymore" without having to shift the fucking blame onto poor Cath and Sal.
6. But don't 'er', do it
"On no account accept the offer of one last 'intimate moment'. It will only confuse matters and end up making everything more difficult in the long run."
Again, what type of person is both the man and the woman in this scenario? According to this article she's crying, she's distraught, the guy is a chronic amnesiac, and now she's going to get horny through all the tears?
And if it is a 'trying to get you back' fuck, well what kind of guy can be won back with sex? A woman who uses sex to manipulate and a guy who is manipulated by sex are probably best together instead of fucking up normal people's lives.
7. Don’t expect anything
"You may have it in your head that you can still be friends, but that's not your choice. Don't blame her if she takes the news less cordially than you imagined she would."
Well, kindof passable I guess. I think it's a sad scenario if, without the relationship, you don't even like each other. Says something pretty dark about relationships. However, as this guy probably won't remember the relationship after leaving the room it's not going to be a problem.
8. Repeat (for a while)
"Depending on how long the relationship lasted, how intense it was, and how secure or insecure you and/or your partner are, you may need to be prepared for further conversations," says Elly Prior.She probably deserves a few of those, but you don't deserve a stalker. At some point, the talking has to stop and the 'moving on' to start. If you've been courteous, kind and resolute, that will probably happen sooner rather than later - for both of you."
I guess. I'm still pretty fucking uncomfortable with how they're making this woman out to be. There seems to be no notion of her not being upset or also wanting to get out of it. And the wording almost implies this is likely.
So yeah. Dating 'rules' still a fat load of bunkum.
Now I have NEVER read a "rules" for relationships that wasn't complete bullshit, and I am so confident that it is that I'm going to write this as I read them. Ok, rule 1:
1. Make sure you want to.
"FUCK. That was lucky. I was about to break up with her, I had got all my reasons clear in my head and was preparing to deliver them to her in an emotionally charged finale to our relationship, but then I realized that I don't want to break up with her at all, in fact I want to get married and be with her forever!
Lucky I read that fucking article."
What kind of man starts breaking up with a woman and forgets to check if he actually wants to do it? Is this the same guy who watches 5 hours of football before remembering that he hates football?
Christ.
2. But if it's over, it's over: "When you've made up your mind to do it, do it."
Again, what kind of fucking man is this? He makes up his mind to break up with her and then doesn't do it?
Same guy who decides to go to work at 9, checks his watch at the end of the work day and realizes he forgot to go in?
3. Remember, you loved her
This is turning into a serious, serious mental problem.
4. Remember the ground
"If you don't plan ahead, you may be in for a long night of tears, tantrums and smashed gadgetry. Preparing for the moment of separation is key to a smooth break up."
Well, I hope so. Is this really something to be avoided? Anyway, not too goofy. It just seems that if she is that upset and you ever cared about her maybe it wouldn't be so terrible to not just go "You're dumped, bye!". Of course the guy this article is taking about has probably forgotten who he is 5 times by this point.
5. Do it!
Again; what kind of man is this? He needs to be reminded to actually do things. Also on this page;
"Use conciliatory language, and don't always say exactly what you mean. So, "your friends are a bunch of toxic harpies," becomes, "I just couldn't click with Cath and Sal"."
This is actually terrible advice. It's excuse-making, and this would lead to a "Well I can change that!" scenario which is very hard to deal with.
Again, has the writer even been in a relationship? If so they clearly didn't have the gall and sense of self-worth to just state "I don't want to do it anymore" without having to shift the fucking blame onto poor Cath and Sal.
6. But don't 'er', do it
"On no account accept the offer of one last 'intimate moment'. It will only confuse matters and end up making everything more difficult in the long run."
Again, what type of person is both the man and the woman in this scenario? According to this article she's crying, she's distraught, the guy is a chronic amnesiac, and now she's going to get horny through all the tears?
And if it is a 'trying to get you back' fuck, well what kind of guy can be won back with sex? A woman who uses sex to manipulate and a guy who is manipulated by sex are probably best together instead of fucking up normal people's lives.
7. Don’t expect anything
"You may have it in your head that you can still be friends, but that's not your choice. Don't blame her if she takes the news less cordially than you imagined she would."
Well, kindof passable I guess. I think it's a sad scenario if, without the relationship, you don't even like each other. Says something pretty dark about relationships. However, as this guy probably won't remember the relationship after leaving the room it's not going to be a problem.
8. Repeat (for a while)
"Depending on how long the relationship lasted, how intense it was, and how secure or insecure you and/or your partner are, you may need to be prepared for further conversations," says Elly Prior.She probably deserves a few of those, but you don't deserve a stalker. At some point, the talking has to stop and the 'moving on' to start. If you've been courteous, kind and resolute, that will probably happen sooner rather than later - for both of you."
I guess. I'm still pretty fucking uncomfortable with how they're making this woman out to be. There seems to be no notion of her not being upset or also wanting to get out of it. And the wording almost implies this is likely.
So yeah. Dating 'rules' still a fat load of bunkum.
Dumb News: Raoul Moat Cash-in
"Online traders cashing in on killer Raoul Moat's 'popularity' by selling sick T-shirts for £8"
From a paper which has literally not shut up about Raoul Moat since he shot his girlfriend and killed her partner (oh, and an unarmed policeman), and is still flogging the dead moral panic horse long after it's croaked.More often than not the Daily Mail has had two or even three Raoul Moat stories per day during the height of the events, and now they're trying to make one final cuppa out of the dregs of this farce by finding obscure groups on facebook and trying to make it into an article.
From the body of the story....
"Unscrupulous traders are cashing in on the sick wave of support for killer Roaul Moat by selling 'commemorative' T-shirts, it emerged today.
On the website Ebay, one selling was offering garish orange T-shirts emblazoned with the murderer’s face over the word ‘Moaty’.
The shirts were selling for £8 each and came in a range of sizes - including one aimed at children aged nine to ten.
"So the Daily Mail is talking about the audacity of traders making £8 on a t-shirt whilst they rake in thousands covering the guys actual public execution. Talk about double fucking standards; I'm more on-board with the shirt people.
And this isn't even the only 'horrible people worship a killer' story today. Well, I think that holding him up as a nigh-on Devil figure and painting anyone who sympathizes as satanic cultists (like people who actually believe in satan they're simply idiots) is closer to worshipping him than anyone hocking a t-shirt or crapping out comments on facebook has done.
However to call the right-wing newspapers of Britain the only people cashing in on Raoul Moat would be a dramatic understatement; David Cameron himself, our dearest leader, has personally taken it upon himself to try and force facebook to remove the group that was set up in tribute to Raoul Moat (Facebook told him to suck a massive dick, which is fair enough as they are a much larger nation than Britain).
Anyone who remembers David Cameron before he became prime minister will remember piggy-backing on moral panics as one of his primary campaigning strategies, and this was true to a lesser extent of his deputy Nick Clegg (I've run into two people now who still think the prime minister is Tony Blair and one who didn't know the elections had finished. I didn't check, but I bet all of them knew the names of all the Big Brother housemates).
This is, of course, an obvious load of bunkum to anyone with half a brain; if David Cameron really were so dumb that he thought a man killing a single person then having his head blown off by a shotgun was anything significant, he'd spend 99% of his name twirling in circles trying to name all the similar and much worse events happening all around the world faster than he could possibly deal with them.
If we fixated on the Middle East along he'd presumably vomit uncontrollably until his intestines sat in his lap, as there are almost 300 bodies this week alone, and that's only what has appeared in the news.
I digress; maybe I'm the type of oldie who cares more about the ongoing mass slaughter of Jews, innocents and women than a single steroid addled fuckwad in the UK (Robert Mugabe still in charge of Zimbabwe? Where's David Cameron's fury at him?). If anyone in this country wanted gun-wielding maniacs to stop being a problem (and, on a personal level, to just feel safer with the fact all criminals can get a firearm easily) they would be lobbying for the legalization of guns, otherwise everyone should just shut up and admit that they enjoyed watching a guy get his skull blasted in two on live TV and have the decency not to feed the media anymore on the issue.
If I had the energy I'd tackle female vicars. Maybe in another post, seeing as it's the obsession of my actual go-to news source, The Guardian, who seem to want to have their cake and eat it on any issue to do with religion. Write about how good the Bible is? Sure. Write about how anyone who actually takes its advice on anything is an evil sexist dickhead? YES!
No wonder the religiously dumb of this world as so confused; nobody will tell them where they stand on anything, which is terrible for a group of people who are essentially unified by an inability to think.
* Tanya Gold of the guardian has written more on the David Cameron Raoul Rage thing. And I'm Raoully glad she did. It's a Raoulief to be able to Raoulfer you to a Raoul journalist everyone once in a Raoul.
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Dumb Articles: Mark Vernon Apologises for a Gappy God
I read an article today that was drivel.
It makes me furious when religious viewpoints are allowed to first assume they are true, and then defend themselves as though they were as valid as any scientific theory.
What makes me even more furious is that most people cannot see what is wrong with that.
To demonstrate the fact that idiots pervade every strata of society, Mark Vernon of the Guardian obligingly offered up his apologies as to why Anglican priest and physicist John Polkinghorne can't seem to stop talking about god and chaos theory in the same sentence, and why this *cough* definitely isn't the god of gaps fallacy.
Mark Vernon, who flirts far too closely with religion, probably because if he didn't he'd lose his job (more on jobs where honesty is discouraged later in the blog), immediately puts me on edge with this little gem:
"The challenge is to avoid concocting a "God of the gaps" – a deity whose action occurs in the gaps where scientific explanations apparently fall short. The best known example of this is probably the bacterial flagellum."
In his usual snivelling, apologetic fashion he forgets to mention that there is no "apparent" about the bacterial flagellum having no explanation, at least not beyond the "apparent" inability of science to explain why the universe is only 6000 years old. It was a creationist myth spawned by another incompetent scientist marred by an inability to believe in a god for which there is no rational justification, the ever-twattish Michael Behe, who was promptly smacked down in his court action when he came up against the fact that 99.99% of scientists in his field have actually read about the bacterial flagellum and, whether or not they believe in god, recognize that there is overwhelming evidence as to its evolutionary origins.
Notice the logical fallacy already? Both Polkinghorne and Behe have done what all scientists have to do in order to believe in god; they've decided on what is true first and tried to make the evidence fit.
But it doesn't fit. Like smacking a square block into a spherical hole; if you choose a random idea spawned from humanity's ignorant past (Christianity in this example) and go "THAT'S TRUE", owing to the fact there that are literally infinite things that can be believed but do not exist, you are going to be incorrect and when you go looking for the evidence that you're right it won't exist.
Now, not many people know this, but for most of humanity history there has been no rational discourse, and the "empirical model" was completely outside of the consciousness. In its place was what was called "the authority model", whereupon things were considered true if somebody in authority said them.
Almost all things that were 'known' were known because somebody in authority had said them and the same rule that choosing a random belief will guarantee you're wrong applies; during this entire time the only people who actually knew anything true were the scant few empiricists, who the church was hanging in order to transfer their souls to another dimension full of fire where their cosmic being put his army of fallen demon angels whilst they waited for the end of the world (compare and contrast their views, and remember whose side you're on if you're arguing religion is true, as if that's even a rational claim given there are so many).
Now this is the natural human urge, clearly; most people still exist thinking according to the authority model, and the only reason that's not what is actually done is because people operating on this principle do not have the capacity to do what scientists do, which means economics and politics will always favor science (it's also why I don't sit around trying to 'save' science from irrationality. Money will do it for us; nobody is going to be choosing homeopathy or religion over science because both are bunkum and provide no results).
In essence, no amount of "authority" translates into reality, which is why a nuclear scientist can create an explosion that'll turn a city to glass and theologians are still sat around scratching their arses trying to decide whether to take gods word for it that homos are the devil incarnate.
And yet because theology, postmodernism, homeopathy and all other manner of bullshit dresses up like academia, idiots still operating on the authority principle can't see that their claims are meaningless unless validated against reality. Meanwhile science works entirely on evidence and does not actually assert authority, but this is only comprehensible to other scientists who recognize the fallacy of appealing to authority, which leads to a tremendous rejection of scientific ideals in the majority of the population.
So how does this apply to the case-in-hand? Well, Mark Vernon is a great example of why people think it's significant that John Polkinghorne believes in a god; he is an authority. They do not care for the claims he's making because they cannot comprehend them, but they know he is a 'scientist' therefore he's an 'authority' therefore he should be taken seriously.
It is the same reason creationists go insane for trying to prove that Einstein and Stephen Hawking were religious; they are human beings who operate on the 'authority' principle, as comes naturally to humans, and they don't understand that even if they proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that ALL people in authority were religious it wouldn't mean anything.
Reality has no authority.
This is why before something exists you need to prove it; reality doesn't answer to anyone. If you claim something is true then go "you can't disprove it" reality doesn't give a flying rats anus, even if you get people to agree with you. God won't exist even if you get every person on earth believing in it; there is no authority when it comes to things that exist, only facts which are known through evidence.
Back to the article; John Polkinghorne has managed to baffle Vernon into trying to explain his viewpoint from any perspective other than "He's lying or imperfect in his reasoning or even afraid of dropping dead", and he wraps up this drivel on a note which essentially proves the 'Authority model' as the culprit behind religious apologists:
"Whether or not you buy that will depend much on your prior metaphysical assumptions. We all have them. But be they theistic or otherwise, there is a general conclusion that can be posited about science: from the point of view of mathematical description, what chaos theory and reductionism more broadly demonstrate is that most of nature is scientifically underdetermined – which is to say that scientific explanations are limited. "
Firstly: we don't all have them. [This will drive imbeciles mad, because it requires a huge brain to understand properly] Some people operate on logic, which is the antithesis of an assumption.
Secondly: It's irrelevant whether we do or don't have them. Stop trying to "allow" failings of science by saying "we're only human, we all fuck up!". That doesn't excuse anything; if I answered all my coursework questions (yup, I'm studying) "Well, I could derive the equation for this systems action, but actually GOD DID IT GOD DID IT" I wouldn't have explained anything to anyone, and because I'm not an authority figure there'd be no apologists to go "Come on now, hes' not wrong; we ALL have metaphysical assumptions".
"Further, it's not an epistemological gap that's being appealed to in John Polkinghorne's work, but rather an ontological causal openness. Hence the possibility, at least, of making the link with divine action."
Openness? OPENNESS? Are you fucking kidding me? He believes that a GOD is causing everything he says it's causing.
A) what kind of quack definition of 'openness' involves not only a single explanation.
B) That explanation is from the fucking Bible.
Also what is this "possibility" of a divine cause? SCIENTISTS are the ones open to the possibility of a divine cause.REVEREND Polkinghorne is the one who is absolutely fucking sure that the indeterminate nature of things is god secretly hiding there playing the odds and making the things we haven't explained happen.
Why is it people who talk about being open minded are usually the ones who have already decided on an explanation and are pissed of that you won't let them assert it without a challenge? Never mad that you disagree though; the "closed minded" bullshit crotch shot line only ever comes out when they want you to pretend that they're smarter than they are.
Do I need to point out here that John Polkinghorne was raised in a religious society, indoctrinated into religious belief them smacked that religious belief all over science in the vaguest way possible and now just sits there lapping up the confusion it causes in retards who are too stupid to comprehend evidence so they just believe whatever the fuck anyone claiming to be an academic says?
This isn't openness and this isn't a rational viewpoint; this is a stupid (or weak) man claiming something is true then refusing to be dislodged from that position for anything.
And most importantly....
This IS the 'God of Gaps' fallacy
It makes me furious when religious viewpoints are allowed to first assume they are true, and then defend themselves as though they were as valid as any scientific theory.
What makes me even more furious is that most people cannot see what is wrong with that.
To demonstrate the fact that idiots pervade every strata of society, Mark Vernon of the Guardian obligingly offered up his apologies as to why Anglican priest and physicist John Polkinghorne can't seem to stop talking about god and chaos theory in the same sentence, and why this *cough* definitely isn't the god of gaps fallacy.
Mark Vernon, who flirts far too closely with religion, probably because if he didn't he'd lose his job (more on jobs where honesty is discouraged later in the blog), immediately puts me on edge with this little gem:
"The challenge is to avoid concocting a "God of the gaps" – a deity whose action occurs in the gaps where scientific explanations apparently fall short. The best known example of this is probably the bacterial flagellum."
In his usual snivelling, apologetic fashion he forgets to mention that there is no "apparent" about the bacterial flagellum having no explanation, at least not beyond the "apparent" inability of science to explain why the universe is only 6000 years old. It was a creationist myth spawned by another incompetent scientist marred by an inability to believe in a god for which there is no rational justification, the ever-twattish Michael Behe, who was promptly smacked down in his court action when he came up against the fact that 99.99% of scientists in his field have actually read about the bacterial flagellum and, whether or not they believe in god, recognize that there is overwhelming evidence as to its evolutionary origins.
Notice the logical fallacy already? Both Polkinghorne and Behe have done what all scientists have to do in order to believe in god; they've decided on what is true first and tried to make the evidence fit.
But it doesn't fit. Like smacking a square block into a spherical hole; if you choose a random idea spawned from humanity's ignorant past (Christianity in this example) and go "THAT'S TRUE", owing to the fact there that are literally infinite things that can be believed but do not exist, you are going to be incorrect and when you go looking for the evidence that you're right it won't exist.
Now, not many people know this, but for most of humanity history there has been no rational discourse, and the "empirical model" was completely outside of the consciousness. In its place was what was called "the authority model", whereupon things were considered true if somebody in authority said them.
Almost all things that were 'known' were known because somebody in authority had said them and the same rule that choosing a random belief will guarantee you're wrong applies; during this entire time the only people who actually knew anything true were the scant few empiricists, who the church was hanging in order to transfer their souls to another dimension full of fire where their cosmic being put his army of fallen demon angels whilst they waited for the end of the world (compare and contrast their views, and remember whose side you're on if you're arguing religion is true, as if that's even a rational claim given there are so many).
Now this is the natural human urge, clearly; most people still exist thinking according to the authority model, and the only reason that's not what is actually done is because people operating on this principle do not have the capacity to do what scientists do, which means economics and politics will always favor science (it's also why I don't sit around trying to 'save' science from irrationality. Money will do it for us; nobody is going to be choosing homeopathy or religion over science because both are bunkum and provide no results).
In essence, no amount of "authority" translates into reality, which is why a nuclear scientist can create an explosion that'll turn a city to glass and theologians are still sat around scratching their arses trying to decide whether to take gods word for it that homos are the devil incarnate.
And yet because theology, postmodernism, homeopathy and all other manner of bullshit dresses up like academia, idiots still operating on the authority principle can't see that their claims are meaningless unless validated against reality. Meanwhile science works entirely on evidence and does not actually assert authority, but this is only comprehensible to other scientists who recognize the fallacy of appealing to authority, which leads to a tremendous rejection of scientific ideals in the majority of the population.
So how does this apply to the case-in-hand? Well, Mark Vernon is a great example of why people think it's significant that John Polkinghorne believes in a god; he is an authority. They do not care for the claims he's making because they cannot comprehend them, but they know he is a 'scientist' therefore he's an 'authority' therefore he should be taken seriously.
It is the same reason creationists go insane for trying to prove that Einstein and Stephen Hawking were religious; they are human beings who operate on the 'authority' principle, as comes naturally to humans, and they don't understand that even if they proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that ALL people in authority were religious it wouldn't mean anything.
Reality has no authority.
This is why before something exists you need to prove it; reality doesn't answer to anyone. If you claim something is true then go "you can't disprove it" reality doesn't give a flying rats anus, even if you get people to agree with you. God won't exist even if you get every person on earth believing in it; there is no authority when it comes to things that exist, only facts which are known through evidence.
Back to the article; John Polkinghorne has managed to baffle Vernon into trying to explain his viewpoint from any perspective other than "He's lying or imperfect in his reasoning or even afraid of dropping dead", and he wraps up this drivel on a note which essentially proves the 'Authority model' as the culprit behind religious apologists:
"Whether or not you buy that will depend much on your prior metaphysical assumptions. We all have them. But be they theistic or otherwise, there is a general conclusion that can be posited about science: from the point of view of mathematical description, what chaos theory and reductionism more broadly demonstrate is that most of nature is scientifically underdetermined – which is to say that scientific explanations are limited. "
Firstly: we don't all have them. [This will drive imbeciles mad, because it requires a huge brain to understand properly] Some people operate on logic, which is the antithesis of an assumption.
Secondly: It's irrelevant whether we do or don't have them. Stop trying to "allow" failings of science by saying "we're only human, we all fuck up!". That doesn't excuse anything; if I answered all my coursework questions (yup, I'm studying) "Well, I could derive the equation for this systems action, but actually GOD DID IT GOD DID IT" I wouldn't have explained anything to anyone, and because I'm not an authority figure there'd be no apologists to go "Come on now, hes' not wrong; we ALL have metaphysical assumptions".
"Further, it's not an epistemological gap that's being appealed to in John Polkinghorne's work, but rather an ontological causal openness. Hence the possibility, at least, of making the link with divine action."
Openness? OPENNESS? Are you fucking kidding me? He believes that a GOD is causing everything he says it's causing.
A) what kind of quack definition of 'openness' involves not only a single explanation.
B) That explanation is from the fucking Bible.
Also what is this "possibility" of a divine cause? SCIENTISTS are the ones open to the possibility of a divine cause.REVEREND Polkinghorne is the one who is absolutely fucking sure that the indeterminate nature of things is god secretly hiding there playing the odds and making the things we haven't explained happen.
Why is it people who talk about being open minded are usually the ones who have already decided on an explanation and are pissed of that you won't let them assert it without a challenge? Never mad that you disagree though; the "closed minded" bullshit crotch shot line only ever comes out when they want you to pretend that they're smarter than they are.
Do I need to point out here that John Polkinghorne was raised in a religious society, indoctrinated into religious belief them smacked that religious belief all over science in the vaguest way possible and now just sits there lapping up the confusion it causes in retards who are too stupid to comprehend evidence so they just believe whatever the fuck anyone claiming to be an academic says?
This isn't openness and this isn't a rational viewpoint; this is a stupid (or weak) man claiming something is true then refusing to be dislodged from that position for anything.
And most importantly....
This IS the 'God of Gaps' fallacy
So Far: Norah Vincent and "Self Made Man"
I'm loving this book at the moment, I really am, however it's far more about the psychology of the author than anything else, so far.
"I was surrounded by men who had cement dust in their hair and sawdust under their fingernails. They had nicotine-sallowed faces that looked like ritual masks, and their hands were as tough and scarred as falcon gloves. These were men who, as one of them told me later, had been shoveling shit their whole lives."
Well fuck. What a crack in the proverbial balls for these poor chaps. This is mostly made in jest, and hopefully it is an over-exaggeration of the truth, however it's part of a trend of abstract terror the author seems to feel whenever near anything masculine. Allow me to read another extract:
"Any smartly dressed woman who has ever walked the gauntlet of construction workers on her lunch break or otherwise found herself suddenly alone in unfamiliar male company with her sex on her sleeve will understand a lot of how it felt to walk into that bowling alley for the first time on men's league night."
I had to check when this was written; although I couldn't find any hard and fast dates, it's been published very recently, so I find myself wondering when exactly this took place. I know that around my area, which is certainly working class, 99/100 times a woman walks past a construction worker they aren't bothered at all, not even the exceptionaly attractive ones.
Now maybe this is because I'm in England and we don't have such a strong culture of going mental at women, but so far there's an undercurrent of "men are this way" when, as far as I can see, she might actually be examining a class-based phenomenon more than a male phenomenon.
For my money a bowling alley won't give you a very good example of anyone, male or female, and I strongly suspect that the fact they had a "Men's League" suggests they also had a "Women's League". Maybe some sort of comparison would have been nice?
In my personal life I experience two groups of people; software developers and physicists. Now both are overwhelmingly male-orientated and yet practically none of what is in this book applies, and I suspect it's because it's far more middle-class.
Yeah, barber shops and construction sites might feel uncomfortable as a woman, but is it really to do with the men, or is it to do with the fact that these are both working class environments, and there's a good chance that the fact they're male working class environments is incidental (it's also worth noting that in both cases there's a real economic reason why it's mostly men; male and female hairdressing is a very different skill and men are born naturally advantaged towards manual construction work, leading to a zeitgeist of mostly-male construction workers).
Look at it this way; would the same woman 'wearing her sex on her sleeve' at a construction site feel half as intimidated in a physics laboratory that was entirely male orientated, or in a room of windows developers? I doubt it.
I can say that in my old workplace it was very female-centric working class. Now for about an hour I thought I was feeling uncomfortable because it was mostly women, cackling louder than they needed to (this puts men on edge) and talking overtly about both their own and my own sex lives, which was sometimes so invasive that it made me feel ill.
And yet all women I've met since have tended to be middle-class, as that's my sphere, and whilst this brings with it new advantages and drawbacks, I can honestly say I can sit in a group of middle-class women and feel my gender is completely irrelevant.
I am not very far into the book yet, so I am reserving judgment, but let this stand as a prediction that I believe Norah Vincent is going to draw a lot of conclusions about "male" behavior that actually having nothing to do with being male and everything to do with your class.
She also believes in a gay gene. More on that fat load of bunkum later.
"I was surrounded by men who had cement dust in their hair and sawdust under their fingernails. They had nicotine-sallowed faces that looked like ritual masks, and their hands were as tough and scarred as falcon gloves. These were men who, as one of them told me later, had been shoveling shit their whole lives."
Well fuck. What a crack in the proverbial balls for these poor chaps. This is mostly made in jest, and hopefully it is an over-exaggeration of the truth, however it's part of a trend of abstract terror the author seems to feel whenever near anything masculine. Allow me to read another extract:
"Any smartly dressed woman who has ever walked the gauntlet of construction workers on her lunch break or otherwise found herself suddenly alone in unfamiliar male company with her sex on her sleeve will understand a lot of how it felt to walk into that bowling alley for the first time on men's league night."
I had to check when this was written; although I couldn't find any hard and fast dates, it's been published very recently, so I find myself wondering when exactly this took place. I know that around my area, which is certainly working class, 99/100 times a woman walks past a construction worker they aren't bothered at all, not even the exceptionaly attractive ones.
Now maybe this is because I'm in England and we don't have such a strong culture of going mental at women, but so far there's an undercurrent of "men are this way" when, as far as I can see, she might actually be examining a class-based phenomenon more than a male phenomenon.
For my money a bowling alley won't give you a very good example of anyone, male or female, and I strongly suspect that the fact they had a "Men's League" suggests they also had a "Women's League". Maybe some sort of comparison would have been nice?
In my personal life I experience two groups of people; software developers and physicists. Now both are overwhelmingly male-orientated and yet practically none of what is in this book applies, and I suspect it's because it's far more middle-class.
Yeah, barber shops and construction sites might feel uncomfortable as a woman, but is it really to do with the men, or is it to do with the fact that these are both working class environments, and there's a good chance that the fact they're male working class environments is incidental (it's also worth noting that in both cases there's a real economic reason why it's mostly men; male and female hairdressing is a very different skill and men are born naturally advantaged towards manual construction work, leading to a zeitgeist of mostly-male construction workers).
Look at it this way; would the same woman 'wearing her sex on her sleeve' at a construction site feel half as intimidated in a physics laboratory that was entirely male orientated, or in a room of windows developers? I doubt it.
I can say that in my old workplace it was very female-centric working class. Now for about an hour I thought I was feeling uncomfortable because it was mostly women, cackling louder than they needed to (this puts men on edge) and talking overtly about both their own and my own sex lives, which was sometimes so invasive that it made me feel ill.
And yet all women I've met since have tended to be middle-class, as that's my sphere, and whilst this brings with it new advantages and drawbacks, I can honestly say I can sit in a group of middle-class women and feel my gender is completely irrelevant.
I am not very far into the book yet, so I am reserving judgment, but let this stand as a prediction that I believe Norah Vincent is going to draw a lot of conclusions about "male" behavior that actually having nothing to do with being male and everything to do with your class.
She also believes in a gay gene. More on that fat load of bunkum later.
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Even MORE Dumb Drama: Holly of The Pervocracy REALLY is a cunt
She tried to sneak this one past me! A historical google search (cached content found here and here) revealed, working off a hunch I had, that Holly actually CHANGED her comment blocking policy to accommodate people she doesn't like (starting with yours truly). I thought it looked a bit longer when I took that screenshot.
Isn't it funny how people who rail about "smug atheists" and accuse others of being idiots, dishonest and dumb usually turn out to be the ones who embody those traits more than anyone else?
Holly: why bother posting a fucking free speech comments policy if you're not only going to censor ones you don't like and change the policy to allow you remove anything you don't like? Real life threats and spam are the only conditions that are ever acceptable, anything more is you wanting to pretend you're pro free speech when actually your blog is there as a personal wank.
Well, you're not going to have your comments removed from my blog, and I think the fact that your airheaded, vacuous circle-jerk crap, along with many of the circle jerkers themselves, are going to stand here as a testament to what a total, two faced fuckhead you are.
For some reason, the fact that Holly herself told me she's Jewish and believes that there's an "intelligence behind the universe" seems relevant here; why is it that people who believe in this universal intelligence seem to think it's the type of thing that is impressed by two-faced, childish liars? Did it watch you calling me an idiot and changing your free speech policy because too many people were speaking freely and think "Yeah, that's the kind of woman I want championing my existence?"
No, because it doesn't exist, but as I'll undoubtedly blog about later; it's people who think they're on the same team as perfect, cosmic-scale intelligences who seem to have imperfect asshole-scale one between their ears.
Case.
In.
Point.
Another e-crime solved.
Oh, I also only commented on two posts. Damn my constant disruptions to her blog!
*I am not even sure it's worth noting that I was actually very pleasant whilst being called all manner of crappy things by this woman and the people on her blog.
Isn't it funny how people who rail about "smug atheists" and accuse others of being idiots, dishonest and dumb usually turn out to be the ones who embody those traits more than anyone else?
Holly: why bother posting a fucking free speech comments policy if you're not only going to censor ones you don't like and change the policy to allow you remove anything you don't like? Real life threats and spam are the only conditions that are ever acceptable, anything more is you wanting to pretend you're pro free speech when actually your blog is there as a personal wank.
Well, you're not going to have your comments removed from my blog, and I think the fact that your airheaded, vacuous circle-jerk crap, along with many of the circle jerkers themselves, are going to stand here as a testament to what a total, two faced fuckhead you are.
For some reason, the fact that Holly herself told me she's Jewish and believes that there's an "intelligence behind the universe" seems relevant here; why is it that people who believe in this universal intelligence seem to think it's the type of thing that is impressed by two-faced, childish liars? Did it watch you calling me an idiot and changing your free speech policy because too many people were speaking freely and think "Yeah, that's the kind of woman I want championing my existence?"
No, because it doesn't exist, but as I'll undoubtedly blog about later; it's people who think they're on the same team as perfect, cosmic-scale intelligences who seem to have imperfect asshole-scale one between their ears.
Case.
In.
Point.
Another e-crime solved.
Oh, I also only commented on two posts. Damn my constant disruptions to her blog!
*I am not even sure it's worth noting that I was actually very pleasant whilst being called all manner of crappy things by this woman and the people on her blog.
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